Cant Quite Grasp something

[Welshchris]

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.

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.

[frogstamper]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

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.

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.

[Cobbydaler]

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...

[saabmania2]

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

[ceedee]

Originally Posted by Cobbydaler

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...

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

[Welshchris]

Originally Posted by ceedee

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

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

[ceedee]

Originally Posted by Welshchris

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

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

[frogstamper]

Originally Posted by Welshchris

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

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.

[Mick Fisher]

Originally Posted by Welshchris

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.

.

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.

[loki]

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

[ceedee]

Originally Posted by Mick Fisher

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

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...

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?

[Mick Fisher]

Originally Posted by ceedee

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...

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?

Or just plain underfunded, undermanned and disillusioned.

[ceedee]

Originally Posted by Mick Fisher

Or just plain underfunded, undermanned and disillusioned.

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!)

[Berealwith]

Originally Posted by frogstamper

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.

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