Virgin Media promises speeds of 1Gpbs to 15 million homes – all without full fibre Virgin Media has promised speeds of 1Gbps to 15 million homes by the end of 2021 – although that won't be on full fibre. The company's daddy, Liberty Global, has spent billions expanding its network, said the firm. As part of the blueprint, more than a million people will be able to access broadband speeds of 1Gbps by the end …
We used ours for a little while when there was something wrong with modem mode, and I found that the wifi password had to contain two numbers. One was too few, three was too many, none was right out. It had to be exactly two.
Then we went back to using modem mode with an Asus router with Merlin's firmware and it's been just fine. I think we're on whatever their highest tier is at the moment and it's more than fast enough for a house of four.
> when Openretch start putting fibre in for people with phone lines that arrive overhead.
Don't forget ADSL users stuck on Exchange-only lines for whom Openreach have no fibre migration plans whatsoever - you'd think these users would be a shoe-in for Openreach fibre, particularly when the exchange is less than 200 metres away. But no.
Not that I care any more - the development where I live (Exchange-only ADSL lines, 20Mbps down/1Mbps up) recently had Hyperoptic installed so now I'm on 1Gbps up/down with VoIP telephony for about the same price I was paying BT for a landline and their 20Mbps/1Mbps service. It's like night & day.
"I tried running mine in modem mode. Didn't work, wouldn't talk to the real router. I've had to resort to leaving it in router mode with WiFi disabled which is bloody stupid."
Did you read the instructions? In modem mode, there is a specific port you must use to connect your router. The other ports don't work if you turn off the internal router.
"...easily fixed by flipping to Modem only mode and attaching a decent router. Simples :-)"
Easily fixed by re-configuring and adding an additional piece of equipment that you purchse yourself and then configure yourself. That's not easily fixed or simples. Hitting it with a hammer on the top once to fix it permanently would be an easy fix. Even better the 'easy fix' would be for Virgin to acknowledge their hardware doesn't work and stop sending it out and replace it for everyone who has received it, rather than pretend you're the first person they've heard of with 'this issue'.
If you think that is an easy fix then tell your non-technical friend how easy it is to fix and see if they also find it easy.
so be a **good** friend to your non-technical friend, I am sure they will get you a pint or two (or similar units of gratitude! :) ), as what they understand by the main sentence is
' ..easily fixed by fling flin minn only nnnng and attaching douubie roood.. simples (is he selling insurance??) '
You have to remember that FREE things come with the service, and are made to a PRICE, NOT performance...
Anonymous Coward
"...easily fixed by flipping to Modem only mode and attaching a decent router. Simples :-)"
"You have to remember that FREE things come with the service, and are made to a PRICE, NOT performance.."
You seem to be an apologist for VM. They are not free, you pay for it by signing up to their service and paying a premium price. Just because this is 'made to a price' you would still expect it to actually work and you would expect them to fix it if it doesn't - especially as the service relies on it. They should not just tell customers to reboot it and say they haven't heard of this problem before.
I've had SamKnows logging my VM connection for many years now. Always makes me laugh when I see "AVG 251Mbps" on my 200Mbps line. I'm Brighton based and do home IT support and see the awful connections some people get on Openreach cables. Comically shocking.
Note: I also have the hub in Modem mode using my own router behind it.
I'm dumping Virgin Media next month. The internet connection (for me) has been fine. What isn't fine is the regular (slightly more frequently than once a year) price rises - the next one is 7% in September. I'm off to pastures new for a faster connection and lower price. Their notification even had the cheek to tell me that if I cancel before 21st August there will be "no cancellation charges". Uh guys, I'm outside my contract term...
I was told about a price rise. I had 200mb + free phone calls and all TV apart from the movies.
After a couple of false starts, I spoke to a lovely lady who offered me 500mb/s, free phone calls, all TV including movies and a sim card for my mobile with unlimited 4G - for £15/month less than I was paying. All on a 12 month contract.
Of course, I said yes!!!
Alan
Always check what discounted prices and packages VM are offering to new customers as that can give a solid "why are they getting more than I am paying more for" basis for complaint. Even if you only wrangle a no cost upgrade it becomes better value than it would have been.
I rang them up and told them I was leaving and they did offer a price drop but I'd already done my sums to realise that there's no way they could match what I could get. Their standard TV package is so basic that both freeview and freesat offer much choice and for free. They also have the option of often being integrated directly into the TV so you don't need to use a separate box and remote unless you want multi channel simultaneous recording. The Virgin Box I had was also sooo slow. The thought of using iPlayer on it just sent a shiver as it's be like walking through a pool of treacle. The iPlayer built into my TV worked at least 15 times faster.
However you can't get it cheaper by removing the TV package. So to switch my TV top freeview/freesat and get a different phone line and broadband with a WiFI router that actually worked and didn't stop connections once there were more than 10 connections cost 1/3rd of Virgin for a better service in every respect. Plenty left over to pay for the odd Amazon Prime/Netflix/Now TV subscription as required.
that bugs the hell out of me, i don't want the TV, I don't want the phone, I just want the broadband. but it's cheaper to get a bundle, or such a tiny amount more that i might as well.
also that if you actually speak to someone they'll randomly go, oh, our current offering for your package is higher than that, and increase your speed straight away, but will only do it if you speak to someone, not automatically.
