The Utility Blog

Recent survey by World Finance News suggests internet speeds differed by up to 69% between the evening and early morning

UK broadband speeds drop by an average of 35% from their off-peak highs when most people are online in the evening, according to a report.

The research, conducted by the comparison site Uswitch, was based on two million broadband speed tests. The peak surfing times between 7pm and 9pm were the slowest to be online, the report said. There were also huge regional variations between evening and early morning surfing times. The report suggested the best time to be online was between 2am and 3am.

Users in Evesham, Worcestershire, fared worst, according to the survey, with a massive 69% drop-off between off-peak morning and evening surfing. Those living in Weston-super-Mare did little better with speeds falling from an off-peak average of 9.5Mbps (megabits per second) to 3.4Mbps in the evening – a 64% drop.

The difference was often most noticeable in rural areas where even peak speeds were relatively slow. In Wadebridge, in Cornwall, speeds nearly halved from 4.1Mbps at off-peak times to 2.1Mbps at peak times.

“It really is surprising just how much broadband speeds fluctuate at different times of the day, with drop-offs of almost 70% in some areas of the UK,” said Uswitch’s technology expert Ernest Doku.

Broadband speed is becoming more important as bandwidth-hungry services such as on-demand TV become more popular and the telecoms regulator Ofcom recently revealed that British households download an average of 17 gigabytes of data every month over their home broadband connections. That monthly data diet is equivalent to streaming 11 movies or 12 hours of BBC programmes via iPlayer.

Critics say consumers are being misled by internet service providers who continue to advertise their maximum broadband speeds, even though many users do not get them. New rules from the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) say that from April next year providers will no longer be able to advertise maximum speeds for net packages unless 10% of customers receive them.

Almost half of broadband users are now on packages with advertised speeds above 10Mbps but the average broadband speed is 6.8Mbps according to Ofcom.

Business travel might seem glamorous, but connectivity problems can cause some very un-glamorous headaches

It’s late at night, you’re far from home, it’s hot and steamy. You need to send an urgent e-mail to the office – but there’s no wifi available and you can’t find a 3G signal.

Even if you could, as a lean mean startup you’re worried you might need to sell the office furniture to pay the bill.

This is a situation familiar to anyone who travels – whether on business or simply on holiday.

The rise of the smartphone and our increasing reliance on laptops and tablets, not to mention cloud-based software applications that need an internet connection to work, means many of us find ourselves hostages to high wifi and roaming charges.

In the EU, the European Commission has announced plans to extend the price cap on roaming costs to include data for the first time, with a lower cap on calls received and texts. Despite this charges are likely to remain high.

So what can you do to keep yourself connected – while keeping costs down?

Geneva-based Carole Vivien has worked in IT sales for around 15 years, for some of the biggest companies in the telecoms sector, including BT and AT&T. She now works for US firm Hunt Big Sales, and travels regularly around the world on business.

“I would say that my bill is 95% roaming. Always. Even when I was working for AT&T or whoever,” she says.

“They give you a limit. Let’s say they let you spend £500 to £700 a month for your mobile, but because you’re roaming all the time you’re more likely to spend £2,000 on voice and data.”

About six months ago she ended up stranded at London’s Heathrow Airport after a mix-up with her flights.

While sorting out a hotel room for the night she saw an advert for a new device that provided a pocket wifi hotspot for a flat rate of £4.95 a day by a company called Tep.

“For me after being in telecoms for 15 years, when I saw this sign advertising it I said, ‘Ah finally, someone’s doing that’,” she says.

Personal wifi devices are not new – various network operators offer them for domestic use – but this is aimed at those travelling overseas, allowing you to connect up to five devices in any of the countries supported by the company for the same flat rate. They also provide prepaid smartphones.

Tomas Mendoza is the founder of Tep. He says he got the idea while travelling around south east Asia with his girlfriend, after leaving the hedge fund industry.

“Throughout the trip we realised how difficult it was to remain connected, and how being connected was very, very valuable.

