UPDATE3 UK ISPs Welcome Code to Improve Transparency of Internet Traffic Limits
Posted: 14th Mar, 2011 By: MarkJ
Internet providers from around the UK have today given an almost universal welcome to this morning's announcement of a new Voluntary Code of Practice (COP) on the transparency of broadband ISP Traffic Management restrictions. The initial signatory operators include BT , Sky Broadband , TalkTalk , Virgin Media , O2 , Three (3) and Vodafone UK.The code, which was detailed in full this morning, aims to tackle Net Neutrality (the principal of treating all internet traffic as equal) fears by ensuring that ISPs are more open and honest with their customers about how they manipulate the flow of traffic (bandwidth) between an end-users connection and the internet (e.g. restrictions on service speeds to P2P, iPlayer, Facebook etc.).
A Virgin Media spokesperson said:
"Virgin Media prides itself on being clear and transparent about our services and we've been leading the way in ensuring people know exactly what they get from our broadband.
We fully support, and have been actively engaged, in the development of the Broadband Stakeholder Group's Code of Practice and are pleased that other ISPs and operators will now provide consistent standards of openness on traffic management. But as the demand for faster broadband speeds grows, transparency must extend beyond traffic management and it's critical that ISPs provide this level of honesty about the real world speeds they deliver.
The BSG's Code of Practice is a step in the right direction but clearly most ISPs need to be doing much more to tell their customers the truthabout the broadband they are paying for."
"Virgin Media prides itself on being clear and transparent about our services and we've been leading the way in ensuring people know exactly what they get from our broadband.
We fully support, and have been actively engaged, in the development of the Broadband Stakeholder Group's Code of Practice and are pleased that other ISPs and operators will now provide consistent standards of openness on traffic management. But as the demand for faster broadband speeds grows, transparency must extend beyond traffic management and it's critical that ISPs provide this level of honesty about the real world speeds they deliver.
The BSG's Code of Practice is a step in the right direction but clearly most ISPs need to be doing much more to tell their customers the truthabout the broadband they are paying for."
An ISPA Spokesman said:
"We welcome efforts by BSG and a number of the largest consumer-focused ISPs to improve transparency around network management. When the code is launched, we will be discussing it and how best to proceed with our members. The UK has a very competitive and innovative market and traffic management techniques have played an important part in enabling this to happen."
"We welcome efforts by BSG and a number of the largest consumer-focused ISPs to improve transparency around network management. When the code is launched, we will be discussing it and how best to proceed with our members. The UK has a very competitive and innovative market and traffic management techniques have played an important part in enabling this to happen."
BSkyB ( Sky Broadband ) said:
"[Our] position on traffic management has been clear for many years - that there should be full transparency. As a reminder, we have no traffic management on our own network. And on Sky Broadband Unlimited, no FUP."
"[Our] position on traffic management has been clear for many years - that there should be full transparency. As a reminder, we have no traffic management on our own network. And on Sky Broadband Unlimited, no FUP."
The Director of AAISP UK, Adrian Kennard, said:
"AAISP have a policy of not being the bottleneck wherever possible, and have always made if very clear to customers how things are managed and what happens in the rarer case of there being some unexpected congestion. This is an area that has been very hard for consumers to compare, so we welcome more ISPs being open and honest about what they do."
"AAISP have a policy of not being the bottleneck wherever possible, and have always made if very clear to customers how things are managed and what happens in the rarer case of there being some unexpected congestion. This is an area that has been very hard for consumers to compare, so we welcome more ISPs being open and honest about what they do."
Steve Lalonde, CTO of Entanet International, said:
"We're pleased to see that the biggest consumer focused ISPs are taking a lead in making things clearer to their customers, rather than having such a requirement imposed on them directly by Ofcom. The principle of ensuring that consumers are aware of the potential constraints that may be put on their use of a connection with particular providers is necessary. However, introducing some standards based consistency to what/how information is presented is going to be difficult. It will be interesting to see how transparent these providers are in describing their traffic management policies.