Here in Spain the fibre rollout is well on the way.
The main difference is that dozens of small local companies are driving the process.
The enabler for this is small companies have the write to use Telefonica's existing cable ducting. I.E. they get to run thier fibre through Telefonica's holes in the ground. This was regarded as fare as most of this was built with tax payers money before nationalisation, and, the more recent infrastructure was put in place by property developers and handed over when development was finished.
In Italy, Open Fiber (wholesale-only, 50% owned by the national electricity provider) is also rolling out FTTP at speed re-using their ducting and poles (outside cities), also when planning with councils they reuse as much as possible public lighting ducts to reduce the amount of digging. In 2015 we only recently started to have FTTC available, now every major city has access to 1Gbps FTTP. But it was the government, no EU legislation needed...
Some rural parts of the UK are getting fibre thanks to local councils and fibre providers. My folks in the Cotswolds were approached by someone coming to the door asking whether they'd be interested in Gbps internet through fibre. The village had just had a company digging up the verge and installing it. Mum enquired whether it made emails go any faster or shopping on the M&S website. Saleswoman suggests that streaming would be faster etc. Mum says she doesn't do that and laughed out loud when she found out how much a month it was and the installation charges including the long way down the drive would be.
And for the majority of domestic users anything over 100Mbps would realistically be superfluous for them as they won't use anywhere near that bandwidth for well over 99% of the time, Windows updates notwithstanding.
I'm on normal broadband with a fibre package and currently get around 15Mbps on an average day (just a bit too far from the exchange) and it's bearable unless I'm trying to run updates on two or more machines at the same time. At my old house I got 38Mbps and never noticed any issues no matter what anyone was doing on their machine/device. We have friends in a 10-year old house and they get 78Mbps all the time and never have any issues.
Full fibre, when it finally gets here, will be a great thing to have, but for most peoples use-cases once you get above a certain speed the additional bandwidth benefits are marginal. Not that it's a nice thing to have though.
Famous last words from many a person.
1Gbps may not be required 100% of the time but when you do on occasion need it and it is not there you wonder what you are paying for.
If we can (and we can) build the infrastructure to take more than that then we should. Let me use your above example with requirements now (not in the future) with that 78Mbps connection.
My wife and I usually watch the same programs (streamed) at 1080p which is enough for us at this time but 4K is starting to look like the future more and more. Services for this vary on their recommendations (and I can't be bothered to do the maths now) between 15Mbps and 25Mbps. I'll settle in the middle at 20Mbps.
Me and My Wife = 20Mbps, Daughter = 20Mbps, Son 1 = 20Mbps, Son 2 = 20Mbps, your 38Mbps is way too slow. If my wife and I want to watch separate programs then add another 20Mbps and I've already blown your 78Mbps. Yes it's not all the time but as I said when it's needed it's needed.
And 8K is here too. I see no need for it but higher and higher fidelity is the future so double that in a few years, again a few after that and you can see why we need the provision and I've not even touch on other uses aside from TV that gobble as much bandwidth as possible.
Let's actually build for the future for once rather than accepting second or third best. Do it once do it right, or am I too much of an optimist?
I have the 200Mbps service and also signed up for a SamKnows white box - one that samples the speed and feeds it back for public viewing and to the ISPs. I don't know whether that helps me get better service (that was clearly my intention ;-) but I just checked the last six months data and apart from one or two week-long dropouts to a mere 45Mbps it's been 190-220 all the way. I'm happy enough, but these price rises are tiresome.
It's great how the DOCSIS standard has evolved over the years but when all's said and done the cable is contended. Supporting Gb speeds is one thing, providing them to everyone who wants it at the same time could be another. Plus VM seem to always run their network hot. It's infamous for jitter and big swings between peak and off-peak speeds.
On the plus side at the moment less than 2% of their customers have signed up to the fastest package so the cable contention is probably not an issue at the moment.
There's zero reason that all the customers will want 1 Gbps at the same time though. There's no use case for such speeds for the home user.
DOCSIS 3.1 provides about 10 gigabits of download capacity, so it is oversubscribed but to what extent depends on how many people share the same node.
An amendment of DOCSIS 3.1 uses the same RF spectrum on the cable for simultaneously upload and download, and thus provides fully symmetric speed. If this offering from Virgin is coming rather than already installed, if you're lucky they'll use equipment that supports that. Because usually it is the much lower upload capacity that causes problems - a few people doing bittorrent is all that's needed to soak it up and then ACKs get delayed and everything slows down.
Presumably someone has designed or is working on a switched DOCSIS node, then you won't share your bandwidth with anyone on the node. It will be just like DSL and fiber at that point - the only barrier to getting your full speed will be upstream of the node.
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