Irish broadband speeds regularly fail to meet expectations set by advertising and distance from the nearest telephone exchange is still a key determinant, writes MARIE BORAN
THE RANGE OF fixed and mobile broadband speeds on offer to the Irish customer is certainly wide and can be confusing – particularly when advertising doesn’t live up to the delivered service. Broadband providers regularly have their wings clipped by the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland; before Christmas it ruled that UPC could no longer make the absolute claim that it has “Ireland’s fastest broadband”.
The latest ComReg report from December last shows that the majority (73.2 per cent) of households are on connections (including mobile broadband) of between 2 and 9.99Mbps with a significant number (7.3 per cent) on less than 2Mbps.
Although this sounds discouraging, the number of customers on 10Mbps or over is rising significantly by the quarter. The report does not detail whether these percentages are due to constraints of availability on the part of the ISPs or factors such as affordability or convenience on the part of the end user.
When it comes to download speeds, however, what the individual end user experiences versus what is advertised as optimum, or “up to” speeds, can vary significantly. Most broadband providers agree that the speeds cannot always match up because there are several factors, including physical constraints, involved in the journey from the exchange to the laptop or smartphone at the other end.
While Magnet offers 100Mpbs in certain fibre-to-the-home estates around Ireland the top speed it offers on DSL through a standard phone line is 24Mpbs. Head of marketing and product management Joe Lavin explains that physical constraints, such as distance over copper wire, can affect speed.
“The speeds reduce as the user gets further from the exchange. Statistically, we find that over 50 per cent of our customers can get 13/14Mpbs or above. If you’re talking copper wire, someone very far from the exchange could be on 8Mpbs because of length, noise and interference.
“The technology steps down in a uniform way to establish a stable connection. You don’t want 24Mbps that drops every 10 seconds and then re-syncs, so it stabilises at a lower speed.”
Similarly Eircom offers up to 24Mbps to most customers while currently piloting a 150Mbps fibre connection in Dublin and Wexford. Elaine Robinson, director of product and strategy, also cites distance from the exchange as a key determinant in gauging actual speed: “If you live within 1.5km of the exchange we know we can offer the 24Mbps product. If you’re 2.5km we know 24Mbps won’t be possible.”
Robinson explains that there are also factors at the user end that contribute to speed: poorly configured user equipment, an old PC with an underpowered processor. Most significantly, having many connected devices – like tablets, laptops, gaming consoles and smartphones – on one connection will slow it down.
Latency is another speed factor. Conor Carmody, head of consumer marketing at Vodafone, defines it as “a measurement, expressed in milliseconds, for how long it takes a packet of data to travel from one area to another.”
He says the Vodafone network is “optimised” in terms of latency while Eircom’s Robinson says “latency isn’t really an issue for fixed broadband” and is more common with mobile or satellite connections. In other words, there shouldn’t be any discernible lag in connection; something that is critical to the online gamer as well as those streaming content. Customers on between 8Mpbs and 24Mpbs should have “a really good experience” with streaming movie service Netflix or other data heavy on-demand apps, adds Robinson.
UPC’s fibre power cable broadband is “not a distance-sensitive technology” says Orla Flynn, broadband and voice manager of UPC, and “unlike DSL technology, for example, there is not a fall-off in speed as a customer moves further from an exchange”.
She concedes, however, that there is a difference in speed between connecting wirelessly or directly: “You might see a slight reduction in your speed when you go wireless, compared with connecting directly via an Ethernet cable.”
When asked what advertised speed translates to, she said that UPC “proactively monitor the take-up of our broadband service to ensure there is sufficient capacity to cater for the number of customers and tiers of service they have at any point in time”. Similarly Eircom says that it measures the quality of its lines to ensure a consistent customer experience, as do Vodafone and Magnet.
Epitiro provides independent analysis of broadband speeds and carries out tests for organisations, including UK regulator Ofcom.
Philip Curneen, Epitiro’s Ireland development manager, says that broadband speed is composed of a number of things and its measurement is complex: “It operates differently depending on what you’re using it for and there are a number of key performance indicators including: latency, packet loss, ping times and DNS resolution.”
In 2008 Epitiro published a report, which found that Irish fixed line broadband consumers receive, on average, 60.2 per cent of the bandwidth speed advertised. Only two of the nine ISPs tested reached over 75 per cent of advertised speed. Curneen cannot say whether an updated report is in the works any time soon but notes that Epitiro is continually monitoring broadband speeds.
“Those who didn’t make top of list weren’t happy but it was well received and there has been some inroads made by the appropriate regulator,” he adds.
The broadband situation since 2008 has moved on: ComReg quarterly reports point to better speeds and operators are using independent verification. Vodafone, for example, was recently independently re-certified by Surecom2 as having the top mobile speeds on average.
He says of advertised “up to” speeds: “Broadband speed is a very technical issue and has to be defined in ways customers understand; it’s down to the individual and is defined by their experience in how they surf the internet.”
ASKING BROADBAND customers in the Twitterverse if it took notice of advertised speeds one commented that “most people assume that is what they are getting all the time”. Another added: “To be fair, I understand that evening time, speeds will slow down due to increased usage.”
This demonstrates a possible information gap that could be addressed with an ISP reporting their average customer connection speeds on an ongoing basis. This is something that the Government has pledged to tackle in its Programme for Government, published last year. “We will mandate the regulator to require all broadband providers to publish average speeds for each package,” it states, and there is also a promise to “introduce a new government rating system so that home owners and tenants can assess broadband facilities easily”.
A November 2011 report similarly advises that the Next Generation Broadband Taskforce should carry out a report of all current telecoms providers and come up with a coverage map of the main urban centres that details minimum upload and download speeds, latency and contention.
Ultimately, the goal is to let the end user know what service works best where they live. While all the major players offer some form of speed test on their websites, Epitiro has a downloadable one at isposure.comthat does a comparison of all ISPs in your area to get a true measure of speed.
