Virgin doubling their speeds again.

[1stRaven]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16491614

Good news, I guess.

[shaithis]

More people will have sub-standard connections during prime-time then!

After every speed bump they have done, I know someone whose connection has gone to %^&* during prime-time.

[Mutley]

^this

I'm on the old 20mb service. I don't want to move to the 30mb service. The cable modem I have is old but solid and reliable. if they want to improve things, I'd rather have higher upload bandwidth and lower latency.

[Lee H]

I had no issues with virgin slowing down, in fact some nights I was getting over the 50 MB speeds when browsing and grabbing files so I thought I would throw this in to balance the feedback so to speak.

I may infact look at getting virgin installed when I am living now as I cannot put with the slow 8 Mb sky connection thats installed as at night-time it comes practically unusable.

[shaithis]

I had no issues with virgin slowing down, in fact some nights I was getting over the 50 MB speeds when browsing and grabbing files so I thought I would throw this in to balance the feedback so to speak.

The funny thing is, many people have said the same to me........but it's always been just a matter of time.

You only have to look on the Virgin forums.....thread after thread by postcode and the general theme is: Sooner or later your segment of the network will be over-subscribed and you will have to wait 6-12+ months for virgin to acknowledge and fix the issue.

[Hicks12]

mines always pretty solid, have had a couple of issues over the years but they have been sorted so cant fault it now! Stuck on 10Mb/s as they wont upgrade without taking aware our "discount package" so basically costs more than a new customer to upgrade! Happy with them providing me to 20Mb/s as that means if i get throttled i will move to a much more tolerable 5Mb/s as somehow virgins throttle system basically increases latency to over 1000 in most games when it happens, however my friend on 20Mb if he gets throttle (rarely due to increased limit) he is fine.

I reckon i will get upgraded a month after the 2013 deadline, plymouth is ignored alot of the time .

edit @ Shaithis, that can be said about any company surely? look at scans forums... theres people complaining, even though they have had a faultless service for years .

Id rather have Virgin than Sky/BT... friends on Sky and fairly close to the exchange yet gets 1-1.5Mb/s speed at most time and a ping of 100 - 150ms all the time! Terrible for gaming, yet its the same price as my 10Mb/s which is 99% of the time 9.9Mb/s , he gets throttled for downloading as well (excessive usage it seems) so it cancels out virgins STM.

Also remember, virgin dont get crap loads of money handed to them unlike BT so really BT should be faultless but its shambles!

[shaithis]

My brother is in Whitleigh (PL5) and he had the capacity issue about 3 years ago and eventually had to dump it and get ADSL.

Got another friend just off of Kings Road (PL1) who got ADSL installed today after 2 months of virgins packetloss hell. Another friend at