100Mb/s broadband on it's way next year.

[BomberAF]

Yesterday when I got my broadband upgraded to 50Mb/s I asked the engineer and he told me that at some point next year VM are going to introduce 100Mb/s broadband across the network. He also confirmed what has been spoken about on this forum that 200Mb/s broadband is being piloted and that will be the upper limit of the broadband speed. Also VM are planning to have HD on demand through the web with it's 200Mb/s broadband service but they aren't going to be giving it away though are they.

[*sloman*]

From what people have said on here in the past, most of the time engineers know nothing. It's the big boys, Marketing & Technology/Networks who know the info

[BomberAF]

Well maybe the news has been passed down from the suits and that is how he knows. It figures anyway because if they are piloting 200Mb broadband then they are at some point going to bring out 100Mb broadband so why not next year some time?

[webcrawler2050]

Yesterday when I got my broadband upgraded to 50Mb/s I asked the engineer and he told me that at some point next year VM are going to introduce 100Mb/s broadband across the network. He also confirmed what has been spoken about on this forum that 200Mb/s broadband is being piloted and that will be the upper limit of the broadband speed. Also VM are planning to have HD on demand through the web with it's 200Mb/s broadband service but they aren't going to be giving it away though are they.

I wouldn't believe a word any engineer says, with regards to that, wait for VM's official word.

[BomberAF]

Well i dont see whats so unbelievable about it because its going to come sooner or later and he also said that 50Mb was piloted for months before it came out.

[webcrawler2050]

Meh, we shall see what happens :)

[Bigfootedfred]

well i know BT is peniclling in 100mb for 2012, they currently only offer about..ooh, 3.2mb at most, thats why we switched to virgin in the first place, they are leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

So it would make sense they would bring in 100mb next year to further stick it to BT ;)

[v0id]

well i know BT is peniclling in 100mb for 2012, they currently only offer about..ooh, 3.2mb at most, thats why we switched to virgin in the first place, they are leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

So it would make sense they would bring in 100mb next year to further stick it to BT ;)

I thought they [BT] were aiming to offer upto 40mb by 2012 in some areas with their FTTC roll out commencing in 2010

[broadbandking]

200Mb broadband will be a while I doubt you'll see 100Mb, 50Mb keeps Virgin ahead and will do for a while.

[amorrd]

Lets not get ahead of ourselves here, first priority for VM is to improve the upstream rates on all their BB tiers.

Not saying I wouldn't want a 200Mbps piece of the pie though, or even 100Mbps for that matter ;)

[Bigfootedfred]

I thought they [BT] were aiming to offer upto 40mb by 2012 in some areas with their FTTC roll out commencing in 2010

it was on the bbc news click segment the other day, BT apparently intend to introduce 100mb by 2012, they do currently offer 'up to 24mb' on adsl2 tech..but wouldnt trust that personally.

il see if i can find you a link, .. ok first link i found but theres a bunch if you care to google.


http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=13720

As many as 10 million homes will get access to super-fast, fibre-based broadband by 2012 following a £1.5bn investment from BT that will give some customers speeds of up to 100Mb/sec, the company claims.


so, long term they will catch up, but def for now virgin have the clear upper hand, unless you want to see how 20mb over the phone line goes,

edit: well, the key word there is 'some' you are right, its about 40mb for most people but 100mb in 'some' areas.

its got the rollout details in that link


What will be delivered? Fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) or fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC)?

We will deliver both though the exact split will be driven by the interest shown by government and regional and local authorities. FTTP deployment will be focused primarily on new build sites such as Ebbsfleet and the Olympic Village whilst FTTC will be more prevalent elsewhere.

What speeds will be delivered and where?

FTTP will deliver headline speeds of up to 100Mb whilst FTTC will initially deliver speeds of up to 40Mb though we are investigating technologies that can increase those speeds to more than 60Mb. In addition to the new fibre-based services, copper-based ADSL2+ will deliver nationwide speeds of up to 24Mb. Recent tests show the majority of ADSL2+ customers should enjoy speeds of around 10Mb or above with many getting substantially higher speeds. The technology is also improving all the time.


our other grudge with BT is that they took £100 of our money, despite the fact wed seen out their contract, because we 'didnt give them notice' when we switched, sure as hell will not be switching back..

[Radeon]

Wonder if 50mb customers will get a free upgrade to 100mb, can't see them offering an XXXL service :)

When they do eventually bring out 100mb, wonder if they will only keep using three different speeds and scrap the lower 10mb. So it would be 20mb, 50 and 100mb.

