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:
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In day-to-day use you might find web pages take a second or two to appear but that once they do they will appear all at once due to the high speed of our connections. Because of the relatively high amount of latency, satellite connections are not suitable for applications which require low latency like on-line gaming. However, VOIP telephone services (including Skype) work and most people find the latency acceptable for normal conversation.
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quote from VM.
Quote:
Perfect for multiple users, downloading,
streaming and gaming.
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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.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by thedon
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?
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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.