Ofcom gives customers more rights to quit from slow ISPs

[HEXUS]

New Code of Practice on broadband speeds extends walk-away period to full contract.

Read more.

[mtyson]

Ofcom has just put out another news release. The highlight of this one is that from 1st July "landline and mobile charges will become clearer for calls to numbers starting 084, 087, 09 and 118, while Freephone will become free from mobiles." Read more here.

[jag272]

This is good news, will hopefully give a bit of extra leverage to get KC to fix my coppers too, I've been suffering with dropouts and slightly below predicted speeds for quite a while now, usually a complaint to their customer services makes the issue vanish for 2/3 months (what a strange coincidence huh) but with any luck this will force them to actually fix the line.

Or maybe instead of fixing the coppers they'll roll me out some lovely fiber, that might be pushing it though.

[phili_c51]

Excellent Move, although some of the time I know that the problem can be contributed to the technical support teams not doing what they should, weather they have certain quotas, or since half are based overseas that there is a communication barrier.
I must say BT have been excellent: My lines rating was 58-70 Mbps, of which I was receiving 65 (well within what they said to expect). I called them and asked if there was any chance to try and make it higher....one router reboot later and I have been on 78Mbps since.

[dturtill]

This is good news, will hopefully give a bit of extra leverage to get KC to fix my coppers too, I've been suffering with dropouts and slightly below predicted speeds for quite a while now, usually a complaint to their customer services makes the issue vanish for 2/3 months (what a strange coincidence huh) but with any luck this will force them to actually fix the line.

Or maybe instead of fixing the coppers they'll roll me out some lovely fiber, that might be pushing it though.

KC roll out fibre, dont make me laugh been waiting for 3 years now and it seems to have all been business areas only

[shaithis]

Oh well, prices going up then......

I do like the move as it will help people who have made a bad decision, it's just a shame that without a full lock-in, I can only see us being charged more.....or at the very least, free installs will start to disappear.

[phili_c51]

Oh well, prices going up then......

I do like the move as it will help people who have made a bad decision, it's just a shame that without a full lock-in, I can only see us being charged more.....or at the very least, free installs will start to disappear.

Customers are still tied in; this is just a get out clause if the speeds being received are under what they were told they would get at the point of sale

[satrow]

Or maybe instead of fixing the coppers they'll roll me out some lovely fiber, that might be pushing it though.

Maybe they should force Openreach should remove all aluminium and fit copper - FTTC here, somewhere in the 1200m from the cab there's ~500m of aluminium, effectively reducing the line speed by ~55%, applicable to hundreds of subscribers/potential subscribers on the wrong side of the Cu/Au junction.

[Chadders87]

How will they define slow connection speeds? Less than advertised, or a set mb/s rate?

... while Freephone will become free from mobiles." [/I]Read more here.

I got a message from O2 the other day telling about this. And the fact they will charge me 25p per minute as an "access charge".
Edit: Apparently this is only 084, 087, 09 numbers. O2 just skipped telling me 0800 will become free to use.

[Ttaskmaster]

Useless for me, I'm afraid - I really do get the 0.5Mbps that BT claim I would get and if I wanted to quit, their only question would be, "Who are you going to quit to? We're the only ones supplying your area, matey...".

[LSG501]

Maybe it's me but isn't this just working around the real issue... BT (they're basically the core of our telephone network and supply a large proportion of broadband connections) have had I don't know how many years and additional funds to upgrade our core infrastructure to support these high bandwidth connections. Yet there are still people unable to get what most of us would class as the bare minimum broadband (if at all) not to mention issues with contention in other areas.

Maybe OFCOM could set targets for BT to ensure we don't have these slow speed issues....it would also be useful if they defined what slow speed is (can't see it mentioned anywhere) because to BT your broadband only has issues if it's at about 1/10th of your sync speed.

And lol at the mobile 'fees' being clearer, all they've done (in my case) is stick a 'connection charge' on top of the premium rate numbers. At least 0800 is free now lol. I'd never use a mobile for premium rate numbers (which should be banned in my opinion)

Now how about getting on top of slow speeds/lack of signal on mobile phones, pretty much all of Norfolk is a deadspot for 3G+ data with vodafone. I've got to use their signal as the other's have issues with telephone calls strength and in some areas data too... it's Norfolk not the middle of the sahara desert. Oh wait we have femto cells (or the new wifi apps...yeah thats just voip) where we can pay our mobile networks to use our/public broadband connection (yeah I love paying twice) to make a mobile call.... assuming we have a decent broadband connection lol

[shaithis]

Maybe it's me but isn't this just working around the real issue... BT (they're basically the core of our telephone network and supply a large proportion of broadband connections) have had I don't know how many years and additional funds to upgrade our core infrastructure to support these high bandwidth connections. Yet there are still people unable to get what most of us would class as the bare minimum broadband (if at all) not to mention issues with contention in other areas.

Maybe OFCOM could set targets for BT to ensure we don't have these slow speed issues....it would also be useful if they defined what slow speed is (can't see it mentioned anywhere) because to BT your broadband only has issues if it's at about 1/10th of your sync speed.

AFAIC, the main problem is not BT. It is cheap and cheerful ISPs who oversubscribe and have their kit running at full capacity and then need to packetshape and throttle to keep their customers surfing.

At least VM customers will have an out when VM decide not to upgrade an area until it reaches a critical point.

[LSG501]

AFAIC, the main problem is not BT. It is cheap and cheerful ISPs who oversubscribe and have their kit running at full capacity and then need to packetshape and throttle to keep their customers surfing.

some of it is this but there is an issue with BT as well, there was a report about a month ago how our current infrastructure is going to hit it's physical limit for connections etc. Some areas already see this with contention. Some areas don't even have fibre yet (I've only just got it here where I live) so they have even greater issues with capacity/speeds etc than those on fibre.

You could also argue that the sell it cheap/pile companies (usually they lease out bandwidth/hardware from bt/entanet etc) are being allowed to do this by their suppliers (BT/entanet etc) instead of requiring them to fulfil certain connection requirements on capacity/speed for customers so that they don't see slowdowns. I'm with a small supplier and they don't throttle or block ports (honestly I get max throughput 100% of the time) so it is possible to do.

[jag272]

KC roll out fibre, dont make me laugh been waiting for 3 years now and it seems to have all been business areas only

Indeed, KC haven't rolled out any fibre here where I live yet, BT set some up in the industrial estate but have now changed the town's status over to investigating options or something like that, basically saying they have no plans to roll it out here. Seems they're still a little scared to put their whole foot in the water even though KC isn't as prominent as it used to be from what I hear.

My business mind says surely thats a great opportunity, what better way to break KC further than by offering fibre while KC is messing everyone in the area about but apparently not.

[aniilv]

ofcom, before you I payed 5p/min to any 0845 etc premium phone number (on three.co.uk) But now from 1st of july it's possibly going to be 50p/min (minimum is going to be 30p/min) just to arrange children ride tickets!?! Thanks ofcom, but no thanks

[Lorcaran]

They need to do something about the cessation fees that BT and other companies enforce. £30 just to cancel your broadband and I am not in contract either.