Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Sustainable revenue growth and operating leverage driving strong free cash flow

Revenue growth in all areas; total up 5.7% to £982m
OCF1 up 7.6% to £376m
- Operating income up 58.9% to £111m
FCF2 more than doubled to £100m
- Net cash provided by operating activities up 34.3% to £272m
Good operational performance through quality customergrowth

Quality of customer base continues to improve
- Launch of 30Mb broadband tier has transformed acquisition mix
- 39% of new broadband customers taking 20Mb tier or higher, up from 15% in Q1-10
- Broadband revolution gains pace, with world's fastest cable trial of 1.5Gb
- Premium TV customers increased 22%; HD penetration increased to 41%
- 65,000 pre-registered for next-generation TiVo TV; now available to new customers
- Q1 cable ARPU3 up 2.6% to £46.16

Cable customers up 1.2% in last twelve months with 20,200 net additions in Q1

Mobile contract customers up 22.6% to 1.3m
- Contract customers in cable homes up 19% to 0.8m

Business revenues up 13.7% to £159m
- New contract win with London Borough of Lambeth

Capital Return programme continued
Repurchased 7.2m shares in Q1; 18.8m shares to-date
Plan to retire $550m of debt due 2016 with cash on hand, further reducing debt and interest expense

All good new surely?

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Sorry to be pessimistic but its all positives, where is the negatives also :P

Like for example they may have increased sales by 1.2%, by how many new or current customers left in the first 3 months?

What about the fact they oversold in some area's?

How much of a pay rise did the CEO get for his smash and grab approach?


I am not trying to demean your post, but I never trust a fully positive Quarterly report from any company, makes it look like they are hiding something :P

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Perhaps there aren't any? :D

Their churn is quite low; around 12-2% IIRC. They think they do list gross and net figures in the full details.

Fact quoted by VM or just heresay?

Who cares and what business is it of yours?

No. You just take any opportunity to have another swipe at VM for no good reason.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Ok time to again try to answer you calmly.

1. Nothing is perfect, to declare yourself perfect is to make you imperfect.

2. I am guessing you meant 1.2-2%, but the fact remains like most companies with quarterly or annual reports they will always give the initial sales percentage before the decrease of losses is added to the equation.

3. Fact, from various forums, news reports and so forth. It is well known they oversubscribed the 50mb service in highly populated student areas like Newcastle and parts of Manchester.

4. Because it is interesting to know, and my business as it relates to the services I am paying for, am I paying for a business whose CEO is grabbing at cash at any opportunity, like any customer they would want to know the nature of the CEO.

5. No Carl, not a swipe at all, infact you are having swipes at my posts.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Oversold? Well duh, sorry to say that they're a business. As much as I don't like it that's what they do.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

1. - What has this to do with the topic?

2. - The actual churn rate was 1.2% up slightly from 1.1% the year before. This figure is customer loss only and has nothing to do with sales.

3. - Incorrect

4. - The CEO's salary is declared yearly to the NYSE, his salary is pretty modest considering the size of the company and its current turnover and 7 quarters of positive cash flow.

5. - Quit the bickering

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

All due respect from scotsman to another. You have misread the points wrongly.

1. Was an answer to Carl's question.

2. Again was repeating what Carl had said when he said 12-2% I assumed he meant 1.2-2%.

3. Not incorrect at all, it was prolific in the support forums for weeks. Talk about street cabs being overused etc. Plenty of customer irate over the speeds during offpeak hours due to the massive heavy load. Even had someone from VM come on and say yes there was a oversubscription problem.

4. Yeah, hence why I was asking would be good to see the increase from last year to this year.

5. All due respect without sounding bad, that is the moderators job to tell people.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

No Incorrect, you highlighted Manchester and Newcastle which don't have anything like the same problems that Plymouth and Exeter have. Just because a couple of people complain on a forum about speeds/capacity, doesn't actually mean there's a problem.

Manchester is made up of 6 legacy network areas for example, to say that Manchester has problems is like saying that Scotland has a capacity problem. The network is extensive with many 10's of thousands of distribution points and 100's of Nodal areas.

Oversubscription is a myth, lack of capacity is the reality due to problems with legacy network builds.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

What a bizarre statement. There's a lack of capacity given the amount of subscribers - surely that would suggest they are oversubscribed?

This also doesn't roll - there are areas which are running on full DOCSIS 2 and have problems. Requiring node splits isn't a problem with legacy network builds it's business as usual.

