Comment: How much worse does broadband have to get?

By Barry Collins

Posted on 27 Apr 2007 at 13:03

However, there's infinitely more chance of Virgin Media picking up the phone than an ISP that's just gone out of business. Biscit is the latest ISP to cease trading, and its customers have been left in a tug of war between the various companies picking over the bones of the defunct company. BT gallantly stepped in to provide MAC codes to 6,500 of Biscit's customers, Breathe took over the provision of Internet services for another 1,400 customers but made customers wait up to five days for their code, while another firm called O-bit Telecom is currently parked on the former Biscit homepage also offering help. No wonder a great many Biscit customers are flooding forums, wondering what on earth's going on. And all this after new Ofcom rules were meant to make the migration process easier.

So, to summarise, broadband customers aren't sure what speed of service they're buying, are suffering from slowdown at evenings and weekends, are left in purgatory when their ISP goes belly-up and, worst of all, there's no real prospect that things will get better any time soon. How much worse do things have to get before Ofcom, BT and the ISP industry wake up and do something about it? I'm off to find a piece of string.