Topic: Government cracks broadband whip

[Clive]

Broadband firms could face formal action if they fail to give consumers accurate information about the speed they will get when they sign up. 

STORY

[Rik]

My concern is the activation fee. The line speed is largely determined by BT, and their checker is notoriously inaccurate. Until the line goes live, no firm figure can be established. If customers can back out, will BT waive the fee to ISPs? If not, we will all end up paying for this.

[Clive]

Which, in your opinion, is a reliable speed checker Rik? 

[Rik]

There isn't one, Clive. Most are based on distance from the exchange and do not take the quality of the line into account. The BT one does, but only after a connection and MSR has been established.

[Baz]

no I haven't found a decent one yet but it depends on what you want to see in the results. I dont think I'll ever see the speed Im supposed to get, from any checker. the one at www.speedtest.net is ok but it always recommends I use the one at Maidenhead but I am probably closer  to Dublin. when I try both I get better results from each on different days .

I sometimes have bother getting the BT one to work. Have to admit though that I havent tried many tests in the early hours to see if oit makes much difference. I think its best to do them over a few days, at different times, with different checkers to get an average.

[Simon]

What they should also be looking at is the contract terms some ISP impose on customers, without even telling them.  One high profile ISP, let's call them Poopex, (probably others also) will charge for the full year's service, even if the customer wants to back out of the deal, due to it not reaching expectations.  Furthermore, I'm convinced that some ISPs throttle connection speeds generally, not just for P2P networks, otherwise, how do people get better speeds on the same BT line by changing, say, from Poopex to IDNet?

[Rik]

We know that companies like VM are squeezing traffic, Simon, Pipex were throttling heavy users etc. Finding a 'straight' ISP with simple, fair terms is hard. Luckily, we have.