Lots of "Linux distro ISOs"?
Virgin Media Discussion Thread
- Thread starter macca40
- Start date
Caporegime
I wonder what's going to happen with Virgin when the Openreach FTTP rollout is complete as well as the other providers that are covering towns and cities with Gigabit speeds. They're going to have to up their game, particularly with their upload speeds.
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 May 2005
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I don't think they've got much to worry about for another 2 years most of Joe blogs public doesn't care about upload. 50Mbps should be the minimum though imo.
As above, it's going to take a very long time for everywhere to have fibre available.
Caporegime
Well yeah, but Virgin don't exactly cover a vast amount of the UK either. If most of VMs areas end up with FTTP competition then it will be interesting to see what happens.
Most people don't need those upload speeds but I'd argue that most people don't need the download speeds on offer either, yet many still opt for the fastest package because speeeeeeeeedtests and numbers
Caporegime
Another question, has there been any changes over the years to the types of cabling that Virgin put in? For example, does a street that's just gone live have any future-proofing over a street that went live 5-10 years ago?
Soldato
Virgin already have 'Gig1Fibre' plans being rolled out to compete for a while now, with the DOCSIS 3.1 network upgrade being done slowly but surely.
I believe they've been rolling it out since last year, and apparently reckon they'll reach 1Gb for all VM customers by 2021. But we'll see about that since COVID-19
Caporegime
Virgin already have 'Gig1Fibre' plans being rolled out to compete for a while now, with the DOCSIS 3.1 network upgrade being done slowly but surely.
I believe they've been rolling it out since last year, and apparently reckon they'll reach 1Gb for all VM customers by 2021. But we'll see about that since COVID-19
Gig1 is still limited to 50mb upload though isn't it? I've heard DOCSIS 3.1 can offer improvements in terms of latency though but I don't know anyone who has it yet.
I always had this when Virgin as well, and no it wasn't because of "Linux Distros", it was just from watching a lot of YouTube/Netflix/Amazon Prime at the highest picture quality settings and downloading/updating games on Steam/Origin/Epic etc.
But they often loved to make a point of it, as if they were doing me a favour by my connection being unlimited whenever I had to complain about various issues I had with speed over a period of about 6 months. Apparently having high usage means I wasn't have congestion or ping issues.
That's good - mind you, I get fed up every 12-18 months having to ring them up and renegotiate yet again for another deal.
Imagine if OCUK did the same and the price you paid was dependant on who you called in Customer Services to negotiate a deal!
I know, I wish all broadband providers had a set rate, whether for new or existing customers and there is no discount off that. I guess the only advantage of the current method is those of us that get a better deal are being subsidised in a way by those that don't and pay over the odds.
They have a retail price, they can’t play with the retail price every 5 minutes, so they use the new acquisitions budget to play with the headline price for marketing. It’s basically contract price minus marketing budget every month tweaked to look different. In historically dry months they may choose to increase it slightly, or they may just adjust the bonus structure to reflect it on the sales side - whatever is cheapest usually. Some players adjust marketing mid month (BT for example) for things like cash back sites, but it is based on RGU’s and new acquisitions as a % to target - they don’t want to blow the budget in week two, even though it’s perceived as desirable to add more customers. The problem with what you suggest is you loose the ability to market on offer price/sale price as a differentiator and whoever can sell at the cheapest rate, is perceived to win. That creates a scenario where nobody wants to be expensive and support and back end services are sold to the lowest bidder (offshore CS/TS etc) and any network investment is non existent (remember OR is just the last mile in this scenario) and then some genius thinks we can bring in data caps and throttle to save money and then leverage overage charges per megabyte to get rid of customers who cost us money every single month. You leave heavy users with a few ( dry expensive) options and aim for the light users to make money. The winners are rarely going to be the smaller players in the market unless (as has been done) you are literally running it out of your spare room and have near zero overheads, people understand pounds and pence, bits and bytes not so much.
For the minutes it takes every 12-18 months, it’s somewhere between a minute and 2 minutes per month if the contract, it’s hardly a massive time investment on your part to make sure you get the right deal for you. Is it fun? No, but people in general don’t read bills and often overlook it for a a few months/years before calling, given the actual profit per subscriber is relatively low, that makes a difference.
For the minutes it takes every 12-18 months, it’s somewhere between a minute and 2 minutes per month if the contract, it’s hardly a massive time investment on your part to make sure you get the right deal for you. Is it fun? No, but people in general don’t read bills and often overlook it for a a few months/years before calling, given the actual profit per subscriber is relatively low, that makes a difference.
thanks for posting this.
For all others in the same boat with Oomph VIP 500m bundles expiring, don’t waste time with customer care, use the mobile SMS facility and go through to retention. Wait times using the 150 number to speak to a person are up to four hours.