PDA

View Full Version : is 5mbit upload just round the corner?


General Maximus
11-06-2010, 21:00
I have put my conspiracy hat on and been thinking. You have probably noticed that tonnes of peeps have been having problems with their 50mbit connections over the last couple of days and one of the things I think we have all noticed is that the config files now say 5mbit up. We have all had the same problem which is with the SNR on the upstream and I am thinking it is because VM are ready to give us 5mbit up and are playing around the with signal/settings to make sure it works properly.

jb66
11-06-2010, 21:20
That would be immense

Andrewcrawford23
11-06-2010, 21:44
5mb upload for 50mb isnt far away ;) nither is 1mb for 10, 2mb for 20 ;)

Ignitionnet
11-06-2010, 23:09
g5mb upload for 50mb isnt far away ;) nither is 1mb for 10, 2mb for 20 ;)

Those were the tiers as prepared a while ago, indeed the same ones I waffled about a while ago (http://onewayinternet.blogspot.com/2010/04/yes-im-slack.html). They will be going to some emphasis some people in the not too distant future but not all at once. Best to mention that bit else some people will feel terribly disappointed :)

Careful what you 'announce' by the way. Remember confidentiality and all that applies equally to direct and outsourced employees and spreading what are currently rumours, upstream uplift timescales haven't been confirmed 100% as far as I know, gets people uppety. I don't mean to sound narky but it's a very, very quick route to getting a slap if lucky.

---------- Post added at 22:09 ---------- Previous post was at 21:59 ----------

I have put my conspiracy hat on and been thinking. You have probably noticed that tonnes of peeps have been having problems with their 50mbit connections over the last couple of days and one of the things I think we have all noticed is that the config files now say 5mbit up. We have all had the same problem which is with the SNR on the upstream and I am thinking it is because VM are ready to give us 5mbit up and are playing around the with signal/settings to make sure it works properly.

Hrm no they haven't you've just noticed it more because yours is on the blink.

You are on an upgraded upstream and have an upgraded configuration but evidently it's not ready yet given it's not working. Probably a bit of random upgrading and trialling on the way to a full product release.

Did you really think the VM PR machine would do tier uplifts and not broadcast the fact to the stars and back? ;)

For the bored the bits below:

US-1
Channel Type 1.0
Channel ID 1
Frequency (Hz) 25800000
Ranging Status Success
Modulation 16QAM
Symbol Rate (KSym/sec) 2560
Mini-Slot Size 2
Power Level (dBmV) 37.00

In an area where the network is being made ready, note I said the network which doesn't mean modems will be upgraded, will be:

Channel Type 2.0
Symbol Rate (KSym/sec) 5120
Mini-Slot Size 1

Compare away!

speedfreak
11-06-2010, 23:14
Did you really think the VM PR machine would do tier uplifts and not broadcast the fact to the stars and back? ;)

probably would if they werent sure if it work, nobody ringing to complain that way. Maybe I'm just being hopeful

Ignitionnet
11-06-2010, 23:17
probably would if they werent sure if it work, nobody ringing to complain that way. Maybe I'm just being hopeful

Wouldn't be released if they weren't sure it'd work. These are blind trials, same as happens with every tier uplift. Trial it in a few areas without telling people first, see how it goes, then start rolling to the wider network.

Chrysalis
12-06-2010, 00:45
ignition still waiting for the next chapter on the one way internet :)

speedfreak
12-06-2010, 00:48
Wouldn't be released if they weren't sure it'd work.

Would that be the same as releasing 50Mb with the motorola issue?

pip08456
12-06-2010, 00:48
I have put my conspiracy hat on and been thinking. You have probably noticed that tonnes of peeps have been having problems with their 50mbit connections over the last couple of days and one of the things I think we have all noticed is that the config files now say 5mbit up. We have all had the same problem which is with the SNR on the upstream and I am thinking it is because VM are ready to give us 5mbit up and are playing around the with signal/settings to make sure it works properly.

We do NOT all suffer the same problem and tonnes of people have not either, just those that have one.

Most of us know that VM will be increasing the U/L thanks to BT and the need to keep "in the lead" as the "fastest provider".

Post your config and moem stats please.

Ignitionnet
12-06-2010, 01:13
Would that be the same as releasing 50Mb with the motorola issue?

The one that I, along with many others do not, and have never had and was extremely intermittent?

There have been other progressive fixes. There were actually multiple Motorola issues fixed largely by software upgrades, however none of them were a 'show stopper' as releasing DOCSIS 2 upstreams onto incapable networks would be.

---------- Post added at 00:13 ---------- Previous post was at 00:10 ----------

We do NOT all suffer the same problem and tonnes of people have not either, just those that have one.

Most of us know that VM will be increasing the U/L thanks to BT and the need to keep "in the lead" as the "fastest provider".

Post your config and moem stats please.

He has posted it in many places elsewhere, apart from the operating config. Check the man's post history for more information.

His issue btw is return path. He's on a DOCSIS 2 upstream and his local network is struggling with it. Doubling the occupied frequency ups the difficulty level considerably in multiple ways.

speedfreak
12-06-2010, 01:16
The one that I, along with many others do not, and have never had?

lol you cant be saying there wasnt a huge problem there, just because you didnt suffer from it doesnt mean theres wasnt an issue, you must know that! Even VM admit it. Every single tech Ive had out, even the principle tech, have said there are national issues with 50Mb, one even saying its "screwed". Theres loads of things Ive been told about that I wont post on here.

Anyway, thats off topic. I was just pointing out a possible reason they would start it off without a big hoohar



damn you and your editing! Extremely intermittent? Thats not what Ive seen/been told/read

Ignitionnet
12-06-2010, 01:21
lol you cant be saying there wasnt a huge problem there, just because you didnt suffer from it doesnt mean theres wasnt an issue, you must know that! Even VM admit it. Every single tech Ive had out, even the principle tech, have said there are national issues with 50Mb, one even saying its "screwed". Theres loads of things Ive been told about that I wont post on here.

Anyway, thats off topic. I was just pointing out a possible reason they would start it off without a big hoohar

The local technicians have no idea about issues on a national scale beyond what they hear and what is briefed to them. 50Mbps being 'screwed' wouldn't be a part of those briefs.

The local tech comments aren't exactly the official word from VM so it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that VM admit anything because the principal service tech says so. Be aware that even the principal tech is just the highest level of the guys who escalate to the network engineers, who in turn escalate to the headend engineers, who are the guys who would actually have direct involvement with the BSRs and even then things such as the 'Motorola issue' are handled by NMCs who would deal with the headend guys.

Just giving you an idea how far from actually working on the BSRs the guys who come to your home actually are, Chinese whispers ftw!

---------- Post added at 00:21 ---------- Previous post was at 00:21 ----------

damn you and your editing! Extremely intermittent? Thats not what Ive seen/been told/read

If it stuck out that obviously it would have been identified easily.

pip08456
12-06-2010, 01:41
Unfotunatly Numptys do come here.

|Kippa|
12-06-2010, 04:02
Do you think there will be restrictions on a 5mbit upload rate like the lower tiers, or just leave it a free for all with a fair usage policy?

Andrewcrawford23
12-06-2010, 10:45
g

Those were the tiers as prepared a while ago, indeed the same ones I waffled about a while ago (http://onewayinternet.blogspot.com/2010/04/yes-im-slack.html). They will be going to some emphasis some people in the not too distant future but not all at once. Best to mention that bit else some people will feel terribly disappointed :)

Careful what you 'announce' by the way. Remember confidentiality and all that applies equally to direct and outsourced employees and spreading what are currently rumours, upstream uplift timescales haven't been confirmed 100% as far as I know, gets people uppety. I don't mean to sound narky but it's a very, very quick route to getting a slap if lucky.

hence why i said aint far awayu i dnt know the dates nor do i know if it 100% confirmed or confirmed at all

renty
12-06-2010, 10:58
hope it comes soon as i can get bt infinity now , not sure if to wait ??

die5el
12-06-2010, 13:12
5meg up on the 50 meg is pathetic tbh it should atleast be 10meg up, vm upload speeds have always been poor

Ignitionnet
12-06-2010, 14:18
5meg up on the 50 meg is pathetic tbh it should atleast be 10meg up, vm upload speeds have always been poor

I'm sure there are plenty other operators offering 50Mbit downstream and 5Mbit upstream or a better ratio queuing up for your money, perhaps consider one of those?

pip08456
12-06-2010, 14:38
Wow Igni! Did we get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning??:D:D

As de5el said VM's upload speeds have always been pathetic, no need to have a go at him for it though.

