back to article Virgin Media pilots 200Mbit service

Virgin Media has begun a pilot of a 200Mbit/s broadband service in Kent to gauge future demand for bandwidth in the home. The pilot, which began last week in Ashford, will see 100 Virgin Media staff and customers connected at the new speed for at least six months. A spokesman for the firm said the upstream bandwidth for the …

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  1. Dave Ross
    Unhappy

    200Mb/s!!

    Wonder what the download cap will be...

  2. David
    Unhappy

    100mbit NIC cards

    I see a backhander to increase sales of 1gbit nic cards :( its all a ploy

  3. Mark Wills
    Stop

    Well will enough be enough?

    It is interesting: My dual processor laptop can execute 10s of millions instructions per second, yet, as far as I can see, it spends most of it's time polling the mouse port waiting for me to do something.

    My internet connection can download high quality MP3 files faster than it takes to listen to them, making streaming in CD quality possible, yet it spends most of its time waiting to read the page I am reading, before I click the next link.

    In other words, I find both my laptop and my internet connection perfectly adequate for my needs. If I need to wait a few minutes to download the latest Ubuntu image (just downloaded Ubuntu Remix in about 4 minutes) then, guess, what, that's fine. I'll go make a cup of tea, chat to a collegue, or answer an email.

    When will enough be enough? Is there *really* a demand for super-duper-mega-bandwidth-by-the-fuckton? Sure, the freetards^M^M pirates who download copyrighted material all day will always scream for it (and absorb it, to the detriment of everyone else) but for your average joe, *most* internet connections these days are fast *enough* thanks very much.

    Is it me?

  4. Eddie

    I've said it repeatedly...

    get the rest of the fucking service sorted out before you start trying for stupid headline numbers.

  5. Jack

    Bandwidth Management

    You'll get (up to) 200MBit/s for 3.65 seconds, followed by (up to) 512 KBit/fortnight

  6. F Cage
    Thumb Down

    What's the point without a decent backbone?

    In related news, water companies have announced plans to install 15" pipes to all households. When asked whether the 6" mains pipes in the road could cope with this, the water companies said that anyone who washed too much would have their supply reduced to a trickle until the next day.

  7. Graham Jordan

    wow

    So i'll get capped in seconds as appossed to minutes? Good times.

  8. Alex Walsh

    Speed is irrelevant in trials

    How will it work with hundreds of people in a locale all hammering it constantly? I get about 8Mbit out of my large Virgin package and this drops notably in the evenings.

  9. Ben Rosenthal
    Flame

    customer and billing service....

    ....still about the slowest in the world >.<

  10. Bug
    Thumb Down

    And the point apart from headline grabbing is ?

    So 200MB for about the first 10 seconds then capped down to 512kb for the rest of the time.

    I wish VM would stop sodding about headline grabbing trying to provide "the fastest service" and actually provide a usable constant speed. I'm only on the 2MB and they are unable to even provide that for more than an hour during the day then back to dial-up speeds. Getting tempted to go back to dial-up as at least it will be the same speed all the time.

  11. M7S
    Black Helicopters

    Use with caution, its just so they can monitor you without noticeably impacting your bandwidth.

    Isn't Ashford in Kent home to the Green Slime? Sometimes known as the Intelligence Corps?

  12. Alex
    Pirate

    less haste better service

    Self proclaimed that there is no demand for it why not put a bit of effort into QoS they have one of the worst connections i have ever used. I would be happy to pay the same price for half the speed but a guaranteed QoS.

    But then i suppose im one of those tech savvy high end pc users who should be with a different provider because i know better.

    skull and cross bones because there scallywags!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    RE: 200Mb/s!!

    Dave Ross wrote: "Wonder what the download cap will be..."

    For the people in the trial? Probably nothing. For the other users in Kent... well, I'm sure you can imagine!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Bandwidth

    Its odd isn't it that when you complain to Virgin about the crap picture quality caused by over compression their stock answer is "Digital Television always breaks up on fast moving images" and "We don't have the bandwidth". But they apparently have the bandwidth to offer 200MB internet connections.

    I guess we can look forward to even more over compression on our TV signals, and no doubt they'll put the rates up as well.

  15. David Cherry
    Unhappy

    @Dave Ross

    Or how quickly you can hit it

  16. Peter D'Hoye
    Thumb Down

    And upstream speeds?

