News - BT slams Virgin's 'high price' broadband service

[this_is_gav]

There is no cap on VM 50Mbps service and it won't be on 100...

Cap, no. Apparently trafficking is going to be introduced though, so your torrent speeds are going to plummet.



I don't know - personally I don't care either - but is BT's broadband division separate to their budget for laying cables for telephone lines? If so, given that they're having to lay and maintain connections for the vast majority, fibre or otherwise, are they not at a huge disadvantage to Virgin from the off? I assume they're given grants from the government, but still, they won't have anything next to the flexibility of Virgin, who can just lay cables where they see profit (ie built-up areas).

I'll repeat I've no idea, so it's just a thought thrown out to somehow who does know.

[Metroid]

This is exactly what I was waiting for.

[Terbinator]

Cap, no. Apparently trafficking is going to be introduced though, so your torrent speeds are going to plummet.
.

50Mb, torrents. Are you mad man ?

[TheAnimus]

Dear BT, its called the free market.

If you think they are charging too much, offer the same for less money.

[jackvdbuk]

Dear BT, its called the free market.

If you think they are charging too much, offer the same for less money.

exactly. offer a similar service cheaper, less invasive throttling/FUP and speed... you get more customers.

though i suppose the average consumer wouldn't even care about them except price.

[marshalex]

don't bt also tie you in to at least an 18 month contract for this so called "cheaper" service, meaning that its more expensive over the contract term compared to virgin. don't quite get why people even use bt with all their traffic management, expensive costs and long contracts. why anyone would pay bt £25 a month for a 12 month contract when most companies will offer a better service much cheaper!

[Biscuit]

im glad people do go with BT as it means the other services dont get too clogged up or put under pressure to ahere to strict rules. Im quite happy being the informed minority.

[3dcandy]

don't bt also tie you in to at least an 18 month contract for this so called "cheaper" service, meaning that its more expensive over the contract term compared to virgin. don't quite get why people even use bt with all their traffic management, expensive costs and long contracts. why anyone would pay bt £25 a month for a 12 month contract when most companies will offer a better service much cheaper!

Because perhaps it's their only option? I live in Wales and BT may be more expensive, but the overall package is easier to manage with only 1 supplier involved and overall comes in with the better added options. My exchange however has just had it's 1st LLU uptake...bad news it's Talk Talk who by all accounts are dire (based on about 10 friends experiences). We have almost zero downtime, average pings, not too bad downloads.

[capt_cornflake]

Because perhaps it's their only option? I live in Wales and BT may be more expensive, but the overall package is easier to manage with only 1 supplier involved and overall comes in with the better added options. My exchange however has just had it's 1st LLU uptake...bad news it's Talk Talk who by all accounts are dire (based on about 10 friends experiences). We have almost zero downtime, average pings, not too bad downloads.

But even over a normal BT line there are loads of better providers than BT?

[Zak33]

Its all about the upload speeds, I'm on 50Mbps and personally don't care about getting my stuff downloaded twice as fast... Its pretty fast having 5-6MB/s down the pipe anyway.

What I DO care about is being able to send my stuff almost 7 times as fast.

I will pay for that all day long.

Bring on 10Mbps upload speeds!

he speaketh the truth.. bring it on

[Stoo]

/chugs along on knackered ADSL because there's no other option..

Damn you C&W for going bust before cabling the town.. (We even had the "Cable is coming to your area!" letters several years back - bah!)

[Percy1983]

I am one of the don't care lot with my 'free' talk talk broadband, in 3 years I have 1 day downtime and the occasional disconnect (probably 1 every 2 months or so).

As for speed I am 'up to 8mps' and everything loads quick enough and would a 100mps improve my browsing experience?

Yes I know downlaods could be faster but I have never had an issues with games from stream, click it and check later and its usually done.

[Funkstar]

/chugs along on knackered ADSL because there's no other option..

Damn you C&W for going bust before cabling the town.. (We even had the "Cable is coming to your area!" letters several years back - bah!)

(I'm sure I sound lik a broken record here)

And this is my main gripe about Virgin Media, they bang on about headline services, but there have been no significant network expansions since they took over from ntl:telewest. Just installing new boxes in the exchanges (or flashing some firmware perhaps) and dishing out new modems does not cut it in my book.

[Chris P]

BT has raised concerns that Virgin Media's new 100Mbps broadband package is too expensive for the average British family.

The average family won't require this speed of connection...

Once this speed of connection becomes average for the average user the price will drop...

[Funkstar]

As for speed I am 'up to 8mps' and everything loads quick enough and would a 100mps improve my browsing experience?

For you, probably not.

It's not until you have multiple people using the connection for streaming music and TV. Or once you start to get proper TV on demand services that poeple will really benefit from these super fast speeds.

Take the tests that Verison did in the US the other day, 10gbit connections over fibre. They use that for their cable services though, so some of your bandwidth is eaten up by any and all the TVs you have in your house.

[Noxvayl]

+1 for BE

I was going to get Be for my new line, when I called up to order I got some person in Dehli... Even then that numpty said I wasn't able to get Be due to the length on my line(+- 5km from exchange), "oh really then why do my neighbours and I have ADSL2+ LLU services?" Not the best experience with their support team...

On the other hand I sent Aquiss an email to their support address. Email sent 18:44, reply 19:51... my response to that 20:58(after playing some LoL), reply 21:17. That's responses in around 1 hour during the most pertinent time of the day. Added to that the responses were well formed and thought out, the person responding could could actually think. Taking into account that my email to support would be low priority you can imagine the usefulness of their good support system.

Plus they don't have a Fair Usage policy that Be does, simple peak usage cap and unlimited off-peak usage. If Be are good, Aquiss are brilliant.

Also check this top 50 list for UK broadband ISPs> http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top50.php Virgin, TalkTalk and BT do ever so well for customer satisfaction don't they...

Same time tonight I will be testing Fast.co.uk's support service, see if it justifies being ranked so much better than Aquiss.