20 meg is not official

[dafry]

i have been having terrible problems with my 10 meg speed in the day it is running at 9.6 meg in the evening it frequently drops to below 1 meg. i have just been on the phone to customer services to find out when the 20 meg is coming to the area and the guy on the phone informed me that it is only a trial and has apparently not been decided wether they are going to do it or not. when i exlpained my problem he said that the reason for the trial is to see if when running 20 they can get it higher than 3 meg in the evenings. apparently they are trialling this in areas most affected by high traffic of an evening. so if anybody knows of an isp that can deliver a good regular connection speed of 4 or 8 meg please let me know

[dcclanuk]

20 mb IS OFFICIAL...

[Barewolf]

Well if 10 meg is £37 a Month you can expect 20 Meg to be about £60 at least. unless the drastically alter their package deals.

[lordy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6552823.stm

A spokesman for Virgin Media, formerly NTL/Telewest, said some of what the BSG was calling for was already available over cable. He added that Virgin Media's 10Mbps service will increase to 20Mbps from May this year and it is running trials of 50Mbps among some customers in Ashford, Kent.

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by Barewolf

Well if 10 meg is £37 a Month you can expect 20 Meg to be about £60 at least. unless the drastically alter their package deals.

20meg will be £37 a month with Virgin Media (formerly NTL etc)

[Paul H]

If you asked someone that works for Virgin if you could order a pizza with extra cheese. they would probably take your order and go and ask just to make sure they do do pizza's.

[ssdd]

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html...2/updates.html

[Web-Junkie]

I got a letter from VM stating 10mb was going upto 20mb, and I'm on 4mb!!

[zctyp18]

20MB is official and the CS bod you spoke to should have known that - I'd phone up and complain that they didn't. We should not have to put up with CS staff who just fob customers off with a load of waffle that isn't true - this happens far too frequently. It is so much better to say 'I'm not sure, but I'll find out' than tell fibs, but apparently many people don't get that. Now I've got that off my chest, here's quite a bit of info from a VM/tech geek (not staff!):

The 20MB service is being widely mentioned by VM in various press releases, interviews, etc. They also plan to launch 50MB nationally to cable customers and are trialling 100MB. They don't have to do major infrastructure upgrades to deliver up to 50MB (at least), so you can bet they'll be launching it ASAP as it beats all the other consumer ISPs big time. You can find this and more info by watching the VM launch video - http://www.thomson-webcast.net/uk/di...a4acaa74dcf5d0 or navigate to it via the VM homepage, click 'About Virgin Media' at the bottom left of the page, then click 'Press Office'). You have to fill in a registration form, but the info you enter isn't checked before you see the vid - i.e. there's nothing stopping you from putting in fake info, but naturally I wouldn't advise that, a-hem. More details are in their Annual Report (including info they're not heavily publicising yet on plans to roll out VM TV to their ADSL customers).

All internet services get slower in the evening. ADSL providers can suffer from the problem even more so than cable. Cable is consistently shown to provide the best speeds when you take into account the fact that ADSL rarely provides the theoretical maximum speeds providers advertise and the actual rate you get can go up and down a lot. With ADSL, the further from the exchange you are, the slower your speed - this is not the case with cable. Also, like cable, ADSL services are 'contended' (but to varying degrees), so speeds drop when lots of people fire up their PCs.

Also, the download speed depends on various other issues. Obviously, the speed of the server you are downloading from is pretty important. Unlike almost ever other ISP, VM has no 'fair usage policy' that sets a monthly download limit (though they might have a word if you start running a major porn server from your bedroom).

As it is now estimated that over 1/3 of all internet traffic is bittorrent/P2P-related, VM (like some other providers) use 'bandwith-shaping' which stops this type of traffic from jamming up the network. So, although your P2P may run at 1MB on your 10MB VM service in the evening, that doesn't mean that your web-browsing, email, etc isn't going faster. What would you prefer, slower P2P or being forced to pay extra every month for going over an annoying download limit (which can be very bad for gamers and fans of internet TV/radio)?

