120M Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014 - Page 67

General Maximus · 02-06-2014, 15:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenMcr

The majority of customers for this upgrade require a kit change from a D2 modem to a SuperHub

I thought all that was taken care of last year when they did the speed doubling?

BenMcr · 02-06-2014, 16:10

Ok, it might be the case that the majority may now be on D3 kit due to changes since the first upgrades were announced, but for the last upgrades it was mainly those on XL who actually went from D2 to D3 kit.

Everyone else either went from 10Mbit > 20Mbit or were already on D3 kit, but this time around everyone on M and L need D3 kit to get 50Mbit, which would still expect to be more than needed swap outs last time around.

General Maximus · 02-06-2014, 18:18

cool, if VM were super smart and planned properly they would swap out all existing cpe with shub2s. I know they are millions of customers but if the speed upgrades are just going to go on and on and there is a two year rollout schedule then it would be worth doing.

BenMcr · 02-06-2014, 19:13

Anyone that needs a SuperHub as part of the upgrades gets a SH2. That includes people with a VMNG300 going to 152Mbit.

However VM aren't going to swap out the SH1 just for the sake of it. It wouldn't be cost effective

qasdfdsaq · 02-06-2014, 20:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenMcr

The majority of customers for this upgrade require a kit change from a D2 modem to a SuperHub. So they have to choose to do that and when they want the delivery. To make sure it's consistent and fair, everyone follows the same process even if you've already got the required kit i.e. you opt into the upgrade.

No they don't.

Unless VM were lying about "the majority of customers" already being on a 30Mbps+ DOCSIS3 only tariff.

---------- Post added at 19:54 ---------- Previous post was at 19:53 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by General Maximus

I thought all that was taken care of last year when they did the speed doubling?

It was

Kushan · 02-06-2014, 21:12

No, with the speed doubling, loads of people were left on DOCSIS2 equipment because Virgin didn't offer a FREE upgrade to 30Mbit, you had to pay I think a one-off fee of £30 or something to get a Superhub.

Anyone on 10 (M/L) only went to 20 unless they got new equipment - which because it was a fee, I think loads didn't bother with. That meant loads of people left on M/L 20Mbit when they could get 30Mbit if they had a SH.

The M/L tier is by far where the majority of customers are so it wouldn't be a surprise that a greater number of customers need an equipment upgrade this time around than last.

BenMcr · 02-06-2014, 23:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

No they don't.

Unless VM were lying about "the majority of customers" already being on a 30Mbps+ DOCSIS3 only tariff.

As I said immediately afterwards, I accept that it may well have changed since the previous speed upgrade programme was done.

But the point still stands, there are a significant number of people that require a kit change to get the speed increase, which means it is impossible for it to be done automatically for those customers

So to make sure the experience is consistent for everyone, everyone has to follow the same opt-in process.

qasdfdsaq · 03-06-2014, 01:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kushan

No, with the speed doubling, loads of people were left on DOCSIS2 equipment because Virgin didn't offer a FREE upgrade to 30Mbit, you had to pay I think a one-off fee of £30 or something to get a Superhub.

If by "loads" you mean "less than a quarter"...

According to Virgin Media's own results, 74% of customers were already on 30Mb or higher as of the end of last year.

---------- Post added at 00:18 ---------- Previous post was at 00:17 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenMcr

But the point still stands, there are a significant number of people that require a kit change to get the speed increase, which means it is impossible for it to be done automatically for those customers

Less than 25% may be a significant number but the point still stands, it most certainly is not "the majority". Not even remotely close.

A small minority perhaps, but that completely defeats your point. Holding back upgrades for 3/4 of customers so that a "small minorty" that were left behind last time that can't be done automatically don't get left behind again? Nah.

General Maximus · 03-06-2014, 16:40

yup, and as it is on "opt in" upgrade I would love know to know what the % uptake is because the peeps who are currently on 20mbits or less are more than likely to be the kind of customers who say they arent fussed about speed and only check emails etc so they won't be fussed about the effort of upgrading. I bet at least 50% of that 24% don't bother with and you will still be left with a few hundred thousand customers using docsis2 cpe.