It's not an uncommon thing for cable networks to have a minority of nodes which are oversubscribed but to call it a myth is somewhat :nutter:

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Except, of course, no-one has ever, ever, ever claimed that VM is "perfect" .

My sincere apologies to al. Could have sworn I had corrected that. :o: I actually meant "1-2%". (Been out all PM so have not been able to correct it sooner!)

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Over Subscribed suggests that the connected node has been oversold, the issue is over utilisation, this can vary depending on node size. You can have a legacy build 500 home node with 200 active customers and high utilisation due to heavy downloading (student area for example). Would you call that over subscription as the node design and capacity planning have allowed for 500 customers and the issue is high use.

I don't agree with the term over subscription, is very often over used on this forum with no real understanding behind its meaning.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

In your case you gave not so much however I would also say there are most certainly areas which are oversubscribed - for example areas with over 100 20 and 50Mbit modems on a single 3.2MHz upstream and in turn a similar amount of uplifted modems on a 6.4MHz upstream.

If you're talking about legacy build nodes it should be noted that those nodes were built with certain services in mind, the case could be made that as VM introduce more demanding services onto the nodes they should be performing commensurate upgrades to those nodes in order to increase the bandwidth per home passed.

TLDR legacy node sizes are no excuse, when the original company built that 2000 home node that's been split into 500 home areas they didn't build it with the services that VM are running in mind. Splitting nodes both to account for uptake, usage and upgraded services is a BAU activity. When areas fall below VM's capacity guidelines for bandwidth per customer this is a failure on the part of capacity planning at VM and oversubscribed by their own criteria.

I appreciate that I'm discussing how things were when I was with ntl, I know Telewest's approach both to capacity planning and upgrade was different and am not sure which the company is now following.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

I was going to point out that steev's "Oversubscription is a myth, lack of capacity.." comment but Igni did that already.

If there is a lack of capacity and there is too many customers on each node, then it is oversubscribed, or if you want to use a different word Overpopulated.

---------- Post added at 05:28 ---------- Previous post was at 05:26 ----------

You said when referring to my post saying where is the negatives? You said "Perhaps there isn't any" to which I pointed out, nothing is perfect there will always be negatives with positives.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

But it's perfectly possible to have a node under subscribed but over utilised, people will then wrongly come to the forum complaining how they're on an over subscribed node when infact they aren't.

This is a contended service, if the node is below the level of contention then it is not oversubscribed, however it can be over utilised if the people on that node are using bandwidth above and beyond what the contention levels permit.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Thanks TheDon, thats the point im making.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

The opposite is likewise perfectly possible so to describe it as a myth is inaccurate unless VM are somehow the most well capacity planned cable company in the world which, no offence to those working on it, clearly is not the case due to the reports from customers causing capacity issues to be raised for upgrade.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

I don't understand any of it really.

and it's not true that Carl was one of the reasons they closed the blueyonder/virgin newsgroups :)

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Would have replied back if it wasn't for the fact my net has been really bad lately, periodic hours of downtime from approx noon is not fun and not random :P

But..

I understand there can be underpopulated nodes and over utilised if a say 100mb in the area was sold very well.

But we aren't talking about that we are talking about nodes that are indeed been oversubscribed/overpopulated. I remember the threads on the official forums, unfortunately most of them bit the dust because of a couple of posters who were trying to get people to complain to watchdog etc :P. But there was a classic thread which someone took a picture of a cabinet in Newcastle which was either accidently left open or broken into which shown splitters being used on it to provide to even more houses, it was like a spaghetti junction.

In true VM moderation style the link and subsequent links by others were edited out. And there was a point when a VM staff member actually said there was oversubscription happening in key areas which was mostly students (where areas had student lodgings etc) during the later stages of 2010. Now I have no information if they since fixed this problem or not, but the posts from those areas originally affected by this issue still continues today. I suppose it proves that VM were more interested in gaining more monies with the least expenditure to make the end of year report for their "finally we are in profit again".

What was even funnier was the fact they have only allocated a measly £44m to the upgrades, this I got from a UK tech when I phoned one day, which is contradictory to the old saying "You have to speculate to accumulate" which unfortunately doesn't exist in VM world, more like "We will accumulate then perhaps in a few months get around to some speculation and fixing"

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Please dont confuse an untidy Distribution point as a sign of over subscription.

---------- Post added at 08:24 ---------- Previous post was at 08:23 ----------

This figure is not correct, VM are spending more than double that amount this year alone.

