Re: Virgin Media Fibre Broadband Reviews?

[Tweed]

Anthony R. Gold <not-fo...@ahjg.co.uk> wrote:
> Their offer sounds interesting:
>
> http://www.virginmedia.com/shop/broadband/broadband-only.html
>
> but I would welcome any warnings or opposing views.
>

Has worked for me for the last 20 years in the East Midlands. Has worked
well for student offspring in both Newcastle and Brighton. Lots of people
have complained about slow downs due to local over use (you share your
connection bandwidth with others) but I've never suffered from this. Upload
is a bit poor, because of the deficiencies of the technology - I have
150Mbit down 10Mbit up. Naturally, they don't advertise their upload speeds
in big letters. I don't really need 150 down, but I need to pay for that
tier just to get the 10 up. Every so often they have a systems outage (at a
guess about once a year) which seems to last for less than a day. My local
connection, coax from the house to the green box down the road, has been
fault free for 20 years. Every so often the cable modem gets replaced by VM
as the technology improves and the old one can't keep up. I started 25
years ago (previous house) at 512kbit down and the speed offered has crept
up over the years. VM are quite good at creeping the cost up - tends to go
up £2-3 per year.

[Theo]

Tweed <gues...@who.com> wrote:
> Has worked for me for the last 20 years in the East Midlands. Has worked
> well for student offspring in both Newcastle and Brighton. Lots of people
> have complained about slow downs due to local over use

The thing to understand about Virgin is that connection is only as good as
the local network. The networks were installed by a variety of cablecos in
the 80s/90s, and then more recently glued together. Some are excellent,
some are ropey. Some are heavily overloaded, others aren't. So the thing
to do is ask people in your street/town what they reckon, because that'll be
a better indicator than any random person's experience nationally.

Theo

[Tim+]

Anthony R. Gold <not-fo...@ahjg.co.uk> wrote:

> The sales person led me to believe that I was being offered fibre to the
> premises. Is that possible or was the employee being "economical with the
> actualité"? And if true, would that mean I would be free from contention?
>

I think their sales people don't know their arses from their elbows. We
were told the same thing but I'm pretty sure that if/when they finally roll
it out in our street it will be coax. At the end of the day as long as it
provides a reliable fast link I suppose the tech used to deliver it doesn't
matter too much but I would have thought that providing FTTP on new
installs would help to future proof their network better.

Something rarely mentioned is the £30 "disconnection fee" charged by
Openreach if you are discontinuing an ADSL or FTTC line.

Tim

--
Please don't feed the trolls

[Woody]

"Anthony R. Gold" <not-fo...@ahjg.co.uk> wrote in message
news:512rqc9jtg0aumrqt...@4ax.com...

> Their offer sounds interesting:
>
> http://www.virginmedia.com/shop/broadband/broadband-only.html
>
> but I would welcome any warnings or opposing views.

Whatever you read in terms of offers, VM <always> do a better deal if
you have phone as well - BUT you don't need to use the phone, just
have the line. Calls are free Friday 00:00 to Sunday 23:59 as are
calls to VM DQ.


--
Woody

harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com

[Tweed]

*most* of VMs network is fibre to a big green cabinet somewhere near to
your property. The final leg is via coax and sometimes some inline rf
amplifiers. The difference between this and OpenReach FTTC that uses your
phone line for the last leg is that the speed does not degrade with
distance from the end of the fibre to your house. It is also not dependent
on the weather, flashing fairy lights or anything else that mucks up VDSL
on FTTC. Some newer installs by VM are genuine fibre all the way to the
house, but this is for new area installations and is pretty rare. To be
clear, it's not really the coax that causes the contention with your
neighbours, but rather the number of subscribers hooked up to a single bit
of end point electronics at their end. The advice to ask your neighbours is
sound. However, you need to be sure that their experience is recent. VM do
"resegment" their network from time to time (i.e. Throw more electronics at
the problem) and this can change a terrible experience to an excellent one.
On the other hand, they can take years to get round to sorting out a
congested area. Any promises with dates to sort out an area are to be taken
with a huge pinch of salt. WiFi issues also add a further uncertainty. Some
people have a terrible link between their computer and the cable modem (out
of range, using the same channel as a near neighbour etc) and blame the
poor performance on VM. If you are speed testing using a wired Ethernet
cable to the cable modem is the best way. I'd ask how long you have to
reject the contract if it does not perform as advertised. To put this into
context, I know 7 people with VM in 4 different areas, and all are happy.

[Andy Burns]

Anthony R. Gold wrote:

> The sales person led me to believe that I was being offered fibre to the
> premises.

