20 meg is not official
 

i have been having terrible problems with my 10 meg speed in the day it is running at 9.6 meg in the evening it frequently drops to below 1 meg. i have just been on the phone to customer services to find out when the 20 meg is coming to the area and the guy on the phone informed me that it is only a trial and has apparently not been decided wether they are going to do it or not. when i exlpained my problem he said that the reason for the trial is to see if when running 20 they can get it higher than 3 meg in the evenings. apparently they are trialling this in areas most affected by high traffic of an evening. so if anybody knows of an isp that can deliver a good regular connection speed of 4 or 8 meg please let me know

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

20 mb IS OFFICIAL...

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Well if 10 meg is £37 a Month you can expect 20 Meg to be about £60 at least. unless the drastically alter their package deals.

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6552823.stm

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20meg will be £37 a month with Virgin Media (formerly NTL etc)

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If you asked someone that works for Virgin if you could order a pizza with extra cheese. they would probably take your order and go and ask just to make sure they do do pizza's.

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Re: 20 meg is not official
 

I got a letter from VM stating 10mb was going upto 20mb, and I'm on 4mb!!

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

20MB is official and the CS bod you spoke to should have known that - I'd phone up and complain that they didn't. We should not have to put up with CS staff who just fob customers off with a load of waffle that isn't true - this happens far too frequently. It is so much better to say 'I'm not sure, but I'll find out' than tell fibs, but apparently many people don't get that. Now I've got that off my chest, here's quite a bit of info from a VM/tech geek (not staff!):

The 20MB service is being widely mentioned by VM in various press releases, interviews, etc. They also plan to launch 50MB nationally to cable customers and are trialling 100MB. They don't have to do major infrastructure upgrades to deliver up to 50MB (at least), so you can bet they'll be launching it ASAP as it beats all the other consumer ISPs big time. You can find this and more info by watching the VM launch video - http://www.thomson-webcast.net/uk/di...a4acaa74dcf5d0 or navigate to it via the VM homepage, click 'About Virgin Media' at the bottom left of the page, then click 'Press Office'). You have to fill in a registration form, but the info you enter isn't checked before you see the vid - i.e. there's nothing stopping you from putting in fake info, but naturally I wouldn't advise that, a-hem. More details are in their Annual Report (including info they're not heavily publicising yet on plans to roll out VM TV to their ADSL customers).

All internet services get slower in the evening. ADSL providers can suffer from the problem even more so than cable. Cable is consistently shown to provide the best speeds when you take into account the fact that ADSL rarely provides the theoretical maximum speeds providers advertise and the actual rate you get can go up and down a lot. With ADSL, the further from the exchange you are, the slower your speed - this is not the case with cable. Also, like cable, ADSL services are 'contended' (but to varying degrees), so speeds drop when lots of people fire up their PCs.

Also, the download speed depends on various other issues. Obviously, the speed of the server you are downloading from is pretty important. Unlike almost ever other ISP, VM has no 'fair usage policy' that sets a monthly download limit (though they might have a word if you start running a major porn server from your bedroom).

As it is now estimated that over 1/3 of all internet traffic is bittorrent/P2P-related, VM (like some other providers) use 'bandwith-shaping' which stops this type of traffic from jamming up the network. So, although your P2P may run at 1MB on your 10MB VM service in the evening, that doesn't mean that your web-browsing, email, etc isn't going faster. What would you prefer, slower P2P or being forced to pay extra every month for going over an annoying download limit (which can be very bad for gamers and fans of internet TV/radio)?

It's a difficult situation and just changing providers is unlikely to help. The best way to find out about other options is to as people who live pretty close to your home. Long-term, wireless (e.g. WiMAX) may provide another option, but this is some way off.

And with regard to the price doubling - not true. There will be a price increase for XL VM cable broadband to 20MB - £2 more per month - which seems pretty reasonable to me.

As BT's 21st Century Network (http://www.btplc.com/21CN/) is only planned to deliver 24MBs by 2010, I think cable will have the edge over ADSL for a long time.

All that said, don't get me started on how ridiculously fragmented and nightmarish it is to deal with VM Customer Services, why so few people who work for them seem to know much of the above, and why VM still doesn't have a decent information system for it's customers and staff so that we all get the same, correct information when making enquiries. Also upload speeds need to increase. Hopefully Mr Branson is onto it...

As I'm not VM staff and am not all-knowing, I might not be 100% correct, but think most of this is pretty accurate.

Hope this is useful for you :)

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

The company is aware that their staff are telling customers lies but ignore it.

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

20mb is official as i have it already

Cable Modem Operation ConfigurationNetwork Access : AllowedMaximum Downstream Data Rate : 20480000Maximum Upstream Data Rate : 768000Maximum Upstream Channel Burst : 1600Maximum Number of CPEs : 1Modem Capability : Concatenation Enabled, Fragametation Enabled, PHS Disabled

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Good point. If only a few of us could stage a coup d'etait and take over their CS management... in this new drive to be nice to their staff and sort out the billing system to reduce the massive staff turnover rate (which I think is down to about 50% from 100% a year ago), they're probably scared to be too harsh to crap CS bods. VM need to treat their staff well, but if they aren't willing to do the job properly they need severe warnings and if necessary, the boot.

In addition to my previous comment, I note that the upload speed will be doubled too, but as it's still under 1MB that's not quite good enough for serious gamers. In this world of multiple home devices connected to the net, high-def, media-streamers, Slingbox, PS3 and X-Box 360, 4MB upload is a must.

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Just to correct this. VM don't restrict bandwidth depending on what services you use. Once you hit a 'pre-defined' bandwidth limit (which varies), you may be restricted on bandwidth speed. It does not distinguish between P2P, browsing, email, FTP, etc...

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Very interesting! You learn something new every day, eh? Thanks for pointing that out. Where did you discover that?

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Probably from reading any of the numerous of threads on here about traffic shaping.

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Ragarding £2 price increase for the 20Meg service. I was speaking to VM recently and asked the question regarding this. I was told that the price increase is actually for "Broadband only" customers, I.e if you've got the full package - BB, Phone and TV there's no difference in price, so (effectivelly) it's a free upgrade.

I suppose only time will tell whether this is correct or not. Mind you for the extra two quid, it's not worth getting excited about.

Si thee

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Try reading the news articles.

This site, and many customers have been aware of this for months.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/...ng-5mbit-trial

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

So what happens when they upgrade everyone to 20mb ? Are they still cut back to 5mb after downloading 2gb ? Or will they be cut to 10mb ?

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

The shaping is still been trialed and I think it seems to be working and to be honest if you are using p2p u r most likely to be downlaoding a illegi and if u r doing legal u will need to have lots of money to pay for dowloading however if you have so much money you most likely going to bye a retial copy anyways

Shaping helps other ppls bbi connection from the bandwidth hogs but I must admit I have never seen my bbi slow because of this.

My main question is does it really matter you get shaped as not many filesharing apps will give you full broadband speed the only one i know is newsgroups

just my throughts, please reply on if TRAFFIC SHAPING bothers you and why if it does

thank you

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

not bothered if i get shaped or not....i never download much anyways.....was just a question in general

Edit* I just downloaded 3.36gb of total rubbish that was deleted straight away just to see and i download at the full whack of 2400kb/s

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Wrong!!

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Deffo wrong I work there and I always give correct info and if I dont I will be told

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

They're not aware. or they're not ignoring it?

---------- Post added at 20:18 ---------- Previous post was at 20:13 ----------

You may be giving correct info out to customers but there's a lot that are not. there's posts in here saying that they're being given wrong information that isn't true. Alex brown has said that he will educate the staff that are giving out wrong information. then comes back and says there's nothing he can do to stop it. there's a post today in the virginmedia.feedback group again.

To say I'm deffo wrong when I'm not, or to say I'm deffo wrong that the company is not aware even :(

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

opened up a can of worms here!! i rang back and got the same answer until i said i was going to cancel at which point i was told that it is happening but they are not allowed to promise anything in case it doesnt.

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

well they sent me a letter saying that it would be done for june... so makes sense it would happen in may

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

would you mind telling me when its coming to folkestone then pretty please

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

'Virgin pizza' ?, i dont think the virgin group have done that yet ;)

or 'Virgin waffle' come to that, at least not officially.

---------- Post added at 12:57 ---------- Previous post was at 12:42 ----------

yes its odd that given we are 2 weeks away from may 1st, im suprised we are not seeing more reports in the 20Mbit threads of people being put on the trials by now...

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Years ago on NTL i was told when i was on the 2 meg service that it was a free upgrade to 5meg. I know a few people on 2 meg with Virgin, are they not allowed the free upgrade to 5 meg? If they are where do they do it?

Sorry its a little off topic :)

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Based on the theory by(bw41101), would that not make a VIP package with a reduction in price to Talk Unlimited make it cheaper than free?

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Paul H, so you know something we that work for VM don't then?

"The company is aware that their staff are telling customers lies but ignore it."
Or do you indeed work for VM too?

From my reading that would be a firm NO, you do not work for VM and your statement is based on nothing but speculation.

edit Ignore above.
After reading through your posts it seems you have nothing but hate, mistrust and add speculation to everything VM.
One thing that gets me is, why don't you take it elsewhere if its so bad. BT, sky etc..

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

The facts are there. some customer services, some reps, some people who knock on your door and ask you to sign up with Virginmedia are telling people that the 2 and 4 Mb speeds are being upgraded in May. it is a lie they are not being upgraded in May. only the 10Mb speeds are. I will not be called a liar based on that because I don't work for Virginmedia then I am telling lies because I don't and shouldn't know anything. and because you work for Virginmedia then you are right and I am wrong. I am not wrong. If I am wrong then so are the many customers who are posting both in the virgin internal groups and various forums saying they are being told the same lies. are you calling all of them liars too?

The company is aware of this too. The technical support staff from the internal support groups know about it. Alex brown is aware of it. he is the internet manager. you do know him don't you?

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

So is the upload for the 20Mbps service going to be 1Mbps or 768kbps?

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

Its going to be 768Kbps


Still no schedule on http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html...d_rollout.html i'm eagerly awaiting the new speed !!!

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

The reason I asked was because of this post:-
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34249264-post15.html


.

Re: 20 meg is not official
 

This is what 20mb looks like and yes it is 768k upload

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at 20Mbit down, who do we have to pay to get a better ratio.........up