OFCOM Broadband Survey Results November 2011

[BenMcr]

It's that time again

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16842463

Virgin Media's "up to" 50Mbps cable deal was the fastest surveyed offering average download speeds of nearly 49Mbps. The firm's 100Mbps service was not included in the research

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02...speeds_report/

Ofcom found that Virgin Media's fibre-based "up to" 50Mbit/s package had average download speeds of around 49Mbit/s, while BT's Infinity product recorded average download speeds of around 36Mbit/s. Infinity also had the highest average upload speed of all the ISPs – at 8.8Mbit/s

OFCOM link here http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/mar...-speeds-nov-11

[New to cable]

Lucky for me then, I have this amazing 50Mb product from Virginmedia.

Although I have to use my ADSL line to play xboxlive or watch 1080p Youtube videos after 6pm. Even luckier for me I signed up in December 2010 so I'm out of contract in 4 months.

Originally Posted by New to cable

Lucky for me then, I have this amazing 50Mb product from Virginmedia.

Although I have to use my ADSL line to play xboxlive or watch 1080p Youtube videos after 6pm. Even luckier for me I signed up in December 2010 so I'm out of contract in 4 months.

It means that you are not an average 50Mb Virgin Media user.It also means that the majority of VM 50MB users surveyed are achieving good download speeds and are getting a good service and are satisfied with what they are getting.

I hope you find a better provider when your contract is finished.I suspect you will find plenty of advice from others on this site as to what that provider may be.

[Alan Fry]

Why was the VM 100Mbps service was not included in the research?

---------- Post added at 12:34 ---------- Previous post was at 12:33 ----------

Proof that Virgin has still got the best Broadband!

[pabscars]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

It means that you are not an average 50Mb Virgin Media user.It also means that the majority of VM 50MB users surveyed are achieving good download speeds and are getting a good service and are satisfied with what they are getting.

I hope you find a better provider when your contract is finished.I suspect you will find plenty of advice from others on this site as to what that provider may be.

Frustrated comments by people with more than inferior VM broadband are inevitable when they read result's like this Maggy, as it just rubs their noses in it. However what I would like to see from the VM results is just how many areas during the testing periods suffered from over subbing/utilisation, as I suspect they probably didn't. which in real terms may paint a considerably different picture.

I tried putting my name down for being a tester a few times when I was on VM's 50Mbps BB but due to my area being at the time very hit and miss, I didn't get a look in.

It kind of left me thinking that ISP's (not just VM) cherry pick the decent areas to paint them in a much better light than they actually are, rendering results like this as useless IMO.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by New to cable

Lucky for me then, I have this amazing 50Mb product from Virginmedia.

Although I have to use my ADSL line to play xboxlive or watch 1080p Youtube videos after 6pm. Even luckier for me I signed up in December 2010 so I'm out of contract in 4 months.

Lucky for me then, I have there amazing 100Mb product from Virginmedia.

And i have never had to use a ADSL line to play xboxlive or watch 1080p YouTube videos after 6pm because it works. Even luckier for me I signed up in 1996 so I'm out of contract but i will be staying with them because my broadband WORKS.

---------- Post added at 13:03 ---------- Previous post was at 13:02 ----------

Originally Posted by pabscars

It kind of left me thinking that ISP's (not just VM) cherry pick the decent areas to paint them in a much better light than they actually are, rendering results like this as useless IMO.

My area is full of students from the college so you would think it would be massively hit ?

Originally Posted by pabscars

Frustrated comments by people with more than inferior VM broadband are inevitable when they read result's like this Maggy, as it just rubs their noses in it. However what I would like to see from the VM results is just how many areas during the testing periods suffered from over subbing/utilisation, as I suspect they probably didn't. which in real terms may paint a considerably different picture.

I tried putting my name down for being a tester a few times when I was on VM's 50Mbps BB but due to my area being at the time very hit and miss, I didn't get a look in.

It kind of left me thinking that ISP's (not just VM) cherry pick the decent areas to paint them in a much better light than they actually are, rendering results like this as useless IMO.

Well I am a satisfied average 10Mb user who gets near as dammit to 10Mbs most days so I know it's possible.I suspect that the majority of VM customers get a speed they are happy with most of the time.
Those that don't should just move on to a better provider IMHO.It's not as if there isn't plenty of choice of providers.

[Alan Fry]

The 100Mbps service is very good! Best Broadband I have ever had!

[qasdfdsaq]

And the bigger picture, analyzed from a point of view other than the haze of VM's "uber duper fibre optic super" marketing, important points bolded for emphasis.

First of all, the report is based on Samknows' broadband speed testing hardware and technology. As such, most speed-related tests only measure download speed from certain fixed targets and not all-round performance. It is well know that VM run certain peering links at close to or at maximum capacity causing performance problems to/from certain destinations while others are fine (Youtube is a commonly reported issue). Hence, just because you get a 50mb download test doesn't mean you'll get 50mb from the site you want to. The tests purposefully exclude heavy users and congested areas, and therefore somewhat bias VM by excluding anyone whose connection speeds would be regularly reduced by STM - a technique other networks do not employ.

OK, let's begin.

95% of consumers are still on 24mb or lower connections - i.e. less than 5% are on FTTC, FTTP, VM 30mb, 50mb and 100mb combined. (1.2)

The average speed of VM's 50mb product has actually fallen compared to the previous six months - though not in a statistically significant manner, and are still much higher than a year or two ago. Yet it is now exactly equal to BT FTTC as a proportion of provisioned speed. (1.3) The argument that you get more of the speed you pay for on cable (vs. xDSL) is no longer completely true in reference to VDSL.

Average speeds have decreased on most VM packages from May to Nov 2011, while on xDSL products it has improved in all bands.

BT FTTC performance ("the competition") has improved drastically over the last 6-12 months, particularly at peak times. (1.4)

The average BT "fibre optic" connection is over 2.5x as fast than the average VM "fibre optic" connection. (1.5)

Over 50% of customers receive at least 95% of their advertised speed on both cable and FTTC. The 25th percentile on FTTC is only 2% lower as a proportion of provisioned speed vs 50mbit VM cable. (1.6)

VM cable still loses almost twice as much of their peak speed at busy times compared to BT FTTC. FTTC customers lose barely 4% at peak time, VM 10mb customers lose 10%, 30mb lose 4.5% and 50mb customers lose 9% (1.7). In spite of having the highest headline speeds, VM connections also still suffer the highest congestion.

Again, BT's 20 and 40mb packages improved significantly over the last 6-12 months, none of VM's 10, 30 or 50mb packages showed any such improvement. In other words, download speeds on BT are catching up fast (and considerably beat all but VM's 50mb and 100mb services). (2.6 & 2.9)

In terms of upload speed, 40/10 FTTC's actual performance is considerably higher than any of VM's packages surveyed. Actual performance of BT Infinity is 30% slower download but over 80% faster upload than the fastest VM connection surveyed. (2.15)

VM cable also still has the highest difference between peak speed and average speed than FTTC - again and indicator of susceptibility to congestion. (4-6) Contention and congestion on FTTC is still far lower than on VM.

Both average and peak time website loading speeds are faster on BT FTTC than any of VM's packages - including 50mb. Both VM 30mb and 50mb get slower at peak times, while BT FTTC actually gets faster (34). Even with a slower download speed, actually opening web pages is around 20% faster on BT 40mb than VM 50mb.

Average latency (ping) is lower on BT's 40mb than on any of VM's packages surveyed (including 10, 20 and 50mb). (36 & 40). Along with much faster upload speeds, this makes FTTC much better for gaming than VM, contrary to VM's claims. Also, latency on VM is roughly the same regardless of whether you're on 10, 30, or 50mb. Upgrading to a "faster" cable connection won't improve your gaming latency at all.

The increase in ping at peak times is much higher on VM than on FTTC. In other words, another sign of congestion on VM's network (36 & 40) and another red mark on VM's gaming performance.

Packet loss on VM still remains higher than the competition, though the differences are much smaller now on higher tiers. Despite this, packet loss on VM is still up to 2-3x higher than some of the competition (e.g. BT, Sky) across all tiers, particularly worse at peak times. (42 & 46)

VM's use of anycast DNS used to give them faster DNS lookup times than everyone else, but BT Infinity is now even faster (52). DNS lookup times on BT FTTC are 30% faster than on VM. Along with lower latency, this explains why websites load faster on BT than VM even when you pay for "more speed" from VM.

