Quote:
Originally Posted by moroboshi
This is way beyond the understanding of the average consumer. They see something advertised as Xmbit and expect to get that. If you bought a car which was advertised as being able to do up to 100mph you would expect it to actually do that. If not car makers could advertise them as up to 1000mph knowing full well that was impossible. Virgin should advertise their products based on actual real world speeds, so a 10mb line would be sold as '2mbit average (max 10mbit subject to impossibly light network conditions)'.
Of course it would only be an aproximate, and is far less headline grabbing than the imaginary speeds they put on their PR crap. I've been paying for 20mbit for a long time and have very rarely got over 2mbit in the last 6 months. Mostly I get less than 1mbit and it's not uncommon to get less then 100kbits. So is selling the service I'm receiving as 20mbit seem fair? I'd say not!
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I have to say I pretty much agree with you Moroboshi, but until someone forces them to do as you say, then we're stuck with the Up To. As for people not understanding that the service is contended. Well, that doesn't change the fact that it is contended, that's why I try to inform people who can't understand why they don't get maximum speed all the time. I do think that you are underestimating people though, if someone told me I could get Up To a certain return on an investment, I would make damned sure I knew what actual returns were likely to be before I invested.
Your car analogy is quite good apart from the fact that in order to make it apply to the real world you have to figure in congestion, just the same as in the real world for broadband you have to figure in contention. In my case I live right near a bad part of the M1 which pretty much mirrors my broadband speed! You can have an up to 120mph car but try getting anywhere near that speed on a Friday evening along the M1 near Nottingham!!! Your car's max speed is like broadband's headline speed. Your car's actual performance is limited by congenstion on the roads just like internet traffic is limited by contention.
Your case is slightly different. It would appear that you are on a heavily oversubscribed UBR which under normal circumstances would be split by the capacity planning team. Unfortunately this is all on hold and has been for several months (possibly a year or two?) while they roll out 50Mb. I am in exactly the same predicament as you paying for 20Mb but getting sub 500K speeds in the evenings (although I'm currently speed testing at 3Mb which is good for me!).
The standard contention issue and Virgin's flat refusal to manage oversubscription for the duration of the 50Mb rollout (which I believe to be a diabolical decision) are two separate issues that shouldn't be confused.
I still think that a target minimum as well as a target maximum is the way to go. Then everyone is clear up front what is an acceptable range of average speed.