Broadband Guidelines: what does uncapped really mean?
Over the last few years there have been numerous Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) complaints related to the marketing of broadband and ADSL services.
These complaints are often related to terms such as ‘broadband’ and ‘uncapped’. Without clear guidelines, consumers and service providers often clash on what is meant by these terms.
The Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) has now published its ‘Recommendations on Broadband Terminology’ after it “identified a need to develop a set of guidelines and recommendations relating to the meaning of broadband terminology”.
“The objective of this document is to help to kick start the process of establishing a shared understanding between ISPs, consumers, IT journalists and advertising authorities in interpreting words like ‘uncapped’, ‘shaped’ and the like when these are used to advertise or describe broadband services,” ISPA said.
What is broadband?
ISPA defines broadband Internet access as “a service which provides access to the Internet with a minimum download speed of 256 kbps”.
This definition is in line with the Department of Communication’s published National Broadband Policy which is, in turn, based on the ITU’s definition of broadband for developing markets.
ISPA highlights that a service can be broadband regardless of the technology employed to provide the service (hence ADSL, wireless, Wi-Fi, cellular or satellite).
What is uncapped?
The broadband terms capped, uncapped and unlimited have caused heated debates in the past, and to try to clarify these terms ISPA divided broadband services into four categories.
- Unrestricted, uncapped Internet access: No cap. Acceptable use policy may only restrict illegal activity, not usage behaviour. May be linked to a specific access speed.
- Uncapped Internet access: No cap. Acceptable use policy can place limitations on user behaviour and define “abuse” criteria which can result in service restrictions. May be linked to a specific access speed.
- Soft capped Internet access: Service is provided on a metered basis. After the customer exceeds a “soft cap”, they still have Internet access, but significant restrictions are applied, such as limited international access or vastly reduced access speeds
- Hard capped Internet access: Service is provided on a metered basis (limited traffic volume, or limited amount of time online). After the customer exceeds this cap, no access to the Internet is provided until the customer purchases additional services.
Further broadband terminology defined
ISPA defined various other aspects associated with broadband services in its ‘Recommendations on Broadband Terminology’ document, including traffic shaping, national and local traffic and contention rations.
ISPA made the following recommendations in the document:
- Ensure that “broadband” is only used in your advertising to refer to services which have a minimum download speed of 256 kbps.
- If you (or your upstream service provider) do any sort of traffic shaping, ensure that this is made clear to potential customers before concluding a service agreement.
- Your acceptable use policy should clearly address:
(a) any restrictions on illegal or unlawful use of the service, and under what circumstances you will take action in the event of allegations of illegal or unlawful use of the service, and
(b) any other restrictions based on the customer’s usage pattern or behaviour, and the consequences of breaching those restrictions.- For usage-based services, the ability for the customer to monitor their usage should be readily available. Customers should preferably be provided with the option of receiving notifications of their usage at certain points, for example once they reach 75% of their cap.
- For capped services, a customer should not be automatically switched to a more expensive traffic-based charging scheme once they have exceeded their specified cap. Consent should be obtained from the customer before moving them to any other charging scheme.
- Pricing for uncapped services should clearly indicate whether the cost is:
(a) flat rate, i.e. a single price for an “all you can eat” service; or
(b) metered, i.e. the cost of the service is linked to utilisation.- Information about the contention ratio for the service provided should be made available on your web site.
- If you are providing family friendly services, you should provide information about the filtering or blocking you do, and indicate any limitations on the effectiveness of those filters or blocks.
The following recommendations relate to the categories of services defined in this document:
- Use the term “unrestricted” or “unrestricted, uncapped” Internet access to refer only to a service which has no limit placed on the total volume of traffic uploaded or downloaded by the customer, and which does not place any other restrictions on the customer’s usage behaviour (excepting illegal or unlawful use).
- Use the term “uncapped” Internet access to refer only to a service which has no limit placed on the total volume of traffic uploaded or downloaded by the customer subject to the customer observing specified usage restrictions.
- For services which offer different performance criteria during different times of the day, the time periods that apply in each case must be made clear to the customer.
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