I'm sure when they are able SKY, O2, Be etc will be offering better when they get access to BT's FTTC.

Then those who need 10Mb u/load will most likely shift to them.

As it goes 5Mb up will be more than enough for my needs.

caph
12-06-2010, 17:45
Are these alterations to the network what caused all the disconnections problems over the past few weeks? This problem seemed to be being reported a heck of a lot on the VM forum.

My modem log showed upstream problems which caused disconnections. It would all of a sudden not be able to lock on an upstream frequency or if it did it would get no reply. It went on for three weeks then it all stopped last weekend and my connection has been rock steady since.

die5el
12-06-2010, 17:45
I'm sure there are plenty other operators offering 50Mbit downstream and 5Mbit upstream or a better ratio queuing up for your money, perhaps consider one of those? You forgot to say upto lol would willingly pay a little bit extra for 10 meg up but like i said vm upload speeds are pathetic but on saying that they have had quite a few problems in different areas getting 50 meg to work properly even my 50meg is not that stable but i put up with it at the moment, got to reboot the modem at least 3 times a week have had at 3 vm employees check it out and they cant find nothing wrong but hey 5 meg up is better than nothing i suppose lol ;)

Ignitionnet
12-06-2010, 18:03
Wow Igni! Did we get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning??:D:D

As de5el said VM's upload speeds have always been pathetic, no need to have a go at him for it though.

I'm sure when they are able SKY, O2, Be etc will be offering better when they get access to BT's FTTC.

Then those who need 10Mb u/load will most likely shift to them.

As it goes 5Mb up will be more than enough for my needs.

I was merely pointing out that there are no alternatives right now. As my signature suggests I'm not happy with the course of events either.

Sky / O2 / Be (Telefonica) don't offer FTTC yet, until they do we're all a bit stuck unless we want the capped, shaped BT Wholesale based services :(

Felim_Doyle
12-06-2010, 18:58
I believe that the historical reason for the disparity between upstream and downstream speeds was to prevent domestic customers from running high traffic volume websites on the VM cable network. They'd prefer that you lease a business line from them for that.

Ideally, if bandwidth was unlimited, we would have a symmetric connection with equal up- and down- stream speeds or better still, an adaptive connection that balanced the bandwidth between up- and down- streams based on demand.

However, in the asymmetric world we live in, it seems reasonable to have speeds of 10/2, 20/4 at the lower end of the scale but 50/10, 100/20, 200/40 kinda seems excessive on the upstream even though it's in the same proportions as the lower end speeds.

Dunno what you're all using it for (gaming, uploading music and video maybe) but for the mere mortal there's no desperate need to send a few e-mails as fast as the myriad e-mails are received! ;)

ileikcaek
12-06-2010, 19:12
Hopefully it wont be long now. I will certainly benefit from it

I run a high resolution web cam from my back garden for other people to watch (through ustream) ... at the moment with 768K upload I am capping the cam at 390K and downgrading it to 240K in the evenings to make sure I don't go over the limits, anything over that seems to make the connection grind to a crawl anyways so it will be great to have the extra headroom to maybe bump the bandwidth a little (at least 500 or 600Kbps) and still have some room.

I just hope they change the evening Traffic management on the upload a little during the evenings. at the moment it is a little low.

General Maximus
12-06-2010, 19:26
US-1
Channel Type 1.0
Channel ID 1
Frequency (Hz) 25800000
Ranging Status Success
Modulation 16QAM
Symbol Rate (KSym/sec) 2560
Mini-Slot Size 2
Power Level (dBmV) 37.00

In an area where the network is being made ready, note I said the network which doesn't mean modems will be upgraded, will be:

Channel Type 2.0
Symbol Rate (KSym/sec) 5120
Mini-Slot Size 1

Compare away!

Well here we go dude:

US-1
Channel Type 2.0
Channel ID 3
Frequency
(Hz) 47400000
Ranging Status Success
Modulation 16QAM
Symbol Rate
(KSym/sec) 5120
Mini-Slot Size 1
Power Level
(dBmV) 49.25

SFID : 354
Max Traffic Rate : 5122000 bps
Max Traffic Burst : 3044 bytes
Min Traffic Rate : 0 bps
Max Concatenated Burst : 1522 bytes
Scheduling Type : Best Effort

Can I start getting excited now? :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper:

Ignitionnet
12-06-2010, 22:39
I knew you were in an upgraded area, it's why I mentioned in the post you quoted that you had been upgraded. :)

You're part of a 5Mbps upstream trial so by all means get excited!

Doesn't mean a thing for the rest of the network though.

Edit: Interesting to note that the exact speed is 5122000 - 5120000 and 5121000 have already been used by other trials evidently :p:

Chrysalis
13-06-2010, 01:44
Ignition are VM only doubling upstream bandwidth? ie 9mbit to 18mbit for a triple increase in speeds or are they also adding new channels. Otherwise it seems they just increasing the contention ratio yet again.

I am also curious if the lower tier upload upgrades are also getting docsis2 eg. 2mbit upload on the middle tier and 1mbit upload on the bottom tier. They would be very interesting on the current qpsk upstreams some areas still have.

Ignitionnet
13-06-2010, 09:05
It's a trial, don't panic too much Chrysalis. Such upstream tiers wouldn't be released on 3.2MHz QPSK.

So long as the increase in contention doesn't cause any visible contention it's fine, where it may do you'd expect them to just have less customers per upstream through use of increased return path segmentation, in the case of the overlay network this means less return path combining in most cases.

General Maximus
13-06-2010, 09:43
I am very excited now, we have never been part of any trials in Lincoln and have always been middle of the pack on rollout schedules

I dont think they'll be increasing the upstream on other tiers chrysalis, what they are doing for 50mbit customers is what they said they were going to do a year ago so it isnt anything new.

Am I supposed to be able to upload at 5mbit now or are they still playing around with it? Everyone who i have spoken to cant get above 2mbit atm

Ignitionnet
13-06-2010, 09:55
I am very excited now

You're very easily pleased :)

---------- Post added at 08:55 ---------- Previous post was at 08:53 ----------

Am I supposed to be able to upload at 5mbit now or are they still playing around with it? Everyone who i have spoken to cant get above 2mbit atm

Absolutely no idea, neither does anyone else who posts in this section with any regularity I'm afraid.

Chrysalis
13-06-2010, 17:58
I am very excited now, we have never been part of any trials in Lincoln and have always been middle of the pack on rollout schedules

I dont think they'll be increasing the upstream on other tiers chrysalis, what they are doing for 50mbit customers is what they said they were going to do a year ago so it isnt anything new.

Am I supposed to be able to upload at 5mbit now or are they still playing around with it? Everyone who i have spoken to cant get above 2mbit atm

ignition's blog hints at all tiers been upgraded, also a guy on here has 2mbit upload on the 20mbit tier.

General Maximus
13-06-2010, 18:08
the bummer is that while we hang around for VM to do upgrades you can get better elsewhere. They said last year that we would get 5mbit up once 50mbit had been fully rolled out (which was July last year) and we are only getting it now. 100mbit is going to have 10mbit up but we probably wont get that for another 2 years.

