Virgin Media Q1 2011 Results...

[weesteev]

Originally Posted by TheDon

But it's perfectly possible to have a node under subscribed but over utilised, people will then wrongly come to the forum complaining how they're on an over subscribed node when infact they aren't.

This is a contended service, if the node is below the level of contention then it is not oversubscribed, however it can be over utilised if the people on that node are using bandwidth above and beyond what the contention levels permit.

Thanks TheDon, thats the point im making.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by TheDon

But it's perfectly possible to have a node under subscribed but over utilised, people will then wrongly come to the forum complaining how they're on an over subscribed node when infact they aren't.

This is a contended service, if the node is below the level of contention then it is not oversubscribed, however it can be over utilised if the people on that node are using bandwidth above and beyond what the contention levels permit.

The opposite is likewise perfectly possible so to describe it as a myth is inaccurate unless VM are somehow the most well capacity planned cable company in the world which, no offence to those working on it, clearly is not the case due to the reports from customers causing capacity issues to be raised for upgrade.

[Gary L]

I don't understand any of it really.

and it's not true that Carl was one of the reasons they closed the blueyonder/virgin newsgroups

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by TheDon

But it's perfectly possible to have a node under subscribed but over utilised, people will then wrongly come to the forum complaining how they're on an over subscribed node when infact they aren't.

This is a contended service, if the node is below the level of contention then it is not oversubscribed, however it can be over utilised if the people on that node are using bandwidth above and beyond what the contention levels permit.

Would have replied back if it wasn't for the fact my net has been really bad lately, periodic hours of downtime from approx noon is not fun and not random :P

But..

I understand there can be underpopulated nodes and over utilised if a say 100mb in the area was sold very well.

But we aren't talking about that we are talking about nodes that are indeed been oversubscribed/overpopulated. I remember the threads on the official forums, unfortunately most of them bit the dust because of a couple of posters who were trying to get people to complain to watchdog etc :P. But there was a classic thread which someone took a picture of a cabinet in Newcastle which was either accidently left open or broken into which shown splitters being used on it to provide to even more houses, it was like a spaghetti junction.

In true VM moderation style the link and subsequent links by others were edited out. And there was a point when a VM staff member actually said there was oversubscription happening in key areas which was mostly students (where areas had student lodgings etc) during the later stages of 2010. Now I have no information if they since fixed this problem or not, but the posts from those areas originally affected by this issue still continues today. I suppose it proves that VM were more interested in gaining more monies with the least expenditure to make the end of year report for their "finally we are in profit again".

What was even funnier was the fact they have only allocated a measly £44m to the upgrades, this I got from a UK tech when I phoned one day, which is contradictory to the old saying "You have to speculate to accumulate" which unfortunately doesn't exist in VM world, more like "We will accumulate then perhaps in a few months get around to some speculation and fixing"

[weesteev]

Originally Posted by DABhand

But there was a classic thread which someone took a picture of a cabinet in Newcastle which was either accidently left open or broken into which shown splitters being used on it to provide to even more houses, it was like a spaghetti junction.

Please dont confuse an untidy Distribution point as a sign of over subscription.

---------- Post added at 08:24 ---------- Previous post was at 08:23 ----------

Originally Posted by DABhand

What was even funnier was the fact they have only allocated a measly £44m to the upgrades, this I got from a UK tech when I phoned one day"

This figure is not correct, VM are spending more than double that amount this year alone.

---------- Post added at 08:26 ---------- Previous post was at 08:24 ----------

Originally Posted by DABhand

And there was a point when a VM staff member actually said there was oversubscription happening in key areas which was mostly students (where areas had student lodgings etc) during the later stages of 2010."

There is no such thing as "key areas", every part of the network is treated the same. The well publicised area that had issues was Plymouth/Exeter which had capacity issues due to the type of equipment in the field utilised by Eurobell. These issues were rectified some time ago and upgrades completed at the local headened to accomodate the required capacity needs.

[carlwaring]

Originally Posted by Gary L

I don't understand any of it really.

Neither do I. Would love a "plain English" version

and it's not true that Carl was one of the reasons they closed the blueyonder/virgin newsgroups

Really? Damn! Might have been a nice claim to fame

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by weesteev

Over Subscribed suggests that the connected node has been oversold, the issue is over utilisation, this can vary depending on node size. You can have a legacy build 500 home node with 200 active customers and high utilisation due to heavy downloading (student area for example). Would you call that over subscription as the node design and capacity planning have allowed for 500 customers and the issue is high use.

I don't agree with the term over subscription, is very often over used on this forum with no real understanding behind its meaning.

I would call it oversubscription, the reason been that VM should know full well in advance a student area may have higher usage per customer and as such do something to sell a fit service. eg. dont sell a unlimited use product or contend at a lower level. It doesnt matter if its due to high customer count or customers raping the bandwidth, the bandwidth itself is oversubscribed.

Also the capacity planning leaves alot to be desired, uplifted areas have a very high upload limit on STM, extremely generous, and the policy to only double capacity in some areas for a triple increase in upload speed is actually increasing contention ratio.

you talk as if you surprised people use a unlimited use connection heavily? and VM also make themselves attractive to students, they actually actively market to students with 9 month deals.

[TheDon]

If they did that then surely they should also increase the cost to people in those areas? Or should the rest of the network subsidise the cost of giving students far better contention levels than the rest of the user base?

