Considering moving over to Cable

[Chaos Prime]

Hi there, i have never used cable before. I have always used ADSL. however due to inconsistencies with the connection and speeds, im tired of poor performance.

What i would like to know is the following:

Do the same rules apply in terms of distance from exchange?

If no is replied to the above question, if i went for the 20MB connection will i actually get the 20MB (2.4MB) per sec?

Whats the net/service/performance like? By this i ask of downtime. mine goes down more than im prepared to deal with currently.

I hope thats not too much to ask

Thanks in advance
Chaos Prime

[The Jackal]

Have you tried bethere.co.uk ?

If you can get it I will happily swap it for this useless 20meg XL 'bored'band that I currently have :)

ps If you get 20meg Virgin 'bored'band you can use it for about an hour before you are traffic managed down to 5meg.

[boroboi]

Id rather be traffic managed to 5 meg, than be on 4 meg, and traffic managed to 1 ..

[Cally]

Hi i have just joined virgin on the 8th april 2008 on the 20mb service , as you mentioned the distance does not affect your speed like it does adsl , i just left adsl as i was having same issues as you.

I did a speed test and got 19.2mb speed rating ,so you might get anywhere between 18-20mb rating , so all good there , you must also realise that whe nyou d/l it depends alot on where you are d/l form to achieve the 2.4mb/sec speed , you can only recieve as fast as they can send you so some sites you will not see that kind of speed.

Only thing is i just recieved my free wireless router netgear model WGR614 which is only a 54mbps model , and it also did not arrive until today the 18th april due to some mix up.

I did assume being on the 20 mb service it would be a 108mbps model.

No Downtime as of yet btw , so all in all its a relief from adsl i can tell you.

Oh and dont forget if someone who has virgin already recommends you and you take the broadband you both get 30 pounds of your bill;)


SO if you do, remember to get my details for when you order:angel:

---------- Post added at 15:09 ---------- Previous post was at 15:03 ----------

Have you tried bethere.co.uk ?

If you can get it I will happily swap it for this useless 20meg XL 'bored'band that I currently have :)

ps If you get 20meg Virgin 'bored'band you can use it for about an hour before you are traffic managed down to 5meg.

you do realise that what ever isp you use on adsl uses a bt phone line and thats the biggest problem , the bt phone lines suck ,after constant drop outs and slow speeds , i used to get 6mb and the line has got worse , they came out and checked it managed to find the only 2 wires from 2 lines coming into the house , one from each line and merged them , now the line can handle 2mb:mad: the service you get is only as good as your bt line no matter what ever the isp says. Different for some people i know but thats my experience ^^

[The Jackal]

you do realise that what ever isp you use on adsl uses a bt phone line and thats the biggest problem , the bt phone lines suck ,after constant drop outs and slow speeds , i used to get 6mb and the line has got worse , they came out and checked it managed to find the only 2 wires from 2 lines coming into the house , one from each line and merged them , now the line can handle 2mb:mad: the service you get is only as good as your bt line no matter what ever the isp says. Different for some people i know but thats my experience ^^

Look up there ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There's a button called 'Search'

Type 'bethere' and click 'GO'

99% of people that I have talked to personally about be* in the 'real' world can confirm excellent throughput with the remaining having the same issues as you do.

[andy912]

My 20b has always been fine, download at 2.35mbs from Giganews, it only slows down when being traffic shaped

[Chaos Prime]

hi there first of all thanks for all the kind posts. I didnt want to state my isp initially but since they are flying like nothing here, im currently with BE and when i first signed up, i was getting 1.3mb/sec, (i use newsgroups) but now after hoursand days of calling i cant top 500-600k which is highly annoying. I had dropouts for 2 weeks and this has happened much more than 1 occasion. Which is why i considered the move.

Whats this traffic managed all about? how is it measured? is it by how much you download?

Thanks

[The Jackal]

!!! LOL !!! I've been set up by Virgin Media

[ezzzy]

I started of on pipex years ago 1meg great service(good line), than when onto 2meg still good, then then service became over subscribed not good, moved house went on adsl 24 (good line) great service,
then my luck ran out moved in with missis (quite away from the exchange) i thought i would have problems,i did with the missis and adsl lol, choose be last june they did tell me i would only get 4 meg ish, i get that but i also get constant disconnections,
also on the be forums you have a lot of people moaning about the dropouts disconnections.

i am coming to VM in June on the 20 meg option i think, as for VMs TM policy, alot moan about it, but if it was nt for all the noobs using p2p and torrents at peak times the network would proberly be alot less congested

I will just have to hope that i will get s good connection when i come to VM we shall see!

4pm till 9pm TM dont seem that bad just download over nite simple!

