Virgin Media Gig1 broadband costs from £62pcm

[HEXUS]

Launches today, and the service will be available for 1m UK homes by end of the year, 15m by 2021.

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[Tabbykatze]

I'd much rather have synchronous gigabit, what happened to it being 100:10 ratio, it's back to 100:5 ratio for this link.

I'm begging for Hyperoptic to come to my area but they aren't yet

I'll see what the 500mbps deal goes down to when this is out.

[LSG501]

Honestly until (download) servers catch up with the download speeds 1GBit is completely useless in most cases... I've had situations where I can't even saturate 80Mbits without using more than one download and personally I'd rather have more upload than 1GB.

If I lived in the tiny area this covers (this will NEVER get to me) I might gain 900Mbit's download (assuming somewhere can saturate it) but I only gain 30Mbit's on the upload... I'd rather have 300/300Mbit than 1000/50, in all honesty I can't think of anything that even needs 1GBit download speeds yet I can think of reasons for needing faster upload speeds.

[tomcoleman]

can we seperatly buy the Hub 4 ? for the better wifi?

[Tabbykatze]

Honestly until (download) servers catch up with the download speeds 1GBit is completely useless in most cases... I've had situations where I can't even saturate 80Mbits without using more than one download and personally I'd rather have more upload than 1GB.

If I lived in the tiny area this covers (this will NEVER get to me) I might gain 900Mbit's download (assuming somewhere can saturate it) but I only gain 30Mbit's on the upload... I'd rather have 300/300Mbit than 1000/50, in all honesty I can't think of anything that even needs 1GBit download speeds yet I can think of reasons for needing faster upload speeds.

I need gigabit because reasons...

You are absolutely right on the saturation of the link not being possible without exceptional numbers of connections.

But you get it because it's cool not because you can use or need it

[Friesiansam]

Launches today, and the service will be available for 1m UK homes by end of the year, 15m by 2021..

The worms will have long since stripped the dead flesh from my bones, before Virgin delivers cable to small villages.

[Ttaskmaster]

in all honesty I can't think of anything that even needs 1GBit download speeds yet I can think of reasons for needing faster upload speeds.

I'm currently (still) downloading free Epic games, at a rate of around 140Kbps... I flippin' well need 1Gbps download, if only so I don't go insane before Christmas!!!!!

[LSG501]

I'm currently (still) downloading free Epic games, at a rate of around 140Kbps...

yeah but you didn't say if that was down to epic or your connection

[Gentle Viking]

I have found a company here that offer 5 gbit on fiber, and adequately it is called Gigabit.
And for a reasonable price i can pay out of my early retirement pension..
But sadly they only seem to be on the fiber around the Danish capitol, and 50 Caterpillar tracked excavators could not drag my old ass over there.

It is rare i get the full 128 MB/s DL speed my gbit connection can do on download.
Very few hosts are not geared for those speeds, but at least its not in my end the problem is.

PS. Downloading the 5 or so GB COD modern warfare beta, i only got around 50 MB/s average, so for a game i knew would sock and got confirmed sucked ( for me ) that would have been a pain to do on a 20 mbit DSL connection.

[Saracen999]

This actually is pretty well timed for me .... as a reminder to renegotiate (or cancel) my current service. I don't come close to needing my existing (300) service, and would happily see it cut in half, or more, to reduce the bill. I'm 2even thinking, seriously, about just dumping broadband altogether, as the most demanding thing I do online is post here, and that hardly gets my connection exactly breaking a sweat.

And £62? For me, dream on, Virgin.

[Gentle Viking]

Yeah if you don't have any "special" needs, you might as well drop home internet and just go with a 4G phone, that can act as a AP for your computer.
I did that a few years ago getting caught out for a few weeks in between ISP change, but my phone saved my ass there, and i just had to not do "heavy" things as my data plan er just 20 GB/mo.
So if you don't game / don't stream / don't move a lot of data but just surf the web and do mail ASO, then you can make do with very little bandwith and very little computational power.
62 GBP are more than 2 X of what i pay now for my 1000 / 100 mbit on cable, and it is about 20% more than i could get 5 gbit for if i lived in the right place near Copenhagen.

PS. TBH i don't really need gbit either, or 5 gbit for that matter, but i have always been big on overkill / headroom, and if the price are right i will also gladly pay for that, if not i will just have to make do without.

[Saracen999]

I agree with that analysis, Gentle Viking, but what I meant was without even the 4G connection, and without any form of AP. Most (as in about 95%+) of my PC usage these days takes place on an air-gapped home network. This is, for instance, photographic work.

I don't (online) game, don't stream, don't bank online, rarely shop online, don't move much if any data and even email is very, very rare.

My use of mobile phone is also extremely limited. Put it this way, I often have to do something, every few months, just to avoid losing the number.

I can still connect, currently, on a tablet via BT hotspot, and to be honest, that's enough for my current needs, which is mainly posting here. If I were to stop doing that, I don't even need that hotspot access.

I'm currently wondering why I need any form of internet access at all, and even if I want it. I'm going in the opposite direction to needing ever-faster access. I'm certainly not suggesting that that is anything other than very uncommon, but it is why, for me, more speed for more money is an utter non-starter.

[darkghost]

Those that are trying to find a reason for 1GB for a single use (downloading a single file faster) are going to struggle.
This is about bandwidth and is ideal for households that have several users that have HD/UHD Netflix/Amazon/etc streams, downloads, online gaming, VOIP and so on.

But it's also about bragging rights for VM - and most of us would far rather they expand coverage than ramp up existing speeds.

[Ttaskmaster]

Those that are trying to find a reason for 1GB for a single use (downloading a single file faster) are going to struggle.

I want the 60GB game downloaded and ready to play within the 10 minutes it takes to go get a cup of coffee and put the dogs out. How is that not the biggest reason ever?

[Gentle Viking]

yeah getting things done in,,,,,, snap finger, is nice.
Though most often i sit and look at the DL speed and its not even half of what i could do if the damn host was awake.
And yeah with the insane size of games today, or windows update after a clean install.
So i am chuffed Denmark are on the forefront of internet speeds, and coverage in cables and in the air, actually most of the fiber grid are put down outside major towns as digging the sidewalk and bicycle paths up in those are hard to get permission for.
I am looking for a apartment in more rural settings, with a fiber connection.
My current cable provider are very evil, i always say for each day it exist Denmark are getting worse, but luckily other actors now are in on their cables, but the owner still make some money on me.
But sadly the alternative ( the phone plug ) only carry 10/1 mbit here, and i have tried and it was just unbearable, and the same end owner of the cobber phone cables are the same evil company.

[Lorcaran]

My local area is always over contended and I have struggled to get the advertised 100Mb speeds before. I do hope they will have enough bandwidth to cover all of their customers connecting at peak times.

The speeds were worse than dialup from 6 pm until 11 pm. I would like to see some guarantees on how fast my connection would be for £60+/month.