Definition of broadband? / Misc

How broad before you can call it broadband?
By Tim Richardson
Published Wednesday 9th April 2003 15:05 GMT


Make no mistake, today's ruling by the advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), concerning the definition of 'broadband' could have big repercussions for the UK's Internet industry.

The ruling highlights the confusion caused by a sector which has failed to come up with a consistent industry-wide definition of broadband that can be marketed to consumers.

This has been made worse still by shifting definitions and extreme marketing hype - a conflict between the technically possible and the somewhat far-fetched view of what broadband could deliver.

For its part, the made a judgement based on consumers' perception of broadband, rather than on a factual definition. For while it acknowledged that the cableco's 128Kbps service met industry definitions for broadband laid down by regulator Oftel (well, one of Oftel's definitions), it also ruled that because it considered most consumers would understand broadband to mean a service of upwards of 500Kbps, it concluded that the claim "broadband", without qualification, was "likely to mislead".

In one sense, NTL is right to be angered by the ASA's ruling. However, it's not just about NTL since the decision highlight the failings of the industry - and Government - to agree a definition of broadband.

Take the Government, for example. It recently changed its definition of broadband to "a generic term describing a range of technologies operating at various data transfer speeds" adding that if it's marketed as broadband, then it is broadband. Frankly, this is so broad it is meaningless and should be ditched immediately.

Oftel, on the other hand, has two different views on broadband. It regards broadband as a "higher bandwidth, always-on services, offering data rates of 128Kbps and above" - a view cited by NTL in its ASA case.

However, Oftel also rates NTL's 128k service as not being broadband.

According to one of its recent reports: "Oftel also includes NTL's 128k offering in the narrowband market. Although this is marketed as 'broadband', it has only some, not all, of the key characteristics of broadband. It is always on and allows use of the telephone at the same time but is not as fast as other services marketed as broadband."

It goes on: "Oftel's latest residential survey found that the main reason for getting broadband was faster access, mentioned by 57 per cent of respondents compared to only eight per cent who mentioned simultaneous voice calls and six per cent who mentioned permanent connection. Oftel believes that for this reason these services should be regarded as narrowband rather than broadband for the purposes of this review."

Funnily enough, The Register pointed out this contradiction more than a week ago and Oftel has still to reply to requests to clarify what it believes is, and is not, broadband.

If the regulator and Government can't agree, what hope is there for the rest of the industry? More to the point, what hope is there for ordinary punters who are being bombarded with confusing messages about broadband?

And there's more. We asked BT Wholesale for its definition of broadband.

"We don't have one," said a spokesman.

However, he did explain that BT regards its 512Kbps, always-on ADSL service as broadband - not, though, slower always-on ADSL services it plans to launch in the future.

AOL UK, on the other hand, regards broadband as being more than 400Kbps, always on and enabling punters to use the phone line at the same time.

"That's the consumers' view of broadband and, therefore, it's ours as well," said a spokesman.

"We need an acceptable definition - otherwise, how do people know what broadband is," he added.

Freeserve, which made the complaint against NTL, also agrees that speed is important when defining broadband.

A spokeswoman for the ISP told us: "There is a great deal of confusion all round. It's about time Oftel and the Government cleared up this uncertainty."

Telewest echoed these views: "Anything below 512Kbps simply doesn't live up to consumers' expectation and the hype surrounding broadband."

If nothing else, today's ruling by the ASA shows just how confusing this matter can be. However, it is up to the Government and/or the industry to come up with a workable definition for broadband. The confusion has to be cleared up for the sake of the mass-market, for nothing will damage their confidence more than signing up to a slow speed "broadband" service and being disappointed when it doesn't live up to their expectations.

One last thing,just to stir things up still further. While the debate over what is - and isn't - broadband rages on, there are, you know, some people who think broadband only starts from speeds starting at 1Mb

Source here

Friday 26 March 2004 (Session 2)

Scottish Parliament
Evidence Received for Broadband Inquiry
ENTERPRISE AND CULTURE COMMITTEE
SUBMISSION FROM SCOTLANDIS
Friday 26 March 2004 (Session 2)

ScotlandIS is the trade association for the software, information and communications technology industries in Scotland.

(...)

Definition of "broadband"

The formal definition of broadband is : "A transmission facility having a bandwidth sufficient to carry multiple voice, video or data channels simultaneously."

Broadband has become an increasingly generic term covering a range of tele-communications services for always-on high speed connections. Services marketed as broadband can vary from connection speeds(or"bandwidth") of 128kbps (kilo-bits per second) to in excess of 2Mbps. The connection speeds impact on download and upload times and can be further affected by "contention rates" ie the number of users sharing the same service - the more users the slower the connection speed.

In March 2003 DTI clarified its definition of broadband as being "a generic term describing a range of technologies operating at various data transfer speeds."

It is generally defined as a connection which is greater than 128kbps. BT's current definition of broadband is a connection of 500kbps or more. In California the "Gigabit or bust . Campaign" aims to have 1gbps connections in every home by the end of 2009

As broadband usage increases then the "bandwidth" consumption will increase significantly, and this will impact on the capacity requirements of broadband networks.

Source here


Broadband Stakeholder Group
Report and Strategic Recommendations, November 2001

Definition

The BSG has developed a dynamic definition of Broadband that is technology neutral and focused towards the delivery of services to the end user, rather than particular bit rates. The BSG defines Broadband as follows:

'Always on access, at work, at home or on the move provided by a range of fixed line, wireless and satellite technologies to progressively higher bandwidths capable of supporting genuinely new and innovative interactive content, applications and services and the delivery of enhanced public services.'

Source here



Teletruth submission to FCC: Data Quality Act Complaint, 26 July 2005

(...)
Speed Matters: Did you know that the definition of "broadband" went from 45mps in both directions in 1992, to 200K in one direction in 2005? —225 times slower.

(...)
Teletruth today filed a Data Quality Act Complaint against the FCC's statistics, claiming that the FCC is politically driven to inflate the number of broadband connections in the United States, as well as presenting a distorted picture of broadband in the US.

Source here


Media Fact Sheet
International Telecommunication Union
September 2003

The Birth of Broadband
Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is broadband?

A. Many people associate broadband with a particular speed of transmission or a certain set of services, such as digital subscriber loop (DSL) or wireless local area networks (wLANs). However, since broadband technologies are always changing, the definition of broadband also continues to evolve. Today, the term broadband typically describes recent Internet connections that range from 5 times to 2000 times faster than earlier Internet dial-up technologies. However, the term broadband does not refer to either a certain speed or a specific service. Broadband combines connection capacity (bandwidth) and speed. Recommendation I.113 of the ITU Standardization Sector defines broadband as a “transmission capacity that is faster than primary rate Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) at 1.5 or 2.0 Megabits per second (Mbits)”.

Source here