back to article UK telco market worth £37.5bn, Ofcom reports

Total UK telecoms revenues grew for the first time in five years – increasing by £0.2bn to £37.5bn between 2014 and 2015, according to research from communications regulator Ofcom. This was partly due to a sharp increase in people switching to superfast broadband, with 9.2 million homes having speeds of up to 30Mbps in 2015 …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ofcom - they love their stats, but completely miss the point.

    If you're getting a fcukin useless 'superfast' 11Kbps download speed as I have last couple of days on Entanet via the Cardiff BT Node, just trying to download Microsoft's Windows 10 Media creation tool, (so a 17MB file takes 29 minutes to download), does it really matter if my local loop is FTTC or 21Mbps ADSL?, that's before I even start downloading the 4-6GB Windows 10 ISO.

    Entanet's excuse, 'we prioritise Biz lines during the day' (this is a 60GB family line I've been attempting this on), fine - 'prioritise', but to the point that all other customers, the service is unusable?

    Ofcom in this day and age, how can companies still offer products that prioritise 'Biz traffic' over regular customers? Broadband is broadband. If there is regular congestion (there has been for months), these companies need to buy additional Bandwidth/Pipes, and be forced to by the Ofcom.

    Ofcom as usual, completely missing the point that Quality of Service throughput at all times, is a far more important factor, as real speeds are dependent on congestion in the nodes between you and the server you're trying to connect with.

    Interesting too, how BTWholesale's 'bullshit' line checker never shows this congestion either, even when the site in question is Microsoft.com, probably because it only shows congestion on the BTWholesale part of the line, and not on the 'key' 21stC interconnect between the ISP's backhaul and BT.

    1. Commswonk

      Re: Ofcom - they love their stats, but completely miss the point.

      Interesting too, how BTWholesale's 'bullshit' line checker never shows this congestion either...

      I think that's a little unfair. I check our speed here from time to time - most recently because BT upgraded us from approximately 38 Mb/s to a claimed 52 Mb/s. (FTTC, should you be wondering.) A tester that I used to use started giving disappointing results several months ago, and also stopped storing the results so that any peaks, dips or trends could be examined. Other testers go through a rigmarole of selecting a suitable server based on "ping", and while the results weren't too bad the tests could be to servers between 10 miles away and on one occasion, in Amsterdam.

      At least the BT Wholesale tester seems to test "my" circuit to the exchange, thus giving me a picture of how much of what I am paying for I am actually getting. (48 Mb/s at the last time of checking.) Yes it is an incomplete picture but is not without its uses. Throttling elsewhere is a different problem, and blaming anyone's speedtester is hardly relevant.

      I assume that your speed test used a completely "wired" path and didn't include any wifi or 3G connection - perhaps you can confirm that. I agree that your ISP seems to be taking the piss if they are downgrading you as a residential customer in favour of others paying for a business service to the extent that your report would suggest. I strongly suspect Ofcom would go into "don't give a shit" mode if this was referred to them; they'd probably refer you to the vanishingly small print in your contract with your ISP.

      On the basis of what you have said so far I would suggest changing your ISP.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Ofcom - they love their stats, but completely miss the point.

        "Yes it is an incomplete picture but is not without its uses"

        There are 3 factors at play.

        1: Your xDSL speed/line quality. This can be obtained by interrogating your router.

        2: Backhaul from the local exchange to the ISP

        3: ISP connectivity to the rest of the world.

        There have been more than a few instances in the UK of 1 and 3 being fine, but 2 being oversubscribed - and usually because Openreach have been footdragging on providing link upgrades.

        Ofcom's ruling on Openreach doesn't go far enough. It needs to be separate shareholding/board of directors/CEO from BT and the easiest way to achieve it is to make doing that split a condition of any more broadband funding.

        I really am surprised the Competition and Markets Authority hasn't stepped in and forced this issue. BT's ongoing market abuse has quantifiable damage to the UK economy - which is why when New Zealand looked at the proposal for BT/Openreach model there, they said "NO" and forced a complete split.

    2. paulf
      Trollface

      Re: Ofcom - they love their stats, but completely miss the point.

      @AC "that's before I even start downloading the 4-6GB Windows 10 ISO."

      I think someone is trying to send you a message about your Windows 10 upgrade plans (or they're trying to help you avoid it).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re. Win10 is the equivalent of trying to stand still on a moving escalator.

        Its a case (genuinely) of installing Win10, activating it and removing it.

        No intention of actually using Windows 10 in a production environment but realise if I ever try and sell these laptop(s) I'm using, offering it with Windows 7/8.1 won't be an option.

        As an OS, Win10 is the equivalent of trying to stand still on a moving escalator, with forced updates. MS seem to have forgotten the value in a device you just switch on everyday, that does the same thing day in day out - no change, and deals with 'the drudge' admin.

        And re-installing Win7 with its borked manual Windows 7 SP1 Update process (to avoid certain updates), has been 'redesigned' by MS to be tedious beyond extreme, I think to, to level the playing field, as regards their OSs i.e. bring Win7 down a peg or two.

        If not even shades of grey anymore as to whether Linux Mint 18 is easier to install, its completely black and white-easier, far more stable and a smaller footprint - 11-15 minutes done.

        The biggest obstacle to it been adopted wider, is just astroturfing, MS marketing telling people what they can't do with Linux Mint, and failing to explain all the things you can do (which covers nearly all the average use-cases).

        I'm often sitting in the Firefox Browser on Mint and have to minimise the Window, to remember which OS I'm currently running. After 10 minutes you forget you're running Linux (other than the fact nothing has taken the context away from you, via a pointless MS Windows notification, as happens in Windows 8/10)

    3. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Ofcom - they love their stats, but completely miss the point.

      "Entanet's excuse"

      You get what you pay for.

      For £50/month I get unlimited data AND full speed at all times on 80/20, plus a UK helpdesk which more often than not is a techie, rather than a semi-literate half-trained simian (accents and locations vary, a chimp is a chimp whether in Yorkshire or Bangalore), along with the usual phone service and unlimited local calling, etc.

      Sure I could shave it down a bit by tweaking my packages but I like not having to worry about nastygrams for going over 2TB/month because something I host got popular (Yes, I'm allowed to host services too)

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