    Upstream speeds are never mentioned, and always turn out to be crap. My ISP (telenet), for example, claims to be the fastest ISP here, yet offers a silly 512kbps uplink speed (1mbit available if you really have too much money). Try sending a couple of pictures from your DSLR to a local photoshop with that speed....

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Great news...

    You'll pay £100 a month for 30 seconds worth of downloading, then you'll be capped to 56k.

    Headline Grabbing Bullshitters

  18. Darren B
    Unhappy

    more willy waving

    Wonder what the upload speed will be...

    Probably just enough to support the 200Mbit I suppose. As usual.

    Still..."fastest DOCSIS3 network in the world" is the usual headline grabbing willy-waving antics of this lot.

  19. Richard Cartledge
    Thumb Down

    Upstream is 10th percentile

    My VM upstream is ~200k/s. This makes it useless for sharing anything, for uploading files to box.net etc... and for streaming CCTV. Also, the use of upstream seems to cripple the download speed when both are used simultaneously.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    yeah right

    So that'll be 200mb/s for the first 75mb then capped down to maybe 15mb/s (so itll still seem super fast) for the 2gb monthly download limit, capped to a further 5mb/s. All nicely nestled in a Phorm pipe. yeah, good deal.

  21. Paul Solecki
    Thumb Down

    Cap, cap cappity cap

    I reckon you'll get that speed for 5 minutes before you hit a cap ;)

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pointless

    A 200mb pipe to your home is as useless as a 20mb one if:

    a) The content providers have limited bandwidth

    b) P2P is throttled or blocked

    c) You are connected to a back end network that is unable to cope with what it already has

    d) All of the above

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Thank God...

    ...they're rolling out a new fibre network in S.Yorks. I'll be ditching VM in a second when a viable alternative comes along.

    The gravestone, because thats where VM deserve to be... dead.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A title is required.

    This would be more impressive if they would offer 200MB uplinks for web servers so you could actually achieve this sort of speed. I have yet to see a dedicated server offering so much as a full 8MB download.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @200Mb/s!!

    "Wonder what the download cap will be..."

    I'll hazzard a guess that whatever it is, you'll be able to breach it within 20 minutes, just like all their other miss-sold products.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Can't support their current customers

    As the title says, VM can't support their current customers on 10/20/50Mb, let alone 200.

    Nothing more than a collection of chancers.

  27. Shaun
    Thumb Down

    RE: Download cap

    3GB

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Cool.

    This is most excellent news. I've always wanted a high speed broadband connection that allows me to download massive amounts of data for a few seconds a day before I get capped to dial-up speeds.

  29. Oliver Mayes
    Coat

    Must... hold back... tirade...

    *Deep breath, calm face on, grip edge of desk to prevent rage from surfacing, clear throat*

    Ahem, I have their "up to 20Mb" service, and have never passed 16Mb (even that's just a brief spike at around 3AM every few weeks), my average is roughly 3-5Mb. They cannot deliver anywhere near the speeds they currently advertise. all of my attempts to discuss this with them result in me being put through to a call center in India where someone with no technical knowledge reads a script to me. Their 'automated support' line in all seriousness told me to "Turn your PC off for 10 minutes then turn it back on again, this will solve most poroblems", then it hung up on me!

    The fact that they are constantly claiming to have faster and faster speeds is bull effluent of the highest degree. At what point is someone going to step in and give them (and preferably all other ISPs) a firm slap across the face and force them to actually live up to some of their promises?

    Going away now, blood pressure is rising rapidly and I doubt I can contain the bile much longer. *Rage, taking over...*

  30. Ash

    Bandwidth isn't the issue

    Max connections is. If I run BitTorrent on my 2Mb home connection, I download at maybe 50KB (1/5 of bandwidth, for those who can't calculate in octal). I *guarantee* you that even with roughly 200KB of downstream left, I can't browse the web, receive or send email, or use any internet service. It all just fails. Even when downloading ISOs (linux, 7 RC1 etc) in Firefox at full tilt I can browse the web, pipe totally saturated.

    I might cut back the connections BT can use, but it's still not perfect. Wonder what the limitation is.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Brilliant Beardie future

    Capped *AND* Phormed - sounds unmissable.

  32. David S

    How odd.

    I've been on VM for a while now. I have no complaints at all; I work primarily from home, doing a lot of stuff on the internet all day every day, and I've never had a significant issue that didn't turn out to be one of the kids downloading something large at an inappropriate time.

