Simon

Cumbria

IT

While the points you make are valid, this still ignores the most fundamental issue - that services are being sold on the basis of what the end users ADSL circuit will carry, and not what the whole circuit back to the ISP is capable of.

I recall when I got my first ADSL, literally within days of my exchange being enabled. Back then the services were marketed on speed and contention ratio - so I knew that in the worst case I was only guaranteed 10kbps download.

I think we'd see a lot less complaints if (like some other countries) our circuits were marketed on committed rates. I'm sure it would change the market somewhat if people were marketing "up to 8mbps, 100kbps guaranteed" which seems to be about what some ISPs are offering.