I'd rather have a bottle in front of me - than a frontal lobotomy"
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UK shrugs at broadband speeds
NEARLY HALF OF all UK broadband users couldn't care less about their connection speeds as long as they work.
A You Gov survey commissioned by Sky Broadband polled a selection of UK broadband customers to see what they thought about broadband service in Britain. 44 per cent replied that they "don't know" or "don't care" how fast their broadband service is, "so long as it works". So we're assuming from that random selection by the pollsters that none or few of them were out in bumpkin Britain, relying on terribly dismal connection speeds that pigeons can outfly.
Only 14 per cent said they were interested in faster connection speeds. That'll be just as well for British Telecom (BT) because the company can probably only roll out superfast fibre optic broadband to 14 per cent of the country. Virgin and Talktalk have lined up a speed bump roll out over BT's telegraph poles as well but can't actually offer customers that speed bump yet.
Only 6 per cent cited speed as solely important, with 39 per cent preferring value for money and 36 per cent factoring in customer satisfaction. A fair few muppets, 31 per cent were more interested in getting bundled together phone and broadband services.
Bizarrely, 64 per cent said they want unlimited broadband without any kind of usage caps. But why would that many look for uncapped broadband if only 14 per cent care about connection and download speeds? Surely only users looking for the fastest bandwidth they can buy would also be interested in getting it uncapped.
The survey also found that almost 90 per cent of people use their broadband at home daily. µ
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I think that people are not made aware of what faster speeds actually entail.
A perfect example, I was speaking to my uncle about myself moving to a new property and that I would prefer to be in a Virgin fibe optic enabled area, he was like "what does it matter about your speed" etc. etc.
I began to explain about fibre optic getting much lower ping and how it benefits you on Xbox Live etc. He wasn't aware of this but soon as he was he rang Virgin and took out a contract with them.
Now he takes his internet monitoring more seriously than me.
All this "Come with us and get faster speeds" crap isn't benefiting companys like Virgin, they just need to come out tell them how it is because Virgin is easily the best provider out there in terms of speed and gaming.
Living in Basingstoke, I was pleased to read over a year ago that BT would be "rolling out" FTTC to that town. Although I have an excellent ISP, being 4 km from the exchange imposes a severe limitation on my bandwidth - although I do notice that it varies, sometimes 2.3 Mbps for days and weeks on end, then oddly enough 3.8 Mbps for a week or so, then back down to 3.2 or 2.7, and so on. With FTTC I suppose I could hope for speeds of 15 Mbps and more, and perhaps faster uploads as well. (You may not need to upload often, but when you do the very slow ADSL speeds can be inconvenient).
Imagine my feelings when I discovered that, although districts on every side of me have got FTTC, mine hasn't. I got in touch with BT and asked why they weren't favouring us with FTTC, and was told that it was for commercial reasons! So apparently they already know that my neighbours and I won't want to pay for FTTC, even though I do.
It's very nearly got to the point where I am prepared to deal with Virgin again. I think that speaks for itself.
Our current speed of the internet depends on the servers in the local exanges, the deal of ISP'and BT( still running the exchanges) is cheap and slow( moneysavers ;-( ).
Everything is so slow, much slower than in Germany, because we do not have a proper state organization like ofcom/oft like in Germany, who really watch this and do something about it. !!!
Ah, yes, because YouGov is well known as a bastion of solid and reliable statistics. And the Tories are going to give us all tax breaks too.
"But why would that many look for uncapped broadband if only 14 per cent care about connection and download speeds?"
Because downloading large files off the net does not require a high-speed internet, only high capacity.
...about anything. Seriously. Oh, my internet's slow and silently filtered by Cleanfeed behind closed doors. I can't watch Youtube at 360p without buffering whilst just over the channel on a hotel's FREE WIFI I can watch it at 720p without any buffering.
