FTTC Speed Issues - Which? Campaign

[#1]

I just did a quick check
BT, Plusnet, TalkTalk, ID Net, Zen and Sky all say up to 76Mb/s and up to 38Mb's
From that I just don't believe that they are following the perceived advertising rules but are just making a theoretical calculation from the sync speed
The exception I found is Vivacity who say up to 80Mb/s http://www.vivaciti.net/fibre

[#2]

Question about the ADSL2+ speeds statistics claims:
Does it help boost the stats if you provision the long lines (with estimates under 4Mb/s) as ADSL1 "up to" 8Mb/s by default? And then those slower speeds won't be included in the "up to" 24Mb/s figures, even though the figures are apparently adjusted to even out the effects of line length?

[#3]

Quote from: Oldjim

I just had a look at the Capacity Issues thread and I didn't see anybody getting a 76Mb/s x6 speed result Going back to the sample size - where is the sample size for Plusnet stated I can't ask Plusnet anything as I am just an ordinary user with no special access any more

But that is Which's very point! "Of the broadband packages we analysed, we found three that failed to meet CAP and BCAP’s guidance". That includes the only two 76 Mb/s packages analysed, BT and Plusnet.
How and whether Plusnet or another ISP can prove they meet the guidance for 76 Mb/s we simply do not know. I can only give my guess as to how they have all come up with that figure, as already described. I don't think it is impossible to get 76 Mb/s on the right speed test with 80 sync personally, so who knows.
As to 76 referring to sync, you can always try asking Plusnet as an ordinary user, surely a customer has a right to ask what 76 refers to, sync or download throughput. Maybe even ask the ASA, they may give a simple email reply confirming what it should be. I think I have done enough to prove it should be download throughput, and I have no reason to ask the question myself. Think of wifi, 4G, VDSL - the whole point is huge discrepancies in data rate overheads like that should be removed when advertising.
The sample size is stated in the Which report (n=209 for Plusnet 76 Mb/s), along with 95% CIs (upper limit still 1%), consistent with my own analysis stated above. I really mean no offence by this, but maybe you should try reading the report? I don't agree with their ideas/campaign of advertising one bit, but the facts and data are pretty thorough. I think maybe you rushed to judgement and made too many false presumptions on that one, sorry.

[#4]

Since I don't subscribe to Which I can't
Why should I ask Plusnet - why don't you if you are so interested
In my post above I pointed out that virtually all the ISP's use the up to 76Mb/s which is a clear indication that they haven't done it via speed tests but by a calculation
If you read the link from the boss man at A&A you would see that he also seems to agree that the 10% refers to sync speed not speed test results

[#5]

You don't need to subscribe to Which, the report is freely available to download on the website.
There's no need to be rude, you first said ASA referred to download speed, then you changed your mind to sync speed, now you have changed it again to calculation of throughput from sync, so it seemed you were very interested in the matter and unsure about it. Sorry if you did not want to know direct from the source, then of course you don't need to ask.
That all ISPs use 76 Mb/s does not indicate to me they have no speed test evidence to back it up whatsoever. If they all have similar lines with identical sync, why wouldn't their top speed tests all be the same to a whole figure too. Probably they all copied one another ads too, safety in numbers.
I think your responses tell me all I need to know and that theres no point discussing further, have a good evening.

[#6]

Thank you for pointing out that the report is freely available - I have now accessed it and note the following
The major thrust is that customers buy on speed and that the up to is misleading
The problem here is that the costs to the ISP relate to the bandwidth used not the speed achieved within a specific product type and moving supplier - other than going to cable - isn't going to make any real difference specially as all suppliers now give an estimated range during the order process for the actual speeds expected which are sync speeds not speed test results
Regarding your comment about me changing my stance - I am sorry if I gave that impression but my stance has always been that ISP's do not have the capability to test the actual download speeds achieved by their individual customers
The only information available to the ISP is the sync or connection speed
In order to make any claim about speeds achieved by 10% of their customers they must be calculating back from the connection speed
It is interesting that the ASA guidance refers to attenuation on ADSL lines but completely ignores it on FTTC however that is a side issue
Going to the actual report -

Quote

The majority of broadband connections in the UK use Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology. 59% of broadband connections are ADSL2 or ADSL2+, while 7% operate on the most basic ADSL technology. The remaining 34% of consumers use more advanced broadband technology: 22% use Virgin Media’s cable lines, 12% use fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology, and 0.1% use fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP).

So only 12% are FTTC
From the numbers in the chart - Table 5 and using the numbers from BT and Plusnet the proportion of FTTC is 85% so there is no way that the sample size can be considered to be representative of the customer base
It must be assumed therefore that the sample was set up before fibre became widely available and so it is very unlikely that the sample is now representative when going down to an ISP level
Also the sample certainly isn't representative of market share with Plusnet having larger numbers than Sky or TalkTalk
It is my opinion - and you may certainly disagree - that the sample as created by OFCOM/SamKnows is rather useless when taken down to the individual ISP level and even without that qualification is certainly isn't structured to take into account the attenuation drop from the cab in FTTC and as such I seriously doubt that the sample is representive of the FTTC user base
With respect to Plusnet - just before the sample date the Plusnet fibre products were still all 80/20 with the lower product being capacity limited and I am sure that many users won't have spotted the new product range or, if they had, moved to it

[#7]

The highest individual FTTC max download speed in Ofcom's November 2014 panellist data was 75.6696. In that data, there are only 5 individuals with FTTC max speeds over 75, 3 BT, 1 Plusnet and 1 TalkTalk. 3 of those have upload speeds of 20.8 and one has 21.5, which ought to be impossible.
The Which report is just an analysis of the Ofcom November 2014 data.