Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: WWWombat on July 21, 2016, 02:09:14 PM
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A slightly more in-depth look behind the MP's report from a couple of days ago:
Broadband - do we want it cheap or good? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36833231)
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Valid points made. Unfortunately I fear the vast majority of consumers want it cheap and now... and dont care about advances.
DSL is one area which does evolve quickly and its easy to fall behind if investment isnt made.
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its a bit like the referendum, people been asked to vote on something they dont understand the implications of.
e.g. the typical consumers think all isp's are built equal and as such the more expensive one's must simply be price gouging. Consumers typically only start caring when something they want to use doesnt work properly. My sister e.g. ditched VM when the congestion got so bad netflix stopped working, before then she was happy. Then after she swapped to sky she is like wow torrents download so much faster now.
Ultimately the MPs report is right in its findings I think, the problem is convincing people to agree.
Its a bit like the problem everyone votes for a tax cut, but then the same people complain when public services go down the pan thinking there somehow would be no implications of that cut.
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Valid points made. Unfortunately I fear the vast majority of consumers want it cheap and now... and dont care about advances.
DSL is one area which does evolve quickly and its easy to fall behind if investment isnt made.
DSL should be an area we are binning, but obviously that does require investment.
Can you imagine the protests if the price I pay for just my ~64Mb broadband, 40 Great British Pounds per month, were standard?
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I want it cheap & good ;)
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:lol:
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Cheap or good?
Like everything else, people want both. They can't comprehend the unlikely reallity of getting both, so they buy cheap and then they complain when it's not good. :(
Human nature I'm afraid, or at least in UK culture. The best we can hope for is that the choice will be available so that those who want 'good', and are willing to pay for it, can have it.
My comments are not specific to broadband, they are equally applicable to everything from restaurant food, to the M6 toll road, to first class train tickets etc. All cases where I regularly choose 'good' over 'cheap' if, at the time, it is my priority.
Just my opinion. :)
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Perhaps someone should give the great British public two options
1. Cheap and so-so speed and if it goes wrong then you wait days before anyone bothers to do anything about it (rather like today)
2. Sensibly priced (ie not cheap) and a guaranteed speed and a service level guarantee
and see which they choose. I suspect quite a few here would opt for 2, certainly anyone running a small business reliant on the Internet would, however most would reply like 1.
Stuart
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I would concur with your opinion 7LM. The reason being, our country is made up of a diverse spectrum of individuals.
There's folk with cash, folk without, folk with cash who are tight as cramp, folk who will get up to their eyes in debt to have the latest 'thang', folk who are thrifty, folk who are carefree where cash is concerned ............. lots and lots of different folk.
What is 'Cheap' to one, will be 'Expensive' to another ........... likewise with what is considered to be 'Good' ??
Is 'Good' where a circuit is at 10Meg but stable, or 20Meg but flappy ?? Different strokes for different folks, just as in the other scenario's you mentioned.
I usually find the folk making the most noise are the ones that bugger off when it comes down to it ..... "I want this, I want that" ..... then when it's finally offered to them, they say they don't need it now, or won't pay for it, or whatever ......
Just my opinion. :)
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Haha :lol: The last 5 messages sum things up well.
Lets be honest here...
Internet Access, as a market, only started to get mass appeal (mid-late nineties) when it was free. Internet Access via Broadband only started to get mass appeal once it cost little more than dial-up - and is almost certainly sustained through the multiple offers of "free broadband, provided you use our TV package". Internet Access via NGA only started to get real traction when ... oh, you know the answer, right?
The majority of the British public only want cheap. And Ofcom wants them to get it.
The love of complaining just gets exercised when they discover that cheap doesn't buy good. In all the "rush to the bottom", how many ISPs have made a point to sell a USP of better SLA terms? How many customers have even asked a question like this: "How many days will my fault languish in your fault department, before someone looks and sends a "broadband buddy" to check I'm not senile, and then how long must I wait before you send a real engineer out?"
The reason we don't have real fibre is because not enough people will pay for anything other than "cheap". The ones who truly want "good" are constrained by, held to ransom by, the volume who want "cheap".