Virgin Cable Broadband or BT Inifinity

supafly · 26 Feb 2012 at 11:11

I would like opinions on those who have had both, which in your opinion is best?

I currently have 50mb Virgin, due to be upgraded to 120mb soon. Whatever time of day I can download at max speed. However, for general browsing, often it is sluggish.

gareth170 · 26 Feb 2012 at 11:17

VM is better in my opinion

FrenchTart · 26 Feb 2012 at 12:12

Go for Infinity. If you're in a VM area that is oversubscribed (sounds like you are) the service is really abysmal and it can take upwards of 5 months to fix (if ever).

I'm on VM 100mbit and the are I'm in is oversubscribed so I pretty much never hit even 50% of my maximum speed and my pings look like this:

awinchurch · 26 Feb 2012 at 12:27

supafly said:
I would like opinions on those who have had both, which in your opinion is best?

I currently have 50mb Virgin, due to be upgraded to 120mb soon. Whatever time of day I can download at max speed. However, for general browsing, often it is sluggish.

FrenchTart said:
Go for Infinity. If you're in a VM area that is oversubscribed (sounds like you are) the service is really abysmal and it can take upwards of 5 months to fix (if ever).

Learn to read maybe?

If you are hitting max speeds on downloads but browsing is sluggish then browsing will still be sluggish with any provider. Downloads are raw data where as browsing has to process the information so something on the computer is slowing it

ChrisD. · 26 Feb 2012 at 12:42

Infinity unless you are not in a congested VM area.

cp88 · 26 Feb 2012 at 12:52

awinchurch said:
Learn to read maybe?

If you are hitting max speeds on downloads but browsing is sluggish then browsing will still be sluggish with any provider. Downloads are raw data where as browsing has to process the information so something on the computer is slowing it

Surely the sluggish browsing is due to high latency (common even on 'good' VM connections)? not to do with the computer..

I'd go with Infinity.

gareth170 · 26 Feb 2012 at 12:59

supafly said:
I would like opinions on those who have had both, which in your opinion is best?

I currently have 50mb Virgin, due to be upgraded to 120mb soon. Whatever time of day I can download at max speed. However, for general browsing, often it is sluggish.

setup a TBB to check the quality of your connection + latency

FrenchTart · 26 Feb 2012 at 13:23

awinchurch said:
Learn to read maybe?

If you are hitting max speeds on downloads but browsing is sluggish then browsing will still be sluggish with any provider. Downloads are raw data where as browsing has to process the information so something on the computer is slowing it

Learn to network maybe?

Part of what is wrong with your post has already been pointed out. Suffice to say that the rest of what you've posted also involves some pretty basic misunderstandings too.

awinchurch · 26 Feb 2012 at 15:26

Ok so i presumed his pings were ok. It doensn't alter the fact that antiviruses will scan the data as it is downloaded before it is displayed on screen

aln · 26 Feb 2012 at 15:32

FTTC is better unless you want 100Mb download more than a stable connection.

BT will soon be serving 80Mb+, which means I don't see any reason to go with virgin unless you a) cannot get FTTC, or b) can get it but your line quality / length from cab sucks too much.

I'm with virgin, but when I can get FTTC I will switch in a shot. The graphs posted tell all.

KIA · 26 Feb 2012 at 16:30

Are you using VM DNS? If so, try Google or OpenDNS.

gareth170 said:
setup a TBB to check the quality of your connection + latency

This.

Angel_Rex · 26 Feb 2012 at 17:47

Sky fibre, released next month.

No packet shaping or management.

Lighters · 26 Feb 2012 at 18:22

In this boat myself, with BE but I want faster speeds but want to maintain a low ping and uncongested line.

Virgin media seem way oversubscribed but have a good speed and not really researched bt infinity but it looks good.

aln · 26 Feb 2012 at 18:35

Lighters said:
In this boat myself, with BE but I want faster speeds but want to maintain a low ping and uncongested line.

Virgin media seem way oversubscribed but have a good speed and not really researched bt infinity but it looks good.

COD4 isn't the most ping orientated game in the world, but your best bet is always going to be BT Infinity for gaming if they're doing it on your cab. The reason behind this is convayed in the TBB graphcs which show how jittery everyones connections are, with the obvious exceptions of REALLY expensive connections, or BT Infinity.

allan's VM connection

Code:

