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ISP BT Trials New Way of Checking Customer Broadband Line Speeds

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Bowdon:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/01/isp-bt-trials-new-way-of-checking-customer-broadband-line-speeds.html


--- Quote ---Consumer UK ISP BT has begun to trial a new way of checking customer broadband speeds, which sounds like it will require special code (firmware) to be added on to the end-users router (Smart Hub etc.) in order to test and monitor their line. This could help them to comply with Ofcom’s forthcoming changes.

Last year the telecoms regulator, Ofcom, announced a new Voluntary Code of Practice for Broadband Speeds (CoP), which among other things would provide UK consumers with more information about their estimated line performance and make it easier to exit your contract if related problems cannot be resolved within 30 days.

Crucially this CoP, which is due to be introduced from 1st March 2019, added a requirement for ISPs to deliver normally available speed estimates based on peak time speeds. Effectively this meant that member ISPs might have to test the actual speeds of a statistically meaningful panel of customers on each broadband package during peak time, which at the time was neither cheap nor easy to do.

Ordinary web-based speedtests are simply not up to the task because they are too unreliable and easily influenced by issues such as local network congestion, limitations of end-user devices and slow WiFi etc. The alternative of using lots of custom routers from SamKnows (Ofcom and Virgin Media use this for their speed reports) has also been rejected by other ISPs as being too expensive or tedious to implement.

Alternatively ISPs have also been exploring different methods, such as the possibility of extracting more performance data from wholesale suppliers (there are some big limitations to what can be done here) or building special connection monitoring code into the end-user’s router (e.g. ASSIA’s TruSpeed). The latter would be difficult to develop if starting from scratch.
--- End quote ---

ejs:
I wouldn't have thought it would be particularly difficult to develop some code within a firmware to do that. Not for a firmware developer at least.

kitz:
Someone kindly gave a link to the OFCOM file which gives more information about the tests

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/111697/annex-5-testing-principles.pdf

Weaver:
That document - stupid using TCP, as then the results are affected by the vagaries of different TCP implementations. Software design vs network conditions has nothing to do with fair assessment of link capacity or network congestion. They should be using a simple UDP-based test application with a fixed protocol which is designed specifically for highly accurate speed testing and which carefully maxes the link out in one, then the other then both directions. Perhaps something like iperf.

niemand:
TCP is most representative of user experience. The point is to reflect Quality of Experience.

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