Based on LIRNEasia’s broadband QoSE research findings, we ran an advertisement in the Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka’s leading English daily) on 24 November 2009.  The advertisement focused on four facts. The first three were on value for money, advertised download speed as opposed to actual download speed and bandwidth bottlenecks.  The lack of regulation on contention ratios (how many users per “channel”) was highlighted as the fourth fact

We pointed out that LIRNEasia’s recommendation about imposing contention ratios of 1:20 (Business) and 1:50 (Residential) had been adopted by the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), with minor changes.  TRAI mandates contention ratios of 1:30 for Business and 1:50 for Residential.

The advertisement also presented “models to emulate”:  India and Singapore.  Even though the two countries have set different parameters, they exemplify good regulatory practice.

We also compared value for money in Sri Lankan broadband in relation to Canada and the USA.  This clearly demonstrated that Sri Lankan users get less value for their money than the North American users, in contrast to the situation with regards to mobile telephony.

The advertisement also invited users to download the free AT tester software from www.broadbandasia.info.

The advertisement.