Jitter, another measure of gaming and VOIP performance related to latency, is still 2-4x worse on all VM services than even 8mbps DSL. Upstream jitter on VM is ten to twenty times worse than on BT FTTC. (64) Downstream jitter on VM is significantly worse than the competition on the 10mb package, but not significantly different on 30 or 50mb. (70)

Again though, rather oddly BT FTTC's performance (in terms of jitter) actually improves at peak times, while VM's gets considerably worse (64 & 70).

That brings us to the end of my analysis of the results. As a disclaimer, yes these are a very selective and polarized view, but someone has to take the opposite of "VM has got the best".

As an overall analysis of all the metrics above, VM only win outright in terms of peak download speeds. In all other measures they are now worse than BT Infinity, partly because BT Infinity has improved drastically while VM's service(s) have not. As a consequence, anything aside from downloading large files is unlikely to perform better on VM. Even actual web browsing is faster on BT 40mbit than VM 50mbit.

[pabscars]

Originally Posted by Sirius

My area is full of students from the college so you would think it would be massively hit ?

In all fairness you would, given we don't live that far from one another (and given the fact you don't seem to get any major issues) it's not implausible my issues with VM broadband to have been just local, eg too many homes passed per node.

Back on topic , it's a nice result for VM non the less, I'm just a little sceptical on anything OFCOM get involved with.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by pabscars

Frustrated comments by people with more than inferior VM broadband are inevitable when they read result's like this Maggy, as it just rubs their noses in it. However what I would like to see from the VM results is just how many areas during the testing periods suffered from over subbing/utilisation, as I suspect they probably didn't. which in real terms may paint a considerably different picture.

It's not VM that cherry picks, Samknows who recruit the panellists reject any applications from oversubbed areas, they also reject anyone other than extremely light users, which already biases against heavily used areas even if they didn't explicitly reject them too

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

And the bigger picture, analyzed from a point of view other than the haze of VM's "uber duper fibre optic super" marketing, important points bolded for emphasis.

First of all, the report is based on Samknows' broadband speed testing hardware and technology. As such, most speed-related tests only measure download speed from certain fixed targets and not all-round performance. It is well know that VM run certain peering links at close to or at maximum capacity causing performance problems to/from certain destinations while others are fine (Youtube is a commonly reported issue). Hence, just because you get a 50mb download test doesn't mean you'll get 50mb from the site you want to. The tests purposefully exclude heavy users and congested areas, and therefore somewhat bias VM by excluding anyone whose connection speeds would be regularly reduced by STM - a technique other networks do not employ.

OK, let's begin.

95% of consumers are still on 24mb or lower connections - i.e. less than 5% are on FTTC, FTTP, VM 30mb, 50mb and 100mb combined. (1.2)

The average speed of VM's 50mb product has actually fallen compared to the previous six months - though not in a statistically significant manner, and are still much higher than a year or two ago. Yet it is now exactly equal to BT FTTC as a proportion of provisioned speed. (1.3) The argument that you get more of the speed you pay for on cable (vs. xDSL) is no longer completely true in reference to VDSL.

Average speeds have decreased on most VM packages from May to Nov 2011, while on xDSL products it has improved in all bands.

BT FTTC performance ("the competition") has improved drastically over the last 6-12 months, particularly at peak times. (1.4)

The average BT "fibre optic" connection is over 2.5x as fast than the average VM "fibre optic" connection. (1.5)

Over 50% of customers receive at least 95% of their advertised speed on both cable and FTTC. The 25th percentile on FTTC is only 2% lower as a proportion of provisioned speed vs 50mbit VM cable. (1.6)

VM cable still loses almost twice as much of their peak speed at busy times compared to BT FTTC. FTTC customers lose barely 4% at peak time, VM 10mb customers lose 10%, 30mb lose 4.5% and 50mb customers lose 9% (1.7). In spite of having the highest headline speeds, VM connections also still suffer the highest congestion.

