Tiscali Makes The Broadband Grade - But Then Speed Isn’t Everything

Tiscali’s 150kbps service got the thumbs up from Oftel, BT and the Advertising Standards Authority earlier this week. It had recieved criticism from competitors who claimed the company was misleading consumers by selling such low speed services as ‘broadband’.

The company said, in response to the decision - “Tiscali is moving to a simpler explanation of ‘up to 3x, 5x and 10x faster than dial-up’ for our 150kbps, 256kbps and 512kbps services - this is easier for the consumer to understand.” Sounds a simple enough strategy to me.

Of course speed isn’t everything. A study released this week by the Work Foundation, entitled - ‘Fat Pipes, Connected People’ - which was conducted in association with the Broadband Stakeholders Group - concluded that broadband users are becoming more concerned with spam, viruses and levels of support rather than speed.

The study also showed that people are not just interested in being pushed rich media content to consume but instead want to use broadband to create and share their own.

With Oftel also reporting this week that half of UK homes have internet access, getting the right broadband products onto the market will be essential for solid takeup.