May 5, 2011
BT have refuted claims made by Fibrestream that they replace stolen copper lines with inferior quality copper lines.
BT suffer from thieves stealing their copper cable from cabinets and ducts that they then sell on to scrap yards as the price of copper is high. Due to the high price is costs to replace copper Fibrestreak claim that BT using thinner copper wires or using copper coated aluminium wire which is inferior and cheaper and will give slower broadband speeds.
The blog post which was posted on the Fibrestream site read:
“Older copper wires were 0.5mm^2 cross-sectional area – new wires are often 0.3mm^2 (saves money you see as copper is terribly expensive these days)
Copper coated aluminium wire may be used as a replacement (cheaper)
Less cross-sectional area means higher resistance (impedance or both?) and good old Ally attenuates broadband frequencies more quickly than copper.
Nett result?
1600 households and businesses now look destined to get crapper BT broadband tomorrow than they had yesterday.”
However, BT told PC Pro that they do no recognise Fibrestream’s claims and that “When cable is stolen or damaged our policy is to replace it with like for like, good quality cable.”
The big problem is stopping the cable theft, anyone who sees or suspects anyone trying to steal cable should report it immediately as it is likely that people will be without broadband connections until the cable is replaced and repaired.
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April 21, 2011
TalkTalk have found themselves at the top of the pile of most complained about broadband and land-line company according to statistics published by Ofcom.
Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator, logged the complaints reported to them between October 2010 and February 2011 and found that per 1,000 customers, TalkTalk were complained about 1.78 times for landline services and 1.27 times for broadband services.
 - Landline complaints per 1,000 customers
Ofcom receive around 450 complaints per day over telecoms issues with many complaints revolving around mis-selling, billing errors, lack of service and customer service problems.
 - Broadband complaints per 1,000 customers
Only broadband, telecoms and mobile providers that had a market share of 5% or more were included in the report, with BT, BSkyB, TalkTalk and Virgin Media the companies included in the broadband and land-line study and 3UK, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone included for the mobile services.
In November 2010 Ofcom received the most complaints about TalkTalk after an investigation was taken place abotu customers continuing to get billed for cancelled services.
On the positive side of the scale saw Virgin media receiving only 0.20 complaints per 1,000 customers for it’s services.
Ofcoms Chief Executive, Ed Richards, said:
“Consumers should have access to as much information as possible to allow them to choose between providers and to take full advantage of the competition in the sector.
By publishing complaints data, Ofcom aims to provide useful information to consumers, and also to give telecoms providers an incentive to improve their customer service.“
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April 5, 2011
BT are going to extend the availability of it’s “up to” 20Mb broadband service to 80% of UK homes by the end of 2011.
The next generation copper network is better known as ADSL2+ or Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) which can offer broadband speed of up to 20Mb which is theoretically over twice as fast as the standard “up to” broadband speed of 8mb.
 Currently BT have enabled 1017 exchanges to this technology which makes it available to 15.5 million premises. There are currently 2.25 million customers who are using the service with BT upgrading around 30,000 lines per week to it.
Although the broadband speed from ADSL2+ is advertised at up to 20-24Mb, Ofcom found the average broadband download speed was 6.2Mb.
BT’s standard broadband offer “up to” 8Mb broadband speeds and is available to 99% of UK homes but the average speed delivered according to Ofcom was 3.4Mb.
Cameron Rejali form BT Wholesale said:
“Running over BT’s 21st Century Network, WBC offers communications providers the ability to provide their broadband customers with greater control, choice and flexibility as well as higher speeds. It supports the growing demand for high-speed broadband access to a range of online services – including TV, gaming online and multiple voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services.
BT’s Ethernet deployment has advanced from an early adopter to a mainstream purchase for businesses looking for a cheaper, faster and more versatile single platform solution for their wide area networking or local area networking needs.”
BT are also investing heavily in their fibre broadband network “BT Infinity” and are aiming to offer FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) broadband with speeds up to 40Mb to around 66% of the UK by 2015 with an investment of £2.5bn.
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March 31, 2011
The price of home phone and broadband services could be set to come down after Ofcom, the telephones regulator, look to reduce the wholesale prices charged by BT Openreach.
 Openreach are the wholesale division of BT and are responsible for charging other providers access to the BT network and the wholesale price charged to some broadband providers could be reduced by up to 10% per year which will benefit broadband providers such as Sky and TalkTalk.
Two of the ways in which rival broadband providers can get access to BTs network are both set to have the prices reduced, the first is through Local Loop Unbundling, this is where rival providers are able to install their own equipment into the local BT telephone exchange and take control of a customers line, these prices are set to drop by between 1.2% and 4.2% every year if Ofcom gets its way. In instances where the telephone line is shared the price is set to be reduced by 11.6%-14.6% each year with the current price charged being £89.10 per year.