    200Mb/s? Can't see the point, frankly. But then I mostly use the internet for work, so blistering download speeds aren't vital.

    The exception that proves the rule, perhaps?

  33. Joel Mansford
    Stop

    VPN Usage

    I saw a similar piece on BBC click about what's the point in a 100Mbit connection.

    It seems everyone is forgetting the very real application of Virtual Private Networks. With a 100Mbit connection to the home (and similar or greater at the office) then accessing all of those file servers suddenly becomes very realistic.

    I have clients who must still remote-desktop machines located within the office in order to use high-bandwidth applications. Not every application in the world is web-based!

  34. Lionel Baden

    WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT

    actually virgin were dragged onto watchdog a while back about them capping their network and they have actually stated on live TV with their top internet package that there are no caps.

    So if your getting capped i suggest you upgrade and then sue.

    @oliver Mayes

    I pay up to 8mb and was stuck 0.5 mb for about 8 months i now just make 2mb ...

    so i feel your pain man. were just gonna have to hope the new goverment makes a intelligent decision and starts punishing companies for blatent lying to 95% of their customer base

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    What is the point,,,

    in having a 200Mbit link if you can´t have ALL DAY LONG, UNINTERRUPTED, UNCAPPED. I bought for myself a 6mbit link (500kbps uplink) and it suits me just fine.

    Just to test, I downloaded a live-CD ubuntu, and it took exactly 16 minutes and 30 seconds, not bad. However, it is pretty stable, and that what is Virgin should aim for, not this hype headlines BS.

    I would buy such a link if I was meant to host a Google node or heavy P2P, otherwise no.

  36. Tony

    @Caps

    I am on the Virgin 50Mb package and as far as I can tell there is no cap or throttling at the moment and no contention either.

    Not sure how long that will last before they put a leash on it, but I'm making hay while the sun shines.

    I just need a bit more storage, then I can just download the whole internet and work offline ;)

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC RE: Bandwidth

    It's typical from any pay subscription really... most people don't really understand or notice the difference.

    Look at the resolution of Sky broadcasted channels vs BBC broadcasted when using DVB-S

    BBC = DVD Resolution

    Sky = Youtube Resolution

  38. Daniel Jones
    Unhappy

    I'd be happy if I could even get it...

    100 yards in pretty much any direction from my estate and VM is available.

    My estate? No chance. Built after the initial cable install, y'see....

    So I'm stuck with the oh-so-cheap BT. Up to 8mbps, averages out at 6.

    <sarcasm>

    Yay.

    </sarcasm>

  39. Colin Miller

    @ Richard Cartledge

    The reason why hammering your upstream affects your downstream is that every packet (max size ~1500 bytes) your machine receives has to be acknowledged.

    If there are too many packets outstanding, then the sender will stop sending until your machine catches up. When your upstream is being maxed, these acknowledgement packets are delayed. The remote machine then thinks your machine can't cope with the speed it is sending at, and slows down.

    This can be improved by increasing the "Congestion window" size on your machine, or changing your router to prioritise the sending of packages with acknowledgements.

    (A packet can both acknowledge that the data was received ok, and send data back to the sender).

    The later is the best idea, but is not normally a tweekable option on most routers' UI, so you need to log into it, and change is QoS (quality of service) options.

    A third option is to install QoS on your machine, and use that to limit the send rate to 90% of your upstream, giving space for the acknowledgement packets.

  40. Matthew Coulson
    Unhappy

    Nevermind the bandwidth...

    Give me a modem that doesn't keel over when maintaining 50+ connections.

  41. Fingers
    Thumb Down

    Epic fail, can't wait for them to go bust...

    I had cable for 10 years - Cable London which begat Blueyonder which begat Telewest which begat NTL/Telewest which begat Virgin Media.

    Had no problems and was happy, started on a 1mb connection with Cable London which got upgraded for free through 2mb, 4mb, 10mb then 20mb with Virgin Media.

    In July 2008 I started having problems. 56k d/l speeds with long and frequent periods with no upstream connectivity at all - I couldn't even d/l email as the POP3 server requried at least a packet to confirm the connection. Various people at VM tried to help, including retentions, and they kept promising "relief" dates which came and went. Turns out "I" had two problems - a faulty UBR and an "oversubscribed" UBR. The "oversubscription" (selling more connectivity than their infrastructure can cope with - isn't this fraud?) was causing the fault with the UBR to become more pronounced.

