Virgin Media Discussion Thread

ChrisD. said:
You are so far off the mark it’s untrue.
Click to expand...

No it isn’t untrue.

A PON has 2.5 Gb given to it. If you had three customers on 1 Gb and they all downloaded at 1 Gb the PON would run out of capacity. Clearly BT don’t allow that and would limit the speed right away and also implement QOS but the point is that FTTP is contended and BT as the largest provider is most likely to suffer from it. So it’s not just about “they should just offer symmetrical” there are more considerations than that.

I used to work in the networks team at the red company. Contention is a real issue.
 
The question of “will Openreach offer higher upload speeds” will be answered depending on what their competitors do. They are already twice as fast as Virgin Media for upstream services, and the CityFibre footprint is about 20% of the size of the Openreach one.

If CityFibre fulfil their ambitions to be a large player, offer symmetric speeds and - crucially - can support them without the network becoming a congested mess, then you will see pressure for Openreach to do the same. I wouldn’t expect it to happen until customers like Sky and BT are losing subscribers because of it though.
 
Been using VM for years and for the most part they've been pretty good. But I think whether you want to keep using them depends on how they are locally. I was getting intermittent lag/latency issues during peak times which were pretty annoying when trying to play an FPS game online and my thinkbroadband monitor shows it (posted one earlier in thread). Others in here have posted similarly poor ones but also really clean looking ones so I guess it really just depends where you live.
Last week my area finally went live with CityFibre FTTP and my own connection went live this week and it's great having the full symmetrical speeds and for me..no peak time lag! :p My Warzone ping times are probably a good 10-15ms lower than before too.
 
Gigabit said:
No it isn’t untrue.

A PON has 2.5 Gb given to it. If you had three customers on 1 Gb and they all downloaded at 1 Gb the PON would run out of capacity. Clearly BT don’t allow that and would limit the speed right away and also implement QOS but the point is that FTTP is contended and BT as the largest provider is most likely to suffer from it. So it’s not just about “they should just offer symmetrical” there are more considerations than that.

I used to work in the networks team at the red company. Contention is a real issue.
Click to expand...

I posted this elsewhere:

ChrisD. said:
There's a few reasons.
  • As above, their main competitor offers only half of what they do.
  • Symmetrical upload/download providers cover a very small percentage of the UK.
  • It would eat into their leased line market.
  • Very few users would actually make use of >100 mbps upload speeds.
  • Those who do use require upload end up spending more money in order to get the fastest upload speed on their 900 Mbps package.
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Yes PON is shared, that’s why Openreach only guarantee 115 Mbps from memory to ISPs. What they offer to customers is up to them. With that said, I get 900 down and 100 up 24/7 because most households only really use Netflix, YouTube etc and the large downloads are very seldom.
 
DOCSIS and their pretty rubbish CPEs are also the reason why Virgin "FTTP" can't compete in terms of latency with GPON providers. They need to move away from RFoG to see the benefits, but converting to coaxial on the outside of the house means their techs don't need to understand anything other than coaxial cable, and they can use the same set of hubs and TV boxes as they do now.
 
Just looking for some clarification as speaking to the VM customers services is akin to pulling teeth.

I'm out of contract but not getting a good deal from retentions so going to sign up in the Missus' name and go through TCB or Quidco. I'm customising the Bigger Volt Bundle whose default price is £49 and includes M500 broadband and also O2 10Gb Sim.

My question is as the 02 Sim in included can I get them later on to double the broadband speed to 1Gb? I can actually increase it to 1gb when customising the package for £6 extra p/m but if I can get it free then...
 
I suspect this is not possible but thought I'd try and get concrete confirmation:

I suppose there is no way to get a VM Hitron business router activated on the residential packages like M500? I saw the buffer bloat stats posted earlier of somebody using the Hitron router and it was way better than the SuperHub.
 
Don't think the bufferbloat is any different to my Hub4 looking at that, it can just be a bit variable on VM.

I've got 3 months left on my 18 month VM contract and have had no complaints with the latency or performance in the times and no problems supporting 3 home workers over VPNs, sure its latency is not as ideal as FTTx setups but works well, I'll only change if retentions don't do enough to retain me and it is financially beneficial to go elsewhere other wise happy to continue.
 
sandys said:
Don't think the bufferbloat is any different to my Hub4 looking at that, it can just be a bit variable on VM.

I've got 3 months left on my 18 month VM contract and have had no complaints with the latency or performance in the times and no problems supporting w home workers over VPNs, sure its latency is not as ideal as FTTx setups but works well, I'll only change if retentions don't do enough to retain me and it is financially beneficial to go elsewhere other wise happy to continue.
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Thanks, could you possibly post up your stats for comparison?
 
OK just run it, it still says I have problems with gaming but can't say I have noticed.

www.waveform.com

Bufferbloat and Internet Speed Test - Waveform

View the full results, and test your own bufferbloat
www.waveform.com www.waveform.com

And another, this time no probs with gaming, so yeah, bit variable

www.waveform.com

Bufferbloat and Internet Speed Test - Waveform

View the full results, and test your own bufferbloat
www.waveform.com www.waveform.com

And a third for good measure :D

www.waveform.com

Bufferbloat and Internet Speed Test - Waveform

View the full results, and test your own bufferbloat
www.waveform.com www.waveform.com

Probably be better at another time of day but I can't just kick people off, I wouldn't survive it :D

EDIT - just remembered I am being a genius, I only use hub4 as a modem so might be irrelevant to you but I am not doing anything clever since my NAS/router has been put into service as an actual user machine so this is just through a Huawei AX3.

I can switch back to the actual hub4 when there is a suitable window later.

Another EDIT as the family has wrapped up and gone out

The actual hub 4

www.waveform.com

Bufferbloat and Internet Speed Test - Waveform

View the full results, and test your own bufferbloat
www.waveform.com www.waveform.com

ran it a couple of times not markedly different though the upload has a few ms more but that could just be things on my network like cameras etc, going oooh, internets back get the cloud.
 
Just rejoined Virgin Media on the 500Mb broadband only. I’m with O2 for sim only so that should get doubled up to 1Gb hopefully. A Hub 4 was provided. Is it normal for the fan to be running all the time? I thought it would only come on when needed. I have the Hub 4 in modem mode, the light ring is off (seen that it somehow makes a difference?). It’s not particularly loud but it came on pretty much as soon as I switched the Hub on.

BQM is fairly flat surprisingly. Used to be quite bad in this area. Can see where I swapped over around 2am from a FTTC connection.

 
Jon20 said:
Just rejoined Virgin Media on the 500Mb broadband only. I’m with O2 for sim only so that should get doubled up to 1Gb hopefully. A Hub 4 was provided. Is it normal for the fan to be running all the time? I thought it would only come on when needed. I have the Hub 4 in modem mode, the light ring is off (seen that it somehow makes a difference?). It’s not particularly loud but it came on pretty much as soon as I switched the Hub on.

BQM is fairly flat surprisingly. Used to be quite bad in this area.

Click to expand...

How much did you manage to get that for? :)
 
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