Megabit rates might be a neat way for customers to compare deals when they’re out shopping for broadband. But once they’ve made their choice, a recent third party report says that their satisfaction isn’t dented significantly if the speed doesn’t always measure up exactly to the one advertised. That is, as long as their favourite applications always perform well.
This is one of the key findings of technology industry commentators Analysys Mason. When they surveyed attitudes in the broadband marketplace* last summer, they found that UK consumers increasingly understand that the maximum speed they’re going to get depends on factors beyond their Provider’s control – such as how far their home is from the exchange and how many of their neighbours are online when they are.
But what’s critical for them is the confidence that their service will work satisfactorily with the many different applications they want to use from day to day. And, as Analysys Mason say – “for many Internet applications, 3.6Mbit/s (the average speed reported in Ofcom’s January 2009 report) provides a perfectly reasonable user experience for contemporary applications”.
In that report** Ofcom also acknowledged that broadband speed is an important indicator – particularly to help customers decide what meets their needs as well as their budget. But they also added that “download speed is only one of many factors which affect performance” and that Providers also need to consider “upload speeds, latency, packet loss, DNS and jitter” in order to keep pace with the growth of bandwidth-hungry apps – such as IPTV – and to keep their customers satisfied.
And at BT Wholesale we’re working on a number of product developments and technology initiatives to help you deliver what the fast-evolving, mixed economy marketplace is looking for. In combination with the choice of 21CN-based and 21CN-ready broadband services we offer, they can put you in an even better position to tailor – and differentiate – your broadband services simply and cost effectively to meet niche customer needs. In addition to the introduction of a fibre broadband service into the WBC portfolio, here are two examples of what we currently have in progress for scheduled launch this year:
Improving upstream rates
We’re developing Annex M: a broadband variant that can equip you to offer your customers more choice by being able to trade downstream bandwidth to boost their upstream rates. It’s an option that small and midsize businesses will find attractive for faster data transfers and IP-VPN voice services.
Reducing jitter
We’re also working on ‘Real-Time QoS’ to support your customers’ time-critical applications such as gaming, voice, videoconferencing and – looking to the future – their High Definition equivalents. Real-Time QoS will give you the option of quality assurance levels – such as near zero packet loss and very low latency and jitter – on a service level agreement (SLA) basis.
* Source: The Connected Consumer: a survey of telecoms and media usage (Analysys Mason, November 2009: www.analysysmason.com)
** Source: UK Broadband Speeds 2008 (Ofcom, January 2009)
Read about Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) – our 21st Century Network broadband solution – here.
Want to enter the broadband market? Read about one of our fully managed pay-as-you-grow solutions – BT Plusnet Partner – here.
Or talk to your account management team.
