120M : Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014

[Kushan]

Interesting. I was sure they were going to go 50/100/200 or 60/120/200. Can't complain at 150Mbit though and the 50/100 tiers will nicely target infinity so I guess that makes sense. Couple with the new traffic management, then I guess that means 50/100 tiers should still always be faster than infinity? (yes yes, congestion, blah blah).

---------- Post added at 11:43 ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 ----------

Originally Posted by Kabaal

Assuming it'll be 10:1 ratio i have to wonder whether they will take forever to bump the upload to 15mb like they did with the last upgrade. STM policies also make the upload bump negligible if they stay the same as everyone will be reduced to 5mb after a couple of GB instead of 4mb :p

They're only taking forever with the lower tiers. I've never seen anyone on 120Meg with less than 12meg upload. 50 -> 100 was stuck on 100/5 for a while but when they went to 120, it has always had 12 as far as I've seen.

30 and 60 sure are taking their sweet time, though. Are we going to see people on 100/3? Yuck.

[Sephiroth]

I like this continual improvement approach that VM are taking - up tp a point.

In terms of traffic management, the same constraints due to architecture are present. VM have speed enhancing tools at their disposal such as the symbol rate (as per TC's stats) which IMO they do need to deploy so as avoid increased saturation due to higher speeds.

[Kabaal]

I think you are forgetting just how much time passed Kushan, a lot of people were stuck on the lower tier upload for a long time, they were all on 100/5, 60/3 and 30/? instead of 10:1. It was around spring 2012 it started and some people haven't long had their upload bumped to 10:1, we're now heading towards 2014.

120mb is the only current tier that has always had the proper ratio so one can hope that the same thing happens with 150mb.

[peanut]

Being on 120mb is great but don't get me wrong anything 'free' is also great (that's if it's not just an excuse to put the prices up in general), but who really need 150mb. It's getting to the point where you need SSDs and to shave a few seconds or a couple of minutes off a download is no longer a selling point in my opinion.

Stick with the tiers they have now but get rid of traffic management would be a much better option all round.

[Kabaal]

Not really peanut, download speed would have to be faster than around 30MB/s or 240mb for people's old hard drives to start being the bottleneck, most modern HDD's are capable of 2 to 3 times that speed.

Once VM start offering GB connections then worry about SSDs

[SnoopZ]

I am still waiting for my upload speed upgrade! still on 60\3 and i don't really want a new 12 month contract as i would like to move house sometime next year.

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

kwikbreaks be happy with the extra utilisation :p

If it's like the doubling it's going to be ages away. Initial promise for me was July-Dec 2014 I think - I clicked register an interest and it doesn't tell me any more - probably just clicking put it back a year I'm pretty sure my son is still waiting on his 120Mbps.

To my mind this is more Jam Tomorrow. Whether I'll still be with VM "tomorrow" is more dependent on pricing than speed these days.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by peanut

Being on 120mb is great but don't get me wrong anything 'free' is also great (that's if it's not just an excuse to put the prices up in general), but who really need 150mb. It's getting to the point where you need SSDs and to shave a few seconds or a couple of minutes off a download is no longer a selling point in my opinion.

Stick with the tiers they have now but get rid of traffic management would be a much better option all round.

I'm not a mega-downloader and so I prefer traffic management to be in place so that at least I get some share of capacity.

If traffic management is removed completely, in high density areas, congestion will slow the mega-downloaders but will also penalise the "innocent" to an extent that they may not suffer as present.

So I cannot agree with you on that point.

[kwikbreaks]

It was the need to advertise "unlimited" that lead to the STM alterations not any increase in network capacity. To my mind the new reduction levels, which haven't arrived for me yet although I do now see STM again, offer so little relief to the network they may as well scrap them anyway.

[craigj2k12]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

will the previous upgrades (including restoring 10:1) be done before this starts?

With QAM64 being rolled out on the upstream, I would assume so

---------- Post added at 12:29 ---------- Previous post was at 12:28 ----------

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

In terms of traffic management, the same constraints due to architecture are present. VM have speed enhancing tools at their disposal such as the symbol rate (as per TC's stats) which IMO they do need to deploy so as avoid increased saturation due to higher speeds.

Is this confirmed yet?

---------- Post added at 12:31 ---------- Previous post was at 12:29 ----------

Seph, as per my post here, other users with QAM64 upstreams have the same symbol rate, not to mention TC's claimed symbol rate is 5 times lower than others (I suspect some editing has taken place here)

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by craigj2k12

With QAM64 being rolled out on the upstream, I would assume so

---------- Post added at 12:29 ---------- Previous post was at 12:28 ----------



Is this confirmed yet?

---------- Post added at 12:31 ---------- Previous post was at 12:29 ----------

Seph, as per my post here, other users with QAM64 upstreams have the same symbol rate, not to mention TC's claimed symbol rate is 5 times lower than others (I suspect some editing has taken place here)

Craig

I've asked for confirmation behind the scenes. We'll see what they tell me.

Cheers

[StevenNT]

Interesting, I'd happily take the 60 to 100 free upgrade, but before I click the "pre-registration" button I have a question.

Would I lose the £5 a month loyalty discount that I currently have if I end up taking this free upgrade? I assume this is something that retentions would have to look at?

[General Maximus]

i see the top tier is being ripped off once again with a negligable speed increase. I am not going to get excited about it either, it says 2014 but that will be the initial rollout. The time it takes them to get round to this stuff we'll probably be having this conversation this time in 2 years (end of 2015 and allowing a year and a half for the rollout). Hopefully at that point they'll be announcing the rollout for docsis 3.1 across 2016.

[telfordcable]

152/15 sound good but they should have 200/20 for the same price for 120/12 customers. Disappointed.

I think if you pre-register it, 12 months contract but you probably end up stuck at 152/12. I would rather wait because they never metion upload speed yet? And you might lose discount loyalty too.

[peanut]

Well it's all good as sooner or later I'd be able to drop down a tier without losing too much noticable speed and end up saving a bit in the process.