I have just been doing some digging and you can get 40/10 on BT Infinity and they are increasing that to 40/15 in September. They are the sort of ratios VM should be looking at. I would consider switching but out of the 5 million exchanges they have upgraded, they havent managed to get round to Lincoln yet :(

BenMcr
13-06-2010, 18:34
100mbit is going to have 10mbit up but we probably wont get that for another 2 years.
I'm pretty sure 100Mbit would have 10Mbit at launch

General Maximus
13-06-2010, 18:43
fingers crossed. I am hoping they are planning for that and are going to be forced into making it 15 or 20 to compete with BT

Chrysalis
13-06-2010, 20:18
I'm pretty sure 100Mbit would have 10Mbit at launch

so if 100 and 50 share the same docsis2 and with no STM then they will be in a situation where only 1 user can upload at full speed at a time and 2 will cause jitter/latency issues for everyone.

Its becoming more and more common now days for people to push their upload for long periods of time as there is a growing obsession with people uploading on p2p, ignition I guess will jump in to calm me down but he himself also has noticed upload tends to be less bursty with more people pushing it.

BenMcr
13-06-2010, 20:32
As I'm not a techy person I have no clue what it would/wouldn't do or what work Virgin are doing.

Personally though, I think it again shows just how odd our idea of broadband has become

Most people seem to want no traffic management, the cheapest possible service AND the ability to upload and download 24/7 at full speed.

To me those three are just not compatible with one another no matter which way you look at it. Even if you do manage to do it the cost of doing so long term must be interesting to say the least!

General Maximus
13-06-2010, 20:49
i agree with you Ben which is why i think you should have both. Have a value tier (take what ithey currently offer atm) put reasonable caps and limits in place and make the price appealing (like what they do now). These appeal only to people who care about the price and nothing else like Asda shoppers. Also offer a 2nd service which is better quality, offers guaranteed speed and costs more

e.g 10/5, 20/10 and 50/20, all with no limits and guaranteed speed.

I would gladly pay twice the price I am now if I could have a 30/15 or 40/15 with guaranteed speed.

As for Chrysalis, I hate to state the obvious but if they are going to be screwed with docsis 2 cant they just love the upstream to the docsis for the 50mbit customers like they did with the downstream?

AdamD
13-06-2010, 21:47
5mb upload would be nice, but it's still pretty stingy compared to other countries offerings.

Ah well, maybe things will change once BT's Fibre offerings start going out.

Ignitionnet
13-06-2010, 21:50
As I'm not a techy person I have no clue what it would/wouldn't do or what work Virgin are doing.

Personally though, I think it again shows just how odd our idea of broadband has become

Most people seem to want no traffic management, the cheapest possible service AND the ability to upload and download 24/7 at full speed.

To me those three are just not compatible with one another no matter which way you look at it. Even if you do manage to do it the cost of doing so long term must be interesting to say the least!

Good consistent quality, cheap, fast - pick 2.

It's a symptom of the mass market dive to the bottom costs wise regrettably.

http://www.upc.nl/internet/

Those prices are competing against fibre to the home, and are extra on top of TV and phone packages.

---------- Post added at 20:50 ---------- Previous post was at 20:47 ----------

5mb upload would be nice, but it's still pretty stingy compared to other countries offerings.

Ah well, maybe things will change once BT's Fibre offerings start going out.

See above, and those tiers are the ones that UPC are rolling out around Europe. Not that stingy at all mate, 10:1 is about par for the course.

Even Sweden it's 100/10:

http://www.comhem.se/comhem/bredband/abonnemang/bredband-abonnemang/-/6336/17518/-/index.html

Chrysalis
13-06-2010, 22:12
As I'm not a techy person I have no clue what it would/wouldn't do or what work Virgin are doing.

Personally though, I think it again shows just how odd our idea of broadband has become

Most people seem to want no traffic management, the cheapest possible service AND the ability to upload and download 24/7 at full speed.

To me those three are just not compatible with one another no matter which way you look at it. Even if you do manage to do it the cost of doing so long term must be interesting to say the least!

correct they not compatible.

VM are defenitly not cheap on all their packages tho, £33 in some cases for broadband when we have some isps selling adsl for under £10 on ipstream and managing to provide not brilliant but workable solutions. So why are VM struggling with much higher revenue streams and where they own the infrastructure so middle man to pay. Even if I were to take the bottom package it is £20 a month without a phoneline.

Personally I have no problem with some usage caps (as long as reasonable not something silly like 10 gig month), alongside some type of traffic priority system that doesnt protocol discriminate. If we make the assumption most of VM's capacity issues are upstream related then I would defenitly take traffic management on upstream only. I havent checked VM's t&c's but most isp's tend to forbid people serving content on consumer broadband which technically would not only cover people hosting servers but should also cover people doing things like been a torrent seed/peer. However although many isp's forbid it they rarely enforce it.

1mbit upload on the 10mbit package to me actually seems generous, BT do have some customers in 21CN areas still only with 448kbit and even those uncapped will be dependent on line conditions and BT's aweful DLM system. 2mbit upload on 20mbit also seems generous but at the same time I think 768kbit is restrictive. But looking at the competition with what BE/O2 and now BT FTTC offer VM have no real choice here their hand has been forced.

Given how poor FTTC pricing is so far if I was VM I would rollout the speed upgrades with docsis2. But also I would set a low usage cap on uploading and launch a premium high priced product around the FTTC price that allows high upload usage.

General Maximus
13-06-2010, 22:19
the way i would look at it dude is that 10mbit is the bottom tier and the only peeps who are going to take it are the people who are going to say "just give me the cheapest, i just want to be able to connect to the internet and send the odd email and check the weather forecast" etc etc.

Although 10/1 sounds nice it isnt something peeps on that tier should need. Tbh I would would scrap 10mmbit and go to 5/0.5 and a budget occassional use tier with caps in place (e.g 10gb per month), 20/2 as a medium tier for gamers etc with a 100gb/month cap and 50/15 as a preium unrestricted tier.

Chrysalis
13-06-2010, 22:26
the way i would look at it dude is that 10mbit is the bottom tier and the only peeps who are going to take it are the people who are going to say "just give me the cheapest, i just want to be able to connect to the internet and send the odd email and check the weather forecast" etc etc.

Although 10/1 sounds nice it isnt something peeps on that tier should need. Tbh I would would scrap 10mmbit and go to 5/0.5 and a budget occassional use tier with caps in place (e.g 10gb per month), 20/2 as a medium tier for gamers etc with a 100gb/month cap and 50/15 as a preium unrestricted tier.

agreed make the bottom package lower speed, I have said this for a while that isp's need to treat burst speed with more value, they give it away for too cheap.

even if people need to pay VM a decent wedge for unmetered high speed upload lets say £50 month, VM can turn round and say "hey we provide it, this is our market value of the service take it or leave it". They need to call the bluff on people and stop been so paranoid of people leaving.

My take would be something like this as I also think 20mbit is too close to the 10mbit pricing.

bottom tier 5mbit/384kbit or even 256kbit
middle tier extra £3 month over current price and 20mbit/1.5mbit - this beats the 1.3mbit limit on adsl2 annexA
50mbit tier 50mbit/5mbit
all 3 tiers usage capped on uploading at a level that severely discourages serving content.
premium 50mbit tier 50mbit/5mbit with either high usage limit or unmetered for £50 month supplied over docsis3 upstream
premium 100mbit tier served over full docsis3 up/down at no less than £80 month fully unmetered.

Ignitionnet
13-06-2010, 22:36
the way i would look at it dude is that 10mbit is the bottom tier and the only peeps who are going to take it are the people who are going to say "just give me the cheapest, i just want to be able to connect to the internet and send the odd email and check the weather forecast" etc etc.

Although 10/1 sounds nice it isnt something peeps on that tier should need. Tbh I would would scrap 10mmbit and go to 5/0.5 and a budget occassional use tier with caps in place (e.g 10gb per month), 20/2 as a medium tier for gamers etc with a 100gb/month cap and 50/15 as a preium unrestricted tier.

