re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I think we can work out BT's plan.

They will rollout g.fast and continue to spend silly money on football ti keep customers.

They will be hoping for someone in the mean time to invent g.fast2 or something, 'anything' to avoid spending on FTTP.

Of course due to the state of VM in my area, I would prefer 80mbit on a solid isp like sky over a gigabit from VM anyway. A connection that is only full speed at dusk hours would only be a last resort for me.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I got my email on Thursday. Roll out commences from the beginning of October.

We also had notice that, in our area, there will be a disrupted service on 20th September due to network upgrade work.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

IS FTTP a good idea? I was installing fibre in a trial and its a PITA

You cant bend it too much
If some numpty rips up a cabe doing a driveway we cant splice it easily
The ends of fibre cable are really sharp and can give you a splinter
The light could burn your retna.

There are just too many stupid people out there. Would it not be as good to run fibre to a pit or cab say then run shielded cat7 to every house?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I think my area was upgraded ready for the new speeds last month as i was moved onto a different CMTS and ever since i get a constant speed of 162mb and 21mb/s downloads.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Trials seem to be going well don't they? 309Mb achieved so far. Will be interesting to see if they ever achieve 330Mb in the real world though.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

After the Virgin Media FTTP Papworth trial, the next areas to be done will be outlaying areas of Leicester.

It will be RFoG so don't expect any mega speeds, however I have been advised that true FTTP and Gb speeds to start being rolled out next year.

Apparently something to do with having to connect a certain no. Of homes to true FTTP in order to claim the title of UK's fastest provider.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

There I was keeping schtum about the Leicester villages project :D

---------- Post added at 12:10 ---------- Previous post was at 12:08 ----------

I'm sure it will. This technology is to a large extent the existing VDSL technology on steroids.

Trials have already gotten it to a gigabit combined between up and downstream.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

You can bend it plenty enough, and you can get bend insensitive fibre also

You don't need too, just blow in a replacement cable.

Only if you strip off the acrylic coating of the fibre to expose the glass, for which you need a fibre stripping tool and something no one but a fibre splicer would ever do.

The class of laser used in FTTP equipment is no greater than Class 1M which is quite safe when observed by the naked eye
No.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Still waiting for the last speed upgrade here... :dozey:

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Do you have a SH?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

so another case of rural areas getting FTTP before cities?

The UK seems backwards the digital divide is the other way round.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Cities are already well served for high speed connections. Rural areas have a lot of catching up to do.

The other day I noticed a new "Fibre broadband is here" cab at the boundary of my village. So I checked BT's website: "estimated for 2018" :(

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I am speculating he's referring to our urban areas relative to other nations. We actually do very well in terms of rural areas relative to our peers but it's a much less flattering comparison in terms of ultrafast in urban areas.

For all its faults thanks to the BDUK programme alongside Superfast Cornwall we have a smaller digital divide between urban and rural areas than most, which is a very good thing. By the time BDUK 1 is complete everywhere we will be looking very good indeed relative to our European peers.

The majority of BT's fibre to premises is in more rural areas as fibre to cabinet was so much cheaper in urban ones. The largest group of deep fibre connections in urban areas are from Hyperoptic and are purely in apartment blocks.

It's pretty obvious which of the divides is the most harmful, though.

I may be frustrated at having a connection slower than the one I had in 2011, but it's not that big of a deal compared to those stuck on sub-2Mb, which I can empathise with having had extremely slow, intermittent and unstable service to the point of it threatening my job when I moved here - a suburb of the most prosperous city in the north of England and the 3rd centre of financial and legal services in the UK behind London and Edinburgh.

---------- Post added at 12:57 ---------- Previous post was at 12:53 ----------

There is no business case in VM overbuilding their existing cable network with FTTP. I imagine that if things go as they wish they will be building more FTTP as new build in both urban and some more rural areas.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

thats exactly it, compared to other nations we poor. FTTC and cable are not as good as FTTP.