I was reading this article on the thinkbroadband site:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8110-uk-could-be-number-1-in-broadband-league-tables-rather-than-35thOne of the suggestions of how to increase the UK's position was get VM to put all the customers on the 100Mbps package. Here is paragraph I'm talking about;
The answer is simple and it simply needs Virgin Media to do something like sell a minimum 100 Mbps service, i.e. move all those customers on the 50 Mbps and 70 Mbps service onto their 100 Mbps tier, the effect of just upgrading existing Virgin Media cable customers would add around 2 Mbps to the mean figure for the UK, shifting us up to around position 28 in the league table. A more radical upgrade to make a 200 Mbps the minimum speed sold by the cable operator would add around 15 Mbps to the mean, and propel the UK into the top 10 just ahead of Jersey. In terms of numbers of lines this would mean around 4 million broadband connections would be on a 200 MBps or better service out of the 25.3 million fixed line broadband connections.
The bit that stands out to me in the paragraph is the words minimum 100Mbps service. I know advertising now uses the word minimum instead of upto, but just changing the language isn't going to change the reality.
I've said some good things about VM recently as far as their work rate is concerned, as well as their visibility. But I have to balance it!
The big problem with VM is that its inconsistant. It is more secretative than BT/OR when it comes to projecting the speed you'll get. I don't even know if they give you a speed estimation before you sign up? I just know perspective buyers are saying to the VM people "I'm in area..." "what is the speeds like?".
There seems to be a disconnect with some people that just because a technology is available at a certain advertised rate that it will 1. achieve it at all, or 2. be able to maintain it for at least a 12 month period. So making assumptive statements of why people choose a lower level of package isn't showing the reality of the situation.
I think the biggest drawback to full fibre is Ofcom obsessively attacking BT/OR's network and giving other network providers a pass. In my opinion it's not enough to say "well that network operator only reaches 100 people therefore they shouldnt have to abide by the rules".
If VM and others were under the spotlight as much as BT/OR, and VM in particular became a lot more reliable, then I think we'd have a more competative broadband market.
If all the speed packages on whatever network actually achieved that speed then we wouldn't be down at position 35. I think blaming what people are willing to pay for a service only tells half the picture. The other half is we're working with old technology that is increasingly unable to meet the speeds of the packages being sold.
PS. I was going to type this on the other forum but I'm not sure if they have a section for discussing their news articles?