50Mb Questions

Cromulent · 06-09-2010, 18:13

We are having broadband XXL, TV XL and Phone M installed on Friday and I want to get a few things sorted before we do.

One of the big attractions of the 50Mb broadband service was the complete lack of traffic management but does this really mean you can download as much as you like for 24 hours a day with no management? Or do Virgin reserve some rights for really heavy users? Their fair use policy is not really clear.

I can exceed 100GBs a month but I doubt I'd do more than 150GBs or so.

Sephiroth · 07-09-2010, 00:32

3 GB/day ought not attract VM's attention. But their policy is a moving target. It depends on what others are doing in your area. It doesn't take more than 4 users or so doing what you plan to do to saturate downstream capacity in a neighbourhood.

What you do overnight is of no concern, usually.

So, best of luck. I hope you don't come to live in my area!

Cromulent · 07-09-2010, 01:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

So, best of luck. I hope you don't come to live in my area!

Thanks. Frankly though, one would hope that Virgin acknowledge the fact that those who pay the premium for the 50Mb internet package are also likely to be those who are the heaviest of internet users.

3 - 5GB in a 24 hour period does not seem too excessive to me. Especially when most of my stuff is late at night / early morning.

Also what constitutes a neighbourhood in your definition? A street? 5 streets? Not sure I really follow. It might help to know the potential number of people I am competing with.

kwikbreaks · 07-09-2010, 08:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

3 GB/day ought not attract VM's attention. It doesn't take more than 4 users or so doing what you plan to do to saturate downstream capacity in a neighbourhood.

Is cable really that fragile?

Sephiroth · 07-09-2010, 09:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cromulent

Thanks. Frankly though, one would hope that Virgin acknowledge the fact that those who pay the premium for the 50Mb internet package are also likely to be those who are the heaviest of internet users.

3 - 5GB in a 24 hour period does not seem too excessive to me. Especially when most of my stuff is late at night / early morning.

Also what constitutes a neighbourhood in your definition? A street? 5 streets? Not sure I really follow. It might help to know the potential number of people I am competing with.

Given that 3 GB is one of the thresholds for 20 meg users, I tend to agree with you about that daily level especially at night/early morning.

A neighbourhood in my definition is the area served by an optical node (the cabinet with 230V written on it). That might support 10 or more street cabinets. If users complain about saturation, VM is at liberty to take a local policy decision as regards "fair usage".

To give you an idea, the saddo that I am, I've attached a PDF of a local survey I performed. That'll tell you the concentration of homes passed per optical node in my area. Cities and studentland can be 2 or three times the density

kwikbreaks · 07-09-2010, 09:59

Is the # of homes in your pdf just a count of properties or a count of properties that appear to have or once had a cable connection?

Sephiroth · 07-09-2010, 11:40

The count is homes passed. I wasn't that sad as tyo look for the channels or floor plates!

VM claim a percentage of uptake (I forget what that is) but I'd estimate 20%. Ought to be higher in Winnersh because of distance from Wokingham exchange. Interestingly there are also 6 x BT FTTC cabinets in Winnersh also. Basically the same homes passed calculation but BT has a hifher house conenction rate to the telephone. That doesn't mean that all DSL users will switch to FTTC.

HTH

kwikbreaks · 07-09-2010, 11:53

In my area I suspect that a lot of the uptake is for TV (or at least was before Sky) as reception is pretty poor and just walking the street and glancing suggests more than 20% of the ducts have cable leaving them - how much is still active is anybodies guess of course.

Cromulent · 09-09-2010, 04:25

Bah, had a phone call from Virgin yesterday morning stating that the council had concreted over the cable inlet thingy for the house so we can't have it installed just yet after all

.

Its really annoying as we have cancelled Sky and BT Broadband in preparation. Does anyone know how long these issues normally take too resolve?