---------- Post added at 08:26 ---------- Previous post was at 08:24 ----------

There is no such thing as "key areas", every part of the network is treated the same. The well publicised area that had issues was Plymouth/Exeter which had capacity issues due to the type of equipment in the field utilised by Eurobell. These issues were rectified some time ago and upgrades completed at the local headened to accomodate the required capacity needs.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Neither do I. Would love a "plain English" version :D

Really? Damn! Might have been a nice claim to fame :p:

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

I would call it oversubscription, the reason been that VM should know full well in advance a student area may have higher usage per customer and as such do something to sell a fit service. eg. dont sell a unlimited use product or contend at a lower level. It doesnt matter if its due to high customer count or customers raping the bandwidth, the bandwidth itself is oversubscribed.

Also the capacity planning leaves alot to be desired, uplifted areas have a very high upload limit on STM, extremely generous, and the policy to only double capacity in some areas for a triple increase in upload speed is actually increasing contention ratio.

you talk as if you surprised people use a unlimited use connection heavily? and VM also make themselves attractive to students, they actually actively market to students with 9 month deals.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

If they did that then surely they should also increase the cost to people in those areas? Or should the rest of the network subsidise the cost of giving students far better contention levels than the rest of the user base?

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

it would be subsidy, isps have mostly worked in that manner anyway, the exceptions will be PAYG isp's.

I can give 3 scenarios.

1 - most of network ok no oversubscription to 98-99%, 1-2% over subscribed where performance affected, what do you do? In this case it could be considered an abnormality but 1-2% should be easy to subsidise unless profit is extremely marginal.
2 - majority of network ok, but oversubscription more than an abnormality perhaps something like 80% ok 20% over subscribed, so hard to subsidise but also means cant really call it unsually high usage as 20% is too much for that, simply means the isp got it figures wrong and needs to respec its packages, eg. higher price, lower usage limits, lower speed limit. This I think is VM's situation.
3 - most of network over subscribed, pure and simple abusive overselling, VM are not in this situation tho although some isp's like O2's ipstream are.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Agreed regarding high usage per modem areas. I don't doubt that there are areas where usage per modem is unexpectedly high, I was just disputing the suggestion that oversubscription is a myth. To suggest that VM have no areas which are genuinely oversubscribed is ridiculous.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

I still think unexpected is a bad term to use, it suggests we expect student areas to have low usage.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

By unexpected I'm referring to above the norm. VM may or may not know about student areas, however like every other cable company in the world they don't throw bandwidth at the areas endlessly.

You talk about getting students to sign up, if there are too many signups the area is oversubscribed. If VM are appropriately segmenting the network and it's just sheer weight of traffic there's no point at all in throwing tens of thousands of pounds at the areas just to see the new bandwidth consumed.

Although I think this is a conversation that's been had before.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

it is indeed.

you are more reffering to oversubscription by customer count whilst I am reffering to oversubscription of the bandwidth itself.

VM dont define a contention ratio which in this case goes against them. We will leave it be :) VM shouldnt really be applying a one size fits all policy across their network in regards to user utilisation as each area is very small and will have variance. We also both know it isnt an endless upgrade path it is just more than usual anyone can only use a limited amount of bandwidth, if enough upgrading is done then it wont be saturated. Whether it takes 2 node splits or 50 node splits.

My example is like this.

I have 20 pipes 10mbit each.

On the first 19 pipes I manage to get 40 customers on without saturation and makes me a tidy profit.
The 20th pipe I put 10 on and its 90% utilised. I would personally at that point suspend new sales and fund a 21st pipe. The nature of the business is these kind of things happen and would be morally wrong to squeeze 40 on that pipe anyway. To just put another 30 on anyway and claim done nothing wrong because it worked for 19 other pipes is just poor capacity management.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Morality is irrelevant. It's not poor capacity management that's the name of the game and why VM's services cost a quid per Mbps per month or less when they reach us.

It's not an endless upgrade path, of course, but it could be asked why the many should pay for node splits so that the few can P2P themselves senseless. I use P2P specifically as the current major congestion on the network is upstream.

New nodes are not the cheapest thing and the cost increment between the previous level of upgrade, splitting individual node trunks, and constructing completely new ones is quite high. Splitting a single node into 4 so that students can P2P themselves senseless isn't a way to do business. Those nodes should be upgraded absolutely last, when there is budget unallocated.

In the context of the cost and technology restraints that method of capacity management is absolutely appropriate. There are other issues on VM's network which are far more dubious than not splitting student areas down to near as damnit FTTP.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

well we have clearly different standards.

