Ofcom Faces Backlash For Broadband Criticism

Analysts and industry insiders have responded to the publication of an Ofcom report this week, which criticised broadband service providers for not delivering the speeds promised to consumers.

The Ofcom report released earlier this week praised infrastructure providers for a 25 percent increase in the speed of the average actual fixed-line residential connection. But the bulk of the watchdog’s latest report was focused on criticising operators – mainly those providing broadband over copper infrastructure – for not delivering services as advertised.

Information from BT

Responding to the criticism, the boss of one of the UK’s leading ISPs, TalkTalk, said that the claims levelled by Ofcom were unfair. In a blog posting, TalkTalk’s chairman Charles Dunstone argued that Ofcom could be doing more to push BT – as the operator of the copper infrastructure – to improve maintenance of the lines and its communication with fellow service providers.

“We think there is more Ofcom could be doing to improve the flow of information from BT about what speeds can technically be achieved on its network, as well as getting it to improve the quality of the lines,” said Dunstone. “The reality is that when the BT network was built no one had ever dreamed of broadband, so we are all trying to run a 21st century technology over a network that was designed for making phone calls.”

Another industry source told eWEEK Europe UK that a lot of the criticism was merely posturing on Ofcom’s part, and that the regulator was well aware of the limitations of copper infrastructure. “They know the limits of broadband and the situation we’re in but want to look tough,” the insider said. “We don’t know how good your line is until we take it over so we apply a formula based upon distance from the exchange.”

However, the insider did admit that some service providers only signed-up those consumers who could be guaranteed a good service in order to improve average speed claims. “The stats related to the different providers are also misleading. Some ISPs are very selective about which customers they take on, i.e. only those quite near exchanges. That makes their average speed look great, but chances are if the customer moved to another ISP, it might be just as quick due to the quality of the connection.”

Analysts have also questioned the speed issues raised by Ofcom. Telecoms analyst Ovum released a statement this week which said the issue basically came down to the timetable for replacing copper with fibre across the UK. “The only real long-term solution will be an upgrading of the physical infrastructure – i.e. replacing the old copper with new fibre lines,” said Matthew Howett, senior analyst at Ovum.

Superfast Broadband

However, Howett admitted that this would require investment and even government subsidies – an issue which the coalition government has been discussing recently. “The problem will be the cost and uncertainly over the willingness of customers to pay for these upgrades. Already some significant investments are being made, but there will be some areas of the UK that will not be able to benefit from superfast broadband and so will look to the government to subsidise – something which has been hotly debated for the last few years, yet on which little consensus has emerged.”

On the 15 July, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced that the government’s plan to roll out 2Mbps broadband to all British homes by 2012 has been delayed – till 2015. Hunt blamed the previous government for setting a target that could not be met with the resources available.

Earlier this month, BT Openreach announced it is to restart its fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) trials, with the UK carrier rolling out fibre trials in two telephone exchanges initially, namely Bradwell Abbey in Milton Keynes, and then in Highams Park in North London.

The Ofcom report is not the only broadband issue that TalkTalk has been embroiled in. The company also admitted this week to monitoring the online activity of its customers without their consent.