As governments and telecoms regulators set differing minimum broadband speeds as part of their universal service plans, operators on Thursday said providing a consistent experience to every user is more important than achieving a certain data rate. “Speaking about speeds is dangerous,” said Cayetano Carbajo Martin, CTO and head of technology at Telefonica, during a panel session at Broadband World Forum in Paris. “It’s more important to speak about what services you can provide – starting a competitive fight about speeds won’t lead anywhere,” he said. “The user never really thinks about speeds, they think about what services they can expect to use – they’re wondering whether the YouTube video they’re trying to watch will buffer,” added Thomas Wehmeier, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media.

The comments were made as various governments set their targets for rolling out universal broadband access to 100% of their populations, including people living in rural and remote areas where it is not economically viable for an operator to deploy a network.

The U.K. government, for instance, has pledged to provide everyone with at least a 2-Mbps broadband service by 2015.

“If you look at it in terms of providing people in rural areas with the same services as people living in cities, connection speed becomes a moving target,” said Yves Bellego director of IT and network strategy at Orange.

Indeed, and what’s more Martin reminded the audience that data rates can also vary dramatically depending on how much traffic there is on the network.

“Even talking about average speeds is dangerous,” he warned.

One operator with extensive experience in rolling out universal connectivity in remote areas is Telstra – the Australian incumbent’s 3G network runs on low-frequency spectrum that reaches 99% of the population, providing good indoor coverage. What’s more, 90% of Telstra’s backhaul network has been upgraded to Ethernet.

“Ubiquitous connectivity is something we didn’t expect would have as great an impact on innovation that it did,” said Hugh Bradlow, CTO of Telstra, who described a mobile breast cancer screening service able to visit people living in remote areas and send medical information back to hospitals and doctor’s surgeries.

“They know that they can offer this service because wherever they are they know they’ve got connectivity,” he said.

Bradlow was also dismissive of regulators’ plans for minimum connection speeds.

“There’s very little I agree with regulators about – the power of ubiquity is much greater than the power of the regulators,” he said. can offer this service because wherever they are they know they’ve got connectivity,” he said.

Bradlow was also dismissive of regulators’ plans for minimum connection speeds.

“There’s very little I agree with regulators about – the power of ubiquity is much greater than the power of the regulators,” he said.