It's Official...VM are the fastest!

[synner]

Originally Posted by m419

In response to the doomsayers.

Like I said Cable Broadband is still technically under construction and i'm sorry but you'll just have to wait a little longer, try asking for 20MB speed from BT,Tiscali,Sky or Orange, you won't get any faster 3MB!!!

That is rubbish.

I have a really REALLY poor BT line which has characteristics of a 6km line (is in fact just over 3km but an inconvenient West Coast Mainline causes no end of problems) and can get a minimum on 4.2Mb sync speed.

My wonderful fibre optic 10Mb broadband from VM however is currently peaking at 3Mb due to the oversubscription of my UBR which was reported in September 2007 and STILL hasn't been upgraded..

What was that you were saying about VM leading the way....?

Bri

[smee init]

Hi guys, I have to stick up for VM because I have a 20Mb line and my connection speed has never gone below 18Mb and upload is always dead on 768Kb all the time and when ever I am on xbox playing COD4 I am always made the host even when more of players are American and to be honest I have only ever had a problem with VM services when I have a power cut so for this I take my hat off to them.

I dont doubt people have a great service from Virgin Media I just want my fast cable connection back

[smee init]

Originally Posted by darthlinux

I dont doubt people have a great service from Virgin Media I just want my fast cable connection back

Then you will have to ask them nicely lol

I have done for over a year but got some peeps working on the case for me

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by m419

In response to the doomsayers.

Like I said Cable Broadband is still technically under construction and i'm sorry but you'll just have to wait a little longer, try asking for 20MB speed from BT,Tiscali,Sky or Orange, you won't get any faster 3MB!!!

Pants must have been imagining things when getting 20 / 2.5Mbit over DSL.

I'm also aware that Dolphin Square is completely upgraded and all 3 services are available there.

Downgraded you mean surely, they had 100Mbit point to point fibre to the home there before it was replaced with standard cable.

I'm interested in your assertion that supplying broadband is doable while digital TV is not in some areas also, could you explain the rationale behind this?

[weesteev]

After reading these posts i thought I would throw in my own 2p

The upstream launch with Broadband Size XXL of only 1.5Mb is nothing to do with core capactiy but more to do with the "pre cert" headend gear. The initial trial of upstream channel binding was done with Arris CMTS equipment which is silver cdertified DOCSIS 3 and allows upstream channel bonding. I believe 4.5Mbps upload was tested at this phase by bonding three channels together.

The equipment that has passed standard is the Cisco 10k series uBR chassis, both Docsis and Eurodocsis standards are being trialled currently and wil no doubt be franchise specific upon completion.

The modem that is being supplied will be the rather sexy lookig Ambit VMNG 300 Docsis 3 modem. It is very different to current modems and is a matte polished finish to bring it inline with more modern equipment (think playstation 3).

And as for the initial post comments, the news that Virgin is the fastest doesnt come as a surprise but please bear the following factors in mind...

• Virgins total speed is calculated on all three broadband tiers (2mb, 10mb and 20mb). Considering that 2.4million of its customers use 2Mb, thats quite an impressive result to have!
• Faster speeds have inherent problems for all networks, how many non PC enthusiasts have high speed broadband from "legacy" cable days and may not have the PC (or modem) to support such a fast speed.
• The speed tests dont take how the testers connect to the internet, the avergae wireless user will be "G" based, severley restricting most speed test results.

So overall, speed test sites are rubbish! They will never give you an varying result of your speed! If you want to judge your speed then use a newsgroup server and download large files to judge your true speed.

Discuss ?

Originally Posted by weesteev

...Virgins total speed is calculated on all three broadband tiers (2mb, 10mb and 20mb). Considering that 2.4million of its customers use 2Mb, thats quite an impressive result to have!...

2.4 million out of a total of ???

Unless we know the total number of subscribers, it's a bit hard to judge.

Also, I would guess that the subscribers on the higher tiers are more likely to use speed tests to see if they are getting their mony's worth. Subscibers on the 2Mbps tier are probably not as interested in downloading large amounts as those on the 10 or 20Mbps tiers, so wouldn't be interested in checking their speeds.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by weesteev

The upstream launch with Broadband Size XXL of only 1.5Mb is nothing to do with core capactiy but more to do with the "pre cert" headend gear. The initial trial of upstream channel binding was done with Arris CMTS equipment which is silver cdertified DOCSIS 3 and allows upstream channel bonding. I believe 4.5Mbps upload was tested at this phase by bonding three channels together.

As I remember 5 or 6Mbit was tested. It's also no excuse, having seen 5 and 8Mbit offered on unbonded upstreams.

