I have just been having a spat with my ISP over the quality of
both the line speed and the service availability, which lately has been going
up and down like a yoyo.

Like most ISP’s, mine operates an FUP (Fair Use Policy).  Hmmm. Fair for who?  
The ISP obviously, because that fair usage policy states that should I use my 
internet connection excessively, and by excessively they think that 2gig ish 
is fair, then they will be forced to put me on reduced usage so that it will not
interfere with the other users who are also on the 50 or 75:1 contention that
most ISP’s operate.

The Office of National Statistics report for September 2006 shows that 75.2 percent 
of all people in the UK that now have internet connection have broadband, and 
presumably an FUP to contend with.

Note: the ONS does not actually say how many people are connected, only that of 
those that are, 75.2 pct are on broadband, the rest being on metered 17.8pct and 
unmetered 7.1pct dial up.

Are we so accepting in the UK of poor quality, high pricing and low usage as the 
norm for our existence on the net that we fail to notice what is happening elsewhere, 
and demand better from our ISP’s. Perhaps our press should be informing us better.

If we go to France for instance, we can get up to 20m/sec broadband as standard, 
with no FUP, free VoIP, unlimited national and international calling (for an extra 
5€ per month), a free UK2U UK phone number so your family and friends can phone 
you at UK local rates all for 29.90€ per month. Yes, Euros not Pounds.

There is an interesting offering for UK expats in France from Teleconnect France 
on http://www.teleconnectfrance.com/Highspeedinternet.html

This comes with a guaranteed uptime of 97pct, and a guaranteed speed, rather than 
the best efforts policies operated in the UK.

Is it not time that we started to demand European standards here in the UK for all 
our Internet Services.