MyBroadband Definition of a Consumer Broadband Service

[ic]

I have decided to inject all of us MyADSL members with some consumer power, so I am kickstarting this thread, in the hopes that together we can define our own term like (or similar to) "Consumer Broadband", i.e. what does the consumer believe broadband actually is, what does the consumer not consider to be a broadband service, what are the criteria etc etc etc.

Please post your ideas on this thread, and we will then nail the likes of Sentech & Telkomonopoly thrusting adverts down our throats of broadband this & that.

First step: just state what you believe broadband is from your (consumer) point of view.

I believe it is an Internet Connectivity Service that has the potential to always be connected (i.e. allowing for some consumer defined acceptable level of downtime from the Service Provider's side), the service is offered at a fixed monthly subscription, and has a speed that is at least 512Kb(its)ps (minimum). Provision of such a service must have a minimum guaranteed Service Level, as defined by a Service Level Agreement between Consumer & Service Provider.

[Luke7777]

Within a package and its limits, the usage thereof is at the consumer's descression.

[kaspaas]

>I believe it is an Internet Connectivity Service that has the potential to always be connected (i.e. allowing for some consumer defined acceptable level of downtime from the Service Provider's side),

Disagree - Broadband has to be available on request

>the service is offered at a fixed monthly subscription,

Agreed

>and has a speed that is at least 512Kb(its)ps (minimum).

???? - I don't know - would rather stick this to a speed def of what is available in say Australia or India. This figure will double elsehere in the world every 6 months for now most probably, and halve in South Africa.


>Provision of such a service must have a minimum guaranteed Service Level, as defined by a Service Level Agreement between Consumer & Service Provider.

Yes - included must be a standardised test against which a consumer can test if he gets what he pays for.


Add: Sufficient total usage limits to allow for sensible usage at max speeds. 3GB is around 17 hours of download time at 512kbs. This is an indication of how little thought went into setting the cap limits.

[stoke]

My definition of a band is a dialup. A broadband is more than one dialup. Far too simple though.

The usual definition of a broadband in some way or other speaks of an allocation of "data space" in two directions simultaneously as one band, and broadband is multiples of these PER USER. If it's not multiples per user, then it's not broadband.

i.e. more than one bi-directional channel.

So - by my definition, fibre is not broadband. So my definition sucks.

[antowan]

I am of the belief that BROADBAND should at least include the ability to carry good quality video and music on demand. We do not have any such providers in SA, which is an indication of how limited we are!

Very simply put.



I will sleep on it when I get hom at 2 tomorrow morning... Damn contractor is keeping me busy at un***ly hours!

Cheers
Antowan

PS. Sorry for the moan...

[Luke7777]

PS. Sorry for the moan...

That's what friends are for ....

[ic]

Good stuff, please keep injecting life into this thread, if we can get our own definition nailed down before the ICASA Public Hearings on ADSL start (and possibly by next week in time for the Sentech MyWireless appeal) then we can nail some some serious bovine nuts to relevant walls. It is all about telling the Service Providers what we want, and if they refuse to deliver then their advertising & marketing is going to get hammered according to what we want & what they are not providing.

Consumer Power, A M A N D L A!!!

[nOhIwAy]

broadband is broadband as the world knows it and experiences it.

[kaspaas]

I want to add an offbeat definition:

Firstly, we should not attempt to define "Broadband" - it will get us nowhere. It will just create lots of opportunities for lawyers to write reams of paper why this is not the case quoting ancient dictionaries to suit their arguments.

Let's rather define the "MyADSL Consumer Broadband definition".

The minimum speed requirement for a product to be called "Broadband for the consumer" should be the average of the entry level products of British Telecom (BT), a major USA ADSL provider and a major Australian ADSL provider.

The reason for this is:

As technology improves, things just get faster. These changes will be reflected in the minimum speeds elsewhere. It will be easy to calculate as well and can be updated and published with the "MyADSL Report" RPM and Beyers are doing from time to time.

This approach fixes also a fair minimum target SA has to obtain to stay in the digital race of the global trading world. Anything worse, and we are losing.

I believe that this could work. Future complaints to ASASA could include: "Claims that this is broadband are not true according to the definition of Consumer Broadband accepted by MyADSL, a respected (thanks V3G!) consumer community."

This will give Sentech a harder time to refute - they will have to prove that MyADSL is a bunch of idiots who produced a flawed definition for "consumer broadband" and that their definition reflects the expectation of consumers better than the MyADSL definition.

[ic]

Yep, Kaspaas this is exactly what my intentions were in starting this thread - I want us to define the Consumer Broadband that Service Providers have to measure their services against, if their service does not qualify, then we could label their service "inadequate", "outdated", "unacceptable", etc ... Let Sentech try advertising MyWi128K/contention when we have rated it sub-standard and complaints to ASASA will be harder for Service Providers to dodge, ASASA will be coming to MyADSL to find out if a Service Provider is allowed to use the term "broadband" in their ads...

I like you idea of using the average of entry-level [consumer] broadband speeds, and obviously we would then update our definition whenever that average increases (might be interesting if it increased every week - would show how quickly SA is being overtaken internationally).

Perhaps we could create a Firefox extension similar to the Homeland Security Threat Level extension that will instead show the current minimum speed according to the MyADSL Consumer Broadband definition .

[kaspaas]

Hi,

I took a few links from the Hellkom ADSL comparison chart (http://www.hellkom.co.za/research/adsl2.htm)

Herewith a proposed definition for "Minimum speed to qualify as Consumer Broadband"

kb/s Country URL
512 BT (UK) http://www.bt.co.uk/broadband/bb_info.jsp
1536 ATT (USA) http://www.usa.att.com/dsl/plans/standard.jsp
256 Ammnet (AUS) http://www.amnet.com.au/dslenabledexchange.aspx
256 BSNL (India) http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone_tariff.htm
256 MenaNet (Egypt) http://portal.menanet.net/menanet/se...homeusers1.jsp


From this follows that I propose that 563kbits/s be defined as the minimum speed offering any product has to comply with to qualify as a Consumer Broadband Product.

Please note the presense of Egypt (Africa) and India (Hallo TATA!) in the list.

[kaspaas]

Yif their service does not qualify, then we could label their service "inadequate", "outdated", "unacceptable", etc ...

I would not dare adding such "values" to services - just a "Pass/Fail"

Else you open the door for argument. A lesson I've learnt is that it is wise in cases like this to say as little as possible - it closes the door for further arguments by the opposition.

[ic]

Ag nee wat, just when I wanted to add "laughable" to that list, but you are 100% correct though, contentious terms are probably better left to the reader interpreting all the "fails"

[kaspaas]

Marketers are clever people. If they can't use "broadband", they will find other words to use

UNLESS

the definition includes something like: Internet access speeds for consumers slower than the Minimum Consumer Broadband speed can in now manner be considered as "fast", "hi-speed" or similar words or expression to convey the image of superior speed.

This said: I don't oppose the trend i've noticed while researching the minimum speeds on offer: Up to 30X dial-up speeds. This is actually educational to the consumer and quantifies what can be expected from a service.

[ic]

Very good point - both Sentech & Telkom like using "high speed internet" .

The more thought we put into this definition, the more chance we have of thwarting misleading advertising .