Posted: 24th Sep, 2005 By: MarkJ
ADSLGuide has received a statement from Demon Internet, which covers some of the broadband speed problems being experienced by an unknown number of the ISP's users, especially those that have recently upgraded from 512Kbps to 2Mbps.
We've only seen a handful of official complaints about this so far, generally spread out over a period of several weeks (i.e. not enough to list). Those with problems can inform us via the usual method:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/new/complain/complain.shtmlDespite this, clearly there are some serious problems with slow speeds; Demon has stated the following:
Less than 0.5% of our customers have called us regarding latency and as an ISP with more than 100,000 customers, we will always have a small number of customers who are not happy with their service and we regret any inconvenience that is currently being caused to your readers. We will continue to investigate these complaints and liaise with the customers directly to address their issues.
We sell a number of different broadband products aimed at different types of Internet usage from very low contention levels where use of the Internet is absolutely business critical through to lower cost, higher contention products which are more suited to less time-sensitive applications. We always encourage customers to ensure that they select the most appropriate product to suit their needs.Most ISPs are able to balance the service provided against its limitations, thus providing a degree of reliability. Sadly in this respect Demon hasn't quite found the balance.
So far the problems appear to be hitting residential products only, yet it's unclear from Demon's statement whether they plan to resolve it. Simply asking customers to regrade onto a lower contended package may not go far enough.