For home (DOCSIS) users that's only in 'Project Lightning' areas, for
business customers they'll do ethernet over fibre ... at a price.

[Andy Burns]

Anthony R. Gold wrote:

> I'm not a business user. I'll them call back and ask if I'm
> in a 'Project Lightning' area as a reality check.

You ought to have noticed them digging a narrow "slit trench" past your
front door within the last 18 months, and installing small grey cabinets
(unlike their typical large cabinets) if you are ...

[Tweed]

Seems even VM don't know the extent (or lack thereof) of project lightning

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/03/28/virgin-media-launches-investigation-suspends-staff-exaggeration/

[Tim+]

Hmm, all our new cabinets are grey, most small, some a bit larger with a
small window in the side. That said, I've seen then installing large
diameter coax (as in 20-25mm diameter).

[Theo]

Anthony R. Gold <not-fo...@ahjg.co.uk> wrote:

> The sales person led me to believe that I was being offered fibre to the

> premises. Is that possible or was the employee being "economical with the
> actualité"? And if true, would that mean I would be free from contention?

I don't think so. Cable is inherently a shared medium - the network is
built based on TV, where you had the same cable distributing BBC1, ITV,
Channel4, etc to every house. In analogue days that cable plugged straight
into your TV as the cable carried UHF channels just like you would receive
over the aerial.

These days it's digital, but DOCSIS retains the split into UHF TV
channel-sized lumps of spectrum, just with more packed into them. Because
the cable network was designed for TV, the same coax is split to drive a
number of houses, and the bandwidth is shared between them. What has been
happening more recently is 'segmentation', where the long runs of cable are
split up so that your bandwidth is shared with fewer neighbours - but still
shared. Upstream uses a more basic modulation scheme due to noise on the
lower frequencies, which is why there's less upstream bandwidth than down.

I believe new VM FTTP installs are using RF Over Glass (RFoG), which is
basically the same UHF TV spectrum layout but using fibre instead of copper.
That means you're still subjected to the 10:1 (or worse) down/up ratio as
copper users - even DOCSIS 3.1 can do 10G down but only 1G up (over fibre).

This is what the Virgin FTTP kit looks like, btw:
https://keepup.virginmedia.com/content/networkExpansion/doc/virgin_media_new_build_developers_guide_v1.4.pdf

Theo

[Nick]

On 04/09/2017 18:09, Anthony R. Gold wrote:
> Their offer sounds interesting:
>
> http://www.virginmedia.com/shop/broadband/broadband-only.html
>
> but I would welcome any warnings or opposing views.
>

A lot of Virgin connections suffer from congestion.

Download speeds often flatter Virgin in a way that is not reflected in
real life. This is because download tests are often performed using a
large number of connections/threads where as in real life
streaming/voip/gaming are often done over a single connection/thread.

The thinkbroadband quality meter (BQM) can give an indication of
whether you have a good or bad (congested) Virgin connection.

If you have neighbours they might be able to tell you or Virgin might
still allow you to cancel within a month of ordering if you don't like it.

Bottom line my VirginMedia is ok but. if I could get uncongested FTTC at
> 50Mps down/ 16Mps up. I would go with that in preference.

Also Virgin charge existing customers more than new customers.

[Graham J]

Anthony R. Gold wrote:

> On Mon, 4 Sep 2017 23:26:03 +0100, Nick <Nick...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Virgin might
>> still allow you to cancel within a month of ordering if you don't like it.
>

> I never knew about that older offer. I will ask about that.

>
>> Bottom line my VirginMedia is ok but. if I could get uncongested FTTC at
>> > 50Mps down/ 16Mps up. I would go with that in preference.
>

> I am surprised to hear that. I know I can also get FTTC/VDSL from several
> different providers over Openreach lines, but as with VM I might have no
> prior warning of how uncongested that might be. I'll try to find neighbours
> who can share their experiences, as several posters have advised.
>


My understanding is that congestion in FTTC/VDSL depends on exchange
equipment and the backhaul from the exchange. So to some extent it is
controlled by the ISP - a better ISP will buy a bigger backhaul and
share it with fewer clients. In some cases there may be limitations in
the Openreach system which prevent an ISP from buying more backhaul
capacity; but several ISPs can then band together to apply pressure to
Openreach to install more capacity. This sort of limitation would even
affect a leased line (or FTTP) which is otherwise uncontended.

By contrast VM suffers congestion at the street level, depending on the
exact technology used to distribute the signal. Any improvement would
normally require replacement of equipment in street cabinets - much more
of a problem for Virgin, I suspect.

Having the choice of multiple suppliers would seem to be a more prudent
course of action.