The only 15Mbps upstream I can think of seeing on cable has a price tag attached to it that would make people whine and cry.

http://optimum.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/optimum.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2410

Optimum Online Ultra offers download speeds of up to 101 Mbps and upload speeds up to 15 Mbps upstream, plus all the features of Optimum Online Boost.

Optimum Online Ultra is available for $99.95 per month. There is a one-time $300 activation fee. Optimum Online Ultra also requires professional installation and an additional installation fee of up to $34.95 may apply.

People on this side of the Atlantic whinge about the less than $50 activation fee on VM's 50Mbps, and expect VM to kiss their feet and supply a flawless 'Premium' product in return for the less than $45/month bundled price. I really seriously doubt they'd pay more.

The tiers you advocate are commercial suicide given the sub-20GBP/month uncapped deals available from O2, Be and Sky.

AdamD
13-06-2010, 22:39
Not that stingy at all mate, 10:1 is about par for the course.

Even Sweden it's 100/10:

http://www.comhem.se/comhem/bredband/abonnemang/bredband-abonnemang/-/6336/17518/-/index.html

A friend of mine who's Swedish pointed out a website which offers a much better ratio than that

http://bredband.bahnhof.se/net/stockholm_3in1

1 Mbit/s 0 kr/mån (139 kr/mån)
10 Mbit/s 0 kr/mån (229 kr/mån)
30/30 Mbit/s 0 kr/mån (269 kr/mån)
100/10 Mbit/s 0 kr/mån (289 kr/mån)
100/100 Mbit/s 0 kr/mån (319 kr/mån)

So 100/100 is - £27.69 a month

Chrysalis
13-06-2010, 22:43
The only 15Mbps upstream I can think of seeing on cable has a price tag attached to it that would make people whine and cry.

http://optimum.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/optimum.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2410



optimum got the price right in my view :)

I think as long as VM have a cheap option then they should not worry about the pricing on their premium products.

If VM upped 50mbit back to £50 as an example, people would whinge but they wouldnt hit the cancel button, most likely they would whinge and put up with it or downgrade to a lower tier.

General Maximus
13-06-2010, 22:46
the issue I had with the "activation fee" was that I paid £50 for someone to come round to my house and give me the modem, and that seriously p*ssed me off. I have had two modems off VM/Ntl in the past each of which were posted to me, told me to hook it up and ring a number to register the mac address, each time working out perfectly. VM could have sent me the modem this time and i could have rang whoever he did and gave them my address, that was all he did.

Anyways, just as peeps pay top notch for quality products such as decent PCs for gaming, decent clothes, cars and TVs, I think people who are serious internet users (regardless of what it is for) would happily pay for a decent connection. I would gladly pay £100/month for 50/20 or something like that.

We can debate about tier ratios all we like, what I would love to see which would make everyone happy is customisable packages where you pick your bandwidth and pay per £ accordingly.

If we say £1 per mbit down and £2 per mbit up you are looking at 10/.5 for £12, 20/2 for £24 and 50/20 for £90. And obviously anything else inbetween if someone want 20/10 or something like that. I would love to be able to pay £90 for 50/20 :)

Ignitionnet
13-06-2010, 23:05
A friend of mine who's Swedish pointed out a website which offers a much better ratio than that

http://bredband.bahnhof.se/net/stockholm_3in1

1 Mbit/s 0 kr/mån (139 kr/mån)
10 Mbit/s 0 kr/mån (229 kr/mån)
30/30 Mbit/s 0 kr/mån (269 kr/mån)
100/10 Mbit/s 0 kr/mån (289 kr/mån)
100/100 Mbit/s 0 kr/mån (319 kr/mån)

So 100/100 is - £27.69 a month

Yes, but:

A) It's not cable and
B) It's delivered over usually municipally owned fibre MANs.

I was comparing like-for-like as we don't have government owned fibre networks for companies to use on the cheap.

Bahnhof, B2, Telia, etc, all have symmetrical fibre products, I picked on the cable company :)

General Maximus
13-06-2010, 23:12
that's a good idea, lets get the goverment to fibre the whole country so the more available and common place it is like anything else, the cheaper it is :)

Ignitionnet
13-06-2010, 23:14
that's a good idea, lets get the goverment to fibre the whole country so the more available and common place it is like anything else, the cheaper it is :)

Great idea, not like we've anything else to spend dwindling tax receipts on at the moment. ;)

Wasn't central government that built these networks by the way, was local ones hence my use of the word 'MAN' - Metropolitan Area Network. So long as it's local government they can do as they please with their money, central government can bugger off and leave my wallet alone :)

General Maximus
13-06-2010, 23:22
I like the idea of having a Bandwidth Agency responsible for building and maintaining communication lines like we have a Highways Agency which is responsible for maintaining transport routes

Ignitionnet
13-06-2010, 23:35
I like the idea of having a Bandwidth Agency responsible for building and maintaining communication lines like we have a Highways Agency which is responsible for maintaining transport routes

I find the idea of the government controlling fibre terrifying given their total inability to maintain most other things.

In any event private companies have this stuff all over the country already. Given time fibre will reach our homes a bit at a time (See Bournemouth, Dundee, Nottingham, Ebbsfleet, etc).

General Maximus
13-06-2010, 23:43
I havent got any patience though, I want it now :) The thing which i love about the government doing is that they dont have to worry about profits like businesses do, they just get it done. VM have to do things a bit at a time and spend too long worrying about how many people are going to want something and how much it is going to cost them. The government should cable the whole country, do all the neccessary upgrades and then sell it all back at cost to the companies who want it like VM.

Ignitionnet
13-06-2010, 23:48
They really shouldn't and not going to happen.

I don't need to tell you who pays for the government to just get it done, nor how badly they tend to overpay and make a total arse up of things. Easy to think of them as some abstract thing but we, I assume you are a UK tax payer, pay for this stuff. Lots of more pressing things to spend 30bn+ on right now. (Won't actually cost that much to build but there's legal action to defend, compensation to various companies, getting around European state aid regulations, etc, etc).

There are no applications that need this kind of performance, when there are and the demand is there private companies will supply that performance in order to continue to part us from our money. Capitalism works, sometimes, perhaps not as quickly as some might wish but it does.

AdamD
14-06-2010, 00:32
Yes, but:

A) It's not cable and
B) It's delivered over usually municipally owned fibre MANs.

I was comparing like-for-like as we don't have government owned fibre networks for companies to use on the cheap.

Bahnhof, B2, Telia, etc, all have symmetrical fibre products, I picked on the cable company :)

Ahhh right, thanks for the clarification :)

Zhadnost
14-06-2010, 10:51
that's a good idea, lets get the goverment to fibre the whole country so the more available and common place it is like anything else, the cheaper it is :)

This was proposed in the 70s and the work was planned, sadly the next government cancelled it.

Ignitionnet
14-06-2010, 11:38
This was proposed in the 70s and the work was planned, sadly the next government cancelled it.

BT's offer to replace copper with fibre so long as they could put TV down it?

Wasn't aware it went as far as planning stage, I know it was trialled.

Zhadnost
14-06-2010, 12:04
BT's offer to replace copper with fibre so long as they could put TV down it?

Wasn't aware it went as far as planning stage, I know it was trialled.

Nah, this was back in the GPO days. BT didn't exist until around 82.

Ignitionnet
14-06-2010, 12:18
Nah, this was back in the GPO days. BT didn't exist until around 82.

Just as well that didn't get to happen to be honest the fibre tech from then wasn't even close to fit for broadband services and would have needed a ton of cash spent on it.

Zhadnost
14-06-2010, 12:20
The original idea was that it would encourage outside investment. Either way, replacing an old fibre network with a new one, is surely cheaper than replacing the BT network with a fibre one.