Again, BT's 20 and 40mb packages improved significantly over the last 6-12 months, none of VM's 10, 30 or 50mb packages showed any such improvement. In other words, download speeds on BT are catching up fast (and considerably beat all but VM's 50mb and 100mb services). (2.6 & 2.9)

In terms of upload speed, 40/10 FTTC's actual performance is considerably higher than any of VM's packages surveyed. Actual performance of BT Infinity is 30% slower download but over 80% faster upload than the fastest VM connection surveyed. (2.15)

VM cable also still has the highest difference between peak speed and average speed than FTTC - again and indicator of susceptibility to congestion. (4-6) Contention and congestion on FTTC is still far lower than on VM.

Both average and peak time website loading speeds are faster on BT FTTC than any of VM's packages - including 50mb. Both VM 30mb and 50mb get slower at peak times, while BT FTTC actually gets faster (34). Even with a slower download speed, actually opening web pages is around 20% faster on BT 40mb than VM 50mb.

Average latency (ping) is lower on BT's 40mb than on any of VM's packages surveyed (including 10, 20 and 50mb). (36 & 40). Along with much faster upload speeds, this makes FTTC much better for gaming than VM, contrary to VM's claims. Also, latency on VM is roughly the same regardless of whether you're on 10, 30, or 50mb. Upgrading to a "faster" cable connection won't improve your gaming latency at all.

The increase in ping at peak times is much higher on VM than on FTTC. In other words, another sign of congestion on VM's network (36 & 40) and another red mark on VM's gaming performance.

Packet loss on VM still remains higher than the competition, though the differences are much smaller now on higher tiers. Despite this, packet loss on VM is still up to 2-3x higher than some of the competition (e.g. BT, Sky) across all tiers, particularly worse at peak times. (42 & 46)

VM's use of anycast DNS used to give them faster DNS lookup times than everyone else, but BT Infinity is now even faster (52). DNS lookup times on BT FTTC are 30% faster than on VM. Along with lower latency, this explains why websites load faster on BT than VM even when you pay for "more speed" from VM.

Jitter, another measure of gaming and VOIP performance related to latency, is still 2-4x worse on all VM services than even 8mbps DSL. Upstream jitter on VM is ten to twenty times worse than on BT FTTC. (64) Downstream jitter on VM is significantly worse than the competition on the 10mb package, but not significantly different on 30 or 50mb. (70)

Again though, rather oddly BT FTTC's performance (in terms of jitter) actually improves at peak times, while VM's gets considerably worse (64 & 70).

That brings us to the end of my analysis of the results. As a disclaimer, yes these are a very selective and polarized view, but someone has to take the opposite of "VM has got the best".

As an overall analysis of all the metrics above, VM only win outright in terms of peak download speeds. In all other measures they are now worse than BT Infinity, partly because BT Infinity has improved drastically while VM's service(s) have not. As a consequence, anything aside from downloading large files is unlikely to perform better on VM. Even actual web browsing is faster on BT 40mbit than VM 50mbit.

You are right, Virgin need to improve their broadband speed and coverage because of the rise of BT Infinity and the fact the Sky will soon be using it!

[pabscars]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Well I am a satisfied average 10Mb user who gets near as dammit to 10Mbs most days so I know it's possible.I suspect that the majority of VM customers get a speed they are happy with most of the time.
Those that don't should just move on to a better provider IMHO.It's not as if there isn't plenty of choice of providers.

Your dead right and I couldn't agree more, which is exactly what I did, granted it took a while and I did moan like an old man with ADHD for a while but I got over it.

I would certainly consider moving back to VM, once they get the quality issues under control.

---------- Post added at 14:32 ---------- Previous post was at 14:13 ----------

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

It's not VM that cherry picks, Samknows who recruit the panellists reject any applications from oversubbed areas, they also reject anyone other than extremely light users, which already biases against heavily used areas even if they didn't explicitly reject them too

As I suspected just in a different way

But how do Samknows know which areas to avoid in the first place

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by pabscars

But how do Samknows know which areas to avoid in the first place

Who knows, I have been a Sam knows tester for 2 years now and i am a very heavy user and additionally i live in a student area ?

[New to cable]

Originally Posted by Sirius

Who knows, I have been a Sam knows tester for 2 years now and i am a very heavy user and additionally i live in a student area ?

You work for Virginmedia though don't you?

Do you know how much say Virginmedia have in choosing who gets a Samknows box?

Also I know Virginmedia fund Sam-Knows but does anyone know who much they give them?