HOWZAT

Big brand names carry no guarantee of quality; quite the opposite, in fact. Which? reported earlier this month that only one-third of BT’s customers, a quarter of AOL’s and one-fifth of NTL’s — the UK’s largest broadband ISP — said they were “very satisfied” with the service they received.

DEFLATING THE MYTH OF ‘FREE’ BROADBAND

Del Boy would be proud of the spiel unleashed this year for services bundled like buy-one-get-one-free promotions. The ISP TalkTalk offers “free” high-speed broadband — once you’ve signed up for one of its telephone plans. Orange offers a “free” broadband connection — to its lucrative mobile-phone subscribers. Sky’s recently launched Base broadband service is “free” — if you subscribe to one of its television packages.

Even specialist ISPs such as PlusNet and Pipex bundle in telephone deals, as does the Total Broadband package from BT, trumpeted as including £370 worth of extras, chief among them a fancy wireless router and telephone handset.

Such offers are certainly appealing. Yet Which? magazine says that, despite the claims, “there’s no such thing as free broadband”. When TalkTalk originally promised “free broadband for ever” to customers who signed up for its Talk3 International plan, the broadband proved “free” only when you signed up for 18 months at £21 per month and paid a £30 connection fee. TalkTalk has been forced to change the terms of its offers after consumers complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

“There are bargains to be found, but there’s a lot of confusion,” says Ceri Stanaway, a senior researcher at Which?. “ISPs could be much more transparent about the catches. With Orange, the cap is quite low (2GB), so you’re not really getting much capacity.” This “cap” means that you may transfer only 2GB of data each month — or face being moved to a more expensive tariff.

PERFORMANCE YOU CAN’T COUNT ON

When you go shopping for broadband, value for money is only part of a ridiculously complex calculation. Performance itself requires a leap of faith. What scant information is available about download speeds is tightly guarded by the industry and couched in half-truths. Headline broadband speeds are described as “up to” 8 megs, a ludicrous term sanctioned by the ASA yet utterly without meaning when, for example, you ask Ian Livingston, the head of retail at BT, what speed you actually receive.

BT (which supplies wholesale broadband to most ISPs) boasts “up to” 8 megs for its new Max service. Yet Livingstone admitted to Doors this spring that only four out of 10 subscribers will enjoy speeds of 6 megs, while some connections could run as slowly as 256kbps, which Doors believes should not count as broadband. BT last week upped its 6-meg claim to six out of 10 subscribers.

On its Retail website, BT now displays an admirably frank disclaimer describing the many vicissitudes of ADSL (the technology that sends digital data over the UK’s crusty old copper phone lines). Zen, an award-winning small ISP, also concedes on its website that “it is likely that speeds no greater than 2 megs will be achieved at peak usage times”. Nevertheless, the whole industry continues with misleading advertising that dangles the carrot of “up to” 8 mystical megs.

The ASA’s broadband press officer, Matt Wilson, seemed unaware that, for technical reasons, no “up to 8 Mbps” claim can be fulfilled: “If some people can get 8Mbps, then it’s fair to advertise that service as up to 8Mbps.” He insisted that the ASA’s role was to keep advertising truthful: “Performance issues are for Ofcom.” And Ofcom’s response? “If people are unhappy... they should contact the ASA.” Talk about passing the buck.

Although you can consult a checker at www.bt.com/broadband to assess the likely connection speed your phone line can deliver, the result is described merely as “indicative”. You can never know exactly what rate you will enjoy until after signing a contract — for 12 months, in most cases, and 18 months in, say, TalkTalk’s.

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