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by TheDon

If they did that then surely they should also increase the cost to people in those areas? Or should the rest of the network subsidise the cost of giving students far better contention levels than the rest of the user base?

it would be subsidy, isps have mostly worked in that manner anyway, the exceptions will be PAYG isp's.

I can give 3 scenarios.

1 - most of network ok no oversubscription to 98-99%, 1-2% over subscribed where performance affected, what do you do? In this case it could be considered an abnormality but 1-2% should be easy to subsidise unless profit is extremely marginal.
2 - majority of network ok, but oversubscription more than an abnormality perhaps something like 80% ok 20% over subscribed, so hard to subsidise but also means cant really call it unsually high usage as 20% is too much for that, simply means the isp got it figures wrong and needs to respec its packages, eg. higher price, lower usage limits, lower speed limit. This I think is VM's situation.
3 - most of network over subscribed, pure and simple abusive overselling, VM are not in this situation tho although some isp's like O2's ipstream are.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by TheDon

If they did that then surely they should also increase the cost to people in those areas? Or should the rest of the network subsidise the cost of giving students far better contention levels than the rest of the user base?

Agreed regarding high usage per modem areas. I don't doubt that there are areas where usage per modem is unexpectedly high, I was just disputing the suggestion that oversubscription is a myth. To suggest that VM have no areas which are genuinely oversubscribed is ridiculous.

[Chrysalis]

I still think unexpected is a bad term to use, it suggests we expect student areas to have low usage.

[Ignitionnet]

By unexpected I'm referring to above the norm. VM may or may not know about student areas, however like every other cable company in the world they don't throw bandwidth at the areas endlessly.

You talk about getting students to sign up, if there are too many signups the area is oversubscribed. If VM are appropriately segmenting the network and it's just sheer weight of traffic there's no point at all in throwing tens of thousands of pounds at the areas just to see the new bandwidth consumed.

Although I think this is a conversation that's been had before.

[Chrysalis]

it is indeed.

you are more reffering to oversubscription by customer count whilst I am reffering to oversubscription of the bandwidth itself.

VM dont define a contention ratio which in this case goes against them. We will leave it be VM shouldnt really be applying a one size fits all policy across their network in regards to user utilisation as each area is very small and will have variance. We also both know it isnt an endless upgrade path it is just more than usual anyone can only use a limited amount of bandwidth, if enough upgrading is done then it wont be saturated. Whether it takes 2 node splits or 50 node splits.

My example is like this.

I have 20 pipes 10mbit each.

On the first 19 pipes I manage to get 40 customers on without saturation and makes me a tidy profit.
The 20th pipe I put 10 on and its 90% utilised. I would personally at that point suspend new sales and fund a 21st pipe. The nature of the business is these kind of things happen and would be morally wrong to squeeze 40 on that pipe anyway. To just put another 30 on anyway and claim done nothing wrong because it worked for 19 other pipes is just poor capacity management.

[Ignitionnet]

Morality is irrelevant. It's not poor capacity management that's the name of the game and why VM's services cost a quid per Mbps per month or less when they reach us.

It's not an endless upgrade path, of course, but it could be asked why the many should pay for node splits so that the few can P2P themselves senseless. I use P2P specifically as the current major congestion on the network is upstream.

New nodes are not the cheapest thing and the cost increment between the previous level of upgrade, splitting individual node trunks, and constructing completely new ones is quite high. Splitting a single node into 4 so that students can P2P themselves senseless isn't a way to do business. Those nodes should be upgraded absolutely last, when there is budget unallocated.

In the context of the cost and technology restraints that method of capacity management is absolutely appropriate. There are other issues on VM's network which are far more dubious than not splitting student areas down to near as damnit FTTP.

[Chrysalis]

well we have clearly different standards.

As I see it VM already have protocol shaping and STM. They sell an unlimited service, a consequence of that should be to have some high usage and to deal with it.

If these high usage are abnormal as claimed so a very tiny %, then adding capacity from normal revenue should be a non issue, and is a non issue when enough people complain as then upgrades happen, especially when neil starts getting emails concerning issues. You said it yourself having worked in the isp industry that working on fixed contention ratios isnt practical, its dynamic all the time and instead just work on visible contention. Yet in this scenario you think it right to stick to a rigid contention ratio that might suit an OAP area where people just check their online banking Whilst VM's prices are low they are not that low, they high in comparison to xDSL.

I never have said endless upgrades should be done however I do say issues of oversubscription should never be ignored which seems to be what you promoting, you seem to have no issue with users getting a service not as advertised or fit for purpose as long as your not affected of course. For some reason you also think its isolated to student areas. whether its an upgrade of capacity or downgrading of package spec it doesnt bother me, what bothers me is oversubscription.

We have their website on order pages showing high typical speed figures, this is misleading to any oversubscribed area, claims its good for gaming, again any oversubscribed area misleading, protocol shaping and STM which supposedbly are to control so called abusive users. With all this you still giving VM pity. AAISP is a prime example of how to deal with congestion, take the pain initially with capacity upgrades to fix the problem in a timely manner, if upgrading is not viable long term then respec packages to make it viable. It is actually quite simple. But VM seem to have an allergy to raising prices or scrapping unlimited use. They are addicted to misseling to a portion of their userbase and then claim pity for it. I dont like people who upload 24/7 anymore than you do but they are doing nothing wrong in regards to the service sold to them.

The fact VM treat the majority of performance related complaints as faults rather than saying tough luck contention suggests they know full well what they playing at but wait till as late as possible to fix.