Cable Forum - View Single Post - 125M News: VM Possible Future 200mbps or Higher

KingDaveRa · 02-08-2012, 20:50

Unfortunately, I think Virgin, Sky and BT have got themselves into a ****ing contests with speeds, and it's just turning into constant one-upmanship. Unfortunately, I don't think it's for the customer's benefit. They could all do with stopping for a while and sorting out some of the basics first, like the core network, and the upload speed. But, there's no perceived benefit of that to the average customer.

I've often found average home users don't even notice an intermittent connection, let alone a connection that doesn't quite deliver the advertised speeds. As long as they can get to the stuff they want, and it basically works (i.e. iPlayer doesn't stutter, Youtube works, Facebook loads, etc), then they are happy.

It's power users who get their new connection, then run off to speedtest.net and check the speed, or check their ping, or whatever. Measurable metrics which will show up a problem instantly, but aren't immediately obvious. I've noticed horribly slow connections, but it still 'works' so there's no issue to the user.

Virgin can play a numbers game all they like, but they need the back-end infrastructure to support it, and I worry they might be putting the cart before the horses here.

02-08-2012, 20:50	#11
KingDaveRa Inactive Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Aylesbury, Bucks Age: 43 Services: Broadband Gamer, Phone M, Tivo V6. Posts: 269	Re: News: VM Possible Future 200mbps or Higher Unfortunately, I think Virgin, Sky and BT have got themselves into a ****ing contests with speeds, and it's just turning into constant one-upmanship. Unfortunately, I don't think it's for the customer's benefit. They could all do with stopping for a while and sorting out some of the basics first, like the core network, and the upload speed. But, there's no perceived benefit of that to the average customer. I've often found average home users don't even notice an intermittent connection, let alone a connection that doesn't quite deliver the advertised speeds. As long as they can get to the stuff they want, and it basically works (i.e. iPlayer doesn't stutter, Youtube works, Facebook loads, etc), then they are happy. It's power users who get their new connection, then run off to speedtest.net and check the speed, or check their ping, or whatever. Measurable metrics which will show up a problem instantly, but aren't immediately obvious. I've noticed horribly slow connections, but it still 'works' so there's no issue to the user. Virgin can play a numbers game all they like, but they need the back-end infrastructure to support it, and I worry they might be putting the cart before the horses here.