As I see it VM already have protocol shaping and STM. They sell an unlimited service, a consequence of that should be to have some high usage and to deal with it.

If these high usage are abnormal as claimed so a very tiny %, then adding capacity from normal revenue should be a non issue, and is a non issue when enough people complain as then upgrades happen, especially when neil starts getting emails concerning issues. You said it yourself having worked in the isp industry that working on fixed contention ratios isnt practical, its dynamic all the time and instead just work on visible contention. Yet in this scenario you think it right to stick to a rigid contention ratio that might suit an OAP area where people just check their online banking :) Whilst VM's prices are low they are not that low, they high in comparison to xDSL.

I never have said endless upgrades should be done however I do say issues of oversubscription should never be ignored which seems to be what you promoting, you seem to have no issue with users getting a service not as advertised or fit for purpose as long as your not affected of course. For some reason you also think its isolated to student areas. whether its an upgrade of capacity or downgrading of package spec it doesnt bother me, what bothers me is oversubscription.

We have their website on order pages showing high typical speed figures, this is misleading to any oversubscribed area, claims its good for gaming, again any oversubscribed area misleading, protocol shaping and STM which supposedbly are to control so called abusive users. With all this you still giving VM pity. AAISP is a prime example of how to deal with congestion, take the pain initially with capacity upgrades to fix the problem in a timely manner, if upgrading is not viable long term then respec packages to make it viable. It is actually quite simple. But VM seem to have an allergy to raising prices or scrapping unlimited use. They are addicted to misseling to a portion of their userbase and then claim pity for it. I dont like people who upload 24/7 anymore than you do but they are doing nothing wrong in regards to the service sold to them.

The fact VM treat the majority of performance related complaints as faults rather than saying tough luck contention suggests they know full well what they playing at but wait till as late as possible to fix.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Comparing AAISP to Virgin Media is like comparing Fortnum and Masons with Asda. One has extreme price competition the other does not as it appeals to a niche.

VM can't appeal to a niche, they need to sell, sell, sell, cable networks are expensive.

It's not about my standards it's about reality.

Incidentally I didn't make any mention of fixed contention ratios, however I entirely agree with the policy of limiting upgrades to heavily utilised areas. My main issue with VM is the occasional lack of timely upgrades to oversubscribed areas.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

The reality is severe oversubscribed areas break trading standards legislation, regardless of what you think about that. The reality is VM can solve it via various methods quite easily, they are not stukck in a diffilcult position, the reality is they have made a concsious decision to leave people with horrible performance. VM are getting away with this due to lax regulation, with a decent regulator the unlimited farce would be gone long ago and noone would be uploading 24/7 as a result. AAISP do sell to a niche, but that niche is mainly for things like their uk localised technical enhanced support, line monitoring, large ip ranges, managed services, SLA's, prirority fault resolution. The fact they happen to also treat congestion seriously is more a bonus for their business customers although they probably wouldnt tolerate severe congestion that disrupts whatever they doing I suspect as long as their emails work etc. they mostly wont be aware of any congestion that may creep up occasionaly on aaisp's services.

lets forget about the financials of it for now we both disagree on this. Even tho you have made no comment in regards to VM selling something they cant supply and if they should stop unlimited.

My question is what do you think is happening in these so called not oversubscribed but over utilised areas? given that nntp and p2p are throttled down now plus a bunch of other unidentified protocols at any given time. Is someone who isnt using p2p or nntp and staying within STM limits doing something unusual?

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

I agree.

They may sugar coat the p2p and usenet throttling down to other things, but in reality I think most agree it comes down to the fact they can't supply the bandwith in certain areas when people are home :P

Whats worse is they made it national instead of targetting areas that have the problem, trying to make it look like it happens everywhere.. but it doesn't. And as said by Chrysalis its a legal loophole they have been navigating and without stringent overseers VM and other ISP's will continue to benefit from it.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Show me where VM have been successfully nailed by Trading Standards for oversubscription please.

This applies to any ISP anywhere, it's always a question of money.

The UK's regulation isn't lax by any stretch. Excessive interventionism has a lot to answer for within the UK's market. If you want lax regulation see Canada.

You need to tell AAISP this as they make a selling point of their congestion management.

http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-speed.html
http://clueless.aaisp.net.uk/congestion.cgi

No let's not, it's completely about the financials. You can't just say 'Let's forget about x as you haven't discussed y' and expect me to immediately drop x and defend my position on y.

I have made many comments in the past about unlimited services which I'm not going to go back over. It should be quite well known that while I would prefer a service that's more expensive and of a higher quality I entirely appreciate why VM feel the need to advertise and offer the pricing they do. Their services necessarily appeal to the lowest common denominator.

