Virgin Poster who's turned into a pedant

[flibblewibble]

Hello,

I was having a look at the new Virgin Media website recently to check out the broadband they provide when I came across this...

"Where do you live?
Depending on where you live, there are two ways to get Virgin Broadband:

By fibre optic cable (on cable)
Or down your phoneline (non-cable)"

Wooo hooo, I thought! Virgin are offering a fibre optic connection into my house. What wonderous speeds could await me. Then I realised that they actually just meant the ordinary cable.

<Pedant on> I have an ex-NTL connection which comes into my house on an electrical (not optical) coaxial cable. Why are Virgin claiming to offer fibre optic connections? Now some of you may say that at some point on it's merry journey to the internet my data is on fibre optics... I agree. By surely it's misleading to suggest my connection is fibre optic when the connection into the house is coaxial. That's the bit that actually ends up being the bottleneck for higher speeds. It's a bit like the Royal Mail advertising that they deliver airmail to my door by aeroplane.

I wouldn't have been so annoyed but things like this worry me. How can I trust a company to provide a good broadband service when there are clearly people at that company who don't understand the fundamentals of the service they are providing. I'd quite like to see Virgin take down the "fibre optic cable" bit now all I have to do is try and negotiate their complicated contacts forms to make a complaint to someone who won't give a *#!"$!...

Does this kind of thing annoy anyone else or should I get my coat now?
Flibblewibble

<pedant off>

[Stephen]

The main network is fibre optic it is only the cable from the street to your house that is coax.

The coax can still offer speeds fast enough, I mean they have been trialing 20MB and 50MB in some areas.

Also :welcome:

[Nikesh]

:welcome: to the forum!

Looks like DarthYoda beat me too it. ;)

[Paul K]

Does it state that the fibre optic provides total connection from point to point? I doubt it ;)

[flibblewibble]

Well no, course it doesn't but by the same logic you could sell ADSL to people saying it was a fibre optic cable connection cos at some point down the line it turns into one. Would you be happy if they sold you a Gbps package that actually only gave 56k but they got away with it because as soon as your data hits the core of the internet it gets whooshed along a Gbps speeds.

I've heard rumours that in Japan people are actually getting fibre optic connections into their houses. There won't be much demand for that over here if Joe Public has been led to believe he already has a fibre optic connection.

I would be less bothered if I thought that Virginmedia were being devious and trying to twist the details to make their broadband more appealing. I am much more worried that there are people at Virgin who actually think I have a fibre optic cable running into my house.

[Delta Whiskey]

You're making a mistake if you think the advertising department have any technical staff capable of checking these sort of details. If you checked you would be frightened at how far down the management structure you would need to go before you found anyone capable of getting their hands dirty.

DW

[janipewter]

It's because the web design team have no idea what they're on about. Just look at the site, it's a disaster with mistakes all over the place. They don't even know the speed of Internet that they offer.

[NTLVictim]

The music videos don't work either..ah well, back to bittorrent!

[simbr]

The main network is fibre optic it is only the cable from the street to your house that is coax.

The coax can still offer speeds fast enough, I mean they have been trialing 20MB and 50MB in some areas.

And remember that not only has 100Mbps ethernet has been running fine plain old copper for years but so is 1Gbps.

[Carl J]

I've heard rumours that in Japan people are actually getting fibre optic connections into their houses. There won't be much demand for that over here if Joe Public has been led to believe he already has a fibre optic connection.

Japan's had fibre to the home for years ;)

Also in the fibre club are Sweden, Hong Kong, China, USA, South Korea, France, Holland, etc.

[richie]

It's a bit like the Royal Mail advertising that they deliver airmail to my door by aeroplane.

Rail mail do offer an airmail service and advertise it as "airmail" but you already have shown a modicum of sense not expecting a aircraft at your front door. the same goes for fiber. why would you want one up to the house when you wont need one?

[simbr]

Just look up FTTH or FTTP or whatever it's called these days on Wikipedia. I have a vague memory of someone saying ntl were looking into it when trialling 100Mbps broadband.

[REM]

<Pedant on> I have an ex-NTL connection .......
.......e or should I get my coat now?
Flibblewibble

<pedant off>

I don't want to seem pedantic but shouldn't it be <pedant> </pedant> ? ;)