Tony Hallett’s After These Messages: When is broadband not broadband?

Does the need for speed muddy the high-speed waters?

This week saw Telewest Broadband announce a 256Kbps internet service. In a brief news piece, I refrained from calling it broadband. It looks good, don't get me wrong - always-on, decent price, addressing a part of the market that will be interested and so on. But broadband? I don't think so.

In recent months Tiscali has also had considerable success with a low-end broadband service that isn't quite broad enough for the tastes of the team at silicon.com. Indeed, as we noted in another recent story, diplomatically entitled '"Broadband? You're joking" - come back when you're at least 512Kbps', we explain that in fact less than 10 per cent of our readers - based on a poll taken between 11 and 22 February this year - would consider 150Kbps speeds (Tiscali's offering) to be broadband.

So where does this leave these companies and their competitors? As BT CEO Ben Verwaayen said this week, too much can be made of broadband speeds. And analysts to whom silicon.com regularly speaks have also pointed out over the years that arguably the most important aspect of broadband is that it is always-on, which leads to different ways of using the internet beyond faster and bigger downloads.

(As an aside, it should be noted that to a considerable number of consumers, broadband's ability to let them surf while not tying up their phone lines for voice calls is very important. Don't believe me? Check out the BT Broadband advertising, for example - they'll usually mention this and they've done their research.)

And while our same recent survey showed more than half our readers consider broadband to mean '512Kbps or above', there are also those who always point out what the term was intended to mean, way back when. When fibre to the home was considered the next logical step (and a copper-using technology such as DSL an 'inbetween' step), many were told to expect speeds in excess of 10Mbps - which would in theory allow HDTV, online game playing, surfing, messaging and more, all at the same time.

It isn't likely that Telewest and Tiscali will be hauled over the coals by Ofcom. Almost a year ago, NTL was ruled against by the UK Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) - but not the then Oftel - for calling a 128Kbps option a "high-speed broadband product". Critically it didn't mention rate. Providers have now learnt to be clear on that point.

But putting ourselves in the providers' shoes for a minute, whether they use cable (like NTL or Telewest), DSL (like Tiscali, BT and countless others) or some other technology, it isn't easy to see how to market these services. Or rather, any other method is plain harder than referring to 'broadband'.

The cynic would also say that by being sanctioned by Ofcom to call sub-512Kbps offerings 'broadband', providers are helping the government reach its targets for availability and roll out. Availability, in fact, may not come into play. These low-end options are options where faster alternatives are also on offer - and preferable, margin-wise for providers, I may add. But availability is a hornet's nest, one to stir up another time.

Sure, my colleagues and I at silicon.com would like to see stricter definitions on what constitutes broadband. So too would our readers, we feel. But we must also spare a thought - maybe just a small one - for not handicapping a market that is finally getting on its feet.