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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
UK watchdog Ofcom tells broadband firms: '30 days to sort your speeds'
Ofcom is tightening the screws – sort of – on broadband providers that play fast and loose with speed promises by imposing a deadline to fix problems or allow customers’ to end their contract early and without a penalty.
Punters are able to exit a deal if velocity slips below a minimum guaranteed level and the provider can’t rectify it, but providers currently have an unlimited resolution time before letting customers leave.
The major update to the code of practice, to be implemented in a year from now, will mean that providers must promote “realistic” speed estimates and “minimum” speed guarantees at the point of sale.
[...] Average download speeds for residential punters in peak hours (8pm to 10pm) are 34.6Mbit/s, and average maximum speeds are 39.1Mbit/s, according to the regulator.
[...] All of the major broadband players have signed up to Ofcom’s code of practice - it covers around 90 per cent of customers in the UK. But there is no legal imperative for these companies to comply with the code.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @03:07AM (1 child)
Ofcom will allow broadband providers to continue to screw over paying customers for an additional 30 days because.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Wootery on Friday March 02 2018, @12:27PM
After, what, 15 years? It's not the extra month I'm unhappy about.
(Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Friday March 02 2018, @03:09AM (11 children)
> Average download speeds for residential punters in peak hours (8pm to 10pm) are 34.6Mbit/s, and average maximum speeds are 39.1Mbit/s, according to the regulator.
For 90% of UK customers. You may cry now.
We need to rectify the US deficit. I suggest shipping A Pai to them with all haste. One-way ticket.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Friday March 02 2018, @03:50AM (4 children)
I think unfortunately the problem is deeper than just the one guy. The two party system keeps us arguing on worthless issues and then fucks the people on stuff like this. The guy was an obama appointment who was maintained by trump, gotta send all of them away.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday March 02 2018, @03:57AM (3 children)
Obama respected the rule that he needed two R guys in there, with three D guys.
I thoroughly disagree with the "all the same" view. You must not have been paying attention to the (powerless) statements from the two D members every time Pai pushes the Telcos' agenda.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @08:51AM (2 children)
The rule, huh? Maybe Obama should have grown a pair and been more like FDR; that man was ruthless. Instead, Obama was a typical corporatist with a weak incrementalism agenda; better than the Republicans, but that's not saying much. The Democrats, as they are, are just pathetic; we need to primary the corporate Democrats and replace them with real progressives.
Enough with the 'lesser of two evil'ism.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 02 2018, @07:23PM (1 child)
Only assholes respect the rule of law, eh?
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:33AM
Only when its a good excuse to help your
friendsdonorscompanies wanting to make america better.Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Friday March 02 2018, @06:00AM (4 children)
"Average" is very strongly misleading.
My BT professional "superfast" fibre broadband was delivering 56kB yesterday evening.
It may be 10x faster than a 56kb dial-up line, but when dial-up was common, people did not expect us to download 2GB files.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @08:00AM
BT users deserve no better than total shit though.
Pick one of the smaller boutique ISPs and you too can have 95% of theoretical maximum bitrate, 100% of the day and night.
*Checks uptime* Ha! Over 9 consecutive months. You wish your connection would stay up for 9 consecutive hours BT luser.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Friday March 02 2018, @08:26AM (2 children)
The problem is that even if you do cancel your contract because of low speeds, it's not like you can get better speeds somewhere else. Most of the low speed problems are due to crappy copper telephone lines which affects all ISPs equally. The only non-ADSL option in most areas is Virgin, so if they are oversubscribed too (as they are in my area) you are buggered.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Friday March 02 2018, @09:27AM (1 child)
Yes, but...
This move by Ofcom will only be a temporary pain in the arse for ISPs. Instead of giving their customers the right royal run-around ("no, we've looked into it and computer says 'no'"), now they'll agitate to have the problem solved. It probably takes collectively less effort to actually solve the problem (bad copper, whatever) - even if it isn't technically "their fault" - than repeat the same blame-shifting script to every single customer who ever has an issue. At the end of the day, subscribers want Internet, and both ISPs and telecommunications companies get paid to provide a service. It's a fairly simple calculation: get paid, provide service.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Friday March 02 2018, @10:48AM
BT Openreach, who are responsible for the phone lines, don't give a single fuck about the shitty speeds and never will. Doesn't matter how much ISPs and customers complain, there is no alternative. Maybe you can get Virgin, but other ISPs can't use their cable network so if ADSL is your only option then Openreach has you by the short and curlies.
Openreach doesn't even install fibre to new builds, they put in copper. There is no incentive for them, especially because with fibre people will just want internet service and not pay for the phone line rental which is a massive cash-cow for them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @02:03PM
In Australia they were recently forced to publicly admit that users were routinely getting 5 to 11Mbps.
Our DSL2 is better than the NBN fiber network in many places.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday March 02 2018, @04:56AM (1 child)
Some frequent SoylentNews posters are shocked at the idea that companies might not be allowed to lie to their customers and that a government agency should actually enforce such rules. "Let the free market sort it out!"
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday March 02 2018, @09:52AM
Except that Ofcom has been failing to stop ISPs' misleading advertising for, what, 15 years now?
Also, from the summary:
(Score: 3, Insightful) by archfeld on Friday March 02 2018, @07:49AM (1 child)
Spectrum is advertising their service as "starting" at 60mbps, and offering up to 100 mbps, while in reality even with the 'new' equipment they shipped us, 'free' of charge I have never managed greater than 23 mbps. I have no other option here and Spectrum doesn't give a shit. I wish Ajit Pai would DIAF. The FSCK'n city just signed a new contract with Spectrum for 10 more years of tyranny with no end in sight. In the US the FCC is (F)or the (C)orporate by the (C)orporate and to hell with the general public. Back in California at least I had a choice between 2 cable offerings...
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday March 02 2018, @09:28AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 02 2018, @11:00AM
The latency was also amazing, didn't quantify it tho but it was like pounding the localhost. Content arrived as soon as you lifted your finger from a click. And it was included in the cheap rent of my student room with an ocean view, no less. I live in a Scandinavian socialist utopia where university is free and you get financial aid from the state as a student.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday March 02 2018, @04:39PM (1 child)
Why was the summary edited to change the word consumers to punters? Or was it the other way around?
And for those of us outside the UK, what is a punter? So I query google using the string "uk punters slang" and find a stack exchange post leading to this definition: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/punter [oxforddictionaries.com]
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Friday March 02 2018, @06:24PM
Not sure why they changed it to punter, but it does fit. A punter is a john here in the US, which implies the cable companies are prostitutes.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge