ADSL is not true broadband - only a mid-band convenience product - he says at CMA's annual conference. 

Speaking at the 2004 CMA Conference in London, Lord Currie, Chairman of the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, urged suppliers to introduce flexible broadband service options - "Liquid bandwidth". The Ofcom chief also dismissed 512k ADSL as a mid-band 'convenience product' that was not 'true broadband'. 

Citing ‘Bandwidth on Demand’ (BoD) services, where users can change their service performance ‘on the fly’ in mid-session to better meet their immediate needs, Lord Currie was also sending a clear signal to suppliers that the era of flat-rate pricing could not be sustained. Giving an example of bandwidth packaging in Norway he predicted " you [will] get and pay for the bandwidth you need when you need it on a dynamic basis.” He could easily have looked nearer to home where SatDrive already offers a BoD service across 100% of the UK.

Typically, BoD services have a flat-rate price for a general 'contended’ service but users can choose at any time during an Internet session to have faster download speeds at lower contention rates. In most broadband service designs it is impossible to guarantee a specific bandwidth because the actual service performance is affected by fluctuating user demand. 

The most practical BoD designs approach the challenge by prioritising packet transmission through the variably congested network. The data packets from users who choose to pay more take precedence over others in the queue for transmission. In these designs what is guaranteed is the user’s priority – and higher priority options are charged at a per-MegaByte price ranging from 3 pence to 19 pence for the maximum speeds of up to 16Mb/s. 

The SatDrive experience in the UK shows that in practice many users do not choose the higher priority options because the fixed-price delivery for light Internet browsing is typically around a convenient 1Mb/s. It is only when those users need to download large files as a matter of urgency that they opt for the higher speeds. This has the effect of bumping up average monthly costs from £15/month (including to VAT) to almost £20/month. 

The service is used mainly by homeworkers and very small businesses in rural areas where other services are not available. The larger ADSL and Cable service providers have generally stuck with flat-rate pricing because it is easier to sell and avoids any complexity for billing. They are, however, now finding that a very small minority of customers use a disproportionate volume of network capacity – mainly for ‘ripping’ music and movie files. The cost of providing sufficient bandwidth to maintain a reasonable service for all customers is becoming a major problem in some areas – and predictors of this were observed in the US Cable networks more than a year ago.

The most common response from the big players is to introduce 'download volume caps’ or ‘fair use policies’ that degrade the individual user’s service if it is, in the opinion of the supplier, excessive – i.e. not what their designers imagined customers might want when the network was built. The argument for BoD and per-MByte pricing is that users are brought closer to paying for the service that they actually consume.

One of the essential requirements is that BoD users must be able to see exactly what sort of service they are paying for. This transparency is not something that the major providers are keen to do – not wishing to overly expose the sometime dire performance when their services are overloaded. 

It turns out, however, that the advantage of taking an honest up-front approach means that there are far fewer complaints. Customers are gradually becoming better informed about performance variability and contention ratios. In direct contradiction to general marketing assumptions it is becoming easier to sell broadband when potential customers – and particularly business customers - can see exactly what sort of service they are going to get. 

It is not surprising that the cutting edge of innovation is found in the Satellite Internet field where the design challenges of delivering up to 16Mb/s are much greater than for wired or fibred services. Lord Currie, however, did not hesitate to put ADSL into context, saying, “as a Nation we have set ourselves a target for the roll-out of ‘broadband’ without having the physical infrastructure for a true broadband access network in place. We can stretch the POTS to being a mid-band network. And DSL is that ‘stretch’ on copper wire. But true broadband it ain’t. DSL At 512k is a convenience product. A useful help to individuals and SMEs. But it is not the major, life-changing experience that broadband should be.” 

Looking further afield the CMA conference delegates (the massed ranks of communications managers from big business and major public sector organisations) appreciated the insights into the types of services now available in Japan and Korea. 

The bold investment approach that has led to these service innovations was also echoed in the Ofcom Chairman’s address. He robustly resisted the wishful thinking for state intervention and called for progress towards 10Mb/s through competitive endeavour. “We need to focus our vision on outcomes. Then work back from there to market incentives and the art of the possible. We need also to note that the ‘art of the possible’ is dynamic. What was impossible before Comcast’s bid for Disney may become possible in the Anglo-Saxon world thereafter.”