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Virgin Promises 100Mbps Connections To UK Homes
registerShift writes "Virgin said it will roll out 100 megabit-per-second broadband connections to homes in the UK. The company said users will experience speeds 'very close' to what's advertised as it plans to deploy cable instead of ADSL used by competitors. 'There is nothing we can't do with our fiber optic cable network, and the upcoming launch of our flagship 100mbps service will give our customers the ultimate broadband experience,' Virgin Media's chief executive officer, Neil Berkett, said. This is just days after the FCC announced aims of 100Mbps by 2020, and companies panned it as unrealistic."
I can't see why a domestic user needs that speed. I've got virgin cable and the 20MB is plenty for me. Perhaps this has something to do with their Tivo deal and on-demand content?
Widespread fast broadband access is key to a healthy economy and world-leading software industry. Just look at Japan, where...ohh, wait.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
It really, really, *really* irks me that Virgin's advertising constantly goes on about it being "fibre optic" where ADSL is copper.
Fact is, Virgin is NOT fibre optic in the sense that their advertising implies - at best and in some areas only, they have fibre to the cabinet. They do not offer fibre to the home anywhere (which ironically BT actually are offering in some new-build areas). BT also has FTTC in some areas already and is rolling this out into more rural areas to improve speeds there.
I'm pretty sure Virgin isn't rolling out Fibre-to-the-home, just using their existing cable network, it really irks me that they get to advertise 'Fibre Optic Network' when it's set up pretty much the same as BT Openreach's, just with newer cables to the home.
If I'm not mistaken, BT Openreach is beating Virgin laying out fibre-to-the-home by presumably a long .. long time:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4068-openreach-fibre-to-the-home-coverage-to-double.html
I'd like to have a 100mbps connection while downloading games, videos and the occasional large file. Beyond that, I don't really need it. With 100mbps I could pull down a gigabyte in less than a minute and a half. At those rates my household would probably spend less than two hours a month actually utilizing the full bandwidth potential. And between the four of us we're online almost 24/7. I'm assuming Virgin is expecting the same from most of their customers. And as soon as heavy users start stressing their network, you'll see caps imposed.
> "There is nothing we can't do with our fibre optic cable network,
Apart from get it anywhere near approximately 50% of the population, and that is mostly in the very dense urban areas. Sure, wonderful if you live in an area that NTL cabled back in the 90s.
Well 100Mbit is all good and well but considering Virgin have some serious traffic shaping going on (4-12 peak time speed cap if you, err, use your connection iirc). It's a shame they don't just release a plan where they WONT cap you (ie you pay us XYZ for 200gig etc)
Well it's coax rather than twisted pair cable, so it is a 'better' type of cable the the POTS for this type of data use. But yes 21CN is basically the same, just using the twisted pair as the last mile.
I'm pretty sure Virgin isn't rolling out Fibre-to-the-home, just using their existing cable network
Correct. I'm always amazed they've got away with advertising like this for so long. It's coax to the house.
I used them for eight years through the Telewest/NTL merger and the Virgin rebranding while they got steadily worse and worse. I had their 10Mbps/512kbps service which struggled to provide half that most of the time. I suspect they spend more on advertising than they do on infrastructure.
The awful upload speeds (which they no longer even mention), the afternoon & evening 'subscriber traffic management' (bandwidth throttling) and the Phorm debacle finaly convinced me to dump them for Be DSL with whom I get twice the speed despite being a mile from the exchange.