We received over 2,400 responses to the poll, which closely matches the response level in 2009, allowing us to compare the two results quite well. The two results are surprisingly similar, with a small shift towards faster speeds after a three year gap. The current Universal Service Commitment target from the UK government still sits at 2 Mbps, significantly below the speeds which respondents told us they would expect as a minimum. The suggestion is therefore that the public expectation for broadband is still vastly different from the goals the government has set. In fact, the expectations are more in line with the European Union plans for 2020.

To get some idea of how realistic users were being, we also asked those voting how much extra they would pay for a service that would double their speeds. The response suggests there the public has become used to speed upgrades that come at almost no extra cost. For example, the similarity in pricing for BT Retail’s ADSL2+ and FTTC products via its BT Total and BT Infinity brands. The major competitors to BT Retail, as in TalkTalk and Sky are charging more for their fibre services—£10 to £30 extra per month.

While 35% are looking for a better service at the same price, the number of people willing to pay a reasonable level of premium offers some encouragement to investors, particularly for those services that may be able to operate in the more rural parts of the UK at speeds exceeding the USC level.  We are expecting that fixed wireless operators in particular are going to try and be aggressive in service roll-out to areas where they are guessing local authorities will rely on slower options like BET (Openreach Broadband Extension Technology that can just about provide 2 Mbps). The Service Exchange Platform from Fluidata may even allow some fixed wireless providers to sub-contract their service to these hard-to-reach areas, as a key requirement of the local authority projects is that wholesale access be available.

While not everyone is willing to change provider, a massive three quarters have shown a willingness to switch provider if it met their desired speed. This suggests very much that who ever wins the race to be first to an area with a product that meets residents’ speed and price point expectations may be able to grab a large share of the market.

There are another three years before the 2 Meg USC comes into effect, and based on current progress we not likely to see service availability in any areas until mid 2013, with the bulk of work for both the final third and USC being rushed through at the end of 2014. The scoring system proposed means the Government is 99.9% sure now of being able to pat itself on the back in 2015, unless projects suffer total failure, but it is likely to be a hollow victory, with work on the next level of upgrades having to get underway almost immediately.

The EU target of 30 Mbps for all in 2020 appears to have driven the BDUK to update the target for UK broadband projects from 24 Mbps to 30 Mbps. Alas the BDUK section on the DCMS website is appallingly out of date with regards to news and still lists 24 Mbps in its glossary. Whilst no-one wants £10,000′s wasted on a pretty website, tasking one civil servant to update the site weekly should not be beyond the abilities of the BDUK team.

Ofcom is making moves to try and reduce the level of slamming that goes on in the UK, and we thought that with around a year to before any telephone and switching rules come into effect that now was the right time to gather baseline data, so that we can judge how effective the changes by Ofcom are once in place. The results of the poll which received 1091 responses reveal that while the vast majority have not been slammed in the last three years, for those that have, over half did not have their original service restored.

Looking at just those that have been slammed, the poll indicates that some 52.5% of those slammed, never got their original services back. In the face of the large number who have never been slammed, the numbers may look small, but when you consider there are around 25 million telephone lines in the UK, this survey suggests some 1.65 million lines have had their broadband or telephone switched and did not get it restored.

The situation should have improved in the last few years, hence we restricted two questions to asking about peoples experience in that timeframe, and this reveals that a smaller number (8.3%)  have had own service or someone they know service slammed.

Restricting the slamming to purely personal experience lowers the figures even more to 3.9%. Which while small, still represents a week or two of having to chase providers, and in some cases no internet access at all with all the corresponding hassles.

Once Ofcom implements a new telephone and broadband switching regime we will run the poll again, and see if there has been any impact. One thing Ofcom could do now, was to rule that no telephone or broadband provider is allowed to transfer a service based on door step sales, as the anecdotal evidence over the years from those who have been slammed is that this area, just as with the power industry is where most abuse occurs.

Of course it is possible that visitors to thinkbroadband are more savvy that the average consumer, and are more adept at avoiding slamming.

A major reason behind the UK coverage is that UK speeds have slipped from 5.1 Mbps to 4.9 Mbps, but the amount of questioning over whether this drop is statistically significant is almost so small it is invisible. While we can be confident that Akamai will have ensured that any platform issues will not have affected the results, we cannot be sure that perhaps due to poor peering from one major provider that this has not skewed the results. My thinking is that O2/Be customers appear to currently have internet issues with peering bandwidth to the BBC iPlayer, which with its use of Akamai might be enough to skew the results, and this has been on-going for some months.

Interestingly some are looking at the 91% of those from the UK using an Akamai service grab the data at 2 Mbps or faster as showing the 2 Mbps USC plans are on track. Correct me if I am wrong, but apart from grants in Wales, there has not been any significant progress on USC policy implementation. The 91% figure is roughly in line with what one expects from ADSL speed wise across the UK, so fingers crossed no politicians try to use the figure for gain, otherwise it will be egg on face time.

At the end of the day, many millions of people in the UK have made a decision not to buy the fastest broadband connection available to them, settling for a cheaper solution that meets their needs. Take-up of the FTTC and FTTP products from Openreach appears to be increasing as it is available more widely, which mirrors the pattern of ADSL roll-outs, which until they hit a critical mass was very much the domain of the geek.

