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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."
...what is she going to charge?
Not only are they deceitful in their advertising (few if any get the advertised speeds), but Virgin are also one of the biggest enemies of fair Internet access in the UK. Witness the CEO of Virgin Media's reported comments that net neutrality is "a load of bollocks" and that Virgin Media are arranging deals with various content providers to deliver their content faster over their competitors.
Virgin can promise me whatever amount of bandwidth they like (not that they've ever delivered on their advertising from what I hear), I'll never support them and I'll continue to explain to those that ask my advice (I'm one of the go-to technical people for a lot of friends) exactly why I don't like them and suggest competitors.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Youtube 1080p videos still require some buffering on my 5mb connection. Did I mention they're compressed 1080p? It's pretty compressed video, but it's still compressed, and only in stereo. And only 30fps. Some of us have screens that support larger than 1080p. Some of us have computers that can handle 1080p at 60, or even 120fps. Imagine if Mozilla couldn't complain about which compression method we use because everyone simply had enough bandwidth to stream uncompressed video.
I, for one, welcome our 1080p+, uncompressed 120fps streaming video lords
moox. for a new generation.
Personally the reason I'm looking forward to fibre-based networks is not so much the increase in downstream speed (my 24 Mbps ADSL2+ service is great for the moment), but better upstream speed (my 1 Mbps upload rate is becoming increasingly inadequate as the size of data I upload increases, e.g. uploading photos to Flickr which are 6+ MB each).
ADSL (and to a lesser extent cable) are highly asymmetrical services. You can get symmetrical DSL links (SHDSL for instance), but they tend to have lower aggregate speeds (e.g. 5Mbps/5Mbps) and be very expensive. Fibre gives us the opportunity to have some truly beefy, symmetrical home links, which we'll need as applications become increasingly two-way/interactive.
Put it this way. I'd rather have a 20/20 Mbps connection than a 100/1 Mbps connection (or even a 1Gbps/1Mbps!). Upload speed is nice!
Indeed. Has to have been cabled before all the cable companies merged into Virgin, because they haven't laid a single meter of cable since and never will again.
I must be one of the few, too. I'm on the 50mbit service, and getting 50.1Mbit/s and 8ms ping according to speedtest.net. My 20Mbit service before was faultless, and also my 4Mbit service when I lived 90 miles from here (with NTL, before rebranded Virgin), and also my 2Mbit from my flat before that, and also my original 600kbit service in 2000 - and everyone I know on Virgin (and NTL before) has a similar story. (no I don't work for Virgin, just a happy customer)
You're talking about ADSL: Virgin offer ADSL in non-cable areas. Of COURSE you don't get the advertised speeds: ADSL is notorious for that. Those of us who live in Virgin Cable areas get much faster connections at the advertised speed: I'm paying for 20Mb and I'm getting 20Mb (& I checked the modem before I wrote that).
Basically your complaint is "ADSL is shit. I wish I had cable."
you dont get traffic shaping on the 50mb package, only 10 and 20.
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html