Swedish Carriers

The Swedish Ombudsman has ruled that local mobile carriers must advertise the actual attainable internet speed figures rather than the traditional "up to" figures. The ruling came after it was decided that advertising a speed that is very rarely attainable is misleading to the public and makes choosing your broadband supplier an easier job. When you order a 10Mbps connection that is what you expect to get, but many people end up receiving under 20% of this, depending on their distance from the distribution point.

In the UK, the Channel 5 show "Gadget Show" have had a campaign running for 18 months to get British users to complain to their suppliers if they are getting significantly below the "up to" figure. They believe it is misleading for the public. When you buy a car that can do 155mph, you don't expect to reach its top speed at 31mph!

With a major ruling in a European country, we may expect to see the same laws applied throughout the EU which would be beneficial to home users and small business alike. A slow connection to your server in a co-location facility renders it near useless when you need to access you equipment quickly. Paying more for extra bandwidth from the co-lo side cannot help you until you have a guaranteed speed to you PC or work network.

Migration Solutions is a specialist computer room and data centre specialist offering independent advice on the design, build and operation of data centres and computer rooms. See our website at www.migrationsolutions.com.