What would you like your telco to tell you about your
broadband connection?

I ask because the TCF is currently reaching the end of a
lengthy process to figure out what to put on advertising and point of sale
material (among other places) in order to help customers compare like with
like.

Currently we talk about price, data capacity and sometimes
speed – although not specifically as the Commerce Commission has always
insisted that if you advertise a product as being able to do something, that
product should be able to do just that. Tricky thing, that, when you’re talking
about broadband speeds on a copper network.

There are plenty of other metrics that customers have asked
about over the years. Contention ratio is one – how many other people will I be
sharing this connection with?  Is it 20:1
or 50:1 or worse? What about committed information rates (CIR) and maximum
speed? What about international capacity – will I find myself unable to connect
to my favourite international site because the ISP’s international link is
saturated?

Then there are what I think of as the “asterisk conditions”.
You know the ones – “reserve the right to manage the service” and “acceptable
use policy may be applied” and possibly even “we don’t let you use your connection
for just anything, you know”.

What would you like to see listed? We can’t have an inexhaustible
list – the model we’re working to is the ticket on display in a used-car’s
window on the lot – but I’d like to hear from members and others about what
would be of use.