Ignitionnet
14-06-2010, 12:23
Not really, would have been similarly expensive, would have still had to run the old network and a new one side by side, none of the equipment would have been reusable as not just the stuff either side but the fibre itself would have needed replacing now.

Wouldn't have even been able to do a copper -> FTTC -> FTTP incremental upgrade. :(

Zhadnost
14-06-2010, 12:27
No, would have been a FTTC -> FTTC -> FTTP upgrade :-p

And if it did encourage investment in testing new technologies over here, it may have paid for itself in employment alone.

Ignitionnet
14-06-2010, 13:07
Ah TPON. Was released in limited amounts and a nightmare, overbuilt to do DSL so I guess BT had a good reason to not use the existing fibre.

We do test and originate new technologies here, BT are a big player.

vanman
14-06-2010, 16:24
for your info Hi In Huddersfield and Coventry, we have now successfully trialled upstream speeds of 10:1 and 5:1 for both XXL (5Mb and 10Mb) and XL (2Mb and 4Mb). We're in the process of analysing the trial results with a view to rolling out these speeds, so will let you know when we have some firmer decisions. Thanks.
Official Comment

from the Sofa Forums

Chrysalis
14-06-2010, 16:26
heh as I thought.

users here scratching heads over less than impressive throughput whilst VM say its a success.

Ignitionnet
14-06-2010, 17:59
heh as I thought.

users here scratching heads over less than impressive throughput whilst VM say its a success.

Yes, Huddersfield and Coventry, not Lincoln where people have complained recently.

Chrysalis
14-06-2010, 18:14
Yes, Huddersfield and Coventry, not Lincoln where people have complained recently.

ok but they decided a 66% success rate is enough for rollout?

Ignitionnet
14-06-2010, 18:19
ok but they decided a 66% success rate is enough for rollout?

If trials succeeded 100% with no issues the point of trials would be...?

If the issues are fixed ok and after resolution all works as it should the trial is successful.

Sirius
14-06-2010, 18:21
I'm pretty sure 100Mbit would have 10Mbit at launch

Have to agree with Ben there.

Chrysalis
14-06-2010, 18:23
If trials succeeded 100% with no issues the point of trials would be...?

If the issues are fixed ok and after resolution all works as it should the trial is successful.

but the issues are not fixed. if's mean nothing. However I will stand back now, he did say analyzing with a view to rollout which is not the same as declaring a rollout. So I will hold off a bit now until either the issues are fixed in lincoln or they declare a rollout.

|Kippa|
14-06-2010, 19:04
I think BT infinity 15mbit upload rate as got the VM public relations people a bit rattled. If BT capitalise on their 15mbit upload and make a big thing ot of it, then I can imagine VM trying to up the anty and at least get 5mbit upload rate out soonish.

Ignitionnet
14-06-2010, 20:12
I think BT infinity 15mbit upload rate as got the VM public relations people a bit rattled. If BT capitalise on their 15mbit upload and make a big thing ot of it, then I can imagine VM trying to up the anty and at least get 5mbit upload rate out soonish.

BT Infinity won't have a 15Mbps upstream rate on the residential products it has quite a big cost increment compared to the 10Mbps upstream.

More of a business and specialist ISP product that one.

Chrysalis
14-06-2010, 20:39
I think when FTTC was first announced by BT it shocked almost everyone, in the past decade or so BT have invested very little in their local loop.

I dont know how much of VM's coverage is overlapped with FTTC planned rollout but what I do know is that my area will not have FTTC on current rollout plans and yet does have VM and that FTTC coverage is less than VM coverage, consider that some of FTTC is going into low populated areas where there is no VM there must be at least a moderate chunk of VM areas that will have no FTTC competition.

Zhadnost
14-06-2010, 22:16
It's odd, the rollout isn't concentrating in heavily populated areas.

The last time I checked, Southampton exchange isn't on the rollout, which has a great deal of their connections > 3km away, whereas Botley exchange is (which hasn't).

Chrysalis
15-06-2010, 00:22
It's odd, the rollout isn't concentrating in heavily populated areas.

The last time I checked, Southampton exchange isn't on the rollout, which has a great deal of their connections > 3km away, whereas Botley exchange is (which hasn't).

I think there lies the answer.

BT will have no special concern for long lines, whilst the primary benefit in my view of FTTC is a big boost to typical speeds. I think BT are looking at the increase in headline download speed and the upload speeds. They only care about marketing and sales. Long line areas need FTTC/P desperatly but they also the most expensive for deployment and especially inner city areas. Of course VM are the same.

Felim_Doyle
15-06-2010, 15:39
Day and night for the past couple of weeks I have seen flotillas of BT OpenReach vans running fibre to the many newly installed cabinets around the Aylesbury area. Until now the best DSL speed that I would be able to have is 3Mb/s at about 5km from the exchange but even that can't be guaranteed without a visit from an engineer. So I'm very happy to have had the VM 10Mb/s service for the past few years.

weesteev
15-06-2010, 16:46
Day and night for the past couple of weeks I have seen flotillas of BT OpenReach vans running fibre to the many newly installed cabinets around the Aylesbury area. Until now the best DSL speed that I would be able to have is 3Mb/s at about 5km from the exchange but even that can't be guaranteed without a visit from an engineer. So I'm very happy to have had the VM 10Mb/s service for the past few years.

Not just any fibre... but blown Fibre. Even though BT are behind other providers like Virgin in terms of network scalability, its good to see them using newer technologies which allow expansion rather than just putting cable in the ground as/when needed.

I for one will be interested to see how BT Infinity plays out when launched in my area, im being quoted at 19Mb Down and 6.7Mb Up with a launch date of 30th June. Then again it also says that I can get 13Mb now on ADSL2 when I can actually only get 7Mb so not a great comparison really!

Ignitionnet
15-06-2010, 17:39
Not just any fibre... but blown Fibre. Even though BT are behind other providers like Virgin in terms of network scalability, its good to see them using newer technologies which allow expansion rather than just putting cable in the ground as/when needed.

I for one will be interested to see how BT Infinity plays out when launched in my area, im being quoted at 19Mb Down and 6.7Mb Up with a launch date of 30th June. Then again it also says that I can get 13Mb now on ADSL2 when I can actually only get 7Mb so not a great comparison really!

BT invented the process of blowing fibre in the 80s, not surprising they are using it, they have for over 20 years :)

The FTTC checker is pretty conservative, most people get much higher speeds than quoted. If you can only get 7Mbps over ADSL2+ check your line. If you're using Virgin Media's National product that would possibly explain the speed issues. :p:

weesteev
15-06-2010, 23:24
Nope it was actually O2 who provided 7.1/1.4 and Sky then provided 7.5/1.6 but both services fluctuated dramatically, peak time on Sky was unbearable whereas at least O2 remained semi-reliable throughout its history. It got to the point where price was no longer the reason to have a service anymore... thankfully i moved to a cable area then!

Ignitionnet
15-06-2010, 23:59
Bit confused regarding Sky, they've never offered Annex M officially so 1.6Mbit upstream seems a bit odd.

Probably a local line issue if there was significant underperformance. Likely nothing a filtered faceplate wouldn't resolve.

Red Squirrel
16-06-2010, 12:29
I had an engineer out yesterday and as far as he was concerned it was an issue relating to their equipment in Mortlake. Since about Friday last week I've been getting awful speeds on my 50Mbit connection, is there anything like an upgrade going on in that area?

Ignitionnet
16-06-2010, 12:50
Hrm I guess now is a bad time to reactivate my VM subscription :D

What's the first bit of your postcode Mr Squirrel, TW1 1?

Our area's network is a PoS that may need considerable upgrade work, as in people in cabinets ripping bits out and replacing them with shiny new ones.

Pierre
16-06-2010, 13:08
Not just any fibre... but blown Fibre. Even though BT are behind other providers like Virgin in terms of network scalability, its good to see them using newer technologies which allow expansion rather than just putting cable in the ground as/when needed.

I for one will be interested to see how BT Infinity plays out when launched in my area, im being quoted at 19Mb Down and 6.7Mb Up with a launch date of 30th June. Then again it also says that I can get 13Mb now on ADSL2 when I can actually only get 7Mb so not a great comparison really!

Blown fibre is just fibre, there's nothing special about it.

It's just an alternative way of installing it.

Incidentally, VM have been using Blown fibre too.

Red Squirrel
16-06-2010, 13:10
I'm in TW2, if that helps. Speaking of cabinets, I pass at least two on the way to the train station that have Telewest stickers on the side that are almost constantly open. However they lock it seems totally inadequate but I guess changing a lock on a cabinet isn't a particularly high priority.

Pierre
16-06-2010, 13:14
I had an engineer out yesterday and as far as he was concerned it was an issue relating to their equipment in Mortlake. Since about Friday last week I've been getting awful speeds on my 50Mbit connection, is there anything like an upgrade going on in that area?

VM continue to upgrae the network to increase capacity an increase upload speeds for all.

They are doubling the channel widths to 6.4Mhz and upgrading their CMTS

Ignitionnet
16-06-2010, 13:25
VM continue to upgrae the network to increase capacity an increase upload speeds for all.

They are doubling the channel widths to 6.4Mhz and upgrading their CMTS

Can't do that here, 30MHz return path so need to make some room before ATDMA can be deployed. Indeed here along with a lot of other ex-Telewest areas an upstream had to be dropped from the legacy network to make room for the overlay. Capability of return lasers to handle this without clipping themselves stupid is also questionable.

In some areas 100Mbit and 10:1 is fairly painless or can be done with resegmentation but in others, due in this area's case to Telewest's aversion to expenditure ;) there will need to be optical and likely coaxial upgrades. I say likely as I don't know if the coaxial plant here has field replaceable diplexers.

ATDMA is running on the standard line cards at the moment, M-CMTS architecture on the 10k with MC5x20 cards on upstream detail and the frequency stacked variety of the 2x8s on the BSRs. The TX32 and RX48s on the BSRs and the MC20x20V on the 10k will be trialling at some point soon but are not a required part of the ATDMA upgrade cycle.

VM are certainly opening their cheque book on this one, no choice in the matter, and paying both for the downstream resegmentation for 100Mbit and the return path upgrades they didn't do when the overlay was originally put in.

---------- Post added at 12:25 ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 ----------

I'm in TW2, if that helps. Speaking of cabinets, I pass at least two on the way to the train station that have Telewest stickers on the side that are almost constantly open. However they lock it seems totally inadequate but I guess changing a lock on a cabinet isn't a particularly high priority.

Nah that's ok - the network in our area which goes back to Mortlake is total arse though. It'll need some serious money or seriously inventive bodgery.

Red Squirrel
16-06-2010, 13:38
Are you near me then? I do wish I'd kept a log but I does feel like I get more and more VM problems now then I ever did. I've been with VM a long time as well, way back to the Telewest/Blueyonder days. I suppose this problem will now be entry number one to my new log.

Ignitionnet
16-06-2010, 13:41
Are you near me then? I do wish I'd kept a log but I does feel like I get more and more VM problems now then I ever did. I've been with VM a long time as well, way back to the Telewest/Blueyonder days. I suppose this problem will now be entry number one to my new log.

Yes, St Margarets.

I was the first 50Mbit install to Mortlake and, hrm, had quite a few teething troubles ;)

roughbeast
16-06-2010, 13:43
I have put my conspiracy hat on and been thinking. You have probably noticed that tonnes of peeps have been having problems with their 50mbit connections over the last couple of days and one of the things I think we have all noticed is that the config files now say 5mbit up. We have all had the same problem which is with the SNR on the upstream and I am thinking it is because VM are ready to give us 5mbit up and are playing around the with signal/settings to make sure it works properly.

There is a moratorium on fiddling with general network configs whilst the World Cup is on. This is universal across all ISPs in all countries. You are unlikely to see changes in the network for 3 or 4 weeks.

Red Squirrel
16-06-2010, 13:52
I upgraded to 50Mbit from 20Mbit back in February. What is the problem in our area? Inadequate equipment that can't handle current demand because Telewest didn't spend money originally?

Are we going to have to wait indefinitely for VM to reinvest and suffer intermittent internet problems until they do so?

Ignitionnet
16-06-2010, 13:57
I upgraded to 50Mbit from 20Mbit back in February. What is the problem in our area? Inadequate equipment that can't handle current demand because Telewest didn't spend money originally?

Are we going to have to wait indefinitely for VM to reinvest and suffer intermittent internet problems until they do so?

I know there are some congested ports in the area on 50M, and we have some noise issues here and there too.

That will be the eventual permanent resolution yes, spending some pounds sterling, however your issue doesn't sound like a capacity problem.

The upgrades will largely resolve both issues. In the interim leave it with them, I had a couple of quite prolonged outages previously.

roughbeast
16-06-2010, 14:00
Well here we go dude:

US-1
Channel Type 2.0
Channel ID 3
Frequency
(Hz) 47400000
Ranging Status Success
Modulation 16QAM
Symbol Rate
(KSym/sec) 5120
Mini-Slot Size 1
Power Level
(dBmV) 49.25

SFID : 354
Max Traffic Rate : 5122000 bps
Max Traffic Burst : 3044 bytes
Min Traffic Rate : 0 bps
Max Concatenated Burst : 1522 bytes
Scheduling Type : Best Effort

Can I start getting excited now? :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper:

Yeah, that is the config I had on the 5Mb upload trial. Others in Coventry, on 10Mb, had 10244000 on their Max traffic rate.

Our modems are back to normal config now, but our network remains geared up for 5Mb or 10Mb at least.

By the way I have now been accepted on the 200Mb download trial. However this will be using a separate circuit and lab configured modems. Different upload speeds will be tested I am told. The trial starts as soon as the World Cup is over.

Gavin78
16-06-2010, 14:35
just wondering what the current upload rate is for 50mb I just did a couple of different BB speed test sites and I'm getting on average 250/290 k/s upload rate and I dont remember it being that high before

Ignitionnet
16-06-2010, 14:50
Check your operating config and see what it's set to.

Gavin78
16-06-2010, 15:08
same as the guy above 3044 roughly

Ignitionnet
16-06-2010, 15:25
How about Max Traffic Rate?

---------- Post added at 14:25 ---------- Previous post was at 14:20 ----------

I just thought, perhaps now would be a good time to mention that the numbers that the config files show aren't necessarily what you get - note STM for example not changing the configuration files.

It is actually perfectly possible for Virgin to send you a config file but restrict or even increase your speeds at their end without changing the file. What actually decides how fast your service is are the parameters of your service flow, note SFID on the 50Mbit modems, Service Flow ID, so they could happily provide a 5Mbps config file on the 50Mbps service and change service flow parameters as a test.

Just thought I'd best mention that. If it's an on the quiet trial they can actually have the speeds any way they want with the configuration the modems show being purely cosmetic :)

Gavin78
16-06-2010, 17:02
How about Max Traffic Rate?

---------- Post added at 14:25 ---------- Previous post was at 14:20 ----------

I just thought, perhaps now would be a good time to mention that the numbers that the config files show aren't necessarily what you get - note STM for example not changing the configuration files.

It is actually perfectly possible for Virgin to send you a config file but restrict or even increase your speeds at their end without changing the file. What actually decides how fast your service is are the parameters of your service flow, note SFID on the 50Mbit modems, Service Flow ID, so they could happily provide a 5Mbps config file on the 50Mbps service and change service flow parameters as a test.