50mb for the moment is more than fast enough, can't wait for the big upload speed increase :D

[hansi]

Yesterday when I got my broadband upgraded to 50Mb/s I asked the engineer and he told me that at some point next year VM are going to introduce 100Mb/s broadband across the network. He also confirmed what has been spoken about on this forum that 200Mb/s broadband is being piloted and that will be the upper limit of the broadband speed. Also VM are planning to have HD on demand through the web with it's 200Mb/s broadband service but they aren't going to be giving it away though are they.

That's great! I can't even get 10mbs here!:(

[Ignitionnet]

I wouldn't listen to the BBC and anything they say - a small area of BT's network can get 100Mbit right now and other very small areas will have it added to them at a painfully slow rate as it requires FTTP/H. BT are going for about 40% of the country covered with a 40Mbit service by 2012.

The technician is doing his guessing. We are very aware that 200Mbit is being piloted, in no small part because Virgin have announced it! 100Mbit is no doubt coming but there are no plans for a 100Mbit service right now that are confirmed.

Engineers upgrading your broadband love to talk, the fact is they have no idea what they are talking about when they claim knowledge of these things. By the time things filter down to the people doing the installations it's because they need to know to install them, and the only thing that would need to change with 100Mbit is 1Gbit routers and network cards.

In short the guy was doing a bit of guesswork and quoting from VM press releases. He's also wrong about 200Mbit being some kind of hard limit, it's not. The current modems are capable of this but there are already modems in production which have 8 downstreams giving them 400Mbit capability, and due to the way the equipment works on Virgin's side this is perfectly possible for them so long as they've the capacity on their side.

[jrhnewark]

They're not engineers, they're technicians. Engineers come up with solutions that haven't been suggested before based on expertise and experience. Technicians implement solutions that the more experienced have come up with.

[Sephiroth]

BT and Virgin have similar problems - sort of.

BT can reach pretty well everywhere with copper. But their 40 Mb/s service is aimed at just 40% of homes. This is a pure infrastructure question - it's the 40% living within the short distance from the exchange that copper can support at 40 Mb/s.

Virgin can reach much the same proportion of homes but at 50 Mb/s - where it pays them to dig their way round. But their problem at higher speeds is the cheap fibre they used for their initial TV toll-out in the mod 90s. So moving up beyond 50 Mb/s requires higher spec fibre to go along with the higher density modulations and spectra.

In my opinion, Virgin and BT have much the same to do by way of work in upgrading their infrastructure - perhaps Virgion a little less. BT has to replace copper to the street box with fibre to the street box - everywhere. Virgin has to replace old fibre with new fibre to their street boxes. Both have to put in new multiplexors.

Neither BT nor Virgin are likely to bother further with the rest of the UK. I've checked with BT; when Wokingham goes 20 Mb/s (not yet 40) they think that my ADSL2+ rate will rise from the current 1.5 Mb/s to 3 Mb/s.

Peops out in the bundu, however, can whistle for better broadband because of the billions it would cost to get the job done.

[Ignitionnet]

BT and Virgin have similar problems - sort of.

BT can reach pretty well everywhere with copper. But their 40 Mb/s service is aimed at just 40% of homes. This is a pure infrastructure question - it's the 40% living within the short distance from the exchange that copper can support at 40 Mb/s.

Virgin can reach much the same proportion of homes but at 50 Mb/s - where it pays them to dig their way round. But their problem at higher speeds is the cheap fibre they used for their initial TV toll-out in the mod 90s. So moving up beyond 50 Mb/s requires higher spec fibre to go along with the higher density modulations and spectra.

In my opinion, Virgin and BT have much the same to do by way of work in upgrading their infrastructure - perhaps Virgion a little less. BT has to replace copper to the street box with fibre to the street box - everywhere. Virgin has to replace old fibre with new fibre to their street boxes. Both have to put in new multiplexors.

Neither BT nor Virgin are likely to bother further with the rest of the UK. I've checked with BT; when Wokingham goes 20 Mb/s (not yet 40) they think that my ADSL2+ rate will rise from the current 1.5 Mb/s to 3 Mb/s.

Peops out in the bundu, however, can whistle for better broadband because of the billions it would cost to get the job done.

I'm not going hugely into detail but I wonder what you've been smoking if you think distance from the exchange is an issue with BT's 40Mbit deployment given that it requires fibre to the cabinet and BT cannot deploy VDSL, the tech which allows >24.5Mbit downstream, from the exchange due to the ANFP.