As far as the costs go blame the regulator you describe as lax for regulating ISPs into a race to the bottom in terms of prices and quality.

Given that the congestion is nearly always upstream and I'm not overly convinced of the upstream throttling's effectiveness I suspect you're quite aware of what's happening.

There is, simply, virtually no legitimate reason for a home user to upload extremely large amounts of data for any length of time. Perhaps a single use cloud backup but extremely large amounts of data remain the province of P2P for now. There's the very odd Slingbox user but these are a tiny minority of the whole. VM need to make the upstream shaping more granular ideally but, as already noted, this is just the early attempt at protocol management and more will no doubt follow.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

why?

I can guess and my guess is the congestion is actually also caused by normal traffic like ack packets and video streaming etc. things that are taking off and are reasonably popular, for things like live blogs. The shaping seems brutal enough as we seeing complaints of unuseable services going at sub dialup speeds.

Wrong type of regulation, its regulating competition but not consumer experience.

They havent, trading standards if get involved in individual cases normally lead to VM (or any company for that matter) offering some kind of bribe to the consumer or personal attention given to their situation which stops anything from escalating.

When have I said otherwise? You know money is an issue but yet dont see raising more of it from customers as the solution.

Lets say I was supplying you with goods. I then realise after we signed contracts that to supply you with what you paying for doesnt make me as much money as I liked so I think start diluting the goods watering them down so to speak so I make more money, you find this acceptable practice? Or you buy a can of lager from the supermarket but its only half full because the lager company says they forced to by competition to sell at low price but can only make money by half filling it? thats ok? profit comes before providing what you market and sell?

What you basically saying is that heavy users arent profiteable, I agree with this statement. This is of course true for decades and applies to any isp. Your opinion is loss making users should not be subsidised and its ok for consumers sharing resources with them to have a 'not fit for purpose' service (look up not fit for purpose on trading standards), unfortenatly this type of service and anything bandwidth related works on subsidy with the exception of PAYG type services. It works on averages, Its highly likely VM actually underprovide capacity in areas with lower usage than average.

Funny tho when I showed you my service situation in february you considered it unacceptable and that was the same thing, 'high utilisation' as described by VM.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Because they have to. VM aren't some reseller of BT services who can add a 100Mbit/s pipe here and there when needed, they have an access network covering 48% of the UK population which needs constant maintenance along with an optical network that passes an even larger proportion of the population.

The fixed costs to VM just of existing are considerable, they need a large amount of customers to spread these fixed costs across.

Every 500 or less homes on the VM network has kilometres of coaxial trunks and drops, splitters, taps and bridges and a few active RF amplifiers feeding homes. This is connected to an laser which may need intermediate amplification on its way to hub site or headend via an EDFA. Each hub site needs power, security, maintenance, optical power balancing.

Each head end takes signals both from the VM national optical network and satellite feeds, so the various multiplexing and demultiplexing hardware is required, along with the downstream lasers, upstream optical receivers, patch panels, QAMs to transport the digital TV multiplexes, VoD servers and distribution, CMTSes, other access and transport routers.

The telco network requires its own resilient optical transport in order to maintain the Ofcom mandated reliability standards.

Most of these costs are fixed or increment minimally depending on the number of customers, the cable network needs as many customers as possible to divide these costs between, cable is extremely CapEx intensive.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

What has VM not been a reseller have to do with them having to pander to the "I want everything for nothing" brigade? Even BT themselves have a usage cap on their cheaper products.

I would love to see you try that argument to a judge.

Judge - So why did you not give a service fit for purpose?
Defendant - Because I was making no money, surely the need to make a profit comes before the law?
Judge - Not quite.

Nice to see you completely ignored my scenario points ignition, do you think this high utilisation issue is 1-2% or a much higher number like double digits? if its very low then to subsidise those areas to a acceptable service should be very possible. If its over 10% then I think its defenitly wrong to call it unexpected high usage and is a simple matter of selling something cant provide.

I am not sure why you keep going on about costs, trading standards as an example dont care one bit for such things. In basic transactions the seller offers something for a price, the buyer agrees to pay for it or doesnt. It is 100% up to the seller to ensure that price is enough to provide what they selling as fit for purpose and it makes them money.

