Cant Quite Grasp something
 

I just cant quite grasp what Virgin media seem to be upto.

Virgin media have stated that they are pouring more and more money into their broadband rather than TV as its their biggest earner, YET their network seems to be getting worse.

They r pouring the money in hoping to attract more custom and keep their custom happy yet they r also introducing rediculous STM times which seem to be annoying more and more people and quite a number in my area have switched to the likes of Sky, Orange, AOL and Talk Talk because of the awful level of service they are getting from Virgin.

So what i cant grasp is why pour money in and offer a worse level of service, if they want people to stop downloading a lot why are they forcing people to upgrade to a faster service by putting levels of STM on those to a level where people will want to goto which would cause more and more problems as the heavy downloaders will be downloading just as much as they did on 4mb but even faster.

I cant seem to grasp what they are trying to do, and i really dont think they do also and i think they are just thrashing around seeing how much people will take before all hell breaks loose with their customers.:mad:

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Perhaps they are putting money in, but the download / bandwidth requirements of their customers are more than they forecast.

More and more people are downloading, Skyping, using BBC iPlayer, etc - you find that a lot of businesses have the same problems (having to increase their bandwidth purchases) as staff use the network for things other than work. VM obviously did not correctly forecast bandwidth growth requirements.

I speak from experience, having managed IT Infrastructure for a number of companies.

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

What with more and more ways of eating up bandwidth, I believe the days of a supposed "unlimited" usage are numbered. As opposed to introducing ever more draconian stm limits, I personally would prefer to be charged by what I use, at least that way I get to use the speed I pay for. To me its the lesser of two evils.:shrug:

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

What I can't grasp is that if they're supposed to be concentrating on broadband, why the huge spend on advertising the TV service? Celebrity participants (e.g. Samuel L. Jackson), billboard ads springing up all over the place...

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

ahh that's an easy one vm dont want customer's anymore we are just an expensive inconvenience and they would do better without them i mean just think what speed broadband they could guarentee without us, maybe even 5mb if your lucky :D:rofl:

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Oh, I thought all those adverts were intended to drive people onto the internet...

oops:

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Wouldnt the millions they have paid him better be spent on their networks?

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Or even just a few thousand developing a communications and reporting system that actually gave accurate information to customers?

:shrug:

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

You would think so wouldn't you, but it does give VM even more customers to put on an already overloaded network, and don't forget they can all be stm,d as well. It will get to a stage with everybody on stm and the network at breaking point, what did VM say a while back, "our fibre optic network is so advanced, we are only scratching the surface as to whats possible". All I can add to that is please stop scratching VM.

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

I see nobody suspects VM might just be tellign porkies in an forlorn effort to hang on to what little credibility or good will that they have left. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time now would it.

In reality I wouldn't be at the least surprised to learn this Company is on the very brink of folding.

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Although they stated that they were putting more money into BB as opposed to digital TV, it doesn't translate to no money going into TV. I suspect they see both services complementing each other so it makes sense to invest in both. If you buy BB then it may attract you to digital TV and vice versa

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

With that much debt, I'd doubt the (US finance) market would allow it to fold.
Mind you, after Enron...
Wonder how much Sky would pay for the barebones network... :shocked:

I figured VM's main problem is that they're caught between a marketing dept that believes they need to compete with ADSL on price (a smart business plan, ffs!) and an incompetently-managed engineering dept that doesn't seem able to (even roughly) accurately schedule upgrades or even communicate with other departments.

But that doesn't explain the current sorry state requiring ridiculous STM limits.
Didn't any VM management forecast the logarithmic increase in data traffic five years back?
Really?
:shrug:

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Or just plain underfunded, undermanned and disillusioned. :dozey:

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Underfunded -- check
Undermanned -- it's no excuse but who isn't these days?
Disillusioned -- I'm not surprised. So are a fair proportion of BB customers.

I'd hope that the network techs realise that us great unwashed are their allies and we're being constantly misinformed.
Just in case any happen to frequent CF: we'd appreciate a few nods and hints as to what's really going on? ;)

(I arrived at VM from Pipex where I witnessed their fantastic network being mismanaged and run into the ground by incompetent management. It all seems so depressingly familiar!)

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

More and more i hear "Pay for what i use or what you use" What a load of old Rubbish"

to all the oh i don't download much, so i want to go on pay for what i use. If that's the case then don't take the upgrade's and stop on 2mb. and give it to the other people who use the 20mb connection.........i'll say it again and again i have 4/5 people in our household who USE A ROUTER FOR A 20mb CONNECTION SHARED, What do you expect me to do get 4/5 modems to each room...........Get real and try to think about the people out thier who do use it

what i do find amazing is thier are so many people out thier who dont even know how to use what they have.........What i would like to see is ........

Letters sent out to people who dont use what they have saying "Due to you having an 4mb to 10mb and not using it we will down size you back to 4mb due to heavy loads on our systems" and we would like to keep your service running well for you

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

:)
I usually download around 100GB a month but I've been thinking of letting VM know I don't want to upgrade to 10Mb because I don't believe they'll be able to deliver a 'fit for purpose' service.

I'm sure they'd ignore me but it'd be great to quote back to them when it becomes apparent that 10Mb doesn't perform...

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Some people on 20mb connections have no need for it and think that everyone should have the same useage patterns as themselves. They are not even bothered if their speed drops to 1mb as long as they are still online they are quite happy to carry on paying the high price that it costs.

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

I don't see the problem if they are happy to pay for it. The 20Mb light-users are paying 20 UKP/mo more than they need to (as a 2Mb user), and therefore are subsidising the lower tiers.

If all the 20Mb light-users, who don't use the bandwidth, were to drop to the lowest tier, then VM are going to have to find the money from elsewhere - one possibility would to be increase the costs of all the tiers (esp the lower ones to make up for the drop in revenue).

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

I don't quite understand the logic of your argument. If we are all on the same network at the moment surely if your on the 10 or 20 mb package is arbitrary. If you only d/l a couple of Gb worth of data per month then surely the strain you put on the network is the same regardless of the package you are on. So downgrading the 10mb packages to 4mb will have little or no effect.

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

i have never seen anything so stupid, yes i'm on a 20 meg connection and yes i pay a high price. but i want what i pay for, i can't even get 1-2 megs download speed, no good for streaming movies etc. if i pay for something i expect to recieve that service. would you buy a car saying it does 100mph but only does 10mph and you paid a high price for that car, who would compain then?

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

NTL sorry VM have been predicted to fold for business for more than 5 years..not happened yet.

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Bloody hell didnt realise we'd been down the same road, Pipex was pretty good till a while back then it all seemed to go down the toilet, starting with a crappy customer service, are you still with VM then? My BE unlimited starts next week sometime

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Yeah..quite depressing ain't it. :D

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

I arrived from F2S where their network was going down the pan also after the Pipex buyout. It was all hunky dory till the VM take over

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

I wouldn't go quite that far. :erm:

Suffice it to say that there appears to have been a significant downturn since rebranding. :(

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Virgin are still using the same equipment that was in use before NTL and Virgin merged so it does seem odd that the are so many problems reported on the network by people.

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If you download 100GB per month and you are on 4Mb/s and you get put onto 10Mb/s you can still just download 100GB per month.. You will just do what you need to do quicker..

The issue is that when you go to 10Mb/s you might start downloading 150 or 200MB per month.. Then you will be screwing the network and congesting it:D

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Well the internets business model is about to change, with the advent of BBC I-Player/Apple/Utube etc. The current infrastructure for all IPS's not just uk, but in a good part of the world are creaking with the demands that video on demand and similar bandwidth intensive traffic puts on networks.

Gaming/Browsing/email use minimal traffic compared to these.

ISP's have already mentioned that content providers may have to pay them for their content to be available on their networks. (Pay for the upgrades) Or like what BBC are doing with I-Player allow it over the TV part of the network.

The alternative is a billing model which differentiates between Video on Demand and other high bandwidth traffic and others and involves extra monthly payments to download/view video over the network. Dont just think it is virgin with this problem every single UK ISP has the same issues/worries about the future of their network.

I think within 2-3 years there will be extra charges or even a move to the Austrailian model:-

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquir...ge-for-uploads

Also an interesting article here :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...7/iplayer.isps

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Ive always wondered about the Virgin media takeover, what if all wasnt said when it took over why the takeover took place? did NTL fold and was bought out and it wasnt made public? its a possibility.

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

I say outlaw BBC I-Player (if that is the main reason for all these problems)

If people can't be arsed to set their video/PVR or use the Video On Demand via their VM top-box or, God forbid, watch the program live , then sod 'em

leave the network for those who have been using it 'happily' up until now

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

No..No..No, there was NO takeover of NTL by Virgin Media. Firstly NTL and Telewest merged, NTL was the larger company but for legal reasons; on paper at least Telewest took over NTL and many of the senior managers of Telewest ended up in control of the merged company.

Shortly after that the new company was rebranded and called itself Virgin Media, they licensed the right from Richard Branson to use the Virgin name and that's it. The company and the network infrastructure etc. are exactly the same as it was before-and speaking entirely from my own experience, I had a good internet service from NTL and now have exactly the same from VM, certainly no better or no worse.

Which is not of course to say that other people don't have horrendous problems with VM, but who is to say that these problems wouldn't have happened anyway? It's hard to see how just calling a company by a different name can have any effect. I suppose it's possible that the merged company hasn't kept up with network upgrades etc. and increased numbers of users and traffic has brought an already creaking system to it's knees in some areas but it's just speculation.

Lastly Richard Branson does not own the company, he does not run the company, he probably has absolutely no influence in the running of it either other than the fact he is a large shareholder in the company.

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

I don't have any problems with my 20mb service .. seems to work OK, phone is good too, it's the awful TV service I have issues with. Probably because I've got a old Telewest Pace box (the grey/blue one)
I would be a big headache to move to different suppliers .. the cable is bloody convenient in that regard!

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Tackle the end result and not the root cause, you should get a job in government, there's possibly some taxation scope here ;)

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

Unlike the never-ending trail of folk who discover that, after being upgraded to 20Mb/s, they can only get 5-10Mb/s?
Or that ridiculous STM limits (currently in trial areas but rumoured to be extended across the country) mean I can only make use of that speed boost when I don't want to use it?

That's precisely my point.
What's the sodding point of making it theoretically faster and therefore more tempting to download more, when VM know damn well that it's more than likely to overload the network, reducing performance for everyone?
The amount I want to download isn't likely to increase by much, just the theoretical speed at which I'll be able to grab it. But if everyone else downloads more, my overall speed will be reduced through congestion and more stringent STM limits will be applied to keep the network running.

If UBR congestion will be significantly reduced once DOCSIS3 is operational (presuming that 20Mb connections are switched over), why not wait until then to make the upgrades?
The only justification I can think of is cheap, willy-waving at supposed ADSL competition which is already proving to be a PR nightmare for VM.
The sooner they recognise that it's not possible for cable BB to compete with ADSL on price but they can wipe the floor with them on reliability and consistency the better for us all. And that's exactly what VM will lose by 'chasing the speed merchants'!

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

As I said in my previous post on last page.

The problem is not just Virgins, all ISP's are experiencing or are worried about this in the future, due to VOD, IPTV/BBC I_Player and other such very heavy data traffic.

It only takes about 300 people to use I-Player in a city to jam it up for all other users as it is very heavy on the amount of pipes it uses. Other Video traffic have similar effects on any network, be it an ISP's or a Private company network. Hence why any IT staff, if they are any good at their job, in private networks block all ports that these operate on.

The cost to upgrade newtorks to hadle this web 2.0 content is enormous and runs into Billions of pounds for the UK as a whole. Hence why ISP's are looking at charging suppliers for their content to be allowed on their networks as one possible solution. Another may to charge the user to access this content.

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

can't the BBC have it's own newsgroup server and get people to download their programs from that?

I thought I-Player used P2P system, which will hog the network - surely it's better for people to download only, rather and uploading as well

PS Magilla - do I know you?

Re: Cant Quite Grasp something
 

A central server and the BW required costs money. Thats why a decent news provider costs money and most ISP's free news services are rubbish.

The whole idea behind torrents is that it uses users BW instead of BW from a central server. Unfortunately it is the ISP's and not the users on a fixed fee who have to pay for this extra BW. Remember for each say 1gig downloaded via torrent the responsable torrenter gives back at least 1gig, preferably more. This represents at least double the BW required for the same amount of data downloaded from a central server.

Don't forget also that the ISP has to provide the hardware necessary to handle all this extra data transfer caused by the uploading.

It's very easy to see why ISP's would be extremely pleased to be able to rid their networks of what they see as the 'curse' of torrenting.