                                    My traceroute  [v0.75]
ub3r (0.0.0.0)                                                        Sun Feb 26 18:37:05 2012
Keys:  Help   Display mode   Restart statistics   Order of fields   quit
                                                      Packets               Pings
 Host                                               Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. router.lan                                       0.0%   324    0.4   0.3   0.3   0.5   0.0
 2. cpc1-livi6-2-0-gw.18-2.cable.virginmedia.com     0.0%   324    8.2  12.2   6.6  94.0   9.0
 3. livi-geam-1a-ge131.network.virginmedia.net       0.0%   324    8.9  15.4   6.2 213.3  22.9
 4. sgyl-core-1a-tenge74.network.virginmedia.net     0.0%   323    7.0  14.8   6.9 164.5  20.8
 5. sgyl-core-2a-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net       0.0%   323    7.1  10.8   6.6  44.6   5.4
 6. manc-bb-1c-ae6-0.network.virginmedia.net         0.0%   323   18.7  24.2  11.9 185.5  26.1
 7. manc-bb-1a-ae11-0.network.virginmedia.net        0.0%   323   14.0  21.6  12.5 149.1  18.0
 8. glfd-bb-1b-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net         0.0%   323   21.0  31.2  19.1  99.9  12.2
 9. glfd-tmr-1-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net         0.0%   323   29.8  23.8  18.9  55.7   5.6
10. tcl5-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net          0.0%   323   24.3  25.6  20.5 125.4   9.3
11. linx1.multiplay.co.uk                            0.0%   323   20.1  77.0  20.0 758.2 113.9
12. www.multiplay.co.uk                              0.0%   323   20.6  25.1  20.0  44.9   5.6

I have a pretty good connection as far as Virgin Media goes, but it's still laughable compared to the locked on lowest ping that BT users seem to be getting.

NDJ88 · 26 Feb 2012 at 18:44

BT's Infinity gives ISPs scope to charge their customers an increased fee for a higher QoS. So if you're willing to pay for it, you can be guaranteed a better quality connection when the network is busy.

aln · 26 Feb 2012 at 19:05

Random BTi user manchester

Code:

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

|                                      WinMTR statistics                                   |

|                       Host              -   %  | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |

|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|

|                             192.168.1.1 -    0 |  301 |  301 |    0 |    1 |   64 |    0 |

|                            217.32.142.0 -    0 |  301 |  301 |    5 |    7 |   75 |    6 |

|                           217.32.142.46 -    0 |  301 |  301 |    6 |    9 |  182 |    6 |

|                          213.120.163.70 -    0 |  301 |  301 |    6 |    7 |   71 |    6 |

|                            217.32.27.50 -    0 |  301 |  301 |    6 |    8 |  149 |    6 |

|                           217.32.27.182 -    0 |  301 |  301 |    6 |    8 |   77 |    7 |

|    acc2-10GigE-9-2-0.mr.21cn-ipp.bt.net -    0 |  301 |  301 |    6 |   10 |  101 |    6 |

|    core1-te0-4-0-0.ilford.ukcore.bt.net -    0 |  301 |  301 |   12 |   20 |   88 |   13 |

|  peer4te0-1-0-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net -    0 |  301 |  301 |   17 |   23 |  132 |   19 |

|                            194.74.65.58 -    0 |  301 |  301 |   13 |   15 |   78 |   76 |

|                 te5-2.gs1.core.enta.net -    0 |  301 |  301 |   13 |   15 |   88 |   78 |

|           te1-1.interxion.core.enta.net -    0 |  301 |  301 |   13 |   15 |   80 |   75 |

|          gi4-3.enta-transit.as35028.net -    0 |  301 |  301 |   14 |   32 |  238 |  127 |

|                     www.multiplay.co.uk -    0 |  301 |  301 |   14 |   16 |   81 |   78 |

|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|

Lighters · 26 Feb 2012 at 19:24

ah right cool, It appears I can already get FTTC for BT Infinity with 40meg download and 10 meg upload.

Who are the better providers in terms of quality of service?
Plusnet or BT infinity as they seem to offer similar things or am I best waiting for sky as I would ideally like to get their TV/PHONE/WEB bundled but only if the broadband is as good as BT Infinity as I want to start streaming so a solid upload connection is mandatory!

Angel_Rex · 26 Feb 2012 at 19:34

Sky fibre? If ur cabinet is fttc enabled and you have skys llu enabled at the exchange, in the same way they use bt copper wire to property, they use their own back haul and then bt fibre to cabinet then bt copper to property.

Won't be packet shaped like bt and truly unlimited.

I guess it depends if you want or like sky tv....

Maxeh · 26 Feb 2012 at 19:41

Probably just my area, but stay away from VM in my opinion.

So unreliable, currently got a 600+ping.

aln · 26 Feb 2012 at 19:47

Angel_Rex said:
Sky fibre? If ur cabinet is fttc enabled and you have skys llu enabled at the exchange, in the same way they use bt copper wire to property, they use their own back haul and then bt fibre to cabinet then bt copper to property.

Won't be packet shaped like bt and truly unlimited.

I guess it depends if you want or like sky tv....

From what I've heard Sky fiber won't be largely available until after April. However, unlike most ISP's, Sky have their own backhaul, so nobody can really say how good it's going to be at the moment I guess.