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Author Topic: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?  (Read 3850 times)

niemand

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Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« on: February 26, 2017, 07:01:36 PM »

Thought I'd point you guys to a couple of examples of alternative ways to advertise products.

http://www.att.net/speedtiers
https://www.comhem.se/bredband

The ATT page shows clear speed ranges for tiers, the Comhem packages are the same, both basically offer speeds of the tier below, or higher, for each package.

How would Kitizens feel about the UK following this kind of model?
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ejs

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2017, 07:29:51 PM »

I'm not sure that the AT&T speed tiers page is how they are advertised, how they are promoted looks more like:
https://www.att.com/internet/index.html

I am not particularly concerned about how speeds are advertised, because however they are advertised, be it up to some maximum speed, an average speed, or with a range of speeds, it's not going to make any difference to the speed my line is capable of.
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licquorice

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2017, 11:29:30 AM »

Doesn't matter how you advertise speeds, the problem is Joe Public has no idea that broadband is subject to the laws of physics and will expect to get whatever speed they ask for. Its amazing how many people think they will get faster speeds by upgrading to BT Infinity2 despite connecting at lower than the Infinity1 cap.
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Black Sheep

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2017, 04:56:10 PM »

Doesn't matter how you advertise speeds, the problem is Joe Public has no idea that broadband is subject to the laws of physics and will expect to get whatever speed they ask for. Its amazing how many people think they will get faster speeds by upgrading to BT Infinity2 despite connecting at lower than the Infinity1 cap.

Exactly that. A large portion of my day is spent reciting the same info (in layman's terms), to EU's regarding this subject matter. Patting myself on the back for a second, I know I put it over to them in an understandable format as they for the very most part are interested in what I have to say, and usually drop a comment like, "You should be a teacher".  :blush:

As I've mentioned many times, a large chunk of my own learning has come from this very forum, but if you start quoting SNR, attenuation, cable poundages, etc ... at unwitting EU's, you lose them instantly. No-one wants a physics lesson on a wet Monday morning after I've dragged them out of bed  :) :)

I honestly think deeper awareness for the EU is definitely key, but how the ISP's do this at a reasonable operating cost I have no idea, maybe a link to an easy understanding web-site when they are looking to place an order  ???
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niemand

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2017, 06:09:49 PM »

If it's not too much like being a teacher maybe you can take a minute to explain to us why Openreach / BT are desperately lobbying Ofcom to avoid either average speed or speed range advertising, BS  ;)
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niemand

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2017, 06:10:47 PM »

Doesn't matter how you advertise speeds, the problem is Joe Public has no idea that broadband is subject to the laws of physics and will expect to get whatever speed they ask for. Its amazing how many people think they will get faster speeds by upgrading to BT Infinity2 despite connecting at lower than the Infinity1 cap.

If you make clear to people that they are paying for a speed within a range then if they fall in that range they are getting the speed they are paying for - simple.
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niemand

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2017, 06:11:23 PM »

I am not particularly concerned about how speeds are advertised, because however they are advertised, be it up to some maximum speed, an average speed, or with a range of speeds, it's not going to make any difference to the speed my line is capable of.

Always a pleasure to see a post from someone on a topic to inform that they are not particularly concerned about it ;)
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Black Sheep

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2017, 06:19:08 PM »

If it's not too much like being a teacher maybe you can take a minute to explain to us why Openreach / BT are desperately lobbying Ofcom to avoid either average speed or speed range advertising, BS  ;)

Yeah ............ because it's probably one of the most inaccurate sciences around.
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ejs

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #8 on: February 27, 2017, 06:20:47 PM »

Always a pleasure to see a post from someone on a topic to inform that they are not particularly concerned about it ;)

Or to put it another way, I think messing about changing whatever the rules are for how it can be advertised is a complete and utter waste of time.

All the responses so far appear to be that it doesn't matter. Perhaps that tells you more than if nobody at all replied.

As far as I could see, Ignitionnet, you seem to be misleading people by suggesting that the AT&T speed tiers page you linked to is how they advertise their speeds. It seemed to me like that page is the small print, not the advertising.
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licquorice

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2017, 08:16:13 PM »

If you make clear to people that they are paying for a speed within a range then if they fall in that range they are getting the speed they are paying for - simple.

But that's not how it works. People have no idea of what speed their line is capable of as they never bother or know how to check or even that they need to check before ordering. They would just order what they wanted and expect to get it.
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niemand

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #10 on: February 28, 2017, 01:16:48 AM »

Okay thank you. I should have probably expected responses to be more about VDSL, where once the initial estimate is provided the service must reach that level.

I was thinking more about fixed rate services, though ensuring people who won't get any benefit from 55/10 or 80/20 aren't paying it could be good.

I'm a huge fan of this stuff. Places a floor under the level the operator must deliver, sets customer expectations appropriately.

If people order a tier they cannot achieve the ISP must reject the order and offer an alternative.

Nice punishment: if the customer speed drops into the tier below, that's what they pay for the rest of the month, renewable every month. That should focus minds. Virgin Media customers in really bad areas will be paying for a. Product that doesn't officially even exist for sale (Broadband S).
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niemand

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #11 on: February 28, 2017, 03:07:45 PM »

This is probably the wrong forum to raise commercial issues. Thanks for the feedback those who responded.

Incidently BS - Openreach/BT don't want average speed as it exposes their mixed technology network's limitations. They are no longer selling 'up to 76Mb' they are selling at most about 60Mb.

FWIW I think you guys are wrong and advertising is very important to many 'average' punters. The priorities for those on this forum are evidently elsewhere.
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licquorice

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #12 on: February 28, 2017, 03:35:24 PM »

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Most punters are totally clueless about what speeds are available to them and what speeds are required for what they want to do. When we first got FTTC in this village everybody wanted to go for the 80/20 option until I pointed out to them they didn't need anything like that speed for a bit of web browsing and email.
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ejs

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #13 on: February 28, 2017, 04:28:56 PM »

There may also be unintended consequences, such as ISPs not taking customers with slow speeds, to avoid them lowering their average. Apparently Sky won't take new ADSL customers who have sub 2Mb estimates. You might get people with 60Mb estimates only being offered 55/10 so that they wouldn't be lowering the average of their 80/20 service or to avoid the hassle of their speed dropping into the lower tier.

I think it's either a case of you get whatever you can get up to the maximum, or an alternative of you'll be given some lower speed to make it much more likely that you'll be able to continually and reliably receive that speed.
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burakkucat

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Re: Broadband advertising - thoughts on this?
« Reply #14 on: February 28, 2017, 05:19:12 PM »

. . . Openreach/BT don't want average speed as it exposes their mixed technology network's limitations. They are no longer selling 'up to 76Mb' they are selling at most about 60Mb.

Regarding the above statement, it is quite wrong. To correct it the name "Openreach" should be removed.

For a G.993.2 based services, Openreach sell products (to CPs / ISPs) with the following upper level synchronisation speeds --
  • 80/20 Mbps
  • 55/10 Mbps
  • 40/10 Mbps
  • 40/2 Mbps
  • Etc
As I can't remember all of the available Openreach products (available to CPs / ISPs) I have concluded my list with the word "Etc".
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