I have heard a mix of questions regarding mobile broadband, normally about reliability and also the speed from providers, just this weekend I met a lady who wanted to be able to contact friends via email and to search for old friends online, she didn’t really know much about the how’s of the Internet world so she was talked in to a mobile broadband package with a FREE laptop, she signed up to an 18 month contract, unfortunately unless she walks to the front gate and places her laptop on the fence she cannot go online, she has not been able to use the services at all and still has 6 months to run, she was advised by the supplier to use the laptop somewhere higher, which is difficult in a ground floor flat she said, she has not received any further help and the provider has ignored her letters so sh
e gave up and looked for something to run along side the contract so she could at least get online.
As she has a telephone and TV package with Virgin she decided use the FREE laptop that actually cost her £630! and bolted on the Broadband service from Virgin for about £8 a month, should she have checked signal before signing up or should they give her a part refund for not being able to use the service?
Regarding the speed question people often have Broadband Genie editor Chris Marling commented on the findings from Ofcom “The results of the Ofcom Report on fixed-line broadband speed largely back the results we found (from our speed tests) covering the same period, at least in terms of ISP performance: our Q1 results, released in May when they were more relevant, also put Virgin Media ahead of a pack led by O2, with PlusNet, Sky and TalkTalk not too far behind.
“But believe it or not the Ofcom results actually paste a rosy picture. People may be disappointed to see an average ‘real broadband speed’ of less than half the ‘up to’ speed advertised by the ISPs, but in truth what the consumer experiences is even worse. These tests are quite pure, showing speeds at a customer’s router, so do not take into account further slowdown from Wi-Fi connections, PC issues and so on. Comparing the Ofcom results to our own, we estimate the actual speed customers get to work with is often between 50 and 75 per cent of that quoted here – that could be 1-2Mb slower.
“We would agree with BT that releasing such old data doesn’t paint a fair reflection of current events, as it begins to roll out broadband on ADSL2+ that is potentially up to three times faster than its old 8Mb ADSL lines. However, it is hard to disagree with Virgin Media’s conclusion that ‘up to’ speeds quoted by ISPs running on BT’s copper network cannot be trusted. We can only hope that Ofcom’s decision to release this data, however late it may be, will force the ISPs into offering a more realistic sales pitch to consumers looking for broadband.”
