Virgin Media LLU 'National'

[dillingerdan]

Anybody got an opinion or something of this? I had a letter today through the post randomly, and since I really want to move from Enta rather than limit myself to buying an office package and only DL through the night, I thought I'd check it out. I was wondering if it was LLU when I noted the option of a 16Mbps line, which is confirmed on their site:

Legal Stuff

1 16Mb upgrade. Offer ends 6th April 2009. Reverts to £5 a month after 3 months. Subject to status and credit checks. Offer available to new and existing Virgin Media customers taking the Up to 16Mb upgrade for the first time.

2 The price you pay depends on whether you live in one of our "LLU unbundled" areas. If you do, as services cost us less in these areas, we can pass on these savings to you and offer you lower prices. Offer ends 6th April 2009. Reverts to standard prices after 3 months. Subject to a 12 month minimum term contract. Subject to status and credit checks. This offer is available to new Virgin Media customers and existing customers taking Talk for the first time.

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/websales/availability/beyond-cable.do

But the option that puts me off is the shaping. They offer "unlimited" downloads, but there is the obvious prevision of "fair use". I don't mind it too much as long as they offer anough bandwidth per month anyway, and not going to start limiting me stupidly, after 100GB or so. I know the LLU vendors seem to be a lot more lenient so any insight at all would be great.

Samknows also doesn't seem to list them under LLU options, tick or cross, unless they've bought out someone else (likely), and the option is still under the old ISP name?

Any thoughts at all, as I am seriously considering this.

 

[Le_Petit_Lapin]

I've quite happily gone through 80GB a few months now and they never bother sending me any letters telling me its too much. As long as you do your bulk traffic when their traffic management is off they don't seem to be bothered how much you shift.

 

[Daegan]

An up-to 16mb LLU product from VM is news. Historically it's been an up-to 8mb service, a leftover from Virgin.net, Virgin's own ADSL service which pre-dated ntl's takeover of Virgin Mobile and rebranding. So what exchanges it covers, who it's offered through (if anyone), what restrictions are in place and how well it performs are probably all a mystery.

Edit: There's info on the net about them choosing Cable & Wireless wholesale for LLU.

As long as you do your bulk traffic when their traffic management is off they don't seem to be bothered how much you shift.

Virgin's ADSL products have historically been covered by their Application Management policies, basically traffic shaping and port throttling. It's different from the Traffic Management policies they enforce on the cable network, which are just about usage limits and throttling speeds.

 

[tsinc80697]

Just got myself onto the Virgin ADSL and so far so good!
Connected yesterday at 2mb which I was hoping would not be my limit as the line test said 5-6mb on my line. Today I've connected at 6mb down 1mb up which will do me fine for the money Im paying!
Just hope I dont have to deal with their customer service, if its anything like what Ive dealt with in the past for cable then its horrendous!

 

[dillingerdan]

An up-to 16mb LLU product from VM is news. Historically it's been an up-to 8mb service, a leftover from Virgin.net, Virgin's own ADSL service which pre-dated ntl's takeover of Virgin Mobile and rebranding. So what exchanges it covers, who it's offered through (if anyone), what restrictions are in place and how well it performs are probably all a mystery.

Edit: There's info on the net about them choosing Cable & Wireless wholesale for LLU.


Virgin's ADSL products have historically been covered by their Application Management policies, basically traffic shaping and port throttling. It's different from the Traffic Management policies they enforce on the cable network, which are just about usage limits and throttling speeds.

Thanks for the info, since my exchange seems to be C&W/Bulldog enabled I should be able to get this Virgin product then. Nice. I'll maybe give them a ring tomorrow to confirm, and may give this a go. Anyone with experience who is a heavy downloader, your opinions would be welcomed.

 

[tsinc80697]

Just wondering what is a good level on the line attenuation and noise margin?

 

[Rabtech]

Attenuation is resistance, lower is better - the Noise Margin should be between 6-9 although some ISP's set the target higher so give you a stable connection but a lower sync speed.

Your stats are good but looks like you may be using a telephone extension or something else that could be interfering with your line as I'd expect it to sync a little higher (~500K-1Mb).