U.K. consumers have little awareness of their ISPs’...
U.K. consumers have little awareness of their ISPs’ traffic management policies, said the Office of Communications on Wednesday in a research document (http://xrl.us/bprw7u). Only one in 10 consumers is familiar with the term and only 1 percent claim to have…
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considered it when choosing their broadband service, it said. However, the review of the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) traffic management transparency code (http://xrl.us/bprxac) showed that information on traffic management provided by ISPs is “broadly transparent,” said Ofcom. All major fixed and mobile ISPs have signed on to the code, which requires them to give users meaningful, useful and comparable information about their policies, it said. Ofcom’s current approach to traffic management “recognises that some forms of traffic management may be necessary to reduce network congestion and can benefit internet consumers by improving the quality of their internet experience,” it said. The issue is not whether traffic management is acceptable in principle but whether particular approaches to it cause concern, it said. In principle, competition is likely to be the most effective mechanism to encourage ISPs to offer a positive online experience, it said. But the benefits of competition could be diluted if consumers don’t have enough information to make informed choices, it said. The regulator has “consistently highlighted” that outright blocking of specific, legal applications or traffic types “would be highly undesirable” and likely to lead to regulation, it said. Over the past year, there has been significant activity in relation to traffic management, it said. Ofcom said that several ISPs have changed the way traffic management is presented to consumers on their websites and in advertising, generally boosting the quality and openness of the information received. The types of traffic management policies applied by ISPs have developed, with some providers now offering services with no policy at all, even in peak periods, and others refining their policies to focus on prioritization or slowing-down of certain activities such as gaming or file-sharing, it said. The changes show that transparency together with competition and innovation are giving consumers more variation and choice, it said. The review of the BSG code supports Ofcom’s self-regulatory strategy but recommended several adjustments to improve the accessibility of traffic management information, the regulator said. Ofcom now wants to “explore whether low awareness on traffic management is a source of consumer harm,” it said.