With around 7.6 million unbundled lines in the UK this will mean that there is a lot of people who will benefit from these reductions.
The other way rival providers access BTs network is through Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) which is where the rival providers are simply renting the line from BT. There are around 6.1 million WLR line in the UK and Ofcom are looking to see yearly reductions in price of between 3.1%-6.1% with the price for this currently set at £103.68 per year.
A statement from BT had the following to say:
“BT invests more than any other company in the UK’s communications infrastructure, so it is critical that it is able to achieve a fair rate of return in order to continue its investment in copper and fibre-based services.
Upon initial review, we are encouraged by Ofcom’s recognition of this fact, but would question some of the underlying assumptions being used.“
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March 29, 2011
Plusnet are launching fibre broadband with prices starting at just £16.49 per month.
Plusnet (www.plus.net) are launching “Value Fibre” and “Extra Fibre” broadband packages which will be available form the 19th April 2011. The cheapest fibre broadband package, the “Value Fibre” will offer broadband speeds up to 40Mb with a 40GB usage limit at a cost of £16.49 per month, the “Extra Fibre” package will also offer up to 40Mb broadband speeds but will have 120GB available usage and will cost £21.49 per month (both packages cost £10 more than their respective standard broadband deal).
Also supplied is a new wireless router (£4.99 delivery charge) and installation and activation are free when the fibre broadband is taken with a Home Phone package otherwise a charge of £50 will be charged.
Those signing up to Plusnet Fibre broadband will also be subject to an 18 month contract as standard. Although bother BT Infinity and Virgin Media have introductory offers which have cheaper fibre broadband for an limited period this deal from Plusnet is currently the only sub £200 fibre broadband deal on the market.
Plusnet (who are owned by BT) will be using BT’s fibre network to deliver their fibre optic broadband. This network is mainly being offered as a FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) service which requires copper wires to transmit the data the last part of the journey from the cabinet to the home, BT’s network is aiming to cover 66% of the UK by 2015.
Anyone wanting to sign up for Plusnet Fibre broadband can do so by visiting www.plus.net.
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March 24, 2011
Global broadband ended 2010 with more than 523 million subscribers with Global IPTV subscriptions growing by 34.6%.
The figures which have been released by Point-Topic.com were announced yesterday and showed that the total global broadband subscribers by the end of 2010 stood at 523,066,022 which was a net addition for the year of 55 million lines.
July 2010 saw global broadband pass the half a billion landmark figure.
Europe is leading the way with the most broadband subscribers with 188.8 million closely followed by Asia with 184.5 million, Americas had 133.8 million with the Middle East and Africa being way behind with just 15.6 million broadband subscribers.
When it comes to specific countries it is however China that is leading the way with 136 million subscribers, within Europe Germany are leading the way with 26.7 million.
The top 10 broadband countries based on subscribers numbers to the end of 2010 was as follows:
- China (all territories) - 136,496,883
- USA – 87,172,827
- Japan – 34,467,000
- Germany – 26,715,350
- France – 19,887,530
- UK – 19,607,600
- South Korea – 17,202,641
- Italy – 14,257,650
- Brazil – 12,656,200
- Russia – 11,619,000
Globally the type of broadband connections subscribers are using currently sees DSL way out in front with 63% of the market (331 million subscribers), Cable (mostly popular in America) accounts for 20% (106 million subscribers) while Fibre broadband connections account for around 14% globally (72 million subscribers). Fixed Wireless Access and Satellite broadband only account for around 2.5% combined.
The market share that Cable has is slowly getting eaten up though with Fibre optic broadband growing fast, a good example is in the UK market where fibre broadband is being rolled out across the UK with the BT Infinity network which should reach around 66% of the country when complete.
IPTV has Europe leading the way with 20.7 million IPTV subscribers, Asia with 16.3 million, Americas with 8 million and the Middle Easy and Africa with 0.2 million.
The top 10 countries for IPTV includes 6 that are within Europe, the UK doesn’t feature in this.
Top 10 IPTV countries:
- France – 10,255,000
- China (all territories) – 10,002,000
- USA – 7,301,800
- South Korea – 3,645,650
- Japan – 2,213,117
- Germany – 1,513,200
- Belgium – 975,000
- Spain – 858,200
- Italy – 819,000
- Sweden – 770,000
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March 14, 2011
Knowing if your broadband provider will slow down their network speeds at certain times of the day with “traffic management” should be allot clearer from now on as the main UK broadband providers have signed up to a new best practice code to make this side of broadband far clearer.
Traffic management is used by broadband providers to limit the speed that some applications or users are able to use their broadband connection at. Sites such as video streaming or file sharing or even those who play online games via PS3 or Xbox may be affected currently by traffic management and not know how, when or why. This new code that the broadband providers are signing up to should help make this clearer in the form of Key Facts Indicator tables that will list what the traffic management is with the broadband provider.