You have gave no valid reason. VM do not have to sell unlimited 10mbit connections for the price they do. It is 100% their choice. They do not have to dish out retention deals to 10s if not 100s of thousands of people, again their choice. You have even said yourself that you think people bluff and would likely not leave anyway if retention deals were withdrawn, these things suck money out of the company. Someone who knows what they doing would budget for extra bandwidth in student areas from day 1, it would be taken into account for the price on the whole customer base.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Sorry, are you saying that Acks are a cause of congestion?

Do you know how large these are? 40 bytes. Per 1500 bytes downstream. It is impossible for them to cause congestion. Are you also aware of TurboDox and PHS, both functions which minimise TCP overheads on cable networks?

Video streaming isn't close to mainstream, very few people feel the need to display their lives online and the number of live webcams operating are minimal. P2P is still over 75% of all upstream traffic according to Arbor Networks.

Nothing stopping customers from going elsewhere if unhappy with the service.

In other words you have no evidence of your comment as it has not been tested.

You don't seem to appreciate how price sensitive most consumers are. We still see posts complaining about pricing both here and elsewhere.

Last I checked you are buying a can of lager with a fixed amount in it, 440ml, 500ml, 568ml.

VM describe everything as 'high utilisation' - they are hardly likely to say 'Yes we've put too many modems on the port.' High utilisation is a perfectly accurate description, it is after all the amount of utilisation on the port that causes issues, not the number of devices on it.

---------- Post added at 12:26 ---------- Previous post was at 12:12 ----------

I am working, which sadly leaves me little time to debate this.

I have given complete explanations, I am offering no excuses merely stating things as VM and every other cable company see them.

Your points of view on financial matters are rather unusual (asking companies to donate dividends from shares you own to charity for example), I'm being pragmatic. VM do what they do for a reason, I may not agree with it but they don't price their products low for their health and don't market them as they do for fun. I disagree with their advertising of unlimited but understand why they do it.

I have no idea what % of areas suffer utilisation issues, it will be single digits, more precisely than that I've no idea.

It is interesting that you complain about a 'one size fits all' contention ratio, while you also complain about VM charging too little when that 'one size fits all' price is perfectly adequate to pay for capacity to serve the vast majority of the customer base.

You want a 'one size fits all' contention ratio that's high enough to ensure that even areas with extremely high usage per active modem run perfectly, with a price to match. This is not a viable business model for them. Dropping contention down to the 10:1 or less that extremely heavy users require along with charging a price to match isn't an option, increasing prices to everyone to ensure that heavily utilised areas run without issue isn't an option and is unfair, expecting others to subsidise the heavy usage of the few is unfair.

You comment on limits, sure the FUP where they warn customers who are heavily using their services at peak times is a form of control?

As far as fit for purpose goes that's a matter of perspective. Many aren't working from a home office managing web servers via their connections and don't notice impact from a relatively minimal amount of jitter. Oddly I don't notice particularly even though my current connection's jitter is awful.

Pinging www.linx.net [195.66.232.53] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 195.66.232.53: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=51
Reply from 195.66.232.53: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=51
Reply from 195.66.232.53: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=51
Reply from 195.66.232.53: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=51

I'm not getting into a debate on the morality of this. You've made statements regarding goods being fit for purpose, etc, that are untested in this context. I'm not interested in how moral or otherwise it is for VM to allow certain nodes to become heavily utilised as I don't see it as an issue of morality. If people have issues with the service they can take their business elsewhere just as I did.

We cannot have the services we do at the prices we do and expect SLAs or performance guarantees. Even Comhem, who I am a huge fan of, on their speed guarantee merely lower prices to the next tier down if customers hit slow speeds and don't promise anything in terms of latency and jitter as well as only promising that the tier will outperform the next one down or 50% of maximum which in the case of their 100Mbit service means anything above 50.01Mbit they consider acceptable and anything over 100Mbit acceptable on their 200Mbit. Latency and jitter do not form a part of this performance guarantee, as they don't on any other cable service worldwide.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

most of what we have discussed is irrelevant, trading standards only care about if a product is fit for purpose, they dont care how much it costs the supplier or how much it is sold for.

You do seem to have a short memory, because when I mentioned not fit for purpose I am talking about web sites timing out, streams not working, speeds not close to claimed typical speeds. Not sure why you consider such a situation acceptable but you do certianly hold the financial needs of a company too highly. Gamers care for jitter but I guess in your corporate mindset they are irrelevant as its all about looking after the mass market web browsers. The odd ping of 40ms is not a major issue but pings varying in the 100s spiking to 1000s certianly is.

I am merely talking about maintaining standards to the point mainstream activities are useable, which isnt the case across VM's entire footprint. Advertised benefits of the service should all be useable.

