Quote:
Originally Posted by zantarous
So people haven't flocked to the 50MB and your suggesting a even faster service with an even high price point that even less people will flock to?
Virgin have been good in the past with getting rid of 2 and 4MB services. No reason why they shouldn't continue to do this, especially if they made 20MB the entry level connection, they could crush the competition. Especially with BT adding fibre to areas where Virgin probably operate.
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They don't care that people haven't flocked to it, it is mostly a marketing thing to say they are faster.
20Mbit won't be the entry level connection for a while, 2 was only upgraded to 10 last year and that was as a belated response to ADSL services going to a default speed of 'up to' 8Mbit. 10Mbit remains faster than the average UK connection so zero incentive to phase it out.
BT adding fibre to about 30% of the areas Virgin operate by 2012 is only really going to affect the top end, ISPs aren't going to do an en masse migration of all their users to 40Mbit for the same price as they pay now for an average of 6 - 8Mbit.
Or they could of course just offer overcontended and under-engineered networks for as low a price point as possible. Forget quality let's save a few quid, can always have a good moan when the corners cut to bring that price point come home to roost like they have with the 50Mbit overlay network and its' upstream congestion.
Virgin would quite like to make some money as well as 'crush' the competition. Upgrading 20 to 50 leaves margins a bit sharp, not least because it would require the replacement of over half a million cable modems.
VM reported a very good quarter for broadband additions. Evidently not so uncompetitive.