• Guy Jarvis posted an update in the group AvatarMapping:   4 days, 2 hours ago · View

    William, you are right on target re the need to actually capture data consistently.

    The other factor to consider is the time of day each test is done as contended lines mean that the worst performance will be seen when the kids come home from school til bedtime.

    Also worth noting that samknows are in bed with ofcom http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ofcom_and_samknows

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      Phil Thompson · 3 days, 15 hours ago

      Seems we have an emerging myth of ”contended lines”. The lines are not contended, but the service usually is. Fibre services are also contended, aren’t they - like say 80 1G fibre connections to a 100M internet connection. Contention is everywhere, it makes stuff affordable and practical.

      Speed tests are of little value if we’re talking about infrastructure, if people buy cheap as chips ADSL they’re going to be highly contended. If they buy priority services at higher prices they’ll be a lot less contended. You can buy an uncontended service too, at a price. This is an area with market failure on the demand side.

      Samknows do work for OFCOM, what are you suggesting with the ”in bed with” comment ? The data feeds on their site are pulled from BT and other supplier databases, they don’t invent the numbers.