Incidently if VM sold a broadband service with a low rated speed or 'no' rated speed, made no claims of typical speed, made no claims of how fast movies download, no claims of good for gaming then I would be abit more forgiving although it would still be debatable if areas like brighton have a service fit for purpose.

I know why they advertise as they do as they scared of churn, people are more concerned about customer count than profit. Again tho this is irrelevant. What fit for purpose is the subject, costs, profit all irrelevant, the only thing relevant is if the service is sold as advertised.

You right I could go elsewhere but it leaves 2 issues.

1 - they still getting away with it to other customers, this is my gripe, I dont have a "im alright jack" attitude, in fact right now my service is quite good, yet here I am still moaning for others who have a service not fit for purpose. A service fit for purpose is not 1:1 with SLA's so dont go overboard with what I am on about.
2 - the fact that the competition is all poor, the alternative for me is adsl where BT have not invested in my area at all and the service from any isp will be poor as a result. perhaps I should just keep hopping from company to company if I dont like any right?

The attitude's I see towards large business is shocking from some in this country. Ofcom telling isp's they can do what they want as long as they explain first to people they misselling products, BT getting away with phorm even tho the EU clearly stated its illegal what they did.

the fact is VM can fix issues it is within their control and some of their customers have a product not fit for purpose and as such VM have breached trading standard laws to those customers, the fact they havent been done for it doesnt make it ok. By that point of thinking if I burgle a house its fine as long as I am not caught. VM may make a bit less money by doing the right thing but thats life.

On my shares. one company is one I want to have a share for token value, in truth its a shocking investment and I am very unlikely to make a profit on it but like to own part of a F1 team. The other company I expect the shares to go up in value and is nice to get a say as a shareholder but considering whats going on in that company I was shocked when they allocated funds to dividends. My message was more to say put the house in order before giving out gifts, and the charity suggestion was if they really insist on sending it somewhere then send it to charity instead.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Don't think I ever suggested this was a consideration for TS, however given that you can't mention when TS have been involved in a case over broadband performance it could be said that they are irrelevant until such a time as things go that far.

I don't remember commenting on 'fit for purpose' beyond that it's a matter of perspective. You're looking to disagree with me for statements I didn't make. Too concerned by my 'corporate mindset' perhaps.

I largely agree, however it's all about the small print. Performance and suitability for any task cannot be guaranteed.

You would be forgiving, you'd also not have a cable ISP, they would be bankrupt. Whether we like it or not the potentially but not unequivocally massaged statistics say that the majority of VM's customer base have a service that is fit for purpose by any definition.

I never suggested anything about what makes 'fit for purpose' as such. Again you're tackling me on points I didn't make.

The comments on profit are actually perhaps not so valid given VM's recent financial results. I would have agreed with you but the numbers suggest otherwise.

I wasn't actually talking about you, my exact words were 'customers' not 'you' or 'Chrysalis'. If you wish to be some kind of broadband consumer champion that is, of course, your prerogative, however customers can most certainly leave if they choose to.

That's what we do with every other privately delivered product if we don't like our current service. If a company fails why reward this failure with continued custom?

I agree with many of the issues around ISP advertising. I entirely reject the EU's opinion on the Phorm issue, we're allegedly still a sovereign nation not some subservient state of the EU so their 'opinion' is entirely irrelevant. It was also as far as I'm aware not legally binding.

Which trading standards laws would VM be breaking with areas that are oversubscribed?

Most companies don't exist to 'do the right thing'. That's not what a profit making enterprise is in business for, it's not why most investors invest. They have a fiduciary duty to supply the highest possible return to their shareholders. They have a legal duty to obey the relevant laws in the jurisdictions in which they trade.

Dividends aren't 'gifts'. They increase share price and encourage further investment in companies. Do you think that pension funds and other long term investments are constantly trading every share in order to make payouts? No, a goodly part of their income is from the steady flow of dividend payments. In addition these dividends both incentivise further investment by offering a regular return and incentivise holding onto the shares for longer term reducing volatility.

On the one hand you complain about companies being money obsessed on the other you think they hand out 'gifts' presumably out of the goodness of their black corporate hearts. Interesting.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

fair point on the dividends I guess although it seemed bizarre to me to pay them out at the back of a poor year. Probably to give an illusion to shareholders things werent that bad.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

In the case of underperforming companies it's basically to bribe shareholders into not selling the stock wholesale, further pushing the price down.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

I'm just struggling to see how VM isn't "fit for purpose" when they make no guarantees over the service they provide.

