What effect do you think the availability of slower services tagged as broadband, such as 150 kilobits per second (Kbps), has been?
They've not been helpful because they've confused people. Broadband penetration still isn't high at the moment, so we all want to drive demand and forcing the price point down is interesting. But if people don't get good service we might be shooting ourselves in the foot.
Is it a problem that all the adverts pitch themselves as 'broadband', whether they're 150Kbps or one megabit per second?
It's difficult if the services are advertised in terms that aren't clear. I'm not sure if marketing people don't understand enough to pitch the products in terms of what they do. Don't think anyone's being deliberately vague -- but there may be a mismatch between the technical people and the marketing teams.
Some of the people selling these slower services, such as Tiscali, are said to be doing very well.
Absolutely. A Tiscali executive told me recently that are absolutely bombarded with interest. It looks like there's a price point where anything called broadband is attractive to users.
But you think there's a real danger that customers may not be impressed with what they get?
The key is whether people can upgrade their services when they want. These lower speed products can be a sensible start for people who just want Web and email. The question is how quickly the provider can react if the user needs more bandwidth.
Do you think that in 2010 a one gigabit per second service should be as affordable as a 512 kilobits per second today?
I don't know what the pricing models will be, and I don't think anyone knows. This is what we need to think about.