There is a salient lesson to be learnt from the Akamai data, the nation the cheerleaders want us to emulate is South Korea, but their average even in a City is 21.7 Mbps. Given the apparent widespread availability of 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps networks we are frequently told are the best thing since sliced bread this average looks very low. Imagine the uproar if a provider in the UK released a 1 Gbps product, and the average speed was just 22 Mbps. 

We ran the poll for seven days and attracted over 1,400 responses when we asked people to tell us about their film and TV viewing habits. We asked three questions to see whether Internet streamed films and TV were taking over from traditional broadcast TV, cinema and DVD releases. Based on the responses to the poll, it seems clear to us that while streamed media is popular (watched by 65% of respondents) we have as a nation not replaced our old viewing habits totally.

The most popular time of viewing is spread very well over what is most of our leisure time in the evenings, with 18% managing to view 4 or more hours of TV a day, the peak is in the one to two hour viewing window at 15%. One could say that the pattern fits nicely with most people owning a TV in the living room, and simply switching it on and watching what ever is on.

The red columns reveal a very different spread for Internet based TV viewing, with a distinct peak in the under one hour slot of 42%. Given that almost every film produced is longer than an hour, while the average TV show is under an hour, it suggests that people are using Internet TV as a catch-up tool, rather than the primary source for watching 90 minute films. Part of this may be down to the quality of streamed content, which in many cases is only around what you can get from a DVD, and while HD material is available, very little of it approaches the the quality level of the digital TV HD channels (Freeview, FreeSat and Sky HD) which generally run at around 9 to 13 Mbps  (Mega bits per second) with relatively good codecs.

The big surprise for us, was what everyone is watching Internet TV on, the desktop computer and laptop still reign supreme accounting for 51% of the devices used. Mobile phones with their small screens barely register, tablets which share the same operating systems (iOS and Android) fare a lot better we presume mainly due to the reasonable size of the display. Sky Anytime+ which has only recently had its restriction lifted to allow it to be used on any broadband provider seems popular as a source of content in its own right.

The next big hope of the TV industry features well, as the third most popular device, whether this will rise as more people buy the sets is unclear. For the non-geek household Internet enabled TVs should offer a simpler interface, as it is a one remote situation, rather than having to juggle multiple remotes, the biggest hurdle is getting people to connect their TV to their broadband we suspect. The high cost of manufacturer sourced wireless dongles for TVs is not helping, and for many people wireless will prove inadequate speed wise. Certainly for moving a broadband connection around a property, it is still hard to beat an Ethernet cable for speed and reliability.

While many may suggest that the UK has slow broadband speeds, and that is the reason why TV viewing is much higher over broadband, we don’t think that this is a significant factor. While being one of the roughly 10% who can only get fixed line broadband at speeds of under 2 Mbps is very annoying, this speed should still allow basic video streaming of SD (standard definition) content, if someone on a 2 Mbps service cannot for example stream a low quality iPlayer video, then the solution may not involve spending a fortune on faster technology, but simply finding a broadband provider who provides a better service at peak times. Where video streaming and slower connections becomes a real struggle, is when two or more people are competing to use a connection in a home, and it is the ability of the 30 Mbps and faster services to support gaming, web browsing and Internet TV at the same time that is the main visible driver of uptake at this time.

Looking at how many people use the provider-supplied email service, reveals that a massive two-thirds do not. The reasons for this will be very varied but from our experiences on our forums, after people have switched broadband provider once or twice, they learn that changing email address is troublesome, so many will opt for services like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and the myriad of other web based services. One recommendation often made to users, especially sole traders and small businesses is to acquire their own domain name and mail hosting provider as this is quite cheap these days and helps to provide a more professional appearance.

Encryption of email is back in the public consciousness from the reports of the new survelliance law that may be in the Queen’s Speech, that will build on the previous RIPA survelliance giving bodies like GCHQ access to live feeds of data from providers, rather than the retrospective logs that RIPA generally gives. The result is somewhat surprising and suggests more that users connect to their e-mail provider using a secure connection, but it is important to note that this doesn’t encrypt the information which the current government is looking to get access to—namely who is communicating with whom and at what times; this is still usually sent unencrypted between mail servers, and consumers are unlikely to have control over it. It is therefore important to recognise that the above adoption of encryption would not in its current form be sufficient to protect your data, unless both e-mail servers were based outside the U.K.

We were quite surprised by these results with 43% of respondents claiming not to use public Wi-Fi. This may be due to the widespread adoption of 3G with more favourable data usage allowances, although free Wi-Fi is still a safe bet in cost terms for anyone going abroad where 3G data charges can be quite significant.

Most Wi-Fi hotspots run without any encryption at all, so security is important. Major websites such as Google and Facebook will require you to login via an HTTPS page, but many others do not require or support it, and our own thinkbroadband site is a case in point. There is an increasing awareness of problems associated with unencrypted networks, but there is still quite some way to go before you can be certain that your web browsing at the local coffee shop is actually secure. Most non-business users simply have not considered a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service important.

