Broadband feature

“The quality of broadband users’ experience is just as important as speed”

Plusnet’s kingpin on fibre, focus on speed, Netflix and traffic management.

Wednesday 18 January, 2012

By Kelvin Goodson

Plusnet kingpin speaks to Broadbandchoices.co.uk about why you will want superfast broadband, the benefits of squeezing bandwidth, why Netflix could be a game-changer and providers’ obsession with speed.

So, the festive fun is at an end for another year, in case the steel skies, horizontally falling rain and haunted faces of commuters weren’t enough to alert you to this unfortunate state of affairs. It’s a new year - time to prise the empty cava bottle from your clammy clasp, put your trousers back on, apologise to anyone you suspect you may have offended while stumbling about like a simpleton and make a host of shallow promises to yourself regarding your physical, mental and financial wellbeing.

More pertinently, for Broadbandchoices.co.uk at least, the government now has just three years to fulfil its promise that the UK will have the best broadband network in Europe by 2015.

With the bigwigs of Westminster largely relying on major broadband providers to extend and improve the country’s broadband network to meet this target, and with the communications community seemingly at odds with itself over whether we want faster speeds or have no need for them, what better time to speak to the supremo of one of said providers?

Absolute beginnings

Enter Jamie Ford, CEO of Plusnet (www.Plus.net). Founded in 1997, the northern’n’proud provider is now owned by BT, but operates as a separate business. From offering dial-up connections when it first kicked off, Plusnet has grown to offer a range of broadband and phone packages and was a runner-up in the Broadbandchoices.co.uk Customer Satisfaction Survey in 2010 and 2011. The company is also well-known for its Yorkshire-themed advertising, although ferret legging has, sadly, yet to feature.

As kingpin of one of the country’s smaller major broadband providers - supplying around 500,000 customers compared to its parent company’s six million-plus - and with Plusnet not embroiled in the squabble between BT and several other providers over the £530million that the government has allocated to drive superfast broadband delivery in rural areas, Jamie Ford is well-placed to provide a balanced view of the present and future state of broadband in the UK.

Ford was appointed CEO of Plusnet in the summer of 2010, having previously worked for BT as director of customer experience and operations for the company’s retail division. Ford is as steeped in the north as Plusnet itself, having studied at Durham University and now residing in Sheffield, where the provider is based.

Speed of life

Having begun life in 1997 by offering connections with heady speeds of up to 56K - over which it would take you two hours to download one music track - Plusnet started superfast broadband delivering speeds of up to 40Mb in April last year.

Despite Ed Richards, chief executive of communications regulator Ofcom, saying late last year that the UK’s interest in superfast broadband was “still low,” Ford believes demand for next-generation internet access will grow if it offers value for money.

“Perhaps more importantly there is the way consumer experience is also being transformed, especially in households where more than one person is using the internet at the same time,” he added. Ofcom’s head honcho and Plusnet are in agreement on this point at least.

“Word of mouth will also be a strong driver, especially for people who experience slow speeds as these will see the most significant change in their broadband experience,” said Ford, with Plusnet trialling a fibre to the premises (FTTP) service and currently offering speeds of up to 100Mb, and it is looking to extend this in 2012.

As to how the government will get providers to deliver superfast broadband to rural Britain in order to honour its “best broadband in Europe” pledge, Ford says that “the investment in the infrastructure roll-out of fibre technology can only be commended”. He believes that, on top of the money being put in by the likes of Openreach - which manages access to the communications network - government funding will see superfast coverage “rise considerably”.

Plusnet doesn’t own the network it uses, so its influence on where superfast broadband is delivered is limited. However, Ford says the provider will play a proactive part in recommending areas to its supplier, BT Wholesale - the branch of BT responsible for leasing telephone and broadband services to retailers like Plusnet - that its customers would like to see next-generation internet access supplied to.

Station to station

Back in October, Plusnet revealed that up to half of its peak-time traffic is taken up by its customers streaming video and TV, and Ford believes that our increasingly sophisticated online practices will see more of us wanting the superior bandwidth superfast broadband offers.

“Demand will undoubtedly increase. What we’re seeing is that people are streaming more from different devices because it’s much more accessible as part of their daily routine.”

The internet movie and TV subscription service Netflix was launched in the UK and Ireland this week, and Ford thinks it could deepen our thirst for bandwidth: “[Netflix] has dominated traffic in the US, accounting for almost a third of all traffic, and it will be interesting to see its take-up in the UK”.

Changes

However, it’s not just what we use the web for but how we access it that will increase our appetite for faster broadband, according to Ford.

“The proliferation of varied internet-led gadgets such as smartphones and tablets is increasing at an exciting rate. The bandwidth that a household needs is increasing because of the number of appliances that need to be supported by broadband. This continued increase and the wider availability of fibre across the UK will see more uptake in this technology over the coming year.”

While this and predictions of hi-tech internet-connected homes all sound very futuristic, sadly, as ever, the practicalities of reality have to be taken into account. Just how will providers cope if demand for bandwidth begins to grow more quickly than the availability of superfast broadband?

“Here at Plusnet we actively champion traffic management, so we can identify and prioritise specific applications to ensure a quality level of service,” says Ford. “[We] will continue to monitor our traffic in order to forecast the bandwidth needed. In addition to supporting the quality of the connection, we look and prioritise streaming and VoIP [internet telephone] applications to ensure a high-quality customer experience.”

Plusnet is seemingly far from unique in doing this. In November The New York Times reported the results of worldwide tests to gauge how much broadband providers throttle their networks. They revealed that, while throttling was being done everywhere in the world, in Europe it is most common in Britain.

Hunky dory

Plusnet’s commitment to traffic management is summed up neatly by Ford in one line that could almost be the providers’ ethos: “The quality of users’ experience is just as important as speed”.

Ford says that Plusnet “actively prioritises” the likes of BBC iPlayer, Skype and YouTube in order to give its customers the best experience possible because video and television streaming and internet telephony are a “key concern” for them.

“While the broadband industry continues to focus its attention on speed, there are other factors which lead to improved broadband experience,” he explains. “While an increase in speed can certainly enable consumers, internet users should be reminded that a number of factors can compromise speed.”

The inconsistent nature of broadband speeds, influenced as they are by localised factors like how far from your telephone exchange you live or the age and condition of the internal wiring in your property, may be why Plusnet no longer includes “up to” speeds in its TV and press advertising, despite doing so remaining common practise among other providers.

An Ofcom report published in July last year found that the gap between the broadband speeds advertised by providers and those actually received by their customers had continued to grow. By September, the non-broadcast advertising regulator Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) had issued new guidelines on how broadband packages can be sold - from 1 April, providers will have to publish a speed that at least 10% of their customers can actually get.

However, the new guidelines were greeted by both Broadbandchoices.co.uk’s users and independent telecoms consumer group the Communications Consumer Panel with all the warmth of a Neptunian summer. The latter described the new guidance as “extremely unsatisfactory,” saying that consumers would still not be able to make an informed choice.

While the debate rumbles on, Plusnet is perhaps unique among broadband providers in its “experience over speed” stance. “It is very hard to give a true reflection of speed for every customer through an advertising claim,” says Ford. “We are committed to helping customers achieve the best broadband experience in their home and being honest and transparent about the speeds a household will achieve”.