In July 2024 MedUX published its 2024 UK benchmark report (in addition to its Europe benchmark report) on fixed broadband performance – with some surprising results. One aspect mentioned in the report was that the UK leads in fibre deployment but lags behind in coverage. To learn more, IoT Insider spoke to Rafael González, Chief Marketing Officer at MedUX.
MedUX is an Internet testing and monitoring company focusing on quality of experience and service. Founded 10 years ago, it began with its own hardware equipment for 24/7 testing, or “mini computers,” as González termed it. These were used for Internet monitoring in residential households, or customers operating in the B2B or SME spaces. It now also deploys mobile robots which are used for testing, benchmarking and monitoring purposes.
The report, according to González, was started two years ago. “It’s a new initiative from our corporate social responsibility program, where we have certain sets of data open to the industry as a way of giving back,” he explained.
The data was collected from 150+ observational points, which refers to the placement of the company’s testing robots connected via Ethernet or Wi-Fi to the router. “We perform service performance measurements about throughput latency, packet loss, trace routes, DNS resolution,” explained González. “We also perform quality of experience tests focusing on how Cloud storage is performing, gaming, streaming, web browsing and so on.”
Findings from the report show that BT is leading the way in fixed broadband network responsiveness and overall quality of experience in the UK, scoring 4.59 out of 5 based on MedUX’s scorecard. BT underwent 900,000 tests on its network from which these results came.
“What we always say is that speed is not everything,” emphasised González. “All of us see marketing messages from the operators focusing on speed or, for example, a new technology that is 10 times faster than whatever is available. But speed is not everything.” To counter this fixation on speed, González said that the concern of consumers using these services is with the quality of service. “What we realised is that concepts such as reliability and consistency is what matters to the end user.”
How long it takes for a stream to load or stop buffering is one such metric a consumer will measure the quality of service against. “How you grasp the details about the [end user] experience, how you can extract insights on the 10% worst sessions you might have in gaming is where you have to focus as an operator,” he said.
With the UK leading in full fibre deployment but lagging in coverage sticking in my mind as a finding from the report, I asked González about this.
“Infrastructure when it is empty is useless,” he said poignantly. “I can make a very simple comparison with the best highway connecting Madrid and Paris. If no one is using this 10-lane highway, it’s useless.”
He went on to note that how to measure coverage, usage, penetration and the impact of a technology have multiple factors behind all of these. “When we talk about fibre growth … at a certain distance you have fibre passing by your house but that doesn’t mean you can connect to it.” Therefore, figures on fibre deployment don’t necessarily reflect how many users are connected.
“It’s important to differentiate between coverage and experience today,” noted González.
“We need to be more ambitious as Europeans … In many countries have relied upon the legacy copper infrastructure that could still serve certain needs, but I think it’s time to move on because of the performance constraints we might see from that infrastructure,” he concluded.
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