Of course someone knowing you are browsing the Amazon website to check the price of something you saw on sale at what looked to be a great price is one thing, but without you may find that you give a lot more information away to people as many online shops only encrypt their credit card and login pages.

Some hotspot providers do provide a secure VPN option (e.g. BT Openzone offer a free Cisco VPN option for hotspot users). If your company has people who travel regularly and use hotspots then perhaps running a VPN over the company broadband connection is something that should be investigated, although we would urge companies to ensure they get technical advice before setting up a system that may in itself open up more security problems.

The widespread use of hardware consumers have sourced from third party vendors reflects what we see on our own forums; users often experiment to find which ADSL/ADSL2+ modem gives the best performance for their telephone line.  Two years ago we suspect the proportion using their own hardware would have been even higher, but the last couple of years has seen providers improve the default hardware, moving away from under powered low-cost hardware to better specified devices.

Looking at how much users tell us they’ve spent on broadband hardware (including routers, modems, wireless access points/homeplugs and mobile dongles), most users (58%) told us they had not purchased any equipment in the past twelve months, which given 54% are using the hardware from their broadband provider is to be expected. There is no obvious peak in terms of how much users spend on hardware, which we suspect means users are upgrading various parts as their circumstances change (e.g. buying a new set of homeplug adaptors one year, upgrading a router the next, etc.

We will repeat the poll next year to see how the broadband hardware market may be changing. The rise of FTTC and FTTP products where both a modem and router are supplied for free may mean more people simply stick with the supplied hardware.

Broadband operators in some other countries supply a basic modem that acts as a bridge supplying the IP address to a router or computer which manages the connection whilst, the UK has traditionally used combined modem/router devices which has created a vibrant retail market. If you are considering selling your old router on eBay, don’t forget to make sure the settings are deleted, and also check that you actually own the router, as some providers may provide it to you on loan during the service. Also note that many broadband providers will only assist you in troubleshooting faults if you use the hardware they provide.

The article also claims that BT are ignoring the 40 hour repair timescale agreed, and have quoted two months to fix the problem. According AAISP, BT Wholesale may be in danger of ignoring rural broadband customers’ needs in favour of more urban upgrades.

“Our main concern is that BT are just not putting in resources to provide the existing 20CN services properly”

Rev. Adrian Kennard, director of AAISP.

The article goes on to assure any AAISP customers suffering from hot VPs that they are doing everything they can to push BT Wholesale in to action sooner rather than later.

Hayley Mitchell

My alarm goes off in the morning, and the first thing I do (I mean the very first, before everything else) is check my emails. Not because I’m a workaholic, just ask my Boss, but because I like to know what I’ve missed and what’s gone on while I’ve been getting my beauty sleep. The second is check Facebook, so I know I haven’t missed any birthdays, anniversaries, parties etc. Once I’ve rolled out of bed and in to some clothes it’s off to work where I will spend the next eight hours in front of a computer. When I get home, the laptop is never far from me.

So why do I use the Internet for around 12 hours a day? I’m not entirely sure where my need to be connected for over half the day comes from. It would be fair to say I get a little annoyed when I can’t connect to Wi-Fi or 3G on my phone has dropped to what can only be described as 0.5G.

So this weeks experiment is for me to not use the Internet, except for work e-mails. I will even ask a coworker to post my blogs so you can see how I’m getting on.  It will finish next Tuesday afternoon if I haven’t cracked under the pressure by then I’m hoping to find out where my need for the Internet in such large volumes comes from, and if I can cope without it.

Hayley

It would be generous for me to say that I didn’t excel in ICT at school. It’s unsurprising that I wasn’t interested in creating an Excel spreadsheet for a fabricated bookshop. Try as hard as he could, my ICT teacher couldn’t inspire me (or the rest of the class) with the resources and curriculum bestowed to him. The problem is technology is moving too fast for the government’s education plan to keep up. If all children have to do is input data from out-dated software packages that will never be used again then of course they’re not going to be inspired to do coursework, get good grades or prepare themselves for the modern workplace.

The beauty of the Raspberry Pi for me is the potential to make ICT interesting for kids. It’s so flexible and user-friendly; it’s a great project straight away without boring students into comas. Would I have been interested in programming as teen? Maybe, or maybe not. Would I have been tempted if offered a soldering iron? Absolutely!

Call me crazy but giving a pupil a toy with endless possibilities must be better than asking them to do a PowerPoint presentation on the migration of the Chaffinch. Food for thought…

Hayley

But these results show there are many out there who believe this not to be the case. In fact, as you can see the percentage of people using Facebook has actually decreased by 2%. This statistic may have something to do with the average age range of those using our website not being best known for their love of social media. By contrast the number of people using Twitter has doubled, perhaps a sign of a change in what people are looking for from their social media websites. Although both Twitter and Facebook have flourished on the principle that people are looking to share things with others on the web, their different formats and styles have set them apart from each other. Those who use both will understand that although the basic idea is the same, how they have gone about it is very different.

The polls also show a huge climb in the number of people using social media sites on their mobile devices; maybe the idea of ‘Apps’ is growing on people.

Hayley