Chrysalis' entire argument seems to revolve around that, yet I'm not seeing where VM are falling down on their obligations.
They sell you an internet connection that is capable of up to a certain speed. There is no doubt that they do this. Your connection, barring faults, is capable of reaching the speed you subscribe to.

They at no point say you'll ever actually get that speed though, there is no SLA. If you can connect to the internet and your connection stays up then guess what, they're fulfilling their obligations to you.

It's up to you as a consumer to then decide if the service you get from that is actually worth paying for. Maybe in some areas it isn't, in which case, go elsewhere.

To expect VM to throw money at the network to subsidise high usage areas is frankly crazy. No company in their right mind would throw good money after bad. They are there to make a profit. VM are in enough debt as it is without them having to lose money on areas like that.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

thedon the basic defenition of broadband suggests it is capable of certian things.

so in your view if a broadband connection cannot even load websites properly, cannot use any multimedia sites without issues and is useless for gaming it is still fit for purpose?

Also VM do make various claims on their website that their service is capable of certian things.

My argument is not around any guarantuees as such but one would expect basic internet applications to work.

Doubt me? ask trading standards yourself, its the responsibility of the seller to provide what they selling as fit for purpose.

The speed is a grey area which is why I am not saying much on it, my point is regarding things like iplayer, web browsing and gaming working.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

According to Wikipedia the term has never been formally defined but I think the term is commonly used to refer to any speed over 256k; unless someone else knows any better?

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

incidently again today there has been evident congestion on my link, however I only noticed it by checking my latency data.

That I am not calling unfit for purpose even tho it probably would affect gaming, I am talking about people with extreme issues where basic useability is affected.

The official defenition of broadband to be honest I dont know as there is variations of it from different people, ooriginally it was around 256kbit but some countries certianly have it set at a higher level now. Not sure about the uk tho. However if things like websites dont even load properly, things like iplayer dont work even tho it may be possible to push 256kbit down the line it would likely be considered not fit for purpose.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Always on and >128kbps downstream satisfies Ofcom. Ridiculous and out of date of course but it makes them look good on the international statistics.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Damn! I was going to say 128 to start with :(

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Web browsing will work except when due to faults even in the most heavily congested areas. Sure it might be a tad slow, but it'll work.
Gaming, isn't something that's required for broadband, if it was then satellite broadband wouldn't be fit for purpose either.

Streaming services being usable isn't really a metric used for if a broadband service is fit for purpose either, where would you draw the line? at what bitrate stream? Do you have to be able to view the HD streams? Or is it ok to view the lowest quality one? What about the lowest speed broadband, is that not fit for purpose because it's not capable of streaming video, even though it meets ofcoms speed requirements to be called broadband? Or adsl in rural areas? Is that not fit for purpose because you can't get a fast enough speed because your lines 200 miles long and made of string?

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

Web browsing didnt work for me in january 2011 and part of february, I often had to refresh pages due to missing images, it also got extremely slow at times rather than a tad slow. Also the same issue back in spring 2010 when I first got VM, and still on the legacy docsis port.

If a particular isp claims its suitable for gaming (VM do) then if gaming doesnt work it makes their service not fit for purpose because of that claim, sattelite isps dont claim to be suitable for gaming so they are not guilty. Here is a quote from a sattelite isp. Note the honesty.

quote from VM.

So VM wants people to signup for gaming, if they didnt they wouldnt have that quote, so they are signing up some customers on the basis that the service will be fine for gaming. For many customers it probably is and is no issue, but some customers it clearly is not.

I was told by trading standards they would look at the service sold and in the case of adsl isps the speed the customer was told at the point of sale would be used and then look at what videos would be reasonable to expect to work on such a service, VM's lowest tier should handle things like iplayer without even breaking a sweat. The exception would be if VM specifically warned the customer at point of sale that the service was not suitable for such usage. What I do know is when I specifically told trading standards youtube and iplayer was not working on my 20mbit connection they didnt even hesitate in telling me it was not fit for purpose, I wasnt even put on hold, they were very confident in what they were telling me. I expect having had to give out the previous answer to someone else beforehand so was probably something already looked into.

Re: Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...
 

@Discussion on page 3 - Broadband should be any speed higher than 56k :P That is how I always looked at it.

C&W first had 128kb/s lines at one point, nobody was really interested in the price and the speed being only really 3 times as quick as dial up, then Telewest appeared and started the 256kb/s lines which did start well... and then 512 and 1mb etc.