Likewise Virgin upgrades are nothing to do with replacing old fibre with new fibre nor to do with multiplexers. Virgin's upgrades relate potentially to replacement of some transceivers and amplifiers in some areas though that largely relates to upstream upgrades. Virgin's access networks don't involve multiplexing in any way beyond being frequency multiplexed at the hubsite or headend and the current equipment is more than capable of supplying 200Mbit, 400Mbit and more.

I also think you'll find that Wokingham going 20Mbit is an ADSL2+ enablement and nothing to do with the 40Mbit VDSL2 technology, so to comment on 40Mbit alongside ADSL2+ is inaccurate as the two are absolutely nothing to do with one another and not related to each other in any way. One refers to BT releasing WBC / Wholesale Broadband Connect over their 21CN network to wholesale customers in the exchange - this is some configuration changes to enable ADSL2+ on BT Wholesale MSANs, the other relates to deploying fibre to cabinet housed BT Openreach run MSANs, and neither is related to the other in any way.

[Sephiroth]

I'm not going hugely into detail but I wonder what you've been smoking if you think distance from the exchange is an issue with BT's 40Mbit deployment given that it requires fibre to the cabinet and BT cannot deploy VDSL, the tech which allows >24.5Mbit downstream, from the exchange due to the ANFP.

Likewise Virgin upgrades are nothing to do with replacing old fibre with new fibre nor to do with multiplexers. Virgin's upgrades relate potentially to replacement of some transceivers and amplifiers in some areas though that largely relates to upstream upgrades. Virgin's access networks don't involve multiplexing in any way beyond being frequency multiplexed at the hubsite or headend and the current equipment is more than capable of supplying 200Mbit, 400Mbit and more.

I also think you'll find that Wokingham going 20Mbit is an ADSL2+ enablement and nothing to do with the 40Mbit VDSL2 technology, so to comment on 40Mbit alongside ADSL2+ is inaccurate as the two are absolutely nothing to do with one another and not related to each other in any way. One refers to BT releasing WBC / Wholesale Broadband Connect over their 21CN network to wholesale customers in the exchange - this is some configuration changes to enable ADSL2+ on BT Wholesale MSANs, the other relates to deploying fibre to cabinet housed BT Openreach run MSANs, and neither is related to the other in any way.
You have a pleasant way with words.

[KingDaveRa]

Engineer is a qualification you have to study at university for, afaik. Annoys me when people call themselves 'engineers' when they aren't.

I'm not, and I don't pretend to be. Then again, I'm called a 'manager' but I don't consider myself as such. Well... I suppose I do manage computers...

Anyway, I think VM should look at improving other things before worrying about super-fat pipes. I can't imagine that the national network currently has capacity to take 200mb all over, given that STM seems to keep getting tighter to make things fairer (read, stop the CMTSes getting hammered).

It's nothing more than simple puffing to keep their name in the game - they could shout about 50Mb until BT made noise about doing 100mb via FTTC and so VM's marketing bods needed to fire something back.

Current download speeds are fine. I think the more pressing issues are more upload capacity, doing something a little more flexible than STM, and just generally improving performance.

[Ignitionnet]

You have a pleasant way with words.

I'm a tad grumpy at the moment - my apologies.

---------- Post added at 10:18 ---------- Previous post was at 10:17 ----------

Anyway, I think VM should look at improving other things before worrying about super-fat pipes. I can't imagine that the national network currently has capacity to take 200mb all over, given that STM seems to keep getting tighter to make things fairer (read, stop the CMTSes getting hammered).

I understood STM had been loosened a little. National network should be fine though, it's the CMTS that's the crunch point always. 200Mbit trials are nothing more than opening the taps on the current network all the way.

[Sephiroth]

I'm a tad grumpy at the moment - my apologies.

---------- Post added at 10:18 ---------- Previous post was at 10:17 ----------




No worries. Be tad happy instead!

My bad on the BT 40 Mb/s paragraph. I should have confined that to the 20 Mb/s service. The 40 Mb/s roll-out, being FTTC will offer pretty much what it says on the tin to the lucky 40%. I really wanted to point out that BT were going head to head with Virgin by reason of covering approximately the same household %.

I do disagree with you on the effect of old/new fibre. Frequency management requires wavelength division and the optical properties are important factors in error free propagation.

[Ignitionnet]

No worries. Be tad happy instead!

My bad on the BT 40 Mb/s paragraph. I should have confined that to the 20 Mb/s service. The 40 Mb/s roll-out, being FTTC will offer pretty much what it says on the tin to the lucky 40%. I really wanted to point out that BT were going head to head with Virgin by reason of covering approximately the same household %.

I do disagree with you on the effect of old/new fibre. Frequency management requires wavelength division and the optical properties are important factors in error free propagation.

