Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

incidently again today there has been evident congestion on my link, however I only noticed it by checking my latency data.

That I am not calling unfit for purpose even tho it probably would affect gaming, I am talking about people with extreme issues where basic useability is affected.

The official defenition of broadband to be honest I dont know as there is variations of it from different people, ooriginally it was around 256kbit but some countries certianly have it set at a higher level now. Not sure about the uk tho. However if things like websites dont even load properly, things like iplayer dont work even tho it may be possible to push 256kbit down the line it would likely be considered not fit for purpose.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Always on and >128kbps downstream satisfies Ofcom. Ridiculous and out of date of course but it makes them look good on the international statistics.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Damn! I was going to say 128 to start with :(

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Web browsing will work except when due to faults even in the most heavily congested areas. Sure it might be a tad slow, but it'll work.
Gaming, isn't something that's required for broadband, if it was then satellite broadband wouldn't be fit for purpose either.

Streaming services being usable isn't really a metric used for if a broadband service is fit for purpose either, where would you draw the line? at what bitrate stream? Do you have to be able to view the HD streams? Or is it ok to view the lowest quality one? What about the lowest speed broadband, is that not fit for purpose because it's not capable of streaming video, even though it meets ofcoms speed requirements to be called broadband? Or adsl in rural areas? Is that not fit for purpose because you can't get a fast enough speed because your lines 200 miles long and made of string?

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Web browsing didnt work for me in january 2011 and part of february, I often had to refresh pages due to missing images, it also got extremely slow at times rather than a tad slow. Also the same issue back in spring 2010 when I first got VM, and still on the legacy docsis port.

If a particular isp claims its suitable for gaming (VM do) then if gaming doesnt work it makes their service not fit for purpose because of that claim, sattelite isps dont claim to be suitable for gaming so they are not guilty. Here is a quote from a sattelite isp. Note the honesty.

quote from VM.

So VM wants people to signup for gaming, if they didnt they wouldnt have that quote, so they are signing up some customers on the basis that the service will be fine for gaming. For many customers it probably is and is no issue, but some customers it clearly is not.

I was told by trading standards they would look at the service sold and in the case of adsl isps the speed the customer was told at the point of sale would be used and then look at what videos would be reasonable to expect to work on such a service, VM's lowest tier should handle things like iplayer without even breaking a sweat. The exception would be if VM specifically warned the customer at point of sale that the service was not suitable for such usage. What I do know is when I specifically told trading standards youtube and iplayer was not working on my 20mbit connection they didnt even hesitate in telling me it was not fit for purpose, I wasnt even put on hold, they were very confident in what they were telling me. I expect having had to give out the previous answer to someone else beforehand so was probably something already looked into.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

@Discussion on page 3 - Broadband should be any speed higher than 56k :P That is how I always looked at it.

C&W first had 128kb/s lines at one point, nobody was really interested in the price and the speed being only really 3 times as quick as dial up, then Telewest appeared and started the 256kb/s lines which did start well... and then 512 and 1mb etc.