--
Graham J

[7]

Anthony R. Gold wrote:

> Their offer sounds interesting:
>
> http://www.virginmedia.com/shop/broadband/broadband-only.html
>
> but I would welcome any warnings or opposing views.

Fake fibre. Are you being taken in?

Illegal advertising according to advertising standards authorities
complaints.

No good for gaming and social media use. Slow upload speeds.

Better off with Hyperoptic, B4RN, Citifibre, Gigaclear etc - price
per bit both cheaper and faster. Your gaming would work better.
You social media uploads will finish quicker.
And your calls like whatsapp would be clearer.
Particularly if the whole family is using the internet
at the same time.

And these new companies are pure fibre companies - not fake fibre cumpanies
like VM, Openroach, Bhtee and their supporters like Offconn.

[BurfordTJustice]

Stay in school Butch Queen


"7" <

7...@enemygadgets.com

> wrote in message news:f17hd0...@mid.individual.net...

[Stephen]

On Tue, 5 Sep 2017 07:47:04 +0100, Graham J <gra...@invalid.com>
wrote:

>Anthony R. Gold wrote:
>> On Mon, 4 Sep 2017 23:26:03 +0100, Nick <Nick...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Virgin might
>>> still allow you to cancel within a month of ordering if you don't like it.
>>
>> I never knew about that older offer. I will ask about that.
>>
>>> Bottom line my VirginMedia is ok but. if I could get uncongested FTTC at
>>> > 50Mps down/ 16Mps up. I would go with that in preference.
>>
>> I am surprised to hear that. I know I can also get FTTC/VDSL from several
>> different providers over Openreach lines, but as with VM I might have no
>> prior warning of how uncongested that might be. I'll try to find neighbours
>> who can share their experiences, as several posters have advised.
>>

Try the VM web site and look at their forums?

>
>
>My understanding is that congestion in FTTC/VDSL depends on exchange
>equipment and the backhaul from the exchange. So to some extent it is
>controlled by the ISP - a better ISP will buy a bigger backhaul and
>share it with fewer clients. In some cases there may be limitations in
>the Openreach system which prevent an ISP from buying more backhaul
>capacity; but several ISPs can then band together to apply pressure to
>Openreach to install more capacity. This sort of limitation would even
>affect a leased line (or FTTP) which is otherwise uncontended.

The thing to remomber is congestion occurs at the point "somewhere
along the path" where there is an issue with passing your traffic.

Congestion is easier to detect with cable - since the rate limit for
the subscriber bandwidth is imposed by the kit, not the quality of a
copper pair.

When I had issues on my 150m cable ~ 6 months ago for a week or so it
was still running at 30m+ - which is about what i would get with
FTTC....

I noticed some connection startup lag so possibly packet loss was the
main issue rather than raw speed

>
>By contrast VM suffers congestion at the street level, depending on the
>exact technology used to distribute the signal. Any improvement would
>normally require replacement of equipment in street cabinets - much more
>of a problem for Virgin, I suspect.

They can logically split the load across different cable channels
- but yes once the fill all the channels they hit a hard limit.
- modern modulation gets more out of a channel so maybe some of the
box upgrades help use the capacity better?

Since many reports tend to be about "problems in city x" I suspect it
isnt always just individual cable segments, or there are ways to dice
the segments until they hit a more general problem.

>
>Having the choice of multiple suppliers would seem to be a more prudent
>course of action.

There dont seem to be many "cable only" locations - so most with VM as
an option probably can have FTTC as well (but not at the same speeds).
Stephen Hope stephe...@xyzworld.com
Replace xyz with ntl to reply

[Jim]

On Mon, 4 Sep 2017 23:26:03 +0100, Nick <Nick...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Most times my Zen FTTC is up to (and sometimes
better than) Virgin's speeds.

--
:: Jim, Wessex

Don't blame me, I voted REMAIN [X]
I survived Hitler and Thatcher both.

[Woody]

"Anthony R. Gold" <not-fo...@ahjg.co.uk> wrote in message
news:mcvhtcpq9sntscbuq...@4ax.com...

