Advertised speeds for Mobile Broadband

Benedict XVI

According to the articl below from the Irish Times the Mobile Broadband proviers where, from April 7th, supposed to advertise what is the average broadband speed attained by their service during “the busiest hour” of the week, averaged over the previous quarter, as well as the standard 'up to 3.6 MB' stuff.

I had a look at the websites of Vodafone, Three and 02 and have yet to see any such data.

Has anyone seen it in anyother media, or is it again a toothless move by Comreg ?

Price Watch, Irish Times wrote:

March 13, 2008
Broadband providers adopt new ad code
Filed under: Uncategorised — Conor @ 8:53 pm
Broadband operators will have to significantly alter their promotional material from the beginning of next month so it more accurately reflects the actual download speeds available to subscribers. At present many broadband providers use their advertising to stress the maximum connection speed available through their service and only include the phrase “up to” in a font which, critics say, is all too easy to miss. The new code will take affect on April 7th, after which operators advertising maximum speeds will also have to tell potential customers what is the average broadband speed attained by their service during “the busiest hour” of the week, averaged over the previous quarter.

The move will have a significant impact on the mobile broadband providers. Vodafone, 02 and 3 all claim to offer Internet
connection speeds of “up to” 3.4Mb per second (Mbps). At this speed, users could download an album from iTunes in under 10
minutes. Except they couldn’t as speeds never come close to this magic number and sometimes struggle to reach a third of it.

While it is impossible to say what the advertised speeds will fall to once the new code comes into force, industry sources estimate
during the busiest hour of the busiest day of the week it will be closer to 800 kilobytes per second – less than a quarter what is
currently advertised.

Prompted by calls from Pricewatch last October, the Communications Regulator (ComReg), the Advertising Standards
Authority of Ireland (ASAI) and the National Consumer Agency ( NCA) held a series of meetings after which ComReg Chairman Mike Byrne wrote to the State’s broadband operators expressing concern about how their products were advertised.

The assistant chief executive of the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland Orla Twomey said it had received “quite a
number of complaints in relation to broadband speed, particularly in connection with roaming broadband” and described the code as “a new departure”.

“One of the problems is consumer expectation and how it is managed,” Barbara Delaney, the information services manager with
ComReg told me yesterday. She said later this month ComReg would update its callcost phone and broadband comparison website to include the new information about broadband speeds and said it had got a commitment from operators that there would be “more in-depth provision of information to consumers inquiring about the products” in store.

She said ComReg, the NCA and the ASAI would continue to moderate the situation and if it they felt operators had found ways to
manipulate the newly required information to their advantage and circumvent the code then further intervention could be expected.

spank_inferno

not before time.... now if they could stretch this to all BB providers rather than just the mobile wireless ones...