Mindblowing that Britain allows itself to be raped by its squandering management who take the grants and the funds to make it a modern country and spend it on Rolls Royces and fine wines. People gladly pay £2.50 a time for a bus service that runs once every three hours and on a bus which is so badly maintained the whole thing visibly distorts, the juddering gives me a headache and half the time the doors need manually opening. Oh, and it's so cramped that although I get on the second stop I'm always (illegally - nobody should stand in front of the driver's seat according to notices on the walls) pressed up against the windscreen. If more people stood up for themselves and said "ya know what, piss off you asshole" we wouldn't have this. Find some passion before you die of boredom, Britain.
I was wanting to say that I only care about the speed when I want something quick. All the other times I am not really fussed (gaming, watching BBC iPlayer). And most of the time when I want to download quick the service or server I am downloading from does not run at full speed (STEAM) for example. Not surprised the general public don't have any concerns with the speed. But I bet a fair few have run in to user limits when watching internet TV and such.
In answer to "Bob" about who else would fill out You Gov surveys, well, I do, and I'm hardly a student.
I fill out maybe 1-2 per month, which is hardly taking a lot of my time...
In answer to "sarah", it's not about receiving half a glass, it's about how long it takes for you to receive the pink - imagine if you went into a pub and got the drink really quickly, but you only get two in every three visits (the rest of the time they're out of beer), or would you rather go into a pub where you always get a drink, but it takes a little longer?
As for the idea of uncapped, I don't mind that I have a blazingly fast service, but what matters to me is that I don't get stopped at 5GB per month or some other such "fair usage" - I would rather be able to download/upload more over a month than what the ISP deems as normal use.
While I was with Virgin I got higher speeds, but it was down 20-30% of the time, now I'm with O2 and I get slower speeds, but it NEVER goes down - that's the kind of service I'd rather have!
The OP asked why more people were concerned about caps than speed. There's a simple reason: it's very easy to reach most of the caps imposed, even with a relatively low peak connection speed.
Let's suppose, for convenience, that an ISP provides a 2Mbps download speed and a 30GB per month cap. The cap corresponds to 1GB per day. At 2Mbps (250KB/s) it will take about 4000 seconds, ie. just over an hour, to download 1GB.
That gigabyte represents about an hour and a half of standard-definition TV programming, repackaged as certain groups are wont to do. It can also represent an hour-and-a-half-long SD movie - a two-hour one would usually be packaged for 2 CDs, ie. 1.4GB.
Moving down to the also-common 512Kbps download speed, the only difference is that it now takes 4-5 hours to download that 1GB daily allowance. To someone who sets up a download in the morning to use that evening, that's no difference at all.
Streaming services like YouTube are designed to cater to users with limited bandwidth - up to a point. But if a user with a 2Mbps connection uses YouTube continuously for an hour each day, choosing the best quality videos that will fit down their pipe, they've used up their allowance.
Of course the ISPs like to impose these caps, because they reduce their costs and can act as an extra revenue stream. But they misrepresent the utility of a high peak download speed when they do so.
... only high speed users want uncapped?
Hmm ... I must be strange then. I would rather have a reliable, reasonable speed feed, fast enough to do what I want, when I want and not hit a usage limit. However good a a feed is, it's useless if you hit a bandwidth limit after a week.
They're filled out by students who have too much spare time on their hands and don't care about the answers - those results were the ones near the top - who else would bother to fill them out?
if you go into a pub, order and pay for a pint, would you be happy to recieve a half empty pint glass.
have you ever met anyone who doesn't care if they get what they pay for or not.
the problem isn't that people don't care, it's simply that they are unaware that they are not getting what they pay for.
and most people who find their broardband speed is not what they're paying for are fobbed off with excuses in tech-speak so they can't tell the excuses are not genuine. It took me over 6 months arguing with my isp to get them to actually make an effort and i finally got about 60% of the speed i should get - but as there is no REAL governing body no-one can do anything if their isp says 'they've tried there best'
what this country needs is legistlation to prevent services from shirking their duties and to ensure the provide what they promised. Until then nothing will change.