From an admin point of view I don't understand why VM don't force the upgrade on all customers 30mbits or higher to make sure all the tiers and accounts are clean otherwise you will end up wiith all the silly tiers which we had 2 years ago and it will be L30mbit, L50mbits, XL60, XL100 etc etc and it will just be a mess.

Kushan · 03-06-2014, 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

If by "loads" you mean "less than a quarter"...

According to Virgin Media's own results, 74% of customers were already on 30Mb or higher as of the end of last year..

Isn't 26% more than a quarter? :P

In any case, Virgin has what, 4, 4.5Million customers? 1/4 of that is at least a million people, I'd say that does count as "loads".

Mythica · 03-06-2014, 20:33

We're on 120Mb and have just being waiting for the upgrade to come automatically. We registered interest to go to 152Mb and finally our area "upgrades" are ready. Using My Virgin Media we asked to upgrade and they were going to e-mail to confirm the upgrade. How long does this usually take?

qasdfdsaq · 03-06-2014, 23:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kushan

Isn't 26% more than a quarter? :P

In any case, Virgin has what, 4, 4.5Million customers? 1/4 of that is at least a million people, I'd say that does count as "loads".

It was less than 26% last year, and not forgetting all customers on 30Mb+ are on DOCSIS 3 but not all customers on <30Mb are on DOCSIS 2 (some downgrades from 50Mb, etc. kept Superhubs), and they were adding at a rate of 50% per year - so 6 months on it will be far less than 26%

No I recall Ben mentioning the same excuse last time. And yet last time they went from less than 40% of customers on D3 kit to over 70%. The number "left over" this time is far less so if the excuse didn't cut it last time it's certainly not going to now.

Kushan · 04-06-2014, 14:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

It was less than 26% last year, and not forgetting all customers on 30Mb+ are on DOCSIS 3 but not all customers on <30Mb are on DOCSIS 2 (some downgrades from 50Mb, etc. kept Superhubs), and they were adding at a rate of 50% per year - so 6 months on it will be far less than 26%

Without having the actual statistics of customer tiers, it's hard to argue what percentage is what. However, as far as I understood it, the only people below 30Mbit these days should be those on S and those on DOCSIS2 equipment. There might be the odd person who downgraded from 50/100 and somehow didn't get bumped up to 30Mbit but I can't imagine there'd be many of those. Anyone on M or L with a D3 device should be 30Mbit or higher.

However, that does bring an interesting point - excluding those on S, for now, if someone is on 20Mbit and has a hub, then why haven't they upgraded to 30/50? It should be a "free" upgrade at that point.

As for those on S, I have no idea what percentage of people are on that. It is a retentions package, after all. Even if we are liberal with the figures and say that just 10% of those on less than 30 haven't got D3 equipment, that's still going to be hundreds of thousands of people. I'd still class that as "loads" which was the original point.

qasdfdsaq · 04-06-2014, 14:49

Hundreds of thousands, taken in context, means less than a quarter in this case - which is what I stated. Which again, in context, is not "loads" IMO.

Would you call 100,000 grains of salt "loads"? (that's about 6KG by the way). Perhaps loads if you were looking at how much you ate in a meal. But a person loading up a supermarket shelf from a 500KG pallet would not call a single 6KG bag "loads". And that's what we're looking at here. Dealing with low double-digit percentages, or a hundreds of thousands out of of over 4 million. Their 2013 figures showed "hundreds of thousands" of customers joining or upgrading to 30Mb+ requiring DOCSIS 3 equipment each quarter - 209,000 in Q4 alone. Over the year, 90% of those moving to 30Mb+ were existing upgrades rather than new customers (900,000 in total) so clearly they have the supply chain and infrastructure and funding in place to allow such scale of upgrades and equipment replacements.

heero_yuy · 04-06-2014, 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kushan

However, that does bring an interesting point - excluding those on S, for now, if someone is on 20Mbit and has a hub, then why haven't they upgraded to 30/50? It should be a "free" upgrade at that point.

I'm one and they have said the free upgrade to 50M is coming but as usual they're a bit vague as to when it will actually happen. Not that I'm that fussed because the 20M is pretty solid and I don't do a lot of big downloads.

I could probably blag an early upgrade if I really wanted it.