“My mother, she’s 50, she doesn’t know where the sim card is in the phone. Going to another country, finding a sim card, unlocking the phone, it’s something she’ll never do.”

According to research commissioned by the company, the average smartphone data consumption is 10MB a day. Over the course of a 10-day business trip in Europe this could cost around £210 ($338; 240 euros).

When business travellers work on the internet from their phones, that can go up to as much as 40 to 60MB a day, costing between £80 and £120 a day, or between £800 and £1,200 for a 10-day trip.

This is unlikely to change in the near future, according to Juniper Research’s Nitin Bhas.

“Roaming has traditionally provided network operators with an opportunity to gain additional revenues above and beyond regular access fees.

“The ability to stay connected even while roaming across international networks is a key requirement, particularly within the enterprise sector, and operators have traditionally levied a significant surcharge for this privilege, particularly in the case of data services.”

This isn’t the only technology out there that could help you cut your costs. ABroadband.com offer 3G access for 59 cents (84 US cents; 52p) per megabyte in over 50 countries – although you have to factor in the additional cost of buying either a dongle or a sim card.

Onevoice Anywhere is BT’s voip service aimed at business travellers

And some of the big operators are also trying to find solutions for their business customers. BT is due to launch Onevoice Anywhere – a voip (voice over internet protocol) phone service that lets business customers make calls over wifi connected devices.

Steve Masters, BT’s global head of unified communications, says testing has gone very well.”It provides flexibility and functionality for global travellers and will help to significantly reduce global roaming charges,” he says.

There are also apps that claim to help you save money. Onavo is available for iPhone, and will compress the data being received by your phone. Less data means smaller charges – but your data will have to travel through their servers.

Do it yourself

Taking an old handset, or dongle or even Mifi (personal wifi device) and buying a local sim is a possibility – but may only be practicable for longer trips, says Tom Otley of Business Traveller magazine.

Customers may object to calling you on a different, overseas number, and the handset must be unlocked.

Many people rely on the fact that that their hotel will have wifi. Mr Otley says despite the expectations of some travellers, they will often have to pay for it.

Looking for a new mobile phone? Visit our friends at phones4u.co.uk and view the range of great mobile phones they have on offer, there is sure to be something for you

Facebook Phones are being introduced to the world at Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona, Spain, we will look at them in greater detail as we get them. Adopting a dance stance, we do wonder whether future iterations of such handsets will not be enhanced with a suffix, but rather, take on other names like the HTC Rock, HTC HipHop or even HTC Classical. I digress, let us see what these social networking phones are able to do.

First off, the HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa do stand out from the rest of the smartphones that are on the market simply by virtue of a dedicated Facebook button that delivers one-touch access to the key functions of the Facebook service. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the HTC Sense experience is diminished in any way – no sir, you will find yourself more entrenched in Facebook more than ever now.

After all, with over 500 million active users worldwide, Facebook is a tour de force that will surely be a powerful brand name to be associated with, making sense for HTC to jump at the opportunity.

The Facebook button on the HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa are context-aware, where it will gently pulse with light whenever there is an opportunity to share content or updates through Facebook. This means pressing it just once will let you update your status, upload a photo, share a Website, and even post the song that you are currently grooving to. How about snapping a photo of friends on your phone and have it uploaded instantly to Facebook?

The possibilities are more or less endless, and perhaps HTC does not want to put all their eggs in a single basket, hence the splitting up of the Facebook phone to theHTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa variants. The former will come in a unique tilt design which shapes the display and physical QWERTY keyboard, making it a snap to see everything that goes on as well as being easy on your fingers as you type. Features include a 5-megapixel color camera with auto focus and LED flash and a VGA front-facing camera, a 2.6-inch, 480 x 320 resolution landscape touch screen.

As for the HTC Salsa that reminds us of the HTC Legend, it is more of what you’re used to if you aren’t a BlackBerry addict, sporting a generous 3.4-inch, 480 x 320 resolution touch display.

Expect both handsets to hit Europe and Asian markets in Q2 this year, while they will arrive Stateside via AT&T in an exclusive agreement. Please wander back for more mobile phone advice.