Just thought I'd best mention that. If it's an on the quiet trial they can actually have the speeds any way they want with the configuration the modems show being purely cosmetic :)


SFID : 98
Max Traffic Rate : 53000000 bps
Max Traffic Burst : 3044 bytes
Min Traffic Rate : 0 bps
Primary Upstream Service Flow
SFID : 97
Max Traffic Rate : 5122000 bps
Max Traffic Burst : 3044 bytes
Min Traffic Rate : 0 bps
Max Concatenated Burst : 1522 bytes
Scheduling Type : Best Effort

Ignitionnet
16-06-2010, 18:22
Bored of being cagey now.

See signature, keep 'em peeled for timescales chaps and chapesses and enjoy your 2-way Internet :p:

Chrysalis
16-06-2010, 20:35
ignition we all know VM can for whatever reason take half a dozen months or more to do normal upgrades but I think thats usually down to them delaying for cashflow reasons.

So my question is here if the board room decided tommorow ok roll this out, what sort of timescale would you expect for nationwide?

Ignitionnet
16-06-2010, 20:53
The work is already underway to do the upgrades and has been for a while. No idea at all on timescales nationwide, potentially before the end of the year with some outliers that drag into 2011 due to requiring exceptional amounts of work.

Chrysalis
16-06-2010, 21:15
I think my area has noise issues as well (many QPSK US) so may be one of the 2011 ones.

Ignitionnet
16-06-2010, 21:43
I think my area has noise issues as well (many QPSK US) so may be one of the 2011 ones.

Unlikely given it's a new overbuild. Maybe other reasons for it being that way, especially given your 16QAM upstream shows no noise problems.

This area has issues, your upstream is up at 47.4MHz, it's a 65MHz area, this area doesn't even go to 47.4MHz, it stops at 30.

telfordcable
18-06-2010, 02:15
5meg up on the 50 meg is pathetic tbh it should atleast be 10meg up, vm upload speeds have always been poor

nah, it better to have 50Meg downstream and 50Meg upstream! Both same speed!

General Maximus
18-06-2010, 19:50
all we need now to complete the dialogue is someone like BenMCR to come along and say how unrealistic your expectations are and that you can't expect a super fast connection and max speed all the time for the money you pay VM

Ignitionnet
18-06-2010, 20:57
I'll say it for him - for the pretty low price that you pay VM you should keep your expectations reasonable to avoid possible disappointment.

Cheap / high quality / fast, pick two.

Pretty random comment GM?

General Maximus
18-06-2010, 21:56
good enough, Ben rants a bit more though :)

Chrysalis
18-06-2010, 21:58
I'll say it for him - for the pretty low price that you pay VM you should keep your expectations reasonable to avoid possible disappointment.

Cheap / high quality / fast, pick two.

Pretty random comment GM?

perhaps VM marketing can take the lead and stop dishing out high expectations?

Ignitionnet
18-06-2010, 22:58
perhaps VM marketing can take the lead and stop dishing out high expectations?

It's marketing's job to dish out high expectations sadly. They are obliged to push advertising rules as hard as they can in order to sell their product. The morality of this is debatable but it's what they are paid to do.

Chrysalis
20-06-2010, 06:13
as long as they do that tho its wrong to blame consumers for isp's mistakes.

Ignitionnet
20-06-2010, 11:47
They aren't making any mistakes. If you can find anywhere that performance is guaranteed you should contact the ASA and string them up over it. If however you find people assuming that speeds are in any way guaranteed all I can say is that assumption is the mother of all....

The other issue is that, for most, they achieve these high expectations. Obviously for some this isn't the case but while they continue to deliver a good quality service to others it makes the case for control weaker.

I took care to use the word 'reasonable' with my expectations. For some even very reasonable expectations lead to disappointment however for the overwhelming majority the services suit their needs, and therefore expectations, and are at a competitive price point.

My post was actually born out of annoyance with a post on another forum where a guy was moaning about his PREMIUM (his capitals) 50Mbps service not getting worked on in advance of a far wider service affecting fault elsewhere. 50Mbps customers on one node were experiencing issues and he complained because a massive fault elsewhere was on the service status pages while his limited impact fault wasn't.

If you want PREMIUM service go elsewhere - that was the source of my comments on expectations. Indeed in some cases Virgin's product will be totally unacceptable due to local issues. The solution again is to go elsewhere. If elsewhere can't supply as high a speed as Virgin are locally you make the choice of which of the 2 of 3 you want.

|Kippa|
20-06-2010, 15:18
If 100mbit becomes a new tier, do you think that 50mbit will become traffic managed like the lower tiers are now?

General Maximus
20-06-2010, 19:38
na, they didnt make the choice not to cap 50mbit just because they felt like being nice, there was no reason too because 50mbit is on docsis3 and there wasn't supposed to be any congestion at all. I think something like only 15% of VM customers are supposed to be on 50mbit and although 100mbit is going to be on docsis 3 as well. only probably 5% of customers will be on 100mbit and all of them will be upgrades from 50mbit customers so I still dont think there will be any need for it

Chrysalis
20-06-2010, 20:51
The mistakes are in that they have miscalculated numbers of users per node to account for more modern usage patterns so some large areas (not irrelevant) have excessive congestion.

You are been very defensive again, there is a lot of difference expecting reasonable service based on marketing, price and competition than expecting a uncontended service.

As I keep saying 'most' or 'some' is not good enough, looking at the evidence on VM forums, the messages sent to me on TBB, the evidence of my own connection and my one of my sister's connections. My guess is that large chunks of leicester are not up to scratch, a big chunk of manchester is not up to scratch, same with bristol as well as dozens of other reported postcodes.

Please dont sweep these under the carpet as some kind of irrelevant minority.

So what is it?

If you trying to say it is fine to make claims people will always get close to marketed speed and then blame consumers when that doesnt happen then I think you are wrong, and guess what, it seems now the ASA and ofcom agree with me as they have both recently changed their tune. They are now reviewing the unlimited market and 'up to' speeds. Also when someone gets speeds like 0.3mbit on a 20mbit service I just cannot see how you can defend that, it is clearly beyond what one would expect on contention and not fit for purpose.

good isp's admit when they got things wrong, the bad ones either pretend issues dont exist or call them a irrelevant minority.

Forgive me if I dont feel confident, if an isp thinks there is nothing wrong what hope is there for a fix?

Just to verify, you are trying to tell me the customer is to blame when they are not happy with getting speeds under 1/40th of marketed speed? and under 1/10th of stm speeds.

---------- Post added at 19:51 ---------- Previous post was at 19:44 ----------

na, they didnt make the choice not to cap 50mbit just because they felt like being nice, there was no reason too because 50mbit is on docsis3 and there wasn't supposed to be any congestion at all. I think something like only 15% of VM customers are supposed to be on 50mbit and although 100mbit is going to be on docsis 3 as well. only probably 5% of customers will be on 100mbit and all of them will be upgrades from 50mbit customers so I still dont think there will be any need for it

There is 100s of people on the official VM site that have reported congestion on overlay and have chose to move back to legacy as a result of it, odd in my case it improved going the other way. Also as well as in many areas 20mbit share the overlay network. Although I think the % on 50mbit is much less than 15% probably only a single digit.

Seph I expect will back me up on the upstream issue with 50mbit where only one channel is provided instead of 4. He has been quiet lately tho.

General Maximus
20-06-2010, 23:01
tbh I think you are both right and both wrong. There needs to be a middle ground. I accept the fact that you arent going to get your max speed 24/7 which is why they have to say "up to" but i definitely think some boundaries need to be set and imho anything less than 60% should be classed as unacceptable. If peeps are getting half their juice that means that VM havent got the infrastructure in place to provide what they are advertising. There need to be minimum standards and just like we now get info about BT phone lines and we are told that the max speed we can get is 3mbit due to our distance form the exchange, I think info should be available by region about UBR utilisation so peeps can be told "we actually have 50,000 people subscribed to that UBR and it can only handle 40,000 therefore on average you only going to get 70% of your bandwidth which is 35mbit and not 50mbit" or something like that.

