Virgin Media signals major Wi-Fi expansion

[nomadking]

Half a dozen people each with 5Mb, is going to add up. In peak times what will that do to a 30Mb or less capacity?

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

The WiFi service will not use the customer's bandwidth, it will have its own.

How about the Wifi bandwidth? They will use part of the customer's wifi bandwidth no? The same antenna but on a guest network with a separate WAN channel. One way or another it will take portion of the customer'swifi bandwidh no?

Not, that I am concern, just curious.

[thenry]

That would be entirely stress on the SH.

Will main users of the SHs have priority over the hotspots, what will load balancing look like?

Originally Posted by nomadking

Half a dozen people each with 5Mb, is going to add up. In peak times what will that do to a 30Mb or less capacity?

[nomadking]

When somebody,eg me, is at times only getting 30mb from a 152Mb connection, others adding to that isn't going to help.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Chris

Given that you have clearly only read half the OP, I think you're somewhat wide of the mark.

In what way? This service won't use the customer's bandwidth, it'll have its own service flow completely separate.

---------- Post added at 23:14 ---------- Previous post was at 23:13 ----------

Originally Posted by Carlos Carboni

How about the Wifi bandwidth? They will use part of the customer's wifi bandwidth no?.

Absolutely. That's unavoidable.

---------- Post added at 23:15 ---------- Previous post was at 23:14 ----------

Originally Posted by thenry

Will main users of the SHs have priority over the hotspots

No. Both will be best effort service flows.

---------- Post added at 23:16 ---------- Previous post was at 23:15 ----------

Originally Posted by nomadking

Half a dozen people each with 5Mb, is going to add up. In peak times what will that do to a 30Mb or less capacity?

Nothing. As I said more than once it won't take capacity from the customer whose Superhub it is, but run on its own separate bandwidth.

[thenry]

ouch! overutilisation, loading balancing needs to be kept on top of then.

Originally Posted by nomadking

When somebody,eg me, is at times only getting 30mb from a 152Mb connection, others adding to that isn't going to help.

This is huge investment so better days ahead..

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by thenry

ouch! overutilisation, loading balancing needs to be kept on top of then.

More downstream channels in the bonded group help even if it's not new capacity.

[thenry]

Will all the SH models have the ability to have the same amount of bonded channels?

[Kushan]

No, current devices can only bond 8 downstream channels. That cannot be fixed in software. Future hubs will have significantly more bonded channels though.

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by Kushan

No, current devices can only bond 8 downstream channels. That cannot be fixed in software. Future hubs will have significantly more bonded channels though.

I see that I am not the only one flip flopping between and combining the WiFi and speed upgrade stories.

Indeed the success of the VM residential hotspots, even with support from the ISP-side network, may well depend upon the speed upgrade. Outside a typical residence it is likely that a hotspot user may get less than 10% of available download speed. ( I get 10Mb download in the middle of the road outside my house logged onto either my Asus or FON router. (My connection is 152Mb) With a 300Mb connection the connection looks usable. Frankly with connections of 80Mb or less, as with BT, hotspots are virtually useless. With my roaming rights, through having a FON hotspot router, I can access BT Fon, but very rarely find anything good enough to actually download files. Browsing and streaming is sometimes possible.

[thenry]

Incorrectly combining the two, or wrong wording the deployment which inturn is scaremongering! There should be no strategy to push through 'share your capacity'. To an average joe I'd expect them to believe its 'use their set bandwidth allowance' which is totally incorrect. If The Telegraph meant stressing the SH and/or overall network capacity then fine but then they should better word what is actually going on and even then be specific so nobody gets to thinking the SH will start falling over again!

Theres demand for higher speeds as it is. VM could have upgraded capacity, balancing and all while keeping speeds as they are. Theres no need to sweeten wifi hotspots by a boost in speed.

[Gavin78]

So will we have access to the router side of this wifi hotspot once it's enabled so we can see what is happening and how will they be able to split the bandwidth from the same cable coming into the house?

I have my own router so I'm guessing VM will be making these obsolete eventually?

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by Gavin78

So will we have access to the router side of this wifi hotspot once it's enabled so we can see what is happening

No. For a plethora of reasons. Just no.

Originally Posted by Gavin78

and how will they be able to split the bandwidth from the same cable coming into the house?

Unlike BT/ADSL, Virgin can increase the speed going to your device at the drop of a hat. The top tier is 152Mbit because that's an arbitrary number Virgin plucked out. They can easily provision that to be 200Mbit and give you 152 while giving the separate wifi 48Mbit. However, it's not even as simple as that, you'll get your full provisioned bandwidth and the separate hotspot will get its own bandwidth. How much bandwidth that is remains to be seen, but it won't be a case of hotspots causing you to loose speed, people can be hammering that but your 152mbit (or whatever) will be safe.

It also makes absolutely no sense for Virgin to provision the hotspot based on what tier you're on.

Also think of it this way - your TV and your broadband share that same cable. Even if you have a second STB, it's one cable going to your house that splits off. The TiVo box has a separate modem in it, yet it doesn't affect your broadband despite being on the same cable.

Originally Posted by Gavin78

I have my own router so I'm guessing VM will be making these obsolete eventually?

Not necessarily and not likely.

[thenry]

Yeah VM wont want to give people reason to move to other fibre. The choice to use your own choice of router remains in place. Plus pee'ing off the router manufacturers? Not a good idea even if they have a relationship with Netgear.

Originally Posted by nomadking

Virgin mobile customers are also included. I live in an area with a lot of flats around. Several neighbours could have a mobile broadband dongle for just £5.12/month and use my WiFi and Broadband connection that I pay a lot more for. Passers by and short term light use is one thing but the potential for longer term heavy usage is another.

(Hot) Spot on. In Queen Mary Uni, students were sharing a file of BT passwords/usernames. living in a dense flat population at the East End , BT wifi connections were abused.... One student gave his password to his mate and then the mate gave it to another mate....