> On Mon, 4 Sep 2017 23:26:03 +0100, Nick <Nick...@yahoo.co.uk>
> wrote:
>

>> On 04/09/2017 18:09, Anthony R. Gold wrote:
>>> Their offer sounds interesting:
>>>
>>> http://www.virginmedia.com/shop/broadband/broadband-only.html
>>>
>>> but I would welcome any warnings or opposing views.
>>>
>>
>> A lot of Virgin connections suffer from congestion.
>>
>> Download speeds often flatter Virgin in a way that is not reflected
>> in
>> real life. This is because download tests are often performed using
>> a
>> large number of connections/threads where as in real life
>> streaming/voip/gaming are often done over a single
>> connection/thread.
>>
>> The thinkbroadband quality meter (BQM) can give an indication of
>> whether you have a good or bad (congested) Virgin connection.
>

> I had the line installed and am coming to the end of the cooling off
> period
> so need to decide whether to keep it or evict it.
>
> The Thinkbroadband quality meter display looks very different from
> those for
> my DSL lines but I don't know that they tell me anything:
> https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/0b4f71f226f0bc815ae2b0bd0ab33e470237d8ee-07-10-2017
> Maybe someone with more familiarity with BQM could comment. The mass
> of
> yellow peak events over the blue average latency is startling. Is
> this
> typical for VM broadband or does it suggest something is wrong? The
> graph is
> for the line with no subscriber data activity. Thanks for any
> comments.

Are you using VM on cable or landline?

If you are on cable just ignore what any graphs say and stay with it -
it is solidly reliable and always close to, at or higher than the
promised speed.

I started at 2Mb, then they increased it to 4, 10 and finally 20 - all
as NTLWorld. After the change to VM I bemoaned the fact that local
people who were new to their service were gettong 30Mb but I only got
20 - was due to me using a NTL modem. They sent me a Cisco TV box and
gave me free FTA TV for a while, but when they started charging for
the TV I told them to go away so they sent me a SuperHub and packaging
to return the Cisco box. Since then they have increased my speed to
40, then 50, now (nominally) 70 and are about to up it again to 100Mb,
all with no increase in price. If they do try to increase the price
just call Retentions and tell them you are going to Sky FTTC. You'll
be amazed what they will give you f.o.c. to make you stay.

Note it is cheaper to have B/B and phone from them even if you don't
use the phone. They do not block VoIP in any way so you can use that
as an alternative.

[Nick]

On 07/10/2017 18:21, Woody wrote:

> Are you using VM on cable or landline?
>
> If you are on cable just ignore what any graphs say and stay with it -
> it is solidly reliable and always close to, at or higher than the
> promised speed.
>

This is totally misleading advice. VirginMedia connections are different
from person to person. Many suffer from serious congestion which can
compromise modest real life applications like TV streaming, iPlayer, etc.

This tends to a matter of luck. If you have a bad connection it tends to
stay bad, if you have a good connection it tends to stay good.
VirginMedia do not seem to regard fixing congestion as a priority. They
quote dates that the problem will be fixed by but then let them slip
time and time again, apparently for years.

Just because one person has a good experience does not imply other
people will have a good experience. I have a good connection but other
people I recommended VirginMedia to have poor connections.

Anyone wanting good advice should look on the VirginMedia forums:


<http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/CommunityHubForums>

or

<http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/>

[Nick]

On 07/10/2017 17:22, Anthony R. Gold wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Sep 2017 23:26:03 +0100, Nick <Nick...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>

>> On 04/09/2017 18:09, Anthony R. Gold wrote:
>>> Their offer sounds interesting:
>>>
>>> http://www.virginmedia.com/shop/broadband/broadband-only.html
>>>
>>> but I would welcome any warnings or opposing views.
>>>
>>
>> A lot of Virgin connections suffer from congestion.
>>
>> Download speeds often flatter Virgin in a way that is not reflected in
>> real life. This is because download tests are often performed using a
>> large number of connections/threads where as in real life
>> streaming/voip/gaming are often done over a single connection/thread.
>>
>> The thinkbroadband quality meter (BQM) can give an indication of
>> whether you have a good or bad (congested) Virgin connection.
>

> I had the line installed and am coming to the end of the cooling off period
> so need to decide whether to keep it or evict it.
>
> The Thinkbroadband quality meter display looks very different from those for
> my DSL lines but I don't know that they tell me anything:
> https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/0b4f71f226f0bc815ae2b0bd0ab33e470237d8ee-07-10-2017
> Maybe someone with more familiarity with BQM could comment. The mass of
> yellow peak events over the blue average latency is startling. Is this
> typical for VM broadband or does it suggest something is wrong? The graph is
> for the line with no subscriber data activity. Thanks for any comments.
>

It looks very different to my BQM for VirginMedia but I run in Modem Mode.

The Yellow you see may be due to the SuperHub 3 not prioritising pings.
(A reasonable thing to do but not helpful for interpreting a BMQ).

The main thing to look for is humps in the Blue around peak times when
you aren't heavily using the connection, e.g. 8pm weekdays. Saturdays
are not a good day as the peeks tend to be less clear. The more obvious
the humps the more likely you have congestion.

At a (poor) guess it looks ok. However I would ask on one of the forums
I posted in my earlier post today. They have ongoing threads where
people discuss results and you can look at other peoples results.