The HFC network uses a single wavelength downstream so fibre quality really shouldn't be an issue. I've not heard of any cable operators having to retrofit the fibre, just the stuff either end. Transmitting a single <1GHz wide analogue wavelength doesn't place much demand on the fibre itself.

The FTTC will have a few people who can't achieve their full 40Mbit scarily.

Unsure about how much BT are going to be going head to head with Virgin, I expect it's in no small part relating to how many homes they can pass for the lowest amount of capital expenditure. Pushing fibre out to PCPs serving thousands of customers, who happen to be in VM areas, I guess has a better business case than a lot of the much less densely populated areas which aren't passed.

I believe it's estimated that of BT's 40% over 30% will be VM passed homes.

[Bigfootedfred]

I wouldn't listen to the BBC and anything they say - a small area of BT's network can get 100Mbit right now and other very small areas will have it added to them at a painfully slow rate as it requires FTTP/H. BT are going for about 40% of the country covered with a 40Mbit service by 2012.


i didnt quote the bbc, so i dunno where that came from...the article i posted and quoted said much the same thing as you just said there btw.

[Ignitionnet]

OK I wouldn't listen to PC Advisor either in that case, the article reads like an unedited BT press release. Ignoring BT's FAQs we'll just pick on the first page:

'BT to bring 100Mb broadband to 10m homes' - Not true. Virtually all of those will max at 40 initially.

'The telecom giant announced today that the fibre service – which is already available to more than 120,000 businesses' - Not true. Leased lines are nothing to do with this service, it (FTTP) is not available to 12,000 premises let alone 120,000 businesses.

The only bits that are actually accurate are the ones directly copied from BT, the summary before that is written in the style of a Sun correspondent and with about as much knowledge of the subject matter.

[Bigfootedfred]

OK I wouldn't listen to PC Advisor either in that case, the article reads like an unedited BT press release. Ignoring BT's FAQs we'll just pick on the first page:

'BT to bring 100Mb broadband to 10m homes' - Not true. Virtually all of those will max at 40 initially.

'The telecom giant announced today that the fibre service – which is already available to more than 120,000 businesses' - Not true. Leased lines are nothing to do with this service, it (FTTP) is not available to 12,000 premises let alone 120,000 businesses.

The only bits that are actually accurate are the ones directly copied from BT, the summary before that is written in the style of a Sun correspondent and with about as much knowledge of the subject matter.

lol. fair enough. il be sticking with VM anyway, we dumped bt for them, its pretty clear they do have the edge.

[keyholder]

As far as i know there are trials of 200mbps going on at the moment in Kent for home users, which is being trailed for 6 - 8 months, - which is not a comercial stunt, I wud assume they will be going higher for comerical use, Broadbandings might be able to shed some lite.

which of course probably tie into with Bt unveiling speeds from 40 - 60Mbps FTTC. Hopefully After this virgin will release 100Mbps, but i doubt that, If virgin really wanted to stay ahead of all competition they would chuck everyone on 20MBit @ least with the latest hardware, seeing as they think thier superior network can handle it. - which no doubt it could if it wasnt for virgin/ntl.

If fibre quality is a problem then I guess BT have the upper hand here with all new fibre being layed, Not years old stuff on offer from ntl/virgin.

heres some intresting reading - Amazing stuff when it reaches the uk home user.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article3689881.ece

Lets See how Sh1te virgin makes this for us all :D

Cmon BT pull ya socks up :D:D

So thats 3 fibire optic providers in the uk ( that i know of ) that can supply fibre internet. . h20, virgin, Bt. shud be intresting stuff :)

I can see some major competition coming very soon :D

[caph]

FTTP will deliver headline speeds of up to 100Mb whilst FTTC will initially deliver speeds of up to 40Mb though we are investigating technologies that can increase those speeds to more than 60Mb. In addition to the new fibre-based services, copper-based ADSL2+ will deliver nationwide speeds of up to 24Mb. Recent tests show the majority of ADSL2+ customers should enjoy speeds of around 10Mb or above with many getting substantially higher speeds. The technology is also improving all the time.

That means that the majority of the 60% of customers that won't have FTTC by 2012 all have less than a 2km phone cable run (I'm allowing for non perfect connections/lines here) to their exchange. I'd go out on a limb here and say that is a bare faced lie. Also lets remember that ADSL2+ speeds at over 3km from the exchange nose dive.

All the language in that press release is aimed at trying to appear that BT are matching Virgin. The 40Mb suddenly jumping to 60Mb thus beating Virgin's 50Mb. The 10Mb figure matching Virgin's entry level product. It's sad that it all comes down to spin.

