Broadband

Firstly I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who answered the survey we put up on the site in February. The response has been far better than expected and I can only apologise that I can’t respond to everyone individually.

I thought I’d share some of the most pronounced results below:

1. Predictably, the two biggest broadband questions people had were “What’s available to me?” and “When can I get faster broadband!?”. Whilst we try to answer those questions as best as possible on the site, there’s always room for improvement. We appreciate the site is not as “consumer friendly” as it could be, and this is something we’re trying to address. We’re also planning to include mobile broadband coverage in the very near future.

2. A significant number of people requested that we provide a mechanism for emailing people updates when a new broadband service is available at their local exchange. I must admit to being a bit perplexed by this - that feature has been available at the bottom of the exchange pages for 18 months now (Perhaps that’s just an indicator of my poor design/layout skills!). Anyway, just search for your exchange, scroll to the bottom of the page and enter your email address to receive updates.

3. Requests for a comprehensive broadband product comparison tool also featured heavily in the responses. I must say that this was rather surprising given the vast amount of broadband comparison sites already out there. Nonetheless, it’s something I’m looking in to.

However, the number one thing that caught my eye in the responses was the number of people who were seeking true performance data for each of the ISPs. These respondents made it clear that this went way beyond running speed tests alone; reliability, consistency, responsiveness, etc, all play an important part in the broadband experience.

All I’ll say is watch this space…