Slashdot Mirror
Virgin Media UK Pilots 200Mbps Broadband Speeds
MJackson writes "UK cable operator Virgin Media has announced the first real-world customer pilots of up to 200Mbps broadband services using DOCSIS3 technology from Cisco, which could make it one of the fastest Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the world. Following successful lab trials, the 6 month long pilot started last week in Ashford, Kent (England), and will ultimately employ 100 customers in the testing process. The pilot will, among other things, test future online consumer applications, including High Definition Internet TV (HD IPTV) and the ability to deliver applications and support for home IT needs through its network. By comparison J:Com in Japan supplies broadband at up to 160Mbps and Cablevision in the US supplies broadband at up to 101Mbps. Like Virgin Media, both companies use DOCSIS3 technology for broadband over cable networks."
Don't worry, if it's anything like any other Virgin product then the throttle to 1Mb/s will kick in after 5 minutes. And as for BitTorrent, yeah right...
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
200Mbps down with traffic shaping that'll cut you'r speed to 2Mbps after the first 5GB of transfer. Consumers don't need this kind of download speed, what we do need is more upload speed say a 5Mbps symmetric service.
....the US overall reaches new broadband speeds of nearly 20mbps for half its citizens in the year 2025!!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Cablevision in the US supplies broadband at up to 101Mbps
Cablevision has announced that they are going to offer 101 Mbps service. Hold off on giving them credit until they actually do it.
Rather then trying furiously to single out their biggest users and punish, we have a company thats actually focusing on improving their infrastructure to provide a better experience. I'm not sure which will help their image more...
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
...if you are unable to speak?
call me unimpressed if most of the bandwidth is so the cable company can sell me TV over IP for no good reason. otherwise, you will reach your DL cap rather quickly.
Something about "Give me Virgin speed" sounds a bit off-putting. Strange days.
"To err is human, to mod Funny divine."
I just got Comcast's 'Ultra' package that gives me 50Mbps. But since it's capped at 250GB monthly, I can't exactly use it as much as I want. What good is crazy fat bandwidth if one gets shut off after three days?
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Right, I live in central New York. Mind telling me who I should call to get 100 Mbit like other similar cities in the world? Or is New York not crowded enough for you?
True. The answer is for municipalities to run fiber to the home and then lease access to providers who want to sell to those customers.
Given the way the UK has become Oceana lately, it's unfortunately not obvious that it's a joke.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I've never looked at Twitter before but, my goodness, it's awful. Page after page of top-posted imbecelia[sic].
It'll suit Apple down to the ground.
What's the point of all these increased downstream speeds if the upload speeds for your favorite sites, etc are still the same? Let's make the other end faster!
with 180Mbps being used by the UK government to spy on you.
While I agree with the throttling i've never had a problem with torrents. I am only on the 2Mb/s service (which drops to 1Mb/s after 500MB I think, fucking pathetic IMHO) but I always get the full 1Mb/s once the throttle kicks in.
Just imagine, flying over the ocean at nearly the speed of sound, with a computer sitting on your lap performing billions of calculations each seconds, a battery-powered machine whose workings have been grafted with atomic precision into ultra-pure silicon. It communicates with a satellite orbiting the earth that bounces the data back, and it finds it way though a worldwide maze of wires that spans the earth like mycelium. Technology has come a long way.
All that to play online tetris.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Yep. ISPs can invest in all the technology and great-sounding packages they like, but while they have throttling at arbitrary and unspecified limits that consumers cannot find out then their offers amount to precisely fuck all squared. I'd gladly take any 2Mbps unmetered ISP that guarantees no limits and no metering, over any 8Mbps service, or even a 100MBps service. Broadband is about having a reliable, always on connection that I can trust to be there, and can predict the capacity of, not about having some ultra-fast thing that can't be used.