Ofcom wants to measure the speed of next-gen broadband lines in the UK, to make sure customers are getting a fair deal.
The research will be done in association with SamKnows and its "White Box", a device which would be attached to the customer's router and measures the broadband speed.
The communications regulator's past investigation has already yielded some excellent results in revealing that, for most users, broadband is not as fast as advertised.
SamKnows clocked the speed of the average "this-gen" broadband technology at 4.1Mbps in April 2009, compared to the average 'up to' headline speed of 7.1Mbps.
The project will now continue until 2012 and Ofcom are encouraging more people to get involved and connect to a SamKnows white box. Those that do sign up get to see the speeds from their own white box, and know exactly how fast their broadband is.
But Ofcom is quick to point out that even though they can prove the disparity, there is no guarantee your internet connection will get faster.
It is free to take part and you can get your own white box on the SamKnows website.
I think a mistake the service providers make is setting an absolute individual maximum speed. If there's more traffic then the network can handle, it doesn't matter what your plan says you can get, you're throttled. So why limit it the other way? If there's available network bandwidth, use it, all of it. That would help prevent the system from getting overloaded and it would improve overall user experience. Some sort of priority rating would have to be used. If I've benefited from open network in past and you've not, you'd have higher priority. Just seems silly to me to have the bandwidth there and not use it while on the other hand when the bandwidth is not there that's too bad. What's that? Our chips belongs to you? I thought that was supposed to be China.
Be real, be sober.