[The Jackal]

4pm till 9pm TM dont seem that bad just download over nite simple!

I'm being traffic managed 10am to 9pm every day and I bet Virgin will roll it out to the rest of you.

Doesn't seem bad at all does it :confused:

[ezzzy]

I'm being traffic managed 10am to 9pm every day and I bet Virgin will roll it out to the rest of you.

Doesn't seem bad at all does it :confused:

So VM TM policy is now 10am to 9pm?

[The Jackal]

So VM TM policy is now 10am to 9pm?

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33631495-stm-statement.html

[Chaos Prime]

thats terrible. So your paying for a service you cant use? Why on earth would VM do such a thing? I think its disgraceful, albeit they are the only cable company out tyhere so they have the market all to them selves......

[ezzzy]

Oh dear looks like i will be taking potluck when i come VM, so do they make up the TM thing as they go a along,,

[AntiSilence]

I've got a 20Mb VM connection, and it's excellent and I've got 2 PC's connected to it (mine and the mrs's). Both of us play online games at the same time (mine is mostly BF2) and it's lag free.

I don't think I've ever been traffic managed, or at least, I've never noticed. But then, I don't download movies at all so am unlikely to reach the limits as fast as can be done.

[ceedee]

Welcome to CF, Chaos Prime and Andy912.

At the moment, the new STM times are only working in four trial areas though it's strongly rumoured that they'll go nationwide later in the year.
Basically the UBRs (mini neighbourhood exchanges) can't cope with the volume of data from so many users' connections, so until VM can make them more efficient they're going to have to control the data speeds.

But don't let it put you off!
Remember that there's a money-back guarantee so you can always cancel the cable broadband in the first month if it's terrible.


Oh I forgot to mention: I'm on a 4Mb connection and can download at 3.8Mb/s anytime of the day or night and I've had three short disconnections in 2.5 years. I rate it much higher than my previous experience with ADSL despite VM's attempts to stop us using it when we want...

[cablesnail]

Hi,

just a thought, but if you can find someone very nearby it might be worth asking them what they're broadband is like. I have a 20mb connection and often get <1mb downloads in the evenings and weekend (14mb+ in the day but alas i generally have to work 9-5 ;) ).... people 4 miles away getting fantastic speeds so really does depend on exactly where you are....

and you dont wanna get it and then want to complain, as im sure this website shows. I have complained twice and told "ermmm", then teased with an upgraded infrastructure in Feb 08 (didnt happen) then told very recently the "the capacity is fully
utilised at times" (see my thread "for info - wa3 upgrade") and an upgrade is planned for May.

Hence the suggestion to see if any of your neighbours have the service and are happy and get anything like the stated download speeds

hope this is of some use

[Chaos Prime]

well thats a good idea but sadly not plausable as im planning the switch after i move which will be in about 4 weeks (location yet undisclosed - Thats the council for ya lol) so thats why im looking around atm. Im not a heavy downloader. i use to just not any more. Not much to download. But every now and then i go through 10-20GB of downloading in a day (this is very rare but has happened) so as it stands i dont want to be cut off. I generally download about 10gb a month if that. But when the odd few and rare occasion occurs where i wanna download more, then i would like to be unrestricted in speed and limit, as i am now (though i need a stable connection here first lmao)

So how likely is this so called trial likely to be nationalised? or is it literally a matter of time?

[ceedee]

So how likely is this so called trial likely to be nationalised? or is it literally a matter of time?

I'd say that something similar is guaranteed to become nationwide but not necessarily with these complicated times.

Too many of the UBRs are over-stretched and are awaiting upgrades which when completed should mean that (sometime next year) the 20Mb (and future 50Mb!) users will be on their own channels, freeing up some capacity for those of us on the slower connections.
Once that's all been completed then, maybe, the traffic management will be unnecessary.

These trial STM limits sound really draconian but they're not too bad until you want to download something big. I expect we'll get used to them and learn how to schedule those large downloads to happen overnight.

What it proves to me is that VM have run the network into the ground without keeping it updated to cope with the huge increase in our data traffic.
As our ISP, that's their job -- And they've failed dismally!

[Chaos Prime]

Interesting, well after reading a few more sites with the same story, VM just made the biggest mistake they could possibly think of. It will be interesting to see what direction everything pans out to

[Noggo]

I would advise you to do some homework and check to see if there are any over subscription issues in your area. There are areas which are currently over subscribed, with fix dates which come and go without any action done. Two ways you can do this are:
1. post your town name and ask here to see if any one close to you is having problems
2. wait until you're in the new home and ask your new neighbours.

Plus, If you do decide to bite the bullet and take XL - 20Meg VM cable service (or any other service for that matter) and you get poor performance, remember you have a 30 Day money back guarantee.