Irish broadband among Europe’s worst for running slower than advertised

bealtine

http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/ireland-broadband-speeds-advertised-actual-967238-Jun2013

bealtine

this is the original EU pr : http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-609_en.htm

SpaceTime

That really doesn't surprise me. Eircom in particular needs to invest in relatively simple DSL loop extenders on long lines to repeat the ADSL signals. This would have a huge impact very quickly in areas that aren't going to get fibre to kerb.


We need to be moving towards FTTH in a big way. Eircom are minimising capital expenditure (they really don't have the money) and are rolling out FTTC instead. Its the same in the UK which is sending them way down the tables too.


'e fibre' is great for the few people who live right next to a FTTC cabinet. Everyone else (more than about 400m away) sees dramatic speed drops. So, a lot of us will never see 70 or 100 mbits on that infrastructure.

I'm not saying that FTTC isn't a massive improvement but it's very definitely an interim technology on the way to fibre to home.

It's going to take some state investment or at least tax incentives to get the utility companies to roll out faster technologies as they're not going to spend more than they have to.

We should have a situation where customers could pay to have a fibre run to the cabinet if practical. There is apparently enough capacity at the cabinets they're installing to do that.

There are also tiny cabinets available which can serve as few as 64 lines. They could be rolled out on poles or in existing underground vaults to bring FTTC much closer to end users. It could extend the reach of the FTTC network and cover small estates, villages etc with better speeds with only minimal expenditure and almost no disruption at all.

clohamon

Its what we've all suspected really. ComReg were supposed to be undertaking some initiative over 18 months ago and supposedly consultants have been appointed. Looks like no one here really wants to know.

bealtine

clohamon wrote: »

Its what we've all suspected really. ComReg were supposed to be undertaking some initiative over 18 months ago and supposedly consultants have been appointed. Looks like no one here really wants to know.

ja facts are bad for business...

watty

clohamon wrote: »

Its what we've all suspected really. ComReg were supposed to be undertaking some initiative over 18 months ago and supposedly consultants have been appointed. Looks like no one here really wants to know.

Actually it was sometime between 2006 and 2008 they discussed enforcing proper advertising and specification. It was proposed even earlier.

bealtine

watty wrote: »

Actually it was sometime between 2006 and 2008 they discussed enforcing proper advertising and specification. It was proposed even earlier.

Where on earth did you get the idea that Comreg might actually do something useful for consumers?

Look at the crazy telco "contracts", that imo border on the illegal and Comreg utterly ignore the practice because that's not good for business...once this ideology is taken into consideration Comreg's actions become amazingly transparent

SpaceTime

If there's one thing slower than Ireland's broadband is the glacial speed of policy making!

watty

bealtine wrote: »

Where on earth did you get the idea that Comreg might actually do something useful for consumers?

I never expected action. Just remarking that this would have been done 7 years ago if the Regulator was any use.

SpaceTime

The regulator's only as good as the regulations they have to work with.
It's up to the Government to give ComReg some proper teeth.

nucker

In Britain, it is always UP TO a certain speed down or up, I'm loving my current connection, but would love it more if the upload was as fast as advertised i.e. the 10:1 ratio that they claimed when I first got it

Lightbulb Sun

I don't see how they are allowed advertise incorrect speeds. Our download speed is 1/10 of the 3 mb we're supposed to be receiving. Its never gone above 340kb per second. Digiweb if anyone is wondering.

oscarBravo

Lightbulb Sun wrote: »

I don't see how they are allowed advertise incorrect speeds. Our download speed is 1/10 of the 3 mb we're supposed to be receiving. Its never gone above 340kb per second. Digiweb if anyone is wondering.

Are you basing that on the rate reported when downloading files? Because that's generally reported in kB/s - kilobytes per second - which would give you 2.7Mb/s.

clohamon

Lightbulb Sun wrote: »

I don't see how they are allowed advertise incorrect speeds.

The ASAI guidance from 7th April 2008
http://www.asai.ie/documents/ASAI%20ADVICE%20NOTE%20ON%20BROADBAND.pdf

Speed of service
Where broadband speeds are described by the maximum speed attainable, they must be described as an 'up to'speed.
Where a reference to speed is included in an advertisement, in order to ensure clarity for consumers, advertisers must state the speed in the busy hour for the particular product (An example of an acceptable statement is "Busy hour speed is xx"). This statement should be included in the body copy and not in the small print sections of advertising.
It must be clear to consumers that advertised speeds are not achievable in all circumstances. The prominence of the required clarification in the advertisement will be dependent on the normal variance between the advertised top speed and that typically achieved by consumers.
Where a particular broadband speed is being promoted or where superlatives such as 'high speed', 'fast', etc are used, a reference to the variability of speeds should be included. Phrases such as 'Broadband speeds may vary' are acceptable provided that the busy hour speed is close enough to those advertised so as not to affect the customers' experience in any meaningful way.

The busy hour is the hour of heaviest demand averaged throughout the network during what is typically the heaviest day of usage in a week. This should be based on traffic figures over each calendar quarter, or from the date of any improvementS affecting service.
Particular product: This refers to each distinct broadband product advertised by the provider.

Lightbulb Sun

oscarBravo wrote: »

Are you basing that on the rate reported when downloading files? Because that's generally reported in kB/s - kilobytes per second - which would give you 2.7Mb/s.

Not really sure I understand you correctly but the download speed isn't 2.7mb/s. It would take about 9 seconds to download 2.7mb.

cgarvey

Lightbulb Sun wrote: »

Not really sure I understand you correctly but the download speed isn't 2.7mb/s. It would take about 9 seconds to download 2.7mb.

He's asking are you confusing bits and bytes.

Lightbulb Sun

cgarvey wrote: »

He's asking are you confusing bits and bytes.

In hindsight, he's correct about the download speed (according to speedtest), it's nearly 2.7 as he said.

I was always under the impression that this was the supposed rate for file downloading. Is this not the case?

oscarBravo

Lightbulb Sun wrote: »

In hindsight, he's correct about the download speed (according to speedtest), it's nearly 2.7 as he said.

I was always under the impression that this was the supposed rate for file downloading. Is this not the case?

Broadband speeds are sold in kilobits per second (kb/s) or megabits per second. Download speeds are reported by your operating system in kilobytes per second (kB/s) or megabytes per second (mB/s). There are eight bits in a byte.

Everyone who has ever worked for an ISP is only too familiar with the complaint that the customer's speed has never gone above a tenth of what it's supposed to be, and the most likely explanation for that complaint.