    VM were not willing to replace the UBR because, I was "unofficially" told, that they were going to wait until it was replaced under the 50mb upgrade plans. Fair enough, makes more commercial sense, but they wouldn't even move my connection to another UBR to relive me of the fault. The oversubscription I could of dealt with but at least I would have had a connection.

    I started receiving a "goodwill gesture" which meant I was paying for a tenner a month for 20mb cable, despite being willing to pay the full £37 for a decent service. To be fair, until July 2008 I was happy with the service. However, when March 2009 came around I decided enough is enough and ditched the VM phone and cable services, hooked up a BT rental contract (argh - 18 month lock in! - isn't this illegal?) and went to an ADSL2 provider.

    In the 52 days that my ADSL has been connected, it has not gone down once. Speeds are fine for my purposes and all told I am paying about £2 per month more than the bundled deal I had with VM.

    With service like this and the obvious lack of capacity within the VM infrastructure, how can they justify a business model that assumes people do not actually use the bandwidth they have paid for? Surely this is madness?

    Epic fail, can't wait for them to go bust. They have spent/are spending over £600 million on capital expenditure for the 50mb upgrade, I bet this credit will cost them a forturne. I wonder how long before they run into "cash flow problems" in trying to service the debt with people leaving them in droves...

  42. Brian Whittle

    hot air

    I have been on cable internet for ever (about 8 years actually) and the problems I have had have been minimal. They just sent me the virgin media 256 modem and now I get a solid 23 meg

    As for the caps you can (if you want and find enought to download) get 250 Gb of stuff a week from the internet if you are tricky with the scheduling of the downloads

    I have had a thought if you have an Apple TV and download HD films at night (A legitimate thing to do) you will be capped, I suppose, surly this can't be right

  43. adam

    oh no

    not again ..............

  44. Steve

    Aka tiered Internet

    "'wideband' services" "used by consumers," said Virgin Media chief executive Neil (Net Neutrality is “A Load of Bollocks”) Berkett.

    Aka tiered Internet, coz even with all that bandwidth they'll want you to pay for youtube

  45. Christopher Rogers
    Thumb Down

    i agree

    Get the basic services right before tryin to show off how big your offering really is...

  46. Dave Webb
    Coat

    They should spend smarter

    I have the 20Mbit service in South Wales (ex ntl customer) and rarely have any issues with download speeds (I can max out at over 2000k/sec). As far as I can tell I have only been traffic-managed once or twice. The upstream stays a constant 80k/sec.

    The only issues I have are when playing CoD5 on XBox Live - it lags like a mother! I think they'd be better off spending the money on upgrading existing/buying new UBRs so they are not over-subscribed, moving the tech support to the UK with English speaking people and better peering arrangements to improve latency between other ISPs.

    Mine is the one with the copy of What Sheep? in the pocket

  47. Chris Church
    Alert

    Why oh why?

    I think that Virgin have got broadband speeds that are perfectly suitable for even the most active pirate on the internet and would much prefer them to invest some money in improving the coverage.

    As far as I can tell no new cable has been put in since about 8 years or so ago when NTL (at least in my area) first put in all teh cable infrastructure. And even that didn't cover everywhere. I now live in a new developement and yet still nobody has ever installed cable. I'd have thought that whilst these new estates are being built would be the best time to install it but they don't. This means that a lot of properties can't even get Virgin Media cable so what do i care if they make it faster!

  48. keith
    Thumb Down

    200mb haha

    this is a waste of time 200 megabit what a waste of time even trying why dont they sort out the problems today get a bigger network and stop capping there users do what sky does and give it truly unlimited no charges no caps no nothing just unlimited is unlimited sky can do it why cant others oh i forgot virign is a small network which cant cope haha no wonder good job i ant with virgin phew

  49. jai

    yes please!!!

    although, they haven't even gotten around to making the 50meg service available in my neck of hertfordshire yet, so gawd knows if they'll ever manage to give us this

    but if they do, i want it

    if it gives me some anti-lag advantage while playing Eve, then it's all worth it

    and besides, if i don't have it, i'm gonna get pwned by some git who does have 200meg and blasts me when i lag

    actually - does this make the whole dubious OneLive thing a little bit more plausable?

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Knee-jerk reaction from Virgin?

    Hmm, high bandwidth trial in Kent? Reminds me of BT who have also committed to the same thing. Is this just to complete with that?

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/10/bt_ebbsfleet_go/

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