It's a difficult situation and just changing providers is unlikely to help. The best way to find out about other options is to as people who live pretty close to your home. Long-term, wireless (e.g. WiMAX) may provide another option, but this is some way off.

And with regard to the price doubling - not true. There will be a price increase for XL VM cable broadband to 20MB - £2 more per month - which seems pretty reasonable to me.

As BT's 21st Century Network (http://www.btplc.com/21CN/) is only planned to deliver 24MBs by 2010, I think cable will have the edge over ADSL for a long time.

All that said, don't get me started on how ridiculously fragmented and nightmarish it is to deal with VM Customer Services, why so few people who work for them seem to know much of the above, and why VM still doesn't have a decent information system for it's customers and staff so that we all get the same, correct information when making enquiries. Also upload speeds need to increase. Hopefully Mr Branson is onto it...

As I'm not VM staff and am not all-knowing, I might not be 100% correct, but think most of this is pretty accurate.

Hope this is useful for you

[Paul H]

Originally Posted by zctyp18

20MB is official and the CS bod you spoke to should have known that - I'd phone up and complain that they didn't. We should not have to put up with CS staff who just fob customers off with a load of waffle that isn't true - this happens far too frequently. It is so much better to say 'I'm not sure, but I'll find out' than tell fibs

The company is aware that their staff are telling customers lies but ignore it.

[zeus9876]

20mb is official as i have it already

Cable Modem Operation ConfigurationNetwork Access : AllowedMaximum Downstream Data Rate : 20480000Maximum Upstream Data Rate : 768000Maximum Upstream Channel Burst : 1600Maximum Number of CPEs : 1Modem Capability : Concatenation Enabled, Fragametation Enabled, PHS Disabled

[zctyp18]

Originally Posted by Paul H

The company is aware that their staff are telling customers lies but ignore it.

Good point. If only a few of us could stage a coup d'etait and take over their CS management... in this new drive to be nice to their staff and sort out the billing system to reduce the massive staff turnover rate (which I think is down to about 50% from 100% a year ago), they're probably scared to be too harsh to crap CS bods. VM need to treat their staff well, but if they aren't willing to do the job properly they need severe warnings and if necessary, the boot.

In addition to my previous comment, I note that the upload speed will be doubled too, but as it's still under 1MB that's not quite good enough for serious gamers. In this world of multiple home devices connected to the net, high-def, media-streamers, Slingbox, PS3 and X-Box 360, 4MB upload is a must.

[Acathla]

Originally Posted by zctyp18

As it is now estimated that over 1/3 of all internet traffic is bittorrent/P2P-related, VM (like some other providers) use 'bandwith-shaping' which stops this type of traffic from jamming up the network. So, although your P2P may run at 1MB on your 10MB VM service in the evening, that doesn't mean that your web-browsing, email, etc isn't going faster. What would you prefer, slower P2P or being forced to pay extra every month for going over an annoying download limit (which can be very bad for gamers and fans of internet TV/radio)?

Just to correct this. VM don't restrict bandwidth depending on what services you use. Once you hit a 'pre-defined' bandwidth limit (which varies), you may be restricted on bandwidth speed. It does not distinguish between P2P, browsing, email, FTP, etc...

[zctyp18]

Originally Posted by Acathla

Just to correct this. VM don't restrict bandwidth depending on what services you use. Once you hit a 'pre-defined' bandwidth limit (which varies), you may be restricted on bandwidth speed. It does not distinguish between P2P, browsing, email, FTP, etc...

Very interesting! You learn something new every day, eh? Thanks for pointing that out. Where did you discover that?

[Horace]

Originally Posted by zctyp18

Very interesting! You learn something new every day, eh? Thanks for pointing that out. Where did you discover that?

Probably from reading any of the numerous of threads on here about traffic shaping.