That being said, I agree that most peeps are perfectly happy with their connection because for the stuff they use it for they wouldnt even notice a performance decrease. This is why I have said before (maybe in another thread) that they dont need to go ahead with the proposed upgrades for 10/1, 20/2 and 50/5 because nobody on 10mbits needs 1mbit upload. I am a heavy user and if i got along with 10/386 when it was the fastest you could get a couple of years ago, why can't they do it now? That tier should be 5/256 because it is a tier designed for minimal use

pip08456
21-06-2010, 00:05
There need to be minimum standards and just like we now get info about BT phone lines and we are told that the max speed we can get is 3mbit due to our distance form the exchange,

That is no different to VM saying the max speed for our 50Mb line is 50Mb.

Both are still sold as "up to"

|Kippa|
21-06-2010, 00:18
If it is out of the isp's sphere of control to provide a high quality service then there is nothing wrong with that. The difference is when they can do something about the quality of the connection but "choose" not to for what ever reasons ie financial ect.

I am not expecting excesive ammounts being plunged into the service, and yes they do have to make a profit, but at the end of it I do expect a basic level of service for what I am paying for.

It is hard to see whether VM are doing well or not, being an outsider and just having access to public forums. At a guess I would say that most people are doing alright with VM, otherwise they would have moved on to another isp. Mind you like I said that is just a guess.

Chrysalis
22-06-2010, 00:00
tbh I think you are both right and both wrong. There needs to be a middle ground. I accept the fact that you arent going to get your max speed 24/7 which is why they have to say "up to" but i definitely think some boundaries need to be set and imho anything less than 60% should be classed as unacceptable. If peeps are getting half their juice that means that VM havent got the infrastructure in place to provide what they are advertising. There need to be minimum standards and just like we now get info about BT phone lines and we are told that the max speed we can get is 3mbit due to our distance form the exchange, I think info should be available by region about UBR utilisation so peeps can be told "we actually have 50,000 people subscribed to that UBR and it can only handle 40,000 therefore on average you only going to get 70% of your bandwidth which is 35mbit and not 50mbit" or something like that.

That being said, I agree that most peeps are perfectly happy with their connection because for the stuff they use it for they wouldnt even notice a performance decrease. This is why I have said before (maybe in another thread) that they dont need to go ahead with the proposed upgrades for 10/1, 20/2 and 50/5 because nobody on 10mbits needs 1mbit upload. I am a heavy user and if i got along with 10/386 when it was the fastest you could get a couple of years ago, why can't they do it now? That tier should be 5/256 because it is a tier designed for minimal use

I know, and I do understand what ignition is saying also, I am well aware myself from experience that the nature of been a VM customer and as well with other available isp's my bandwidth is shared with others and as such it may slow down when things get busy.

My point was more to the point less experienced people will read that marketing claim and think otherwise.
Also even worse than this is when BE tech support used to tell BE customers they were on a 1:1 contention. So I dont just pick on VM, I attack various isp's in trying to improve standards for us customers. :)

My last point was that sometimes the sharing thing is taken too far by isp's and getting 1/40th of the max speed in my opinion is an example of that.

roughbeast
24-06-2010, 09:40
.............only probably 5% of customers will be on 100mbit and all of them will be upgrades from 50mbit customers.........

Not strictly true. I was chatting to a guy on BT copper the other day, who happens to live in a VM cable area. I told him about the 100Mb roll out. He says he will join VM just for that.

broadbandking
24-06-2010, 10:18
Not strictly true. I was chatting to a guy on BT copper the other day, who happens to live in a VM cable area. I told him about the 100Mb roll out. He says he will join VM just for that.

Thats one person the 100Mbit uptake will be slow atleast at first

roughbeast
24-06-2010, 13:49
Thats one person the 100Mbit uptake will be slow atleast at first

Yeah! I was just being picky. :p:

Read this today. 400Mb modem (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1687539/virgin-media-launches-400mbps-modem-networks-slower)


Pretty interesting, I thought.

Ignitionnet
24-06-2010, 14:12
Yeah! I was just being picky. :p:

Read this today. 400Mb modem (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1687539/virgin-media-launches-400mbps-modem-networks-slower)


Pretty interesting, I thought.

Whoever wrote that story is clueless.

ONLY A QUARTER of the expanded network capacity Virgin Media's 400Mbps modem is capable of handling will be on offer by the year's end when both will go on sale.

So what? The original modems only had 1/76th of the capacity they were capable of handling available, and the modems are not going to be on sale.

The company already has 70,000 subscribers for its existing 50Mbps service. Customers interested in the 50Mbps service were involved in a 100Mbps trial in Ashford, Kent. Another trial in Coventry will start in the next few weeks.

'Already' ? It's been out for over a year. 70,000 customers of a customer base of nearly 4,000,000 doesn't exactly suggest people are falling over themselves trying to get a hold of it especially given its' price cuts.

Ashford was a 200Mbps trial, and was nothing to do with customers 'interested' in 50Mbps, it was given to every customer within an area of Ashford.

To help increase that network capacity to make fuller use of the 400Mbps modem, and the router that will also be on offer, Virgin Media wants to work with utility companies to use telegraph poles to run broadband connections into homes in more remote areas.

The first part of that paragraph is absolutely nothing to do with the second part.

That'll do for now. Typical journalist :)

Kymmy
24-06-2010, 14:27
The 400Mb news has it's own thread could we please stick to the topic please

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/10/33666521-virgin-media-already-looking-400mbps-broadband.html

|Kippa|
29-06-2010, 09:59
Are there likely to be any limits on the 5mbit upload rate?

pip08456
29-06-2010, 15:30
Are there likely to be any limits on the 5mbit upload rate?

Have you worked out how long a piece of string is yet???

pabscars
29-06-2010, 16:07
Have you worked out how long a piece of string is yet???

Yes!!!!! its about that long :D:

pip08456
29-06-2010, 16:41
Yes!!!!! its about that long :D:

OMG not THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT long:D:D:D:D:D:D

|Kippa|
29-06-2010, 17:00
I just cannot see VM allowing users to hammer 5mbit up 24/7. What do you think they will do? Have a fair usage policy and leave users to guess what it is? Have traffic management for certain hours? Shape the traffic on certain types of usage?

BenMcr
29-06-2010, 17:22
I assume it will be covered by the existing Acceptable Use Policy

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/legal/oncable/acceptableuse.html

Chrysalis
29-06-2010, 17:28
I just cannot see VM allowing users to hammer 5mbit up 24/7. What do you think they will do? Have a fair usage policy and leave users to guess what it is? Have traffic management for certain hours? Shape the traffic on certain types of usage?

I think they will try to allow it at first and hope that the amount who do it is low enough that it doesnt cause noticeble problems for others.

However I expect protocol shaping when things go pear shape.

pip08456
29-06-2010, 18:24
I just cannot see VM allowing users to hammer 5mbit up 24/7. What do you think they will do? Have a fair usage policy and leave users to guess what it is? Have traffic management for certain hours? Shape the traffic on certain types of usage?

Igni is realy the one to answer this but IMO due to the upgrades to the network that are being carried out it should be no worse than the 1.75 U/S hammering that is happening ATM on the 50Mb service.

djmagnifique
29-06-2010, 21:46
Have you worked out how long a piece of string is yet???

Twice the distance from the middle to one end.

Chrysalis
01-07-2010, 22:13
another question.

20mbit users on the overlay network who share the docsis upstream channel with 50mbit users, when this channel eventually goes to docsis 2.0 will 20mbit users stay on it or will they be seperated and kept on a 1.1 channel?

Ignitionnet
01-07-2010, 22:58
Zero reason to separate them, will stay as is.

Felim_Doyle
02-07-2010, 13:54
Will I be able to use the 5Mb/s upstream connection for my Card Sharing business? :)

Oops! Sorry, wrong forum. :blush: