200Mb trial
 

Today I received a letter inviting me to join the 200Mb trial in Coventry. Apparently some folk are on it ATM. The main trial will kick off in early July running for 6 months, testing various upload speeds. We will be given a new modem too!! I thought the existing 50Mb could do the job, but apparently not. No news on national roll out or the price, but 100 Mb roll out begins early next year.

I joined the 200Mb waiting lounge where a VM staff member left the following message.

"Next week an email will be sent to all 50Mbps customers in Ashford and Coventry asking them to join the 200Mbps trial.

So, if you have friends/relatives who'd like to join, please ask them look out for the offer.

A while back I asked for other volunteers too (thanks to those who replied, by the way). I have to give priority to the 50Mbps customers... well they do pay our wages! But if there's still space after we've got them on board, I can then add those on lower tiers too.

The website to sign up on is https://www.vmpilot.net/vmt1 . Username = vmt1 Password = letmetrial . I'm still tinkering with it, so it may be down from time to time until next week, but if you know anyone (got to be a Virgin Media cable modem customer) who wants to join up, please give them the details. And please feedback any issues with the website...it needs testing for next week!

I know someone's going to ask if this expanding to Folkestone and/or Dover...! Unfortunately, for the moment, the answer is "No". The 200Mbps trial will just be in Ashford and Coventry."

Once we are signed up we have to submit our thoughts to a trial forum with the instructions to remain stum. :angel:

Re: 200Mb trial
 

I thought I recognised your name from the vmpilot forum :)

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Hi, fellow astronaut. Exciting isn't it?

Here's hoping they can deliver 200Mbps download 24/7 and have a decent upload. Some folk have their doubts. I reckon 100Mbps will become the norm for now.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

The point of the trial is to see how busy the networks get and how low your speeds go. It was trialled in Ashford with a smaller sample of people and they want to see how it rolls on the production network.

You will not get 200Mbps 24x7, should be much faster than the 50Mbps service 24x7 though.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

I know this is probably a stupid question but i don't suppose there is any chance of me getting in on it in Lincoln? I am on 50mbit.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Not a stupid question, just desperate. lol


There is no chance. This is for Coventry and Ashford only.

By way of compensation, watch out for 100 Mb national roll out later this year.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

have you got any info on that yet? Are they starting to roll in out later in the year (i.e and taking up the first half of 2011) or they planning to have everywhere done by the end of the year? I can remember when they said 50mbit was going to be rolling out on something like October 2008, I had to wait till June 2009 for Lincoln to be switched over.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Don't rush to get on this kind of trial, because you may find that they (VM) will not launch the service until early 2012 at the latest, if at all. I really don't think there's a market for this product.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

i understand what you are saying but I was on dial up 9 years and never ever thought I would have 50mbit 8 years later. I felt like I had struck gold when ntl released 512k broadband (all you could get at the time) and my download speed went from 5k/sec up to 78k.

What I am trying to say is that you just don't know how things are going to change. I can remember when movie trailers used to be the size of thumbnails because of the file size/bandwidth restrictions and then they slowly got bigger and bigger and now we looking at 120mb HD trailers. For those peeps on adsl who get 1-2mbits it is still going to take them 8 mins to download a 2 minute trailer, whereas for me it takes 30 seconds tops which is what I would expect for a simple movie trailer. It is going to be awesome when we can download HD movies in 6 mins.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

All I know at the moment is that the roll out begins later this year. You are probably right about the process taking well into 2011 to complete. Some areas will be more ready than others. Some areas will need upgrades to the local infrastructure to manage 100Mbs let alone 200Mbs


I will see how much Neil the 200Mbs trial organizer is prepared to divulge. ;) watch this space.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

you would have thought they would be doing that first to make sure they can roll out 100mbit successfully before they start thinking about 200mbit

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Why?

The whole point of trials is to see how they work and see what is needed to get the product ready for release. Trials are nothing to do with what's available to the customers at the time, they're about what might be available to customers in the future.

100Mbit's functionality or otherwise is nothing to do with how 200Mbit will roll.

---------- Post added at 22:12 ---------- Previous post was at 22:10 ----------

Very first areas go live back end of the year, the rollout will go well into next year.

I doubt Neil I is privvy to the details of the commercial rollouts - he wasn't last time I spoke with him :)

Re: 200Mb trial
 

how congested were these network prior to the trial? ashford seems to be in every trial I hear the name a lot on here.

my original concerns remain I see little evidence of preparation work by VM in readiness for a new product round here, and it seems evident they dont care if they rollout a product that their network cannot sustain.

also even in areas where they have low takeup (low utilisation) I think they need to look into some form of QoS that will maintain ping/jitter as they are going to get periods of 100% utilisation on the ubr even in those areas from things like speedtesting alone.

The guy who invented ALT (anti loss tool) doesnt work for entanet anymore, maybe VM should employ him.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

They start using QoS people will just complain about traffic shaping and slower speeds. The network neutrality nuts would lose the plot at the idea of prioritising some types of traffic over others.

VM don't need to employ anyone to produce something like the ALT, applying a rate limit would be very easy.

100Mbit will only start appearing during the back end of the year, it won't complete rollout until well into next year.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

well I am against protocol shaping. So its not about prioritising specific types of traffic. It would still be net neutral traffic.

