Virgin Media to Double Broadband Speed

[BenMcr]

It's all down to the numbers. Tier upgrades put a much bigger load onto the network than on request upgrades as you are migrating a significantly bigger amount of customers up to a higher speed.

Therefore it's got to be managed it a different way, due to the extra capacity needed and due to the amount of new customer kit thats needed

[SnoopZ]

Why don't you just upgrade to 100 now then as that will get a price reduction to the 50 price, then eventually you will get upgraded to 120 for the price of 50?

ie 100Mb gets upgrade to 120Mb and a price reduction to match the 50Mb tier which will become the 120Mb tier at the 50 price.

[hjf288]

Do we know when the discount comes into play?

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by Nicosia

but also when if I have the upgrade now and then some one needs to come again for the 60 - 100 upgrade?

Don't think so dude, they need an engineer to come out when they give you a shub and they make sure you power levels and everything are ok. When they upgrade you to 100mbit they should just send down the new config file. I had all sorts of problems when I upgraded to 100mbit (long story) and I didn't want an engineer to come round and customer services told me that the only peeps they could upgrade over the phone were people who had already had 50mbit with a shub because an engineer had already been round and checked everything was hunky dory.

Originally Posted by hjf288

Do we know when the discount comes into play?

won't be till they have finished the entire rollout I imagine which will be 18 months or so.

[Nicosia]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

Don't think so dude, they need an engineer to come out when they give you a shub and they make sure you power levels and everything are ok. When they upgrade you to 100mbit they should just send down the new config file. I had all sorts of problems when I upgraded to 100mbit (long story) and I didn't want an engineer to come round and customer services told me that the only peeps they could upgrade over the phone were people who had already had 50mbit with a shub because an engineer had already been round and checked everything was hunky dory.

Thanks for that bit of info it looks like I will be upgrading to the 120mbit connection once the 30-60 upgrades are done then if its not too expensive to do so.

was it speed and internet being dropped problems?

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by Nicosia

Thanks for that bit of info it looks like I will be upgrading to the 120mbit connection once the 30-60 upgrades are done then if its not too expensive to do so.

was it speed and internet being dropped problems?

The way things used to work, was your modem would make "1" connection and that was it, it's what they call DOCSIS, sometimes DOCSIS1 or DOCSIS2. These days, multiple connections are made at once (the "channel bonding" that you might have seen people talking about, it's what makes DOCSIS3 great), which is how such fast speeds are possible - each connection is good for about 50mbit, so when you tie 4 or 8 together, you've got plenty of headroom for bandwidth.

The problem is that when you have multiple channels, it's a bit more prone to disconnects if things like power levels and such are a bit off. With just one channel, you've got a bit more headroom for errors, but as you add more, the issues can become more apparent.
Periodically dropping a channel can mean lost packets, which can mean sites become unresponsive even though running a speed test might show full speed. In gaming, it's a right nightmare as that one dropped packet can mean the difference between shooting first and standing still. So because it's a "premium" product, Virgin is careful to ensure that those who take it aren't given a bad experience thinking "My old connection was fine, this so-called upgrade wasn't worth the effort!", which can cause bad press and results in less people taking the more expensive packages.
Most customers are on the lowest tier packages, but Virgin makes a lot more money from the higher tiers so it's worth them ensuring they work better.

[Nicosia]

Originally Posted by Kushan

The way things used to work, was your modem would make "1" connection and that was it, it's what they call DOCSIS, sometimes DOCSIS1 or DOCSIS2. These days, multiple connections are made at once (the "channel bonding" that you might have seen people talking about, it's what makes DOCSIS3 great), which is how such fast speeds are possible - each connection is good for about 50mbit, so when you tie 4 or 8 together, you've got plenty of headroom for bandwidth.