BSkyB, BT, O2, TalkTalk, Three, Virgin Media and Vodafone are signing a voluntary traffic management transparency code that will give users more easily comparable information on traffic management. These 7 broadband providers account for 90% of fixed line broadband connections and 60% of mobile customers in the UK.
The new transparency code has 3 commitments for the broadband providers, they are;
- Firstly to provide more information to consumers about what traffic management takes place, for what purpose and with what impact.
- Secondly to comply with a set of good practice principles on providing information to consumer that is: understandable; appropriate; accessible; current; comparable; and verifiable.
- Thirdly to publish a common Key Facts Indicator (KFI) table, summarising the traffic management practices they use for each broadband product they currently market, which will be available on ISPs’ websites by end of June 2011. Interested customers will be able to access this information directly, however third parties, such as price comparison websites will be encouraged to communicate this comparable information to consumers in an easily accessible way.
This is good for consumers as it is designed to make the traffic management information as clear and simple and in lay-mans terms so it should be free from jargon, it will also be made easily accessible and shouldn’t be hidden away where it would be hard for consumers to find.
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March 9, 2011
BT Broadband are getting rid of the Fair Use policy it has in place for it’s ADSL and fibre broadband packages and making their unlimited broadband truly unlimited.
This is a welcome move to help customers understand more clearly what they are signing up for with a broadband package. So often we have seen broadband deals advertised as offering “Unlimited broadband” yet in the terms & conditions there is a “Fair Use policy” tucked away which gives broadband providers the freedom to stop the broadband service or restrict it to the users who they consider are extremely high usage.
BT Infinity Option 2 fibre broadband and also BT Total Broadband Option 3 on ADSL will now be able to use as much data as they require with the data caps being lifted on these unlimited broadband packages from BT. Previously the “Unlimited download” packages that were on offer had basically 300GB per month (more than enough for the majority of users) of downloads and then their broadband connection would have speed restrictions put in place.
Only around 0.5% of BT Broadband users were effected by the 300GB fair use limit that was in place but regardless of this many felt slightly confused and mis-sold that an unlimited broadband package did actually have limits in place.
Despite the lifting of the Fair Use policy BT have said that “traffic management” will still be in place when the network is busy, this will be for applications such as P2P file sharing which can be quite intensive on the network especially at peak times of the day.
BT Total Broadband Options 1 & 2 and also BT Infinity Option 1 do still have data limits in place, instead of users getting a restricted service or being cut off they will be charged instead £5 per 5GB extra used.
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January 25, 2011
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) look set to crack down on misleading advertising claims by broadband providers about broadband speeds and “unlimited” use.
Advertised broadband speeds are often extremely mis-leading with the advertised speed usually far greater than the actual broadband speed consumers receive. The advertised “up to” speed is the maximum broadband speed which is what it is when it leaves the telephone exchange. Factors such as the quality of the line and the more importantly the distance away from the telephone exchange that the premises is all affect the speed of the broadband received and can leave customers feeling like they are not getting what they are paying for.
The advertising of “Unlimited broadband” is another big factor with advertising broadband packages, many adverts claim to offer “Unlimited broadband” yet they have a Fair Use Policy in place that tends to either stipulate some maximum limits or is pretty vague so that the broadband provider can cut off those customers who they consider are heavy users and using too much bandwidth each month. A customer who signed up to an unlimited broadband deal would argue that they are well within their rights to use as much or as little bandwidth as they want and this is one of the confusing factors which needs to be cleared up.
Because the ASA are unable to set a policy they also had the British Code of Advertising Practice (BCAP) and the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) to also look into the issues surrounding broadband speeds and unlimited broadband advertising.
A final review is to take place to decide the outcome of these issues, it is very likely that we will see the advertising of broadband packages to change though.
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January 21, 2011
Ofcom, the UK communications regulator has told BT to reduce the cost it charges rivals for wholesale broadband by between 10.75% and 14.75% to help reduce the cost of rural broadband.
The reason Ofcom want the wholesale price for BTs services to be reduced is help increase the competition between ISPs. Ofcom will detail specific areas of the country where BT are the sole provider and make these the areas where the wholesale prices are reduced to entice other ISPs to look at offering a service there themselves. It is envisaged that around 12% of households in the UK (3 million homes and businesses) could benefit from this which would help offer more competition and lower prices to these areas. It is hoped that other ISPs would look to offer their own services via BTs network via LLU (Local Loop Unbundling).
It is mainly rural areas that will benefit form this, especially in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as the South West of England, Norfolk, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Northumberland and other areas.
The new charge controls are due to come into effect during 2011 and it is estimated that it could reduce BTs profits by tens of millions of pounds each year.
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