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The Great 'Up To' Con
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mindsigh
Posts: 9 Forumite
When Telco’s first dipped their toes into broadband waters, they adopted the notorious phrase ‘UP TO’. It was not entirely a Bad Thing then. Now, it is a Bad Thing.
It was not a bad thing because telco’s could sell their wares traditionally (and legitimately,) like market traders have done for centuries. They could shout from the rooftops “Under twenty quid Gov,” and we all knew that meant nineteen pounds and ninety-nine pence. There are some valid technical reasons for the ‘up to’ claim. Members of this forum are familiar with terms like loss, attenuation, noise, and contention ratio etcetera and to some extent, sometimes to quite a large extent; these factors do affect their overall broadband experience.
However, we live in the twenty-first century. Barring a non repairable fault condition at the provider side or a fault with the customers wiring, installation, software or equipment it is possible, with some degree of certainty, to tell customers what speed they will achieve most of the time. At the very least it is possible to tell customers, based on factors that include their location, distance from the exchange and line quality that they will achieve, unforeseen and transient problems aside, broadband speeds between certain limits.
So why is ‘up to’ a Bad Thing now? It’s a Bad Thing because telco’s are using this slogan as a universal ‘get out of jail free card.’ It gives them a weapon to use on recalcitrant or non-profitable customers; it allows them to leave faults to go unattended to for weeks or months and best of all, from their point of view, it has legal implications that allow them to punish customers financially for deigning to suggest that they would like to move to another provider.
So providers hold all the cards and customers hold none. As providers increase their customer base they do so without investing proportionately in new equipment to cater for the extra pressure on their systems. Customers will inevitable be the losers. Worst of all, as customer base expands, so diminishes the need or inclination for providers to care about the individual problems of the very people that grew their empires for them. After all, if you’ve got two hundred million quid in your pocket, what matters it if one drops down the drain?
It is high time that customers took a stand against these scandalous and dishonest marketing tactics.
It was not a bad thing because telco’s could sell their wares traditionally (and legitimately,) like market traders have done for centuries. They could shout from the rooftops “Under twenty quid Gov,” and we all knew that meant nineteen pounds and ninety-nine pence. There are some valid technical reasons for the ‘up to’ claim. Members of this forum are familiar with terms like loss, attenuation, noise, and contention ratio etcetera and to some extent, sometimes to quite a large extent; these factors do affect their overall broadband experience.
However, we live in the twenty-first century. Barring a non repairable fault condition at the provider side or a fault with the customers wiring, installation, software or equipment it is possible, with some degree of certainty, to tell customers what speed they will achieve most of the time. At the very least it is possible to tell customers, based on factors that include their location, distance from the exchange and line quality that they will achieve, unforeseen and transient problems aside, broadband speeds between certain limits.
So why is ‘up to’ a Bad Thing now? It’s a Bad Thing because telco’s are using this slogan as a universal ‘get out of jail free card.’ It gives them a weapon to use on recalcitrant or non-profitable customers; it allows them to leave faults to go unattended to for weeks or months and best of all, from their point of view, it has legal implications that allow them to punish customers financially for deigning to suggest that they would like to move to another provider.
So providers hold all the cards and customers hold none. As providers increase their customer base they do so without investing proportionately in new equipment to cater for the extra pressure on their systems. Customers will inevitable be the losers. Worst of all, as customer base expands, so diminishes the need or inclination for providers to care about the individual problems of the very people that grew their empires for them. After all, if you’ve got two hundred million quid in your pocket, what matters it if one drops down the drain?
It is high time that customers took a stand against these scandalous and dishonest marketing tactics.
everything proves that nothing is certain.....
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What are you going on about?0
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Mindsigh, you're a bit late to the table with this. I'm sure you know that the up to thing is to do with signal quality, which degrades as the customer gets further away from the exchange, so the speed has to be lowered for reliability. So theoretically if 1 person lives next door to an exchange and gets 8mbps then they can easily say 'up to'. I personally don't see what else they can do. Go to the Channel 5 Gadget Show website http://fwd.five.tv/gadget-show as they have a petition about it somewhere...
HTH0 -
Mindsigh, you're a bit late to the table with this. I'm sure you know that the up to thing is to do with signal quality, which degrades as the customer gets further away from the exchange, so the speed has to be lowered for reliability. So theoretically if 1 person lives next door to an exchange and gets 8mbps then they can easily say 'up to'. I personally don't see what else they can do. Go to the Channel 5 Gadget Show website http://fwd.five.tv/gadget-show as they have a petition about it somewhere...
HTH
#almillar
Thank you for that link - will follow it and have a look....everything proves that nothing is certain.....0 -
If the clue was in the text I wouldn't be asking now would I. :rolleyes:
Get yourself a decent isp in the first place and most of the time you wont have any problems.
But you will notice that the text does NOT refer to any specific telco or ISP - Hint: "They're all the same under the skin."
everything proves that nothing is certain.....0 -
Advertising tactics is not new unfortunately, best advice you can give is just read everything through to ensure you know what you're purchasing.0
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moonrakerz wrote: »If you are several miles from the exchange he won't speed it up though !
That's not the isps fault thlough is it.
They don't provide you with the phone line that's down to bt.0
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