[Update] ALL 20>30Mb upgrade discussion

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by BomberAF

All these people paying £30 to upgrade their 20 meg bb service are fools, they should wait for 12 months and then VM will upgrade them for free.

I don't think i am a fool for paying £30 for a new router and modem.

[c@tbyte]

Originally Posted by BomberAF

All these people paying £30 to upgrade their 20 meg bb service are fools, they should wait for 12 months and then VM will upgrade them for free.

Link to the info about this please.

[castlekeep]

Originally Posted by Griffin

The answer to your questions is a resounding yes, i have used my mac addresses to lock down my wireless on the super hub.
There are also four ports for wireing pc's to as well.

Hi Griffin,

Thanks for the confirmation.

Phil.

Originally Posted by BomberAF

All these people paying £30 to upgrade their 20 meg bb service are fools, they should wait for 12 months and then VM will upgrade them for free.

As one of those "fools", you appear to have me confused with someone who gives a toss....

So (if your hypothesis is correct), this will be free in 12 months, in that time I will have paid the equivalent of £2.50 per month for a 50% speed increase for that time period - works for me.

ymmv.

[zekeisaszekedoes]

Originally Posted by BomberAF

All these people paying £30 to upgrade their 20 meg bb service are fools, they should wait for 12 months and then VM will upgrade them for free.

They're not fools - if they want the speed upgrade and will find it useful then £30 might be worth every penny. Most people don't mind though: turn it on and as long it works and isn't dialup slow that'll do, although it doesn't make them fools.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Hugh

As one of those "fools", you appear to have me confused with someone who gives a toss....

So (if your hypothesis is correct), this will be free in 12 months, in that time I will have paid the equivalent of £2.50 per month for a 50% speed increase for that time period - works for me.

ymmv.

in my case I went from a dodgy 300k upload to 0.85-1.05 upload (thoery was on 20mbit upload got capped to ease congestion).

went from download speeds which averages 10-18mbit/sec to decent 30mbit performance.

To me £30 one off especially when I am also getting equipment doesnt make me a fool. A year is a long time as well, waiting 12 months for something I use many hours a day to save a petty £30 is silly.

[Zee]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Considering there are probably still people on 512Kb from the days of ntl, don't count on it!

i thought people on the "ntl" network were automaticly upgraded, i know i was, on every free upgrade. My friend on the other hand on the "telewest" network was not automaticly upgraded.

Originally Posted by BomberAF

All these people paying £30 to upgrade their 20 meg bb service are fools, they should wait for 12 months and then VM will upgrade them for free.

no1 is a fool, and you have no evidence to back your statement up regarding the 12 months thing, BUT... i do think the people paying £30 to upgrade would be better off upgrading to 50Mb which will cost them nothing, for 6 months which will add up to £30 then downgrade down to 30Mb, bobs your uncle.... but whatever they wana do.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

in my case I went from a dodgy 300k upload to 0.85-1.05 upload (thoery was on 20mbit upload got capped to ease congestion).

went from download speeds which averages 10-18mbit/sec to decent 30mbit performance.

To me £30 one off especially when I am also getting equipment doesnt make me a fool. A year is a long time as well, waiting 12 months for something I use many hours a day to save a petty £30 is silly.

On the other hand if you're still sharing the same upstream channel as 20mb users, you're now getting 3x as much bandwidth as them and generating 3 times more congestion. Think of the poor souls on 20mb who are now getting <300k because of you!

[Nopanic]

Originally Posted by Zee

i thought people on the "ntl" network were automaticly upgraded, i know i was, on every free upgrade. My friend on the other hand on the "telewest" network was not automaticly upgraded.




no1 is a fool, and you have no evidence to back your statement up regarding the 12 months thing, BUT... i do think the people paying £30 to upgrade would be better off upgrading to 50Mb which will cost them nothing, for 6 months which will add up to £30 then downgrade down to 30Mb, bobs your uncle.... but whatever they wana do.

Some customers are on retention deals at those speeds. They don't want to change anything.

As for waiting 12 months, £30 to get something a year before everyone else. would still be a good deal in my eyes.. not that thats how it's going to work .. but for the sake of this point.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Zee

i thought people on the "ntl" network were automaticly upgraded, i know i was, on every free upgrade. My friend on the other hand on the "telewest" network was not automaticly upgraded.

