Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...

[Chrysalis]

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.

[Ignitionnet]

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 Ridiculous and out of date of course but it makes them look good on the international statistics.

[carlwaring]

Damn! I was going to say 128 to start with

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

thedon the basic defenition of broadband suggests it is capable of certian things.

so in your view if a broadband connection cannot even load websites properly, cannot use any multimedia sites without issues and is useless for gaming it is still fit for purpose?

Also VM do make various claims on their website that their service is capable of certian things.

My argument is not around any guarantuees as such but one would expect basic internet applications to work.

Doubt me? ask trading standards yourself, its the responsibility of the seller to provide what they selling as fit for purpose.

The speed is a grey area which is why I am not saying much on it, my point is regarding things like iplayer, web browsing and gaming working.

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?

[Chrysalis]

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.

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.

quote from VM.

Perfect for multiple users, downloading,
streaming and gaming.

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.

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?

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.

[DABhand]

@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.