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News Virgin Media shows off 1.5Gb/sec broadband connection

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by arcticstoat, 26 Jul 2011.

  1. arcticstoat

    arcticstoat Minimodder

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  2. samkiller42

    samkiller42 For i AM Cheesecake!!

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    When can those in non cable areas get anything decent is my thought tbh. As good as this sounds, it still leaves alot of us brits in the dark ages.

    Sam
     
  3. Musicboffin

    Musicboffin What's a Dremel?

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    Isn't it DOCSIS3 and not 2?
     
  4. Material

    Material Soco Amaretto Lime

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    I'm not certain. The press release seems to contradict itself.

     
  5. Dwarfer

    Dwarfer What's a Dremel?

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    I agree. I used to live in Leeds literally a couple of miles from the centre yet I was stuck on 7Mbps!! Shocking. Only round the corner you could get 50Mb fibre optic!

    So I now how frustrating it can be for those still stuck on poor ADSL Lines! Surely, if VM can afford to trial 1.5Gb/sec then it would be more effective for them to put Fibre Optic throughout the UK!
     
  6. TomH

    TomH BELTALOWDA!

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    That's what I thought. Wikipedia appears to agree.

    Sam: it's only a showcase. They still won't be able to provide a proper service because they're fundamentally backwards as an entity. The sync may look impressive, but the throughput & the politics surrounding it is still going to be crap.

    The real game is getting a single-mode fibre (or pair) into everyone's home. You're up to 10Gigabit Ethernet there with affordable optics, which will only get cheaper.

    BTOR do already run single-mode fibre in for 100Mbit speeds via their FTTP/FTTC push in some areas (and other small start-ups are doing similar things) but despite being 'only 100Mbit' right now, in the places where the fibre is in, it's going to be able to scale very easily without mega investment (i.e. digging up the road) for years to come.
     
  7. NuTech

    NuTech Minimodder

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    Hard to be excited about stuff like this when they can't even sort out their existing tech.

    I was a big fan of Virgin Media (I'm on their 50Mb) until they introduced traffic shaping at peak times (5pm-midnight). Now, I have no problem with them wanting to throttle 'shady' traffic like Bit-torrent etc, but the system they use keeps accidentally interfering with stuff like youtube, iPlayer, xbox live, MMO's etc. They constantly deny it, or claim it's an isolated incident, but one look at their forums and you'll see just how isolated it is.
     
    Last edited: 26 Jul 2011
  8. TomH

    TomH BELTALOWDA!

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    No, they'll continue to eek as much out of their DOCSIS investment as possible without digging up the streets again to run FTTP. Of course 1.5Gbit is an impressive demonstration and a credit to the DOCSIS Engineers, but the real-world issues for Virgin Media are in their backhaul and in their board room, not their last mile.
     
  9. Podge4

    Podge4 Oi, whats your game?

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    That part sounds very much like you could be talking about bt too.
     
  10. rogerrabbits

    rogerrabbits What's a Dremel?

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    Woo for virgin 1.5Gb/sec throttled down to 5kb/s between the hours of 9am and 8:59am.
     
  11. Fizzban

    Fizzban Man of Many Typos

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    I'm on 50meg too and I gotta say this traffic shaping is pissing me off. I get perfect download and upload speeds, yet streaming a youtube video is a joke some days. Don't they realise most of the heavy downloaders don't even use bit-torrent anymore? They are shaping it for nothing.
     
  12. NuTech

    NuTech Minimodder

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    It's ridiculous.

    I use a wired Ethernet connection from our Virgin router to my computer. But at times I find myself switching over to our much slower WiFi Sky Broadband ADSL router (we get it free with our Sky TV) just to watch a Youtube video uninterrupted.

    It's crazy the lengths ISP's go to just so they can advertise 'Unlimited' broadband.
     
  13. SchizoFrog

    SchizoFrog What's a Dremel?

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    I live in East London and we still don't have cable either. It is not just rural areas that are being left behind.
     
  14. Jaybles

    Jaybles Minimodder

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    I would rather instead of putting £13billion into their fibre network they spent the money bringing ADSL 2+ to the rest of the country.

    Here i have the option of BT ADSL or BT ADSL Max.

    BT have a monopoly here.

    Oh and my speeds are ever decreasing.
     
    Jamie likes this.
  15. Taniniver

    Taniniver Minimodder

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    Interesting, but pointless. I've never had a connection from them (hate the company), but I've used it at a friends and struggled to download a file at 50 kilobytes a second at peak times, on a "20 Megabit" connection.

    Also, how does it connect to the PC? Even Gigabit ethernet couldn't keep up, and who has a 10 Gig ethernet port here. Anyone?
     
  16. Sensei

    Sensei What's a Dremel?

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    Man, Im still on 1.5mb, thats why I stopped online gaming. The lag was a killer.
     
  17. Dwarfer

    Dwarfer What's a Dremel?

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    Don't get confused with Cable & ADSL. Virgin offer both!

    If your friend was on 20Mb but could barely hit 50b/sec then A) his connection has a serious problem or B) he's on ADSL and limited due to poor copper wiring either in the home or in the street.
     
  18. aka_jesse

    aka_jesse What's a Dremel?

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    i don't ive in a cabled area either, every street around mine is, but not this one. we had a letter in 1997 saying they would be doing it shortly and apologising for any inconvenience, we are still waiting for them. so it's ADSL for me. this country is awful at updating it's infrastructure.
     
  19. fuus

    fuus Misses Rep Bombs

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    and here we are.. 3mb here.. :S damn the countryside
     
  20. Phil Rhodes

    Phil Rhodes Hypernobber

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    What is point?

    I have, in theory, something like 38Mbps to the exchange here, via FTTC. I still can't str.... eam youtube vi.... deos at a reso... lution of 360 by.... 240 without it.... going like thi....

    ...

    ...s.

    Displaying a very big number to the users at home means nothing when you can't actually connect them to anywhere else at a worthwhile rate. Speedtest.net indicates I get 38Mbps to somewhere in Kent, but barely 6Mbps to my buddy in Los Angeles. The performance in many cases is not noticeably better than basic ADSL because the link between me and the exchange is not the limiting factor. This is a particularly insidious problem as it is not down to any one organisation to fix it, so everyone just says "well, there's no point in us upgrading our links, we'll just get throttled by someone else".

    Left to its own devices, industry will not solve this.
     
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