Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

You're not setting the rumour mill off again are you General???

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

it is what I like to call on educated guess based on logical reasoning and deduction. I was pretty much bang on about these upgrades and what I said makes sense for next year.

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

No-one is getting uplifted to 300Mb.

Look, if that were going to happen do you not think VM would just wait perhaps 3 months until everything were in place and then increase people to the final speeds in one hit?

It would make no sense on any level to hand out two upgrades, especially when the vast majority of the country can only get at most 76Mb elsewhere.

---------- Post added at 19:42 ---------- Previous post was at 19:40 ----------

General, what do you think is going to happen this time next year?

I don't remember an upgrade being announced in 2014, though I may be mistaken. I think the cycle has been more like an upgrade every couple of years recently, with the original 100Mb tier being a separate tier rather than anything people were upgraded to for free.

The new kit is not a 16 channel modem, it's 24, software upgradeable to 32. It's being trialled right now - albeit not widely just yet :)

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

32 Channels is widespread Gigabit territory.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2015/10/11.gif

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

What's he doing with his hands, Kush?

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

Hands?

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2015/10/8.gif

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

My crystal ball says next wave of upgrades to 100/6, 200/12 and 300/18

If they are trialling 32 channel modems (and presumably 8+ up) then it is perfectly feasible and they have got the next year to put the added capacity in place. The only reason why they have done upgrades every other year in the past is because it took them so flipping long to get round everyone. I don't know what they have done different this time planning wise but it is great that they are (or have said they are going to try to) getting the majority of people done just before or just after xmas. If they can do that going forward then we should be able to look forward to a little treat every year :)

They are going to make a massive thing out of docsis3.1 when they roll it out and they are going to have to show why it is the bees knees and makes so much of a different so my crystal ball says the first tier is going to be 500mbits so everyone is blown away by the marked increased in speed.

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

Software upgradeable is VMNG300 territory.

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

Just needing a change of licence to go from 24 to 32 isn't :)

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

Hmm, I dunno. Both involve VM paying the manufacturer after the fact so from the "How many ways can VM f*** it up" perspective, it's not too different.

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

Perhaps but it's quite a clever way of doing it. It keeps Virgin's options open, they can deploy more channels and pay for the extra licensing, or they can deploy 3.1 hardware - whatever is more economical.

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

It's a typical enterprise licensing model, but on consumer hardware. Which is weird.

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

It's the way it is now. VM pay for licenses on the line cards they use when they want to add more channels too. Makes sense to tie up the other side under licenses as well.

Hell everything seems to be tending towards a licensing/subscription model now.

---------- Post added at 15:36 ---------- Previous post was at 15:35 ----------

It wasn't VM's decision, that's how the kit comes.

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

It's been that way for ever in the enterprise world but that's dealing with kit that's actually worth something and often tends to be kept in use 10 years or more.

Doing it on disposable consumer kit is a new one. Sure there's a ton of software moving towards a subscription model but that's software - plus lots of it is renting access to cloud services, not a physical piece of kit. I don't see any vendors offering paid-for feature unlocks for consumer routers, TVs, laptops, or cameras for example. They'd much rather just up-sell you a new piece of equipment.

Re: Double Speeds or not?
 

The chipsets are 32/8 chipsets. It's a rather cunning way of extracting a little more cash for the same hardware.