Ofcom Considers New Broadband ISP Rules to Clarify Traffic Management

The communications regulator has today published a new guide that aims to help people understand how mobile and fixed broadband ISPs use Traffic Management to balance their network load during periods of peak network usage. But stricter guidelines might soon follow because only 11% of consumers know what it actually means.

Ofcom’s new Guide to Traffic Management isn’t especially detailed and merely serves to offer a fairly general description of Traffic Management Policies (TMP) and the different ways or times in which ISPs can manipulate your connection. This is important because new research (here) has found that only 1% of consumers consider TMP when choosing an ISP and just 11% are familiar with the term itself.

The regulator has already worked alongside the Broadband Stakeholders Group (BSG), a government think-tank, to produce the voluntary Open Internet Code of Practice in 2012. The code was broadly intended to ensure “the provision of full and open internet access” and to prevent ISPs using TMP practices to “degrade the services of a competitor“.

Never the less it’s clear that many consumers still find TMP to be confusing and that’s not surprising when you look at the initially bewildering level of detail present in related policies from ISPs like Virgin Media (here), which at first glance aren’t the easiest pieces of information to comprehend. By comparison some other ISPs are still far too vague when it comes to describing how TMP is used.

Claudio Pollack, Ofcoms Consumer Group Director, said:

“It’s important that ISPs provide clear and transparent information on their traffic management policies to help consumers make informed choices when buying their internet service.

Ofcom will continue to work with industry to ensure this information meets the needs of consumers and explore further ways of improving awareness of traffic management.”

The regulator is currently busy reviewing the voluntary code in order to “ensure it is working effectively for consumers” and claims to have already identified a number of ways in which the “quality of existing [TMP] information could be further improved“.

The TMP Proposals

* Consumers said ISPs should.. provide an introduction to the traffic management information that summarises the relevance of the policy and how it affects their range of products;

* Consumers said ISPs should.. ensure that technical terms are explained in clear and simple language;

* Consumers said ISPs should.. provide specific and meaningful measurement criteria for when high usage or ‘fair usage’ policies are applied (for example hours of streaming allowed as opposed to how many megabytes);

* Consumers said ISPs should.. use clear symbols to represent ‘yes,’ ‘no’ and ‘not applicable’ in the key information tables.

Ofcom confirmed that it was working with the BSG on how ISPs could implement the above changes and would discuss the issue with “consumer representatives” and ISPs. An updated code is then expected to be included alongside Ofcom’s Communications Infrastructure Report 2013, which will be published towards the end of this year.

The move mirrors efforts by Europe, which looks set to propose new “Safeguards” to help protect the open internet (Net Neutrality). But neither Ofcom nor the EU will take a mandatory or legislative path to solve the concerns.