[Sephiroth]

FTTP will deliver headline speeds of up to 100Mb whilst FTTC will initially deliver speeds of up to 40Mb though we are investigating technologies that can increase those speeds to more than 60Mb. In addition to the new fibre-based services, copper-based ADSL2+ will deliver nationwide speeds of up to 24Mb. Recent tests show the majority of ADSL2+ customers should enjoy speeds of around 10Mb or above with many getting substantially higher speeds. The technology is also improving all the time.

That means that the majority of the 60% of customers that won't have FTTC by 2012 all have less than a 2km phone cable run (I'm allowing for non perfect connections/lines here) to their exchange. I'd go out on a limb here and say that is a bare faced lie. Also lets remember that ADSL2+ speeds at over 3km from the exchange nose dive.

All the language in that press release is aimed at trying to appear that BT are matching Virgin. The 40Mb suddenly jumping to 60Mb thus beating Virgin's 50Mb. The 10Mb figure matching Virgin's entry level product. It's sad that it all comes down to spin.
Absolutely spot on. FTTC is BT's only hope for maintaining their broadband customer base in VM cabled areas.

My O2 ADSL2+ is 1.5Mb/s (was 1.0 on BT ADSL). And as housing sprawl continues, more and more people will have sh*t performance from BT while Virgin are able to cable up new developments as they are built.

[BomberAF]

Absolutely spot on. FTTC is BT's only hope for maintaining their broadband customer base in VM cabled areas.

My O2 ADSL2+ is 1.5Mb/s (was 1.0 on BT ADSL). And as housing sprawl continues, more and more people will have sh*t performance from BT while Virgin are able to cable up new developments as they are built.


New builds don't get cable broadband as the cables are not installed when they build the houses. There are loads of people in new flats and houses in Liverpool that can't get cable TV or Virgin cable broadband because they live in a new build and no new cables are being laid. The only hope of people living in new builds have is if BT install fibre to the exchange instead of copper wire.

[haydnwalker]

There was talks of VM infilling (cabling areas that are new builds etc that are in exisiting areas) but haven't heard it being more than that.

[broadbandking]

They are expanding there network not sure of the areas but alot will be done by the end of 2009 and more areas will be added by 2010.

As I am aware the areas have not been publicly released.

[BomberAF]

They are expanding there network not sure of the areas but alot will be done by the end of 2009 and more areas will be added by 2010.

As I am aware the areas have not been publicly released.

Do you mean they are just going to install fibre in the new builds that have already been built within citys that already have cable or are they just going to be introducing cable into areas which do not currently have any cable service such as Chester for instance?

[broadbandking]

Thats something I don't know as I haven't seen the list of where the new parts of the network will be installed.

[Sephiroth]

Do you mean they are just going to install fibre in the new builds that have already been built within citys that already have cable or are they just going to be introducing cable into areas which do not currently have any cable service such as Chester for instance?
The new builds I was referring to were, say, the 100 houses built on the field behind the already cabled street. And I'm sure broadbandking meant the same.

[jaju123]

My engineer came today to install 50 mb/s broadband. He said that next year Q2 there will be 100mb/s and that in october 2012 there will be 250mb/s. I dont know how he can be so accurate but that is what he said :)
He also said there would be a business package for £15 extra that has the same upload/download speeds!

[Peter_]

My engineer came today to install 50 mb/s broadband. He said that next year Q2 there will be 100mb/s and that in october 2012 there will be 250mb/s. I dont know how he can be so accurate but that is what he said :)
Did he give you tonights lottery numbers by any chance:D

[dannybear]

I did find this about O2, But we shall see if it does happen or not !

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=13752

[Ignitionnet]

I did find this about O2, But we shall see if it does happen or not !

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=13752

July 17, 2008
O2 considering 100Mbps broadband

Can't comment more as the story makes no sense.

---------- Post added at 21:57 ---------- Previous post was at 21:56 ----------

My engineer came today to install 50 mb/s broadband. He said that next year Q2 there will be 100mb/s and that in october 2012 there will be 250mb/s. I dont know how he can be so accurate but that is what he said :)
He also said there would be a business package for £15 extra that has the same upload/download speeds!

If VM engineers were Pinocchio...

[Ben B]

If VM engineers were Pinocchio...

The vans would have to be designed much longer at the front....

[Ignitionnet]

The vans would have to be designed much longer at the front....

Think if people start reporting them if they start telling porkies they'll stop?

I've never had this from a VM engineer, they usually grasp that I've some idea what I'm talking about when we discuss my fault and don't try to impress me.