Virgin upgrade to double broadband speeds

Better for everyone

The competition between the two main broadband providers, just makes it better for the consumer. It must be the fear that BT are now rolling out fibre optic cable to their customers. It would be great if Virgin started to lay new fibre optic cable to more areas like BT are doing. My Uncle lives next door to someone that had Fibre optic Virgin Media, but because they didn't quite reach him, he doesn't have the option of going to Virgin. Lucky for him he now has the choice of BT infinity, but says he would hang on if Virgin could provide the service. I am on 50 Meg at the moment and the connection is always what it is supposed to be. I always considered the 100 Meg connection not worth the extra expense, but if my line is going to be doubled over the next 18 months, I certainly wont be complaining. Well done Virgin Media. Always one step ahead of the competition when it comes to future proofing their assets!

By airborne_warrior on 11 Jan 2012

Blimey...

I'm stuck at 3.86 until someone decided to change something :(

By rhythm on 11 Jan 2012

How many people care?

I'm still perfectly happy with my 4MB connection and maintain that, apart from people downloading or streaming a lot of high quality video, the increased speeds make little difference as most of the delay in rendering a page is server delay (often multiplied by the dozens-hundreds of individual page elements required and the advertising server delays).

So, gamers and mass video users may want this but I suspect it's a bit of a white elephant to most.

By qpw3141 on 11 Jan 2012

meh....

I used to get 10mb. Then they started throttling download speeds for most parts of the day, now I barely get 3.5 mb. Unless they do something about the throttling this won't make any difference whatsoever and is just a sales gimmick.

Brinng or real competition. This will be the only way to get ISPs to deliver what they claim to. None of them deliver and all their and ever other ISPs advertising is brazenly false.

By Manuel on 11 Jan 2012

A bit of a white elephant??

@qpw3141 Is there nothing a supplier can do to be congratulated? Why is an ISP offering to double your speed and provide a hardware upgrade at no extra cost a "white elephant".

I do not know which time zone your "majority" inhabit but it certainly is not mine where teenagers are watching HD YouTube video's while online gaming, the wife catches up with Eastenders on the IPad with iPlayer and I am working from home needing remote access to works server/VPN etc. In the evening we settle to watch a streamed video on LoveFilm.com. Not fogetting SkyAnytime film streaming. And we haven't even started on HD streaming yet.

Are we so unusual?

Well done Virgin is what I say and I will shortly be voting with my wallet.

By jefferson30 on 11 Jan 2012

@jefferson30

"Are we so unusual?"

In all probability, yes.

I did say that this would be popular amongst people who downloaded a lot of video.

It's just that most people get most of their their video via broadcast, be that terrestrial, satellite or cable.

And, to be perfectly honest, there seems to be something very peculiar about your household in that you all seem to spend most of your time watching 'TV' without ever accessing broadcast.

By qpw3141 on 11 Jan 2012

@qpw3141

Not peculiar rather that I, among everyone else I know, have discovered the joys of watching the content we are interested in at a time to suit us.

By jefferson30 on 11 Jan 2012

Availability is Crucial

These upgrades are very nice for existing customers but the vast majority of people in the UK have no possibility of access to any sort of fibre based broadband for many years to come.:-(

Any form of straeming media is very iffy for me with 1 adsl connection at 1.8mb and the other at 2.2mb both falling slowly but steadily.
And to add insult we actually have fibre to the building and most of it is unused.:-(

By mrogers8 on 11 Jan 2012

They're being Mean with their averages

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16491614

"According to Ookla, a company which uses monitors broadband speed tests across the world, the UK ranks around 35th globally when ranked by broadband consumer download speed - an average of 11.65Mbps.

Virgin Media say that when the rollout is complete, that average could rise to around 16.46Mbps."

So take 10 people, 9 on 1mbit and 1 on 120mbit and you've got an "average" of 12.9mbit (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+120 = 129 / 10 = 12.9). The government does the same for wages - 9 people on £15,000 and 1 person on £250,000 gives an "average" wage of £38,500. I suppose that's why they call this type of "average" the "mean".

How about using the median (line up the figures and choose the middle one) for a change?

I'm not in a Virgin area, but I think their throttling could prove to be a pain. I'm with Sky - which offers truly unlimted downloads. Unfortunately my initial 10mbit has become 6.5mbit, but at least I don't have to worry about how much I'm downloading - my blu-ray player and even my amp connect to the internet these days, never mind my XBox 360, PS3, two PCs, laptop, iPad, iPhone. I can imagine that increasing significantly if there were more people in my household. As for live broadcasts; I don't have a TV, so I can watch what I want, when I want, with no ads or sensationalised "news" bulletins - which is nice :o)

By mulvaney on 11 Jan 2012

@ jefferson30

I had a funny feeling that 'everyone you knew' would be just like you. ;)

Some of us watch what interests us when it interests us by the use of one of those new fangled PVR thingies that does not require bandwidth hogging or a fast line.

By qpw3141 on 11 Jan 2012

"And, to be perfectly honest, there seems to be something very peculiar about your household in that you all seem to spend most of your time watching 'TV' without ever accessing broadcast."

Get with the 21st century grandad.

By Lacrobat on 12 Jan 2012

@mulvaney

Virgin Media 50meg and above is truly unlimited. using file sharing services and newsgroups would be slowed down on ANY service regardless of your connection if the downloading become too disturbing to the other customers on a network.
BT, i think has the worst reputation for limiting your download speed.(excluding those really small ISPs)

By mobilegnet on 12 Jan 2012

@Lacrobat

How silly of me. I'd clearly missed the fact that no one has a satellite dish or aerial on their house any more.

Oh, wait ...

More seriously, a lot of people augment broadcast with some access via the net but it's still quite unusual for people to base ALL their viewing on download.

By qpw3141 on 13 Jan 2012

Throttling will happen very quickly!

The speed increase will be great. Last time I went from 2MB to 10MB and it's pretty consistently at that speed too. However, Virgin's fair use policy needs looking at.

I download large files (or watch HD video) very rarely, but if I EVER do it, I get throttled and labelled as a 'Heavy User'. If I did it for a few days in a row, or so many days in a month, then ok, but hitting the daily limit just once throttles me for 5 hours (even if the peak time period, essentially 10am - 9pm, is nearly over!)

On my current 10MB connection, I can hit the 750MB limit very quickly indeed....meaning that if I ever want to download something large, or watch HD video, it has to be after 9pm at night....starting just a few minutes before, if downloading especially, will cripple my connection for hours after.

See the rules here http://www.virginmedia.com/images/tm-table-su-larg
e.jpg

By wigsta1 on 13 Jan 2012

p.s. I have moaned at Virgin regarding the above, too in the past.....they have passed on my feedback.....I'm not holding my breath, obviously!

By wigsta1 on 13 Jan 2012