[governance] OFCOM publishes latest Broadband Speeds

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<AANLkTin8fqwQbjhYZ=D0o=b-qNATTq559iC0uRcCqaVi at mail.gmail.com>, at 
20:04:37 on Wed, 2 Mar 2011, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro 
<salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> writes

>Ofcom today published its latest broadband speeds research which shows
>that the average broadband speed is now 6.2Mbit/s but is still less
>than half (45 per cent) of the average advertised broadband speed of
>13.8Mbit/s.

I think there is still widespread misconception about what broadband 
"speed" mean.

ADSL (which is how the broadband they are talking about is delivered), 
is an *analogue* transmission, not a digital one. So the further you are 
from the DSLAM (telephone exchange), and the worse the condition of the 
wiring, the slower the connection speed.

It's difficult to predict in advance what an individual installation 
will achieve, because only after it's connected can you do a real 
measurement and confirm what's possible. (Consumers are not prepared to 
pay, and wait for, a full manual site survey for this kind of product). 
But you *do* know what the absolute maximum is, and that's the number 
which is put in the sales literature as "up to X".

This is actually the same idea as dial-up modems, where a '56kbps' 
connection is in reality an "up to 56kbps" connection depending on the 
line quality on the day. And specifically different from a "cable 
modem", and/or a "leased line", where the connection speed is generally 
fixed at exactly what you ordered.

Another source for confusion is that when ADSL was first available in 
the UK, it was delivered as a "virtual 2Mbit leased line", and if your 
connection wasn't capable of reliable and sustained 2Mbit the telco 
simply refused to connect you *at all* - even if you would have been 
happy with 1Mbit rather than nothing.

To put some numbers on this, in 2000 I was one of the first UK 
subscribers to receive a (rock solid, as above) 2Mbps ADSL connection, 
and more recently I have upgraded to an "up to 8Mbps" service which was 
estimated in advance to provide 7.5Mbps and my ISP claims is now 
delivering 3.5Mbps on average (although my equipment here says it's 
4.3Mbps, but that's a minor quibble).

Yes, I'm a bit disappointed that I'm only getting half the estimate, but 
it's twice what I was getting before, and cheaper too. From this OFCOM 
survey it also appears to be typical, which is unsurprising because 
consumers spread between 0Km and 5Km from the exchange will experience 
speeds in the range of 8Mbps to 'virtually zero', with the majority 
somewhere in the middle.

But no amount of disappointment from myself will make it work any faster 
- that's down to the laws of physics.

My telephone exchange (usa: central office) will be upgraded from "up to 
8Mbps" to "up to 20Mbps" at the end of March 2011. I will ask to be 
switched to that service (I understand it will not cost extra). It'll be 
interesting to see if the speed delivered to me increases to 10Mbps (ie 
around half of the 20Mbps), or what... ?

MEANWHILE, after you've been connected, at whatever speed, there are 
other reasons why you won't get 100% throughput, sometimes characterised 
as local "contention" (more total customer demand in the locality than 
the ISP can service in its backbone) but also congestion further away 
from the subscriber within the wider Internet.

I don't expect to be able to download content from a distant website at 
a continuous 3.5Mbps, any more than previously I expected continuous 
2Mbps. (Let alone at greater figures like 8Mbps if I had a full 8Mbps 
from my ADSL).
-- 
Roland Perry
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