Rumour - Virgin's 50Mb broadband arriving December 15 ?

Ice Tea · 3 Dec 2008 at 11:17

http://www.techradar.com/news/networking/virgin-media-50mb-broadband-arriving-dec-15--490060

Part Quote

Virgin Media looks set to launch its 50Mb broadband on December 15 after inviting journalists to a mystery event.

Although the company has thus far declined to give a firm date for the launch of its 50Mb service, it has always maintained that it would be before the end of the year.

Now, journalists have been told to 'hold the date' on December 15 – where the company will almost certainly show off the fastest broadband in the UK.

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esK` · 3 Dec 2008 at 11:47

nice christmas present

daveyp · 3 Dec 2008 at 11:52

Is that going to be available for all areas that are in cable?

reflux · 3 Dec 2008 at 12:07

So the network is already overloaded and poorly maintained, and they're adding more overhead?

xb8browney · 3 Dec 2008 at 12:15

reflux said:
So the network is already overloaded and poorly maintained, and they're adding more overhead?

50Mb will be on DOCSIS3 as will 20Mb

Bones · 3 Dec 2008 at 12:52

hopefully this means come Dec 15th my 20mb line will get moved over to DOCSIS3 and cure all my connection porblems, one can only hope.

edgedemon · 3 Dec 2008 at 12:54

I doubt it - they will probably move it and impose new acceptable use policy that means you can only use it for an hour....

Werewolf · 3 Dec 2008 at 13:14

Bones said:
hopefully this means come Dec 15th my 20mb line will get moved over to DOCSIS3 and cure all my connection porblems, one can only hope.

They can't move current 20mb customers over to DOCSIS 3 without new modems.
What they can do is move them onto new frequencies.

Re the overloaded network.
As I understand it the introduction of 50mb should actually help with that to a degree, as they've started shutting of analogue TV on the cable network freeing up huge amounts of bandwidth, and with the upgrades to get it ready for DOCSIS 3, the new 50mb tier is on previously unused frequencies (well unused for data), and I believe so will some 20mb users.
Which should reduce the number of people using the existing frequencies, improving performance.

Daegan · 3 Dec 2008 at 13:36

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33642442-virgin-s-50mb-broadband-arriving-december.html

Some good info there. Highlights include the £52pm price, 1.75MBit upload (raised to 2.5MBit when the rollout is complete) and no STM (at least not during the rollout).

doggo · 3 Dec 2008 at 14:10

Daegan said:
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33642442-virgin-s-50mb-broadband-arriving-december.html

Some good info there. Highlights include the £52pm price, 1.75MBit upload (raised to 2.5MBit when the rollout is complete) and no STM (at least not during the rollout).

£52pm

I'm only paying £33pm for 20mb BB Landline and a STB, I don't think I'll be moving to 50Mb for a while yet

Camalot · 3 Dec 2008 at 14:37

Can i cut my broadband back down to 2mb and add sky movies instead without getting slapped on another 12month contract?

Dangerous · 3 Dec 2008 at 14:53

I want the upload speed on my 20mb - Would pay an extra couple of quid for that!

Dist · 3 Dec 2008 at 16:32

Personaly i dont care about upload, the extra download speed will be very nice though. Hopefully VM will be willing to offer special low price deals on 50Mb for people who say they may leave VM. Although because they are the only ones to offer 50Mb, they will proberly see no reason why they should lower the price for any reason.

FRS2462 · 3 Dec 2008 at 16:33

Is this upgrade not supposed to be automatic for existing customers? Without a price increase aswell!!

Dist · 3 Dec 2008 at 16:58

FRS2462 said:
Is this upgrade not supposed to be automatic for existing customers? Without a price increase aswell!!

Do you realy think they would give all 20Mb customers a 2.5x increase in speed for free to a connection that requires new modems for whoever subscribes to it (which would be a big cost if they had to give everyone new modems), and would only be utilized by a small part of their subscriber base?

Only hardcore downloaders (or realy impatient people) will need 50Mb, and if VM didnt charge extra for it, they would soon go bankrupt.

Werewolf · 3 Dec 2008 at 17:01

If the price is just £52 amd they allow those on the vip pack to up for that price difference i think i may be tempted - it would be nice to be able to host a games server or two here

(i've even got a spare machine I could setup as a dedicated server for my friends).

Dist · 3 Dec 2008 at 17:26

Even if you had the bandwidth to host game servers, i thought VM dont allow hosting of servers and such unless you have a buisness package? Im not entirely sure about game servers but i know they dont allow hosting of web servers.

Daegan · 3 Dec 2008 at 18:02

FRS2462 said:
Is this upgrade not supposed to be automatic for existing customers? Without a price increase aswell!!

A few people reported being told by CS or sales staff that it would be a free upgrade, but every leaked bit of info from higher up the chain indicated it would be a new product tier at a higher price, with a figure of £47pm being banded around. So no, it was never supposed to be a free automatic upgrade for existing customers.

zzzJonny · 3 Dec 2008 at 18:07

That's interesting, what if it wasn't about the 50mb broadband?

malef!c · 3 Dec 2008 at 18:25

I can't see VM giving the free upgrade for 20Mb users....would be nice but can't see it happening!

As for the price, not sure where the £52 came from as I was under the impression it was meant to be a tenner more than the 20Mb service which is officially £37 without any deals etc.

Might go and read the VM info newsgroups to see if I can find anything else out!