Not true, it all depends completely was tier you were on. Both ntl and telewest sold below what was (before it was withdrawn from sale) BB M. Either by design due to pricing (as BB S is now), or due to legacy packages.

When the tier uplifts on either network were done these were not included, if customers on these tiers wanted the new speeds they would have to request it and move to the approriate uplifted tier

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by zekeisaszekedoes

Going from the little I know on the subject, I think although technically they can handle these speeds, due to the way VM run their network they can go no faster than 20Mbps. Which is a shame because it gives you less choices on how to run your network. But to be honest, for the change from 20/0.7 to 30/3 which will give me the ability to stream SD content from my NAS at home to my laptop anywhere in the world, it's a sacrifice worth making especially when there's a possibility the Super Hub will have a modem only setting in the firmware before too long.

They can do 38-50mbs, VM just don't want them to, too much contention.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

They can do 38-50mbs, VM just don't want them to, too much contention.

Indeed. It's much easier to manage the higher speed services by using channel bonding, which requires DOCSIS 3 (and the SuperHub)

If Virgin were to do it based on the way the legacy network works it would cost too much to be worth doing for (the most part) no extra cost

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

On the other hand if you're still sharing the same upstream channel as 20mb users, you're now getting 3x as much bandwidth as them and generating 3 times more congestion. Think of the poor souls on 20mb who are now getting <300k because of you!

luckily for them 99% of my upload traffic is just ack's for my downloading.

[Horizon]

VM has posted this on their forum, copied here in full:

30Mb Upgrade FAQ
on 04-02-2011 18:02 - last edited on 04-02-2011 18:16

We've put together this FAQ to answer a number of your questions about our new 30Mb service.

1) What is the £30 activation fee for?

This one off fee covers the cost of migration and activation onto the new DOCSIS 3 network and processing for the exchange of the customers current modem and wireless router for the new advanced Wireless N Super Hub.


2) I've already got a SuperHub/VMNG300 modem, do I need to pay the activation fee?

No, a small number of customers that already have a Super Hub or VMNG300 modem will not have to pay the £30 activation fee to upgrade to 30Mb. We’ll let you know of any plans to automatically uplift customers onto 30Mb should this take place.


3) Why do I have to have an engineer when others are getting it as self install?

Some existing customers need to have a manned install to get them migrated to the DOCSIS 3 network for the 30Mb – this is essential to tune DOCSIS3 equipment, such as the SuperHub, to specific frequencies in your area and ensure the power levels and noise are within the correct ranges to ensure your service runs reliably and at full speed. Agents will advise you of this when you order and as network improvements are required the manned install will be free of charge.


4) Why am I having to pay more a month when your website says it's just a one off fee?

The standard bundle package price of 30Mb is £18.50, down from the previous £20 for 20Mb. If you have a special discount on your account, your upgrade to 30Mb would cancel out this discount, hence resulting in you seeing a net price increase.


5) I'm on XL (20) and don't want to pay the £30 fee, why can't I get the price reduction?

Many customers on 20Mb may already be getting the benefit of the £18.50 if they have the service as part of certain bundles. In this instance there will be no reduction in cost. Most 20Mb customers will see a price drop when they upgrade to 30Mb as this is an entirely different tier within our billing system, however we are unable to make changes to the standard tier price for 20Mb without the upgrade to 30Mb.


6) I've got a friend on Mates Rates who wants to upgrade, what do they need to do?

We are in the process of creating a Mates Rates plan for 30Mb and will let you know when it has launched soon.


7) Can you confirm what the upload speed is for the 30MB tier and when will I get that?

The upload speed for 30Mb is 3Mb in areas with faster uploads and 1Mb where the new speeds are yet to roll out. You can find out more about the rollout and when it is coming to your area at www.virginmedia.com/fasteruploads


8) What kind of performance can I expect from 30Mb?

As with all our fibre optic broadband services, our customers don’t suffer slow downs depending on where they live. 30Mb broadband runs on our DOCSIS 3.0 platform with bonded channels and with the new SuperHub we’re confident that this new service is going to perform well. We’ll be adding it to our typical speed performance data once we’ve got a good sample of customers on the product. You can check out our typical speeds at www.virginmedia.com/speedhonesty




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Wilkin
Help & Support forum manager

[qasdfdsaq]

^^ Possibly the most useful post in this thread.

Wonder how long it'll take VM to actually publish it visibly on their website...