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Be Broadband offer 'has limited appeal'
Friday 10th October 2008, by Daniel King
Experts in the sector have stated that Be Broadband's customisable broadband connections are unlikely to be attractive to many users.
Be's new offer allows subscribers to change their connection to one of four different settings.
These are a basic setting for everyday use, an option optimised for speed, one for reliability and another for those who enjoy online gaming.
However, Thomas Newton of UK Web Media noted that casual users are unlikely to want to change, "tweak or fiddle" with the connection if all they want to do is check their emails, Facebook and YouTube.
He did note that there may be some appeal for those who are likely to stream large quantities of media while online.
In particular he pointed to BBC iPlayer as an example of this, saying that regular users may wish to optimise their speeds to cope with video content.
Mr Newton commented: "The only real way in which this affects heavy downloaders is that the time spent waiting for files to finish transferring will be shortened; broadband optimisation will not limit or increase the amount you can download in any way."
He points to gamers as the ones who are most likely to benefit from the service, saying that they are the ones who will want to get the fastest speeds.
In online games, reducing the game lag and being able to customise their connection could be "indispensible" to players, he continued.
Be Broadband was found to have the second fastest download speeds in the month of September. The fastest connection was from Virign Media which achieved 6.128Mbps compared to Be's 5.321Mbps.
Categories: Broadband, Broadband Products, Be