ALT would simply be a userbase round throttle that lowers dynamically to control UBR utilisation making sure it is never 100% utilised. Maybe it wouldnt work too well on UBR's as they much smaller compared to a BT central was but I think VM need to try something.

It seems to take VM 6+ months to do reseg's when accounting for the planning team etc. so a 2011 rollout when taking that into account is not far off. My guess at the moment is VM will rollout 100mbit and then only do capacity upgrades after complaints are reported. A deliberate strategy to avoid upgrade work where it might not be needed as an area may not get the takeup expected.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

I'm on the 20Mb service and just signed up for the trial. Here's hoping I get picked!

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Personally i think this does look good, however they should concentrate their efforts on upload, the way people use the internet is changing, therefore greater upload speeds would be required more by the customer (even though some dont realise it).

Upload speeds never get the marketing they should. This will change in the coming years.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

BT Infinity is changing that already by advertising up to 10Mb upload.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Good point. I really appreciated the extra ooomph during the 5Mb upload trial. eg Gaming, but also seeding bittorrents after download. I got up to my 1:1 share really quickly so I could remove the torrent file pronto. ;)

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Well let's hope they do some trials around Belfast, i would be more than happy to test higher uploads :)

P2P gaming on steam and web designers will surely be happy :)

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Would be nice if they did some trials in the Neath area, we always get left out, being a small area I would think it would have been a nice place test in.

Would love to trial the 200mb or even just a faster upload on the 50mb service ;)

Re: 200Mb trial
 

what the point of 200Meg for ? We don't need 100, 200, 500, 700 meg or 1TB meg ! I love 10 Meg as 10 Meg is better !

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Why have 10mb when you can still use dial up :p:

Once more people have faster speeds then there will be future services that will take advantage of it. If it wasn't for speed increases there would never have been a YouTube or any other photo/video sharing services, you never now what new services will pop up in the future once the infrastructure is there.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Well the problem is there are services available like online backup and P2P gaming that are being restricted due to upload speeds. Download speeds will give us more IP-TV services and SIP voice services.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Better still, semaphore. It's free, once you have made your own flags. There is no speed cap. You can wave your arms as fast as you want.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Terrabyte-megabit, that's new :rolleyes:

Things move forward with time.
If they didn't we would be all with black and white TV and dial up.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Ok so I like broadband, but I do miss the sound of the modem dialing up and connecting. There is just something nice and geeky about it. :)

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Is the Trial for a specific area?? i suppose it will be.
On the 50meg service here and it works well 90% of the time.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Re: 200Mb trial
 

200 meg nice can't wait

Re: 200Mb trial
 

While it's great technology and all is moving onwards and upwards personally before they bother with 100 and 200 mrg internet can they please get the damn 10meg stable and functioning 24\7. Maybe when that happens i will be happy to hear how they are pushing limits but till then i would rather they got exisitng services to a good level before moving onto ever more ambitious levels.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

My application to be on the 200Mb trial has been accepted. The trial starts just as soon as the World Cup is over. A variety of upload speeds are to be tested.

We will be given a different modem at least. Those without 100/1000 ethernet will be given a router and ethernet cards too. However 85% of trialists already have 100/1000 ethernet.

The modems will be lab configured and then adjusted remotely for different speed configs. Because the trial is on a different circuit we can remove it and use our old 50Mb modems whenever we like. Indeed the trial organiser says he will be happy for people to run two modems + routers if they wish, effectively having two broadband connections for 6 months.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

How do I apply? if it means them upping tools and investing in my area I am applying.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Shhh beasty. Neil will be watching. You may have said too much already.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

You don't. This is strictly Coventry and Ashford for now.

Don't worry though, because as is generally known by now, 100Mb is being rolled out from the end of the year onwards.

---------- Post added at 21:26 ---------- Previous post was at 21:24 ----------

You are right. My knuckles are sore already. :dunce:

Re: 200Mb trial
 

hi

Re: 200Mb trial
 

:welcome:

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Well a digital 'slap in the face' for all the people who spent time signing up for the trial and monitoring the trial forum and answering all the questions.

Now they're being told the trial is only going to be for VM staff. Woo Hoo for them.

It was already on hold for a month because of the football and now this.

Why didn't they just do this in the first place.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

how did they sign up? personal invites or something?

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Yes. Letters were sent out on 29th May to current 50Mb/s subscribers in Coventry (I presume Ashford too) asking for volunteers to register on the trial website.

About the middle of June the applicants were whittled down to those that were geographically useful for the trial.

Since then it's just been a waiting game. There was a hold on any network modifications during the world cup just in case the system was brought down and someone missed a goal :confused:

It was promised that as soon at the football was over there would be a concerted effort to get it up and running and start connecting people.

Then for some undisclosed reason it's now restricted to VM staff only.

It makes you wonder why if they needed tighter control over the trial they didn't just do this from the start.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

Could be due to trialists leaking info on sites like this. Benefits the likes of me who are curious of course but companies like to keep trial results out of the public eye.

Re: 200Mb trial
 

I know, but there is nothing to leak. Talking about it in broad terms is allowed, just nothing specific or anything about the results or equipment used etc.

Timing of the trial is no secret.