In any case as was mentioned here apparently VM are only using a single upstream for the 10k initially due to being somewhat spectrally challenged in areas so bonding is a non-issue.

The equipment that has passed standard is the Cisco 10k series uBR chassis, both Docsis and Eurodocsis standards are being trialled currently and wil no doubt be franchise specific upon completion.

It'll all be EuroDOCSIS. Virtually all modems on 20Mbit will be dual-mode so would be a waste of bandwidth to run with DOCSIS. Modems that aren't EuroDOCSIS just won't end up on the 10k.

The modem that is being supplied will be the rather sexy lookig Ambit VMNG 300 Docsis 3 modem. It is very different to current modems and is a matte polished finish to bring it inline with more modern equipment (think playstation 3).

So long as it works that's all good, though not sure about calling it the 'VMNG', PR even on the modem, bleh.

Virgins total speed is calculated on all three broadband tiers (2mb, 10mb and 20mb). Considering that 2.4million of its customers use 2Mb, thats quite an impressive result to have!

Without knowing the breakdown of customers using the speedtests it's impossible to say how impressive or otherwise that is. Going by another website quoted by VM in the past the average speed on 20Mbit is just over 6Mbit.

Faster speeds have inherent problems for all networks, how many non PC enthusiasts have high speed broadband from "legacy" cable days and may not have the PC (or modem) to support such a fast speed.

They should have modems that run just fine for speeds, and a speedtest really doesn't stress any PC to run, a hard drive that can't write at 2.4MB/s is in real strife. This will also affect all operators equally.

The speed tests dont take how the testers connect to the internet, the avergae wireless user will be "G" based, severley restricting most speed test results.

As will this

So overall, speed test sites are rubbish! They will never give you an varying result of your speed! If you want to judge your speed then use a newsgroup server and download large files to judge your true speed.

Discuss ?

Newsgroups will give an even worse result on an old PC due to the stress of having to decode the stuff coming down. Wireless restricts newsgroups equally.

The only way to really test is to connect directly to a modem with a shiny new PC and have a dedicated link.

I am not really that surprised that VM might score well in a speedtest, however one would question whether it's something to be proud of when you're the only ISP in the country that doesn't have distance limitations on the service they can provide, and are only on average delivering your top tier of customer 36% of their line rate, about 1% higher than your copper based competition. Hyping yourself and your fibre optic broadband to death and being matched and in some cases beaten by the DSL crowd isn't good.

I wonder how much higher the speed test results would have been without STM in place

[piggy]

theres quite a lot of posturing goin on.......goes to get popcorn

[Sambora]

Seems VirginMedia are pushing the Speedtest sites to tidy up their act

VirginMedia and Speedtests

[Ignitionnet]

Maybe VM should get their own speed tester online if they don't think the current ones are adequate. I note they cite speedtest data in their advertisements.

I have achieved accurate speed tests on 100Mbit via thinkbroadband and bbmax.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Sambora

Seems VirginMedia are pushing the Speedtest sites to tidy up their act

VirginMedia and Speedtests

Virgin recommend customers to use http://gamefiles.blueyonder.co.uk/ for speedtests. and even then you don't get half decent speeds sometimes. and that's on their own network!

them saying speedtest sites are making their speeds seem slow, is just a load of crap and they know it.
they're saying that they don't reflect the true speed of a 50Mb connection. they haven't even got a 50Mb connection available yet to even moan about. and the 20Mb they have got available has already been proved to be a lot slower than 20Mb anyway. unbelievable that they're trying to put the reason for this on speedtest sites. it really is.

they should set up their own speedtest instead of moaning about others. then we can all see the true results of a congested network that has STM.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by Gary L

they should set up their own speedtest instead of moaning about others. then we can all see the true results of a congested network that has STM.

Yes, and if the results are positive you'll shout foul I'll wager.

Look, even the testing sites know there are limitations to these tests, they openly admit it.

Many on here, myself included have regularly advised that these small packet test sites give anecdotal results at best, but don't take my word for it.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/news/EkkFZEFpFkRzxYVcDK.html

Virgin Media has informed us that the operator intends to launch an interesting new monthly broadband speed test programme, which will measure the accuracy of major speedtest sites with its forthcoming 50Mbps service.

The reasoning behind this is certainly sound because many consumers may not realise that Virgin's service is capable of going faster than the testers own server. ISPreview's own tester points out that accuracy above 8Mbps will diminish because the web server simply wouldn't be able to keep up.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Toto

Yes, and if the results are positive you'll shout foul I'll wager.

The results wouldn't be positive so there's not a chance of me crying foul.
I am going to suggest that they set up their own speedtest, and would recommend that they advertise it as being there. I can only hope they don't say it's a bad idea.