The problem is that when you have multiple channels, it's a bit more prone to disconnects if things like power levels and such are a bit off. With just one channel, you've got a bit more headroom for errors, but as you add more, the issues can become more apparent.
Periodically dropping a channel can mean lost packets, which can mean sites become unresponsive even though running a speed test might show full speed. In gaming, it's a right nightmare as that one dropped packet can mean the difference between shooting first and standing still. So because it's a "premium" product, Virgin is careful to ensure that those who take it aren't given a bad experience thinking "My old connection was fine, this so-called upgrade wasn't worth the effort!", which can cause bad press and results in less people taking the more expensive packages.
Most customers are on the lowest tier packages, but Virgin makes a lot more money from the higher tiers so it's worth them ensuring they work better.

so they would be the kind of reasons why he would of had 100mbit problems... but if the engineer has to come over for the 30-60 upgrade then it should be ok for 120 as well to do it online with hopefully no problems?

I am happy for one to come over but it would be nice to be able to save some one having to come twice and just come once.

Or maybe just upgrading now to 100 and then not having to worry about an extra 20mbits upgrade could be worth doing instead

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by Nicosia

so they would be the kind of reasons why he would of had 100mbit problems... but if the engineer has to come over for the 30-60 upgrade then it should be ok for 120 as well to do it online with hopefully no problems?

I am happy for one to come over but it would be nice to be able to save some one having to come twice and just come once.

Or maybe just upgrading now to 100 and then not having to worry about an extra 20mbits upgrade could be worth doing instead

If the engineer does his job right, there shouldn't be a difference between 50, 60, 100 and 120Mbit as they'll all connect on the same number of channels. Now, you do have to factor in the issue of Virgin's systems sometimes being hardwired to do certain things - like sending a tech out when you move to a certain profile. You'd think that if you had a tech out to get to 60meg then you wouldn't need one for 120Meg, but sometimes the CS systems don't give the option for "no tech required".

[General Maximus]

my problems were nothing to do with the actual service so you don't need to worry about that. To cut a long story short it was to do with several VM staff telling me bs. I wanted to keep my VMNG300 and was told it wouldnt be a problem but the engineer took it anyway and have me a shub. To make matters worse the shub wouldn't go above 37mbit in speed tests (which I know arent 100% reliable) but the reason why I wanted to keep my vmng300 is because it has always given accurate speed tests (pretty much always maxing out) and my connection was always awesome. I had to do a lot of moaning but I got my vmng300 back and my connection is super duper again.

[Nicosia]

I never really had any problems with ntl/VM so hopefully things will go smoothly.. am going to just wait for the upgrade to 60 and see if it will let me do a upgrade from online..

atm it says sorry we are unable to process.... and gives me a number to call if I try online upgrades.

if I get any problems doing so then i would go crazy trying to call the indian call centers lol so anything to avoid having to call them

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by Nicosia

so they would be the kind of reasons why he would of had 100mbit problems... but if the engineer has to come over for the 30-60 upgrade then it should be ok for 120 as well to do it online with hopefully no problems?

I am happy for one to come over but it would be nice to be able to save some one having to come twice and just come once.

Or maybe just upgrading now to 100 and then not having to worry about an extra 20mbits upgrade could be worth doing instead

Originally Posted by General Maximus

my problems were nothing to do with the actual service so you don't need to worry about that. To cut a long story short it was to do with several VM staff telling me bs. I wanted to keep my VMNG300 and was told it wouldnt be a problem but the engineer took it anyway and have me a shub. To make matters worse the shub wouldn't go above 37mbit in speed tests (which I know arent 100% reliable) but the reason why I wanted to keep my vmng300 is because it has always given accurate speed tests (pretty much always maxing out) and my connection was always awesome. I had to do a lot of moaning but I got my vmng300 back and my connection is super duper again.

That sounds like the SHUB was only connecting on one channel, definitely needed a tech visit at one point. I don't know why the SHUB is so picky compared to the Ambit 300.

[Tricky Trevor]

Originally Posted by hjf288

Do we know when the discount comes into play?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that it would be in April

[Kushan]

I don't think there's been an official announcement on it yet, but they seemed to imply that the discount would hit all 100meg customers at once, rather than stagger as their area got upgraded. However, as I said I don't think there's been an official statement on it, that's just what I thought was happening.

[Nicosia]

is there any mention of the new cap limits? I imagine it will still be unlimited for the top tier (120mbit) apart from torrent and news groups and then lower tiers having maybe 5-10 extra GB during peak hours and then from 10am until 3pm how ever many extra GB's

[bigal2012]

I hope the 50 to 100M bit will not be traffic shaped. I know it was not before.