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Misleading broadband claims reveal ISPs’ contempt for their customers

By Shazia Mowlabaccus

As broadband speeds rise, ISP deals offering up to 16Mbps continue to tempt large numbers of customers.  However, the reality is that speeds actually delivered to homes often massively differ to those advertised, with many not even reaching half of that offered.  The average download speed in the UK is 3.2Mbps, with the fastest city for broadband downloads being Edinburgh with 4.41 Mbps, still a far cry from 16 Mbps. 

Other types of products in other sectors could never get away with differing so widely from what is advertised, and consumers rightly would not stand for it.  So why do ISPs think they can get away with this? 

One reason is that the majority of consumers aren’t particularly tech-savvy and often don’t realise they aren’t receiving the performance they’re paying for.  Many ISPs rely on the fact that customers find their services too difficult to understand and consequently don’t bother trying.  By taking advantage of this, ISPs reveal the contemptuous attitude they have towards their customers. 

This has led Ofcom to publish a ‘broadband speed code’, which will require ISPs to give more accurate information about the real speed of their broadband services when selling directly.  But at the moment, this still remains voluntary.  However, those who do not sign up risk losing customer trust even further.

The problem is that this code still doesn’t cover the advertising or labeling of broadband services, and hence allows ISPs to continue to mislead consumers.  Ofcom needs to also enforce regulations on how these services are advertised, while consumers need to stand up to ISPs trying to intimidate them with technical jargon.  It’s really not as difficult to understand as many think, and making an effort to understand the reality of broadband services is key to not getting fobbed off with poor and mis-sold services.         

Freedom of choice or freedom from choice?

By Joe Banks

Art rocker and digital entrepreneur type bloke Peter Gabriel launched a new service this week called The Filter.  As the name suggests, it aims to help people sort through the relentless blizzard of chaff that constitutes the modern entertainment industry and come up with stuff they like based on their personal tastes etc.

This of course all sounds mighty familiar – for example, Amazon has its recommendations function based on what you’ve either bought or browsed in the past.  However, the problem is that these services produce suggestions that are often less than helpful, and are in fact usually just naked exercises in trying to get you to buy more of the same rather than expand your horizons.

However, The Filter’s aspirations are a bit loftier than Amazon’s.  In fact, what really makes this announcement interesting is Gabriel’s talking up of the ‘life jockey’ concept.  In other words, something that will take the strain out of actually discovering new stuff for ourselves.

Now, I don’t know about you, but my initial reaction to this was ‘not likely’. For me, one of the great joys of music, film, books etc is the actual process of finding things I like, particularly those instances when you make an unexpected connection between different items or get into something you’ve previously dismissed. The last thing I want is some clever clogs artificial agent telling me what’s hot in my personal world this week.

But then Gabriel quoted Sun Micro guru Bill Joy, who basically said that ‘the first wave is freedom of choice and the second wave is freedom from choice’. 

Goodness me, that sounds jolly sinister... but you can see the logic.  If we’ve come to a point where we’re so overloaded with entertainment options that we no longer feel we’re able to make an informed decision about what to watch or listen to, then perhaps having this choice made for us makes sense? 

However, I can’t help thinking that this just another example of allowing our intellectual and judgemental faculties to wither just because what we’re presented with isn’t that easy. 

After all, isn’t it true that you tend to get the most out of something when you put a bit of effort into it in the first place?  Or am I just showing my age?

Is Big Brother biting off more than he can chew?

By Richard Ratcliffe

So, the Home Office has announced plans to create a new government database storing details of every text, email, and phone call for at least a year.

While I object to the invasion of privacy and yet another infringement of civil liberties, my main concern is that once again our government is taking on an IT project that it is not prepared to cope with.

Since Labour came to power in 1997, we have seen repeated attempts to implement ambitious IT projects, many of which have failed spectacularly costing the taxpayer billions of pounds.

