Pay up to.

[Glenn]

Anyone promised broadband speeds of "up to" an amount should be free to pay a monthly fee of "up to" what's asked, according to the firebrand lobbying consultancy wispa Limited.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/16/wispa_upto_campaign/

[Rik]

I'm in for a rebate, then...

[Bill]

Ridiculous and totally unworkable idea... so Ofcom will probably impose it

[Rik]

Another fan speaks up for their favourite regulator. 

[pctech]

Impose it on the big boys that provide a cr*p service but exempt the smaller players like IDNet, Zen and AAISP that actually care about the quality of what they are actually selling.

[Simon]

Those two little words, "up to" have been a get out of jail free card for many ISPs, for as long as I can remember.

[pctech]

Yep but it is down to ADSL itself, a technology I think we should have side stepped and gone straight to fibre.

[Lance]

I agree, but what else could they have said? Give the rubbish infrastructure and all the factors which cause the line to adapt to conditions I can't think of any other way to market it.

What would have been more market friendly is the introduction of up to 4mb with a lower cost for those who don't need speed or can't get anything about.

With FTTP the up to should be abolished.

[Niall]

Yep but it is down to ADSL itself, a technology I think we should have side stepped and gone straight to fibre.

You've got Maggie to thank for that

[pctech]

There is only one downside the fibre which is maybe why it wasn't deployed so quickly.

As the PSTN is supposed to remain operable in the event of a major disaster or local power cut all of the exchanges have a backup UPS and generator and about 4 volts is passed along the copper to power them old corded phones.

In the beginning of the 90s of course nobody knew mobiles would take off and we'd have the Internet.

Unless you use Power Over Ethernet for IP phones and have generators at each cab you'll have the same issue.

[andrue]

Daft idea. It will just cause ISPs to stop selling to long line customers. There's precious little difference in cost to the ISP as far as line length is concerned. If there is a difference it's more likely to increase the running costs. Long lines presumably require more electrical power to push the signal through and presumably the increased length increasing the chance of a fault. In practice I doubt either makes a blind bit of difference and anyway why punish the ISPs? They don't have any control over line length or quality. The only ISP that does is VM and VM doesn't have this particular problem.

As for line quality - most of that is down to internal wiring.

So the idea of reducing the end-user charge is stupid. Blame the laws of physics. Blame God if you're that way inclined. Don't blame the ISPs   

[Rik]

Well said.