120M : Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

What hasn't yet been done, and what the postcode checker is for, is the capacity work to support the mass migration

I am more inclined to to think that the auto upgrades are phased in over such a long time to assess impact on existing network and if these result in localised utilisation, this is addressed on a retrospective basis. I am sure that some areas may have proactive upgrades in advance of the new speed tier announcements but from my experience, this may not be the majority.

In fact, it would be be good PR if VM detailed (at a high level) the "capacity work" investment done to prepare and support the new speed tiers. I never seem to hear any announcements of this type .. maybe a missed opportunity?

[JPAC]

Originally Posted by Kushan

Phone retentions and ask nicely. Quite a few people, myself included, got the upgrade for free without a change in contract.

So I did, bit of a strange call but... 25% price reduction, 50Mb/s (from 20), new TIVO box and SH2, didn't ask about contract.

Hope this all works out without the horror stories of low speeds, wrong billing etc. He did say that 50Mb wasn't available in my area yet but thanks to Ben I put him straight on that. He said I needed a new TV box (TIVO?) to get 50Mb.

See what happens next week; the earliest they could come.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by ianch99

In fact, it would be be good PR if VM detailed (at a high level) the "capacity work" investment done to prepare and support the new speed tiers. I never seem to hear any announcements of this type .. maybe a missed opportunity?

Personally I'm glad they don't as it could potentially change behaviour of those where extra capacity has been added - cancelling out the work

---------- Post added at 19:10 ---------- Previous post was at 19:09 ----------

Originally Posted by JPAC

He said I needed a new TV box (TIVO?) to get 50Mb.

Bending the truth a bit there - it's likely that to give you the new package in total required a swap to TiVo.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Personally I'm glad they don't as it could potentially change behaviour of those where extra capacity has been added - cancelling out the work

Not sure I follow this logic. Are you saying that if someone knows their area has more capacity, they would use more bandwidth than they otherwise would do? I am not sure it works like that, people just do what they do. They don't download an extra iso today because they can ...

[BenMcr]

I'm saying it might happen just as I'm sure once some people realised there was no downstream traffic management their behaviour changed. But if it doesn't, then what is the point of announcing the extra capacity above the speed increase announcements?

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

what is the point of announcing the extra capacity above the speed increase announcements?

Because it visibly demonstrates that VM are investing proactively and that they are underwriting their PR speed increase headlines with real world network improvements

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Because it visibly demonstrates that VM are investing proactively and that they are underwriting their PR speed increase headlines with real world network improvements

There's real world network improvements, and then there's sales drives and torrenting mega-downloaders.

The M25 effect will always prevail.

[Kushan]

The torrenting mega-downloaders, at least the ones that have a constant and significant impact, are going to do that regardless of the state of the network or what ISP they're with.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

There's real world network improvements, and then there's sales drives and torrenting mega-downloaders.

The M25 effect will always prevail.

Not really sure what you are saying here .. the serial downloaders don't monitor press releases in order to increase bandwidth use

Anyway, this is the sort of thing that I was talking about: http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/201...y-upgrade.html

Couple of years old now but it makes a statement about how the company is investing to improve the product and specifically how they are doing it. For VM, this sort of thing would be a positive message to its existing and prospective uses to give them confidence that, when they increase the speeds, they are not just trying to make a dead horse run faster ..

What is funny is when I was googling for press releases relating to isp network investment, I came across this: http://www.evolving-networks.co.uk/b...arting-to-show Not sure how widely this applies but interesting non the less since we are talking about VM speed tier increases and the ability of their network to cope ..

[Sephiroth]

That's my point. So real world network improvements will be a temporary improvement at best. And round we go.

[Kushan]

That's just how the industry works though, isn't it? Increase capacity to meet demand, demand then starts to outstrip capacity and so on. As capacity increases, people find more uses for that extra speed, with VoD being the big one and the quality of that is only going to increase in time.

People are quick to blame the P2Pers, but the reality is that netflix alone causes a significant impact on the network - but that's ok, because it seen as more "legitimate".

[Kabaal]

Originally Posted by Kushan

People are quick to blame the P2Pers, but the reality is that netflix alone causes a significant impact on the network - but that's ok, because it seen as more "legitimate".

I think the point with that is where P2P dominates with % of all traffic is on the upload where heavy use affects everything for other users, ping, download and upload. Heavy downstream usage where Netflix and Youtube dominate doesn't affect others anywhere near the same extent.

At least that's how i see it.

It is quite staggering to read that Netflix and Youtube account for 51% (in the US) of all download traffic though.

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by Kabaal

I think the point with that is where P2P dominates with % of all traffic is on the upload where heavy use affects everything for other users, ping, download and upload. Heavy downstream usage where Netflix and Youtube dominate doesn't affect others anywhere near the same extent.

At least that's how i see it.

It is quite staggering to read that Netflix and Youtube account for 51% (in the US) of all download traffic though.

True, though at least on Virgin STM is still quite heavy on the upload side of things. Significant P2Pers should have their upload speeds dropped considerably - if the network still can't cope, then there really is huge room for improvement.

[kev445]

Originally Posted by Kabaal

I think the point with that is where P2P dominates with % of all traffic is on the upload where heavy use affects everything for other users, ping, download and upload. Heavy downstream usage where Netflix and Youtube dominate doesn't affect others anywhere near the same extent.

At least that's how i see it.

It is quite staggering to read that Netflix and Youtube account for 51% (in the US) of all download traffic though.

Netflix, Youtube, BBC Iplayer etc have a much more subtle effect on congestion. Although they do tend to consume what I consider a vast sum of bandwidth, typically 2-10Mb for a sustained period, this is nothing in comparison with P2P.

Due to the way in which TCPIP works, P2P is bad news.
Video services tend to just fire off one download / stream, which works well with TCP's built in congestion tools.
P2P on the other hand fires off tens if not hundreds of downloads for the same file, saturating the internet link.

It's not P2P's fault, however it isn't the fault of the ISP either.
P2P just doesn't play very nicely with the way the internet is currently designed.

[Kushan]

All hail IPv6. I'm curious to see if some clever P2P guru makes use of IPv6's built-in (And as far as I understand it, mandatory) multicast feature. Then again, I'm not qualified enough to know if I truly understood how that works.