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.
This post is not about possible congestion at the ISP...
All too often, locally I see people that might have 100mbps or 1gbps service, but then have nothing connected by ethernet, they have an awful 2.4ghz-only access point that (due to congestion) MIGHT manage 35mbps if they are lucky. The local cable co must be laughing all the way to the bank.
I just have to wonder what good 8gbps service would be? Not that I'm complaining (especially if the price is good), but I for sure do not have 10gig ethernet running at home, and I have dual-band wifi but (given I don't have those wifi clients with 4-8 antennas on them..) it's top speed is like 866mbps.
Why would you want to go 1gbps at home? Do you have a DC in your home?
I work in IT for years, I live in Czech Republic and am originally from Portugal, in PT I have fiber at home with 4play (iptv, internet,phone and all other crap) speed is 200 Mbps and is a way overkill even with all the iptv.
In CZ I have cable hybrid with 500Mbps and I have a second provider with fiber (all new buildings allow you to have at least 2 providers pre-cabled.
Here is as well common the WISPs that can deliver 100 Mbps.
The reality is... it is an overkill, and I don’t use it and I have a lab at home with 25/10Gbps networks so I don’t even have the issue with the home networking. All is an overkill and truly unneeded.
Then we have to remember most devices use wireless... you can’t even exhaust such links. You can join the number of power lines used to extend home networks and very few have cat5 cabling.
Now the big issue is that most of people in I’m, including in metros like London have the craziest DSL line and having 8Mbps is an exotic thing. My company is a telco and all the staff in UK and US by that matter of fact have the craziest connections ever, specially because most leave outside of the city because they can afford a flat in the city where the better infra tends to exist.
Some times I feel ashamed to say to all of these colleagues I have 2 connections over 100 MBps at home for less than 80 pounds, that includes TV, phone and video on demand.
In any case, the next question will be how many of them actually have backbones bigger than 10Gbps, 40 or 100? And for the international links? I know the answer because my company provides a lot of them.
Could people just be a bit more realistic and simple target 100Mbps standard, is more than enough way less investment and better chances to succeed?
I do believe that new infra should be all fiber, is future proof, but there are ways to potentiate existing infra to achieve this, is being done all over the world.
And again people complain because they can only get crappy 8 Mbps in average, if the average would be at least the 24 Mbps for dsl for example, people would be more than ok for the most. You could easily see Netflix or amazon HD while still navigating the internet with no issues.
It was several times mentioned the 5G, regardless the big disappointment that will be, countries are auctioning frequencies at crazy prices and you want on top of that the same companies to have money to be putting fiber all over the place? Be real people!!
Bet in more modest speeds and more reliable and guaranteed.
UK have far more important issues to resolve and better places to spend money, I challenge anyone reading this to say if they wouldn’t be more than happy with 100Mbps at home, I would even say 50.
I personally came to the conclusion that I’m spend money I don’t need in my case and thinking very seriously and get 150 only, because other than speed testing I never exhausted my line capability in real case normal use. I do need in theory the redundancy because of work, so I do have the 2 lines and a 3rd LTE backup, just in case.
Around here there is a lot of Virgin DOCSIS cabling laid in by Telewest many years ago - I benefit form it so I'm not complaining. However I've heard of people with new build houses in between two existing cabled properties that Virgin have refused to cable up, offering only slow ADSL instead. There are also whoole developments in fully cabled areas that haven't been added. It's almost like they are just living off the TeleWest investment that they got for £cheap.
I hope these homes aren't counted in the % of homes 'passed by' by fast cabled services, because they aren't passed by choice...
Talking of Telewest I used to have the Telewest analogue cable service, then they merged with NTL and eventually Virgin.
Virgin started switching off the analogue service (channel by channel) without providing a digital replacement. One day (about 13 years ago) I had a problem with my analogue STB and had an engineer visit. While there I mentioned I couldn't order the digital service, which surprised him, so he plugged in his digital STB to reveal I was receiving a perfectly good digital signal.
I immediately called Virgin customer service to request the digital service, they looked me up on the computer and told me point blank that I could not receive a digital signal, despite me telling them "But I'm watching it right now!" (which freaked them out a bit). As it happened the engineer didn't have a replacement analogue STB so he left me his digital box (with all channels enabled) for 2 weeks until he could return with a replacement analogue box.
After repeated calls to Virgin all with the same "computer says no" result I eventually switched to Sky. It took another 10 years before Virgin offered a digital service by which time I don't think anybody cared as they had already moved on to alternative suppliers.
What a totally inept company.
As many others have stated, gigabit and even high-hundred-bit downstream speeds are excessive for most users currently but the infrastructure still needs to be in place for those who may require it now and for the requirements of the future as technology, such as Ultra High Definition TV, evolves.
I had a 150Mb/s downstream fibre-to-the-cabinet, coax-to-the-home connection with VM which I attained through a series of free upgrades from, IIRC, 10Mb/s to 20Mb/s then 100Mb/s and ultimately 150Mb/s over about twenty five years. However, the upstream speed has remained at a nominal 6Mb/s due to the historical limitations of DOCSIS networks. There are higher downstream speed packages available which include a moderate upgrade to the upstream speed but hopefully, when VM rolls out DOCSIS 3.1, there will be a better ratio of upstream to downstream or even synchronous data rates.
I downgraded my connection to 100Mb/s last year to save money and even that is still superfluous to my needs although I would like to have a higher upstream speed. I run multiple computers with a variety of operating systems, numerous handheld devices and other internet connected equipment and I'm just beginning to experiment with VoIP. I can still survive quite happily with my 100Mb/s connection though.
The immediate aim should be to provide a minimum offering of 25Mb/s downstream and 5Mb/s or, better still, 10Mb/s upstream nationally. Then, where feasible, packages of 50Mb/s, 100Mb/s, 250Mb/s and upwards should be offered with a minimum downstream to upstream ratio of 5:1 available in those packages with 1:1 options being the ideal goal. Like the energy companies that had hundreds of gas and electricity tariffs, the telecommunications companies need to be told to have simplified, comparable plans and easy switching between alternative providers.
Although cable companies, such as VM, don't offer service everywhere yet, the OpenReach network combined with satellite and microwave providers should offer sufficient choice for everyone by 2025. However, ridiculous races to provide unnecessarily high, commercial rate speeds at the expense of offering reasonable speeds to a wider area of the country should be discouraged.
I'm pretty much stuck with Virgin for the moment given how far I am away from the BT cabinet - they estimate between 20 and 30 Mbit which could be eaten by one 4k iPlayer stream (watching the throughput with 4k Wimbledon, I saw it averaging 35-40Mbit)
Virgin service has been pretty good for me so far, although with all the price rises it's become quite expensive. I need to ring up and have a moan again.
Seriously, who the fuck needs a 1GBit Internet connection?? Perhaps in 10-15 years when 8K Video is standard. Was. as anything WiFi will not be able to keep up with it anyway - contended WiFi on their shitty SuperHubs.
A stable, low latency and performant 100MBit would be a better aspiration and stop chasing this numbers bollocks.... that will just put further upward pressure on VM’s now expensive offering.
All it will do is show where else the issues are with slow web-page rendering due to money-grubbing as rendering and data scraping and poor responses elsewhere.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
