New upload speeds and Network Management

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by dgcarter

Looking forward to the Tigers handing the Wolves two good thrashings next season.

In your dreams.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by dgcarter

Perhaps if BenMcr were to give some insight into what the not simple is there wouldn't be such confusion.

The upstream improvements need work across the network to support the higher upload speeds.

So any area is dependent on many different bits of work completing at the same time.

If one of those bits of work takes longer to complete that originally planned, then the date of upgrade would be changed.

And I can guarantee that if Virgin published a list with provisional dates, and those dates changed it would cause more complaints that it would solve.

[colin25]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

The upstream improvements need work across the network to support the higher upload speeds.

So any area is dependent on many different bits of work completing at the same time.

If one of those bits of work takes longer to complete that originally planned, then the date of upgrade would be changed.

And I can guarantee that if Virgin published a list with provisional dates, and those dates changed it would cause more complaints that it would solve.

So true..it is just putting a target for others to shoot at...let them aim aimlessly

[Chrysalis]

I am surprised my area doesnt have the shaping yet, I would expect an isp to put in the over subscribed areas first. Or maybe it is enabled and I havent noticed it.

[chambohambo]

As the new policy been rolled out all over the UK?

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File sharing

We moderate the total volume of file sharing traffic on our network between 5pm and midnight on weekdays and midday and midnight on weekends. This policy is restricted to Peer to Peer ("P2P") applications and Newsgroups (which are commonly used to distribute large amounts of data)

This policy does not impact any applications other than Peer to Peer and Newsgroups, so things like watching iPlayer, online gaming, making calls via Skype, downloading music tracks from iTunes or streaming them from Spotify and sending an email or normal browsing are unaffected.

It's important to remember that these traffic management policies only apply at peak times when speeds are most likely to be affected by people using more than their fair share. Outside of peak times we do not manage traffic.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by chambohambo

As the new policy been rolled out all over the UK?

No not yet

[|Kippa|]

To be honest for the price you pay for the conneciton, you get a pritty good service. It is only like a fraction of the cost of a leased line. I think too many users are having it good for too long and have taken VM and its services for granted. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that it is perfect but for cost/performance ratio it is very good. Even with all the restrictions implaced it is still better than ADSL in my opinion.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by |Kippa|

To be honest for the price you pay for the conneciton, you get a pritty good service. It is only like a fraction of the cost of a leased line. I think too many users are having it good for too long and have taken VM and its services for granted. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that it is perfect but for cost/performance ratio it is very good. Even with all the restrictions implaced it is still better than ADSL in my opinion.

Generally it puts adsl to bed, however the performance thing is area dependent. A good area under STM be faster than a bad area not under STM.

[EssDee]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

And I can guarantee that if Virgin published a list with provisional dates, and those dates changed it would cause more complaints that it would solve.

This is what is called 'expectation management'. As somebody that makes a living out of IT Programme & Project Management, this indicates to me that VM have no confidence in their ability to deliver. I would love to work to open ended project plans. You can't lose.....

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by EssDee

This is what is called 'expectation management'. As somebody that makes a living out of IT Programme & Project Management, this indicates to me that VM have no confidence in their ability to deliver. I would love to work to open ended project plans. You can't lose.....

As a project manager you should be aware the more things that are required, the more a small slip in one program has a knock on effect to all the others. It's not about confidence in the schedule, it's about being realistic. The upstream upgrades require significantly more work than any previous upgrade did.

Additionally, there is a difference between 'expectation management' and what happens when Virgin publish a schedule.

For good or bad as soon as customers seen 'Spring' or 'Summer' or even for instance 'May' as a date they start phoning up on the first day that it applies, and continue to phone throughout the entire period - causing the call centres to become extremely overloaded with calls they should not be dealing with

It's happened before during previous upgrade work, and that was the downstream upgrades which were easy to do

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by EssDee

This is what is called 'expectation management'. As somebody that makes a living out of IT Programme & Project Management, this indicates to me that VM have no confidence in their ability to deliver. I would love to work to open ended project plans. You can't lose.....

It doesn't indicate that at all.

It indicates that VM have a lack of confidence in their ability to meet a set schedule, not to deliver full stop.

It is not an open ended project. Internally there will be target dates, but there's no benefit from making those dates public when there's a high risk of not meeting them due to unforeseen issues.

[Hugh]

Originally Posted by EssDee

This is what is called 'expectation management'. As somebody that makes a living out of IT Programme & Project Management, this indicates to me that VM have no confidence in their ability to deliver. I would love to work to open ended project plans. You can't lose.....

I too have worked as an IT Programme Manager*, and would never think of publishing an internal project plan/timeline for a large-scale programme of work to the general public. As I am sure you know, these type of plans are subject to weeklymonthly change due to factors within and without our control (scope creep, re-prioritisation, budgetary impacts, etc etc); these events can be managed and mitigated with appropriate change management, but to the outside world it just looks like things are being delayed, and the "planners" couldn't get it right first time.

No one has ever said it is an open ended project plan (which isn't a project plan, it's a wish list, imho), just that the info isn't generally available.

*largest programme worked on -£25 million over 2 years, selecting and implementing a Data Warehouse for a Mobile Comms company, followed by a £14 million replacement of banking and CRM systems for a Financial Services company.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by EssDee

This is what is called 'expectation management'. As somebody that makes a living out of IT Programme & Project Management, this indicates to me that VM have no confidence in their ability to deliver. I would love to work to open ended project plans. You can't lose.....

There are internal targets for the completion of this work and there are targets for the upgrade in each area, they just haven't been released to the public as the company sees no benefit in doing so.

There are a number of things that can unexpectedly go wrong and even if time scales were announced to the public they would have to have so much contingency time built into them they would be worthless. Due to this even the time scales internally are largely by quarter rather than month or week.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by EssDee

This is what is called 'expectation management'. As somebody that makes a living out of IT Programme & Project Management, this indicates to me that VM have no confidence in their ability to deliver. I would love to work to open ended project plans. You can't lose.....

If what you have just posted had any ring of reality to it then we would have a problem, However here in the real world there are many factors that control a product delivery. I for one expect VM to deliver but within real world time scales not those of someone that has not even worked on our network and therefor has no data to base his expectations on.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by TheDon

It doesn't indicate that at all.

It indicates that VM have a lack of confidence in their ability to meet a set schedule, not to deliver full stop.

It is not an open ended project. Internally there will be target dates, but there's no benefit from making those dates public when there's a high risk of not meeting them due to unforeseen issues.

Indeed, BT's FTTC is a far bigger project and they can publish dates.

---------- Post added at 12:21 ---------- Previous post was at 12:20 ----------

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

There are internal targets for the completion of this work and there are targets for the upgrade in each area, they just haven't been released to the public as the company sees no benefit in doing so.

There are a number of things that can unexpectedly go wrong and even if time scales were announced to the public they would have to have so much contingency time built into them they would be worthless. Due to this even the time scales internally are largely by quarter rather than month or week.

true but at least we would know the planned order of work.