ISPs spurn Ofcom’s code of conduct

Ofcom plans leave small ISPs out in the cold

Smaller ISPs react with a heavy dose of scepticism to plans supposed to help consumers.

SMALL ISPS HAVE reacted with scepticism to proposals from regulator Ofcom that are designed to improve information and recourse for consumers that suffer from lowerthan-expected broadband speeds.

The regulator has set out plans that it says will make it clearer what speeds customers should achieve throughout the day, as well as setting a 30-day resolution deadline.

The proposals are laid out in changes to the voluntary code of conduct, which would come into effect next year and enable customers to leave a new contract after 30 days without penalty if the ISP couldn’t fix inadequate lines.

But there is uncertainty over how affected lines will be judged, whether the timeline is too short and how lines should be monitored.

Under the proposal – which extends existing buyer protection – consumers would be able to leave if their connection was in the bottom tenth percentile of lines expected to have a similar performance.

Smaller ISPs say logging a sample size that’s large enough to make a meaningful comparison is difficult and expensive, barring them from signing up to the code. “To deliver normally available speed estimates based on peak-time speeds, signatories will be required to test the actual speeds of a statistically meaningful panel of customers on each broadband package during peak time,” said Gary Hough, regulatory manager at Zen Internet.

“This means ISPs would have to have a way of testing in the customer premises, such as putting a thirdparty monitoring device into the customers’ premises that reports back their line stats or having firmware on the end user’s devices that reports back... The cost for ISPs of our size and below is prohibitively expensive.”

Another issue facing ISPs is the way Ofcom has said what constitutes failing lines – with some providers reading the code as suggesting that any line in that tenth percentile would be considered faulty, even if there was nothing the ISP could do about it.

ISP Arnold and Andrews told PC Pro it would not be signing up to the code and it does not believe opting out will impact business. “Ofcom is defining that one in ten lines is faulty, end of story,” said Adrian Kennard. director of Andrews & Arnold in a blog post. “Imagine if OFWAT defined that the lowest tenth percentile of water pressure was a fault and water companies had 30 days to fix or else refund the customer.”

The ISP Association (ISPA) has also raised concerns that 30 days was too short a time to fix what may be a deep network problem – especially as many ISPs rely on wholesalers for provision.