To ensure the fair but consistent availability of its services and bandwidth for all, Entanet introduced traffic management to its network back in November 2009, even though the majority of our channel's customers are businesses. Considering that our communications are to channel partners for them to convey to their customers, we provide an explicit explanation of our traffic management approach in product documentation easily located in our interactive partner interface known as synergi. Aside from the detail of our traffic management policy, we do not promote services as unlimited."
"We're pleased to see that the biggest consumer focused ISPs are taking a lead in making things clearer to their customers, rather than having such a requirement imposed on them directly by Ofcom. The principle of ensuring that consumers are aware of the potential constraints that may be put on their use of a connection with particular providers is necessary. However, introducing some standards based consistency to what/how information is presented is going to be difficult. It will be interesting to see how transparent these providers are in describing their traffic management policies.
To ensure the fair but consistent availability of its services and bandwidth for all, Entanet introduced traffic management to its network back in November 2009, even though the majority of our channel's customers are businesses. Considering that our communications are to channel partners for them to convey to their customers, we provide an explicit explanation of our traffic management approach in product documentation easily located in our interactive partner interface known as synergi. Aside from the detail of our traffic management policy, we do not promote services as unlimited."
A TalkTalk spokesperson said:
"We welcome an industry-wide traffic management transparency code as we've always regarded service transparency as key to providing a
consistent, high quality service. A common format will make it easier for consumers to compare services."
"We welcome an industry-wide traffic management transparency code as we've always regarded service transparency as key to providing a
consistent, high quality service. A common format will make it easier for consumers to compare services."
An O2 Spokesperson added:
"For some time we have been working with other ISPs on a “code of practice” around traffic management. We have now agreed that all ISPs, who have signed up to the code, will publish their existing traffic management policies in a comparable format. This will be in addition to the ways that we have published them previously.
At O2 we believe that our traffic management policy is already clear and is available on our website and are more than happy to be part of the code of practice. ISPs should have nothing to hide and in order for consumers to make an informed choice about the different services on offer, they need to have the information in a similar format."
"For some time we have been working with other ISPs on a “code of practice” around traffic management. We have now agreed that all ISPs, who have signed up to the code, will publish their existing traffic management policies in a comparable format. This will be in addition to the ways that we have published them previously.
At O2 we believe that our traffic management policy is already clear and is available on our website and are more than happy to be part of the code of practice. ISPs should have nothing to hide and in order for consumers to make an informed choice about the different services on offer, they need to have the information in a similar format."
The boss of IDNet UK, Simon Davies, said:
"It is a great step in the right direction towards providing consumers with an effective means of comparing the quality of the "big ISPs" to the rest of the industry. As always, the devil will be in the detail (in regards to the amount of accurate information divulged), let's hope that this is not merely a sop to Ofcom."
"It is a great step in the right direction towards providing consumers with an effective means of comparing the quality of the "big ISPs" to the rest of the industry. As always, the devil will be in the detail (in regards to the amount of accurate information divulged), let's hope that this is not merely a sop to Ofcom."
Hugo Harber, Director of Convergence & Network Strategy at Star UK, added:
"It seems that this code of practice follows what we’ve always advocated for our business customers, namely that it’s important that they have assurances that the throughput advertised is provided. This is because connectivity is the enabler of their critical services like hosted voice, email and other cloud services and applications. Without having readily available bandwidth, business performance can be impacted.
As for a two tiered internet, some people will want to pay for assured service delivery and others will just want a low price. Service providers need to be open and provide users with a clear understanding of which type of product they are buying so they can understand any limitations."
"It seems that this code of practice follows what we’ve always advocated for our business customers, namely that it’s important that they have assurances that the throughput advertised is provided. This is because connectivity is the enabler of their critical services like hosted voice, email and other cloud services and applications. Without having readily available bandwidth, business performance can be impacted.
As for a two tiered internet, some people will want to pay for assured service delivery and others will just want a low price. Service providers need to be open and provide users with a clear understanding of which type of product they are buying so they can understand any limitations."
Andrew Saunders, Head of Product Management and Marketing at Zen Internet UK, said:
"Zen Internet has always strived to be open and honest with our customers regarding how we manage services on their behalf and we welcome any industry-lead initiative that results in greater transparency. We do not implement a Fair Usage Policy (FUP) or traffic shaping as we find they are misleading for customers. All our services have broadband usage allowances which are clearly stated when you order the service.
Customers can therefore choose the product they require depending on how they intend to use their broadband service. We are one of the few ISPs to take this approach to managing our network as we believe this offers a consistent online experience for all our customers."
"Zen Internet has always strived to be open and honest with our customers regarding how we manage services on their behalf and we welcome any industry-lead initiative that results in greater transparency. We do not implement a Fair Usage Policy (FUP) or traffic shaping as we find they are misleading for customers. All our services have broadband usage allowances which are clearly stated when you order the service.
Customers can therefore choose the product they require depending on how they intend to use their broadband service. We are one of the few ISPs to take this approach to managing our network as we believe this offers a consistent online experience for all our customers."
It's important to stress that some of the ISPs we contacted are still putting together their replies and we will of course publish those as they come in. Otherwise the code is not officially supposed to be revealed until Wednesday 16th March 2011, although obviously it's already been released.
We fully welcome the effort to clarify vague Fair Usage Policies (FUP), although such work can only succeed if the vast majority of both big and smaller providers become signatories. It also remains to be seen whether ISPs will merely tuck their newly transparent restrictions away in sub-pages or small print.
UPDATE 4:00pm
Added a couple more ISP comments above and we've also seen a responce from the Open Rights Group (ORG), which warns that the new code will not solve Net Neutrality concerns.
Jim Killock, Open Rights Group (ORG), said:
"The supposed thinking, according to Ofcom and others, is that customers will walk with their feet if they get a bad service, so transparency will protect us from an Internet that is full of anti-competitive ISPs.
But ISPs are doing their best – through bundling phone, tv and equipment contracts with broadband – to reduce customer switching. Thus ISPs are doing everything they can to remove the supposed protection we will get from “transparency”.
This is not to say that every ISP has evil intent, but they are already doing bad things, which are today reducing innovation and choice.
Every time that an ISP impedes the flow of information, we risk economic damage. Of course there are reasons why traffic in our under-invested networks currently needs to be managed. But the solution is not to push towards walled gardens and paid content delivery, but to invest in the networks themselves."
"The supposed thinking, according to Ofcom and others, is that customers will walk with their feet if they get a bad service, so transparency will protect us from an Internet that is full of anti-competitive ISPs.
But ISPs are doing their best – through bundling phone, tv and equipment contracts with broadband – to reduce customer switching. Thus ISPs are doing everything they can to remove the supposed protection we will get from “transparency”.
This is not to say that every ISP has evil intent, but they are already doing bad things, which are today reducing innovation and choice.
Every time that an ISP impedes the flow of information, we risk economic damage. Of course there are reasons why traffic in our under-invested networks currently needs to be managed. But the solution is not to push towards walled gardens and paid content delivery, but to invest in the networks themselves."
UPDATE 15th March 2011
Consumer Focus welcomes this new code as a first step in the direction of improving information given to broadband customers. The watchdog hopes this initiative will decrease the technical gobbledygook which is often hidden away in broadband contracts and help consumers to make more informed choices.
Robert Hammond, Head of Post and Digital Communications at Consumer Focus, said:
"This is a golden opportunity for internet companies to provide clear information to consumers. To keep consumer confidence, it is vital that the pilots of this code are independently verified and contribute to informing consumer’s actual experience of traffic management policies. But transparency should not be used as a tool to restrict consumers choice of accessing content, applications and services over the Internet nor discriminate against certain applications, services or content."
"This is a golden opportunity for internet companies to provide clear information to consumers. To keep consumer confidence, it is vital that the pilots of this code are independently verified and contribute to informing consumer’s actual experience of traffic management policies. But transparency should not be used as a tool to restrict consumers choice of accessing content, applications and services over the Internet nor discriminate against certain applications, services or content."
Also added a comment from Zen Internet UK above.
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