In 1998, problems with the Passport Agencies new computer system were estimated to have cost over £12m as well as causing misery to people whose travel plans were ruined.  A more recent example involved the Child Support Agencies new IT system overpaying 1.9 million people and underpaying 700,000. This ongoing situation has cost the taxpayer over a billion pounds.  And of course, after these disasters, we’ve got biometric ID cards and the proposed communications database to look forward to...

Why the Government seems to have such a voyeuristic obsession with our private lives is beyond me.  It claims these projects will be essential in combating terrorism, but it is hard to see how measures like these will have any real effect. Email accounts and mobile phones can be used without proper authentication of identity and the 7/7 bombers were all living in the UK and would have had ID cards under the proposed system.

Many people argue that, rather than protect the public, these proposals will actually make us more prone to incidents of data loss and ID theft. 

Recent reports state that the biometric ID card scheme will be particularly vulnerable to fraud committed by the contractors chosen to operate it.  The new text/email/phone call database will also cause problems due to the sheer scale of the proposal that is being undertaken. With three billion emails sent every day and approximately 57 billion text messages sent every year, this project is a challenge of massive proportions.

The question is, will they really be able to cope with this volume of sensitive information?  Critics argue that storing this much data in a centralised system is just increasing the risk of attack. The recent HMRC lost disks incident is evidence of what can go wrong when large volumes of personal information are stored in one place.

IT done right can be a truly valuable asset – but when it goes wrong, it can often end in a complete, and very expensive, disaster.  You’ll forgive my pessimism when I say that this government’s track record speaks for itself...

Johnson King at the 2008 European SABRE awards

By Mike King

Video Blog of Johnson King’s recent trip to Venice for the European SABRE awards where it was a finalist in the category ‘European media relations campaign of the year’.  But did Johnson King win...

Download sabre_video_blog_for_broadband.wmv

War breaks out in the gaming industry

By Juliana Wimmer

It all began on 2 December 2007 when Activision and Vivendi Games, numbers two and three of the world’s leading gaming publishers, announced their merger as ‘Activision Blizzard’, consequently becoming the industry leader with a total value of $19 billion.

Activision mainly concentrates on developing games for US consoles whereas Vivendi Games is the publisher of Blizzard Entertainment, whose flagship products include online role player World of Warcraft and StarCraft, which has become a kind of popular sport in Asia. As both companies work in different areas of the gaming industry, their hook-up looked to be a clever move from a strategic point of view.

However, this of course forced Electronic Arts (EA), the former industry leader, to act in order to regain its market leadership. But this was more difficult than EA had ever dreamed of.

EA’s idea to buy Take 2 Interactive was basically good, but the offer came at a particularly inconvenient time.  While financially in tatters, Take 2 still held a big trump card: Rockstar Games, which produces the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series. With GTA 4 on the brink of being released, the relevant investment funds showed their willingness to sell Take 2, but at the highest possible price. And they were right to...

As soon as GTA 4 hit the market, it was a total success. On its first day, Take 2 achieved a return of over $310 million – after a week, it was about $500 million. And as the game is only available on Sony’s Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 at the moment, the upcoming PC release will surely only add to its success.

In the meantime, the tone between the two companies got harsher. EA failed to get majority support from Take 2’s shareholders for a deal and so its bid expired. However, the company is expected to extend again the deadline for its hostile takeover offer, though Take 2 describes the offer as undervaluing the company.

It will be exciting to see how the situation between EA and Take 2 plays out, and whether EA is able to sustain its position in the gaming industry. But many players already have made up their mind: they favour Take 2 as a kind of Jesse James-type outsider and source of real talent, while EA is often seen as a faceless giant sacrificing creativity for mass market appeal.

Is the future of retailing at our fingertips?

By Andrew Chatterton

We’ve all seen the headlines that say the Government only want our fingerprints so they can track our every movement, and that biometrics is the worst idea since the FA decided to appoint Steve McClaren as England manager. 

However, according to a recent study, the public aren’t at all fazed by the prospect, and are in fact in favour – as long as it means making their life easier.

TNS has undertaken a global study on the future of retailing, which says 60 percent of consumers across the globe believe that they will be able to pay for purchases using just their fingerprints by 2015.  When compared against other innovations such as holographic sales assistants, interactive dressing room mirrors and Smart Trolleys (which calculate your shopping as you add items to the basket), consumers rated biometrics at the top of the list. 

Indeed, despite claims that the UK public will rise up in defiance at any introduction of biometrics, the UK was one of the countries most in favour of this shopping solution – with 41 percent giving it the top vote.

So why the ongoing media furore about biometrics?  Is it simply a case that, like any new technology, if you throw it out to the wolves without proper context, it is bound to cause suspicion?

We are not, generally, a population of early adopters – combine this with a potential threat to our identity plus the media’s love of a good Government conspiracy, and the story starts to write itself, however misleadingly...

However, the TNS study shows what can be done when technology is introduced in a more familiar context and in a language that can be easily understood.  Showing how biometrics can be a safe, convenient and secure way of doing your weekly shop is something that the public can immediately visualise and weigh up.

So perhaps biometrics is not quite as scary as some might think, though I doubt the media will have much change of heart. There’s no denying that the technology is only now being adopted into the mainstream, and there’s still one or two bumps to iron out.  But with the right message articulated in a context the target audience can relate to, its introduction should become a lot smoother.

After all, finding the right message and using it in context is exactly what we in the PR industry are here to do…

It's not easy being green

By Laura Mead

Anyone walking the streets of London recently will probably be familiar with the heavily promoted Recycle for London campaign.  Instituted by outgoing mayor Ken Livingstone – who has never been less than vocal about his passion for green issues – the campaign aims to make it easier for Londoners to recycle more. 

However, JK has first-hand experience of the real world challenges of this campaign.  After recently moving offices, we discovered that – despite our best efforts to turn the agency a nice shade of green – our recycled waste wasn’t in fact being recycled at all.  The reason being that our office landlords don’t pay for recycling collection services. 

The thing is though that recycling and waste collection services are, according to the council, funded by the local council tax.  Why then, when a company is required to pay a business rate – the equivalent to council tax – to cover ‘local services’ do they then have to pay an extra fee on top of these rates for services such as recycling collection? 

Of course, the same doesn’t apply for residents – and rightfully so.  If you want to make Londoners recycle more, you need to make it not only easier for them, but beneficial from a cost perspective as well. Yet businesses that produce way more waste than the average household seem to be being penalised by this new initiative.

It seems to me that, while the Recycle for London campaign has great intentions, it hasn’t been entirely thought through.  You can’t create and promote a high-profile campaign designed to encourage people to recycle more and then put obstacles in their way to doing this. 

As we PR practitioners know, a campaign needs to ensure that all details and elements of the programme are clearly defined and understood in advance if it is to succeed – but at the implementation level, this campaign is clearly sending mixed messages. As such, with businesses compelled to just chuck everything in the bin, I wonder what difference this is really going to make to getting Londoners to recycle more.   

Better living through technology?

By Richard Scarlett

So, the new craze this week is ‘Mallercise’ – or for the less hip among us, power walking while window shopping.  Upon seeing this headline, I had to check that April Fool’s Day had actually been and gone.

But lo and behold, power-walking around shopping centres and marching up stairs and escalators is actually for real – some US manufacturers are even offering specifically modified shoes that promise “extra traction for smoother, slicker mall floors”.

Ridicule aside, this particular US-import got me thinking about how our perception of every day activites (in this case, exercise) is rapidly changing.  Mallercise is just another example of the search for new ways to get that ‘just worked out’ look without actually having to grab a towel, throw on some sweats and hit the gym.

As such, it comes as no surprise to hear that glorified bathroom scale the Wii Fit is selling out at a head-spinning rate of 90 units per minute.  Taking active-play to the next level, the Wii Fit promises to bring exercise to the masses and reinvigorate the console generation by adding fun to getting fit.

However, while Nintendo has been careful to stress the fact that Wii Fit should in no way be considered a substitute for real, outdoor, sweaty exercise, the boundaries between real and digital are definitely becoming more blurred.  I’m sure there’ll be some of us who can’t help but rely on the console as neatly packaged Gym Replacement Therapy (GRT).

So is this a sign of things to come?  Technology has already transformed shopping, networking, socialising and even dating – and there are very few things remaining that we actually need to leave our house to do.

While frankly any effort to get people moving is a positive one, I think the Wii Fit runs the risk of being taken too seriously as an alternative to the real thing.  As the proud owner of a Wii Fit (yes, I pre-ordered), I’m in no way criticising this truly groundbreaking innovation – but as computer games increasingly try to replicate reality, the more careful we have to be not to allow technology to completely take over our lives.

“HELLO!? I’M ON A PLANE...”

By Alexandra Radius

We all know that it’s forbidden to use a mobile phone on the plane, especially during take-off and landing.  However, a month ago, the airline company Emirates authorised its passengers for the first time to make calls aboard a commercial flight.  Other companies, such as Air France in Europe and Qantas in Australia, have also been testing the use of mobile phones in the air.

But what’s happened to the risk of radio interference? The Transportation Security Agency still maintains that, “the use of these devices will one day cause an accident by interfering with cockpit devices."  Hardly reassuring.

And apart from the radio frequency issues, the big issue is how fellow passengers will react to the use of mobile phones.  There’s enough noise on a plane already without the added cacophony of multiple people on mobile phones speaking too loudly to be heard.  Air rage anyone? 

A recent study on the subject in the US is clear – two thirds of Americans are for a simple ban on telephone communications in the air. This conclusion has already been adopted by Lufthansa, which isn’t proposing mobile telephony use on its planes.

I'm not actually in favour of phones on planes myself; I find it annoying enough when people talk on their phones in restaurants!  But maybe we could have a dedicated section for it on planes (similar to smoking sections in the past) with a soundproof system? Or just allow people to text?

One thing is for sure, the question around the use of mobile phones on planes is going to stir up more hot air than is perhaps healthy in such a confined space!

Secret Phormula or invasion of privacy?

By George Mensah

Privacy has never been more important to people than in today’s surveillance-intensive society. Unless you’re willing to share your secret habits or quirky preferences on, for instance, social networking sites, direct attempts to find out what they are could be considered nosey, to say the least.

So it isn’t really surprising then that when Phorm allowed their software to be trialled without public consent, the backlash came thick and fast.

After a huge amount of damning press for the online advertising company, its actions were judged as being nothing short of illegal.  While the service may have offered some benefit and the data collected is said to be anonymous, the secretive nature of Phorm’s actions has dented what would have otherwise been a harmless exercise, that selected users might have even volunteered for.

But while companies will argue that the service is designed to encourage better and more targeted advertising, the idea that someone is able to see your browsing history, the entire content of every single web page you visit and even read your web based mail poses serious questions. While companies may claim this information is discarded as a matter of course, I can’t help but wonder if our online personal data will ever be truly secure? If Phorm can access this data so easily, without our knowledge or approval, how well are ISPs protecting their customers?

For example, prior to the Phorm frenzy, there had been a lot of talk surrounding Google and its retention of web data, an issue that seems to have been swept under the carpet, especially now that it is aiding police in the search for illegal pornography – however, it’s deeply worrying that the Home Office now view traffic from websites as being publicly available and thus legal to intercept.

I’m sure we’ll see more attempts to get people to either consent to having their browsing habits analysed, or companies trying to circumvent the law and jump through loop holes to get at, manipulate and sell the data, but companies should heed this warning – people will only ever accept this intrusion if it is opt-in rather than opt-out.  Because if it’s not the former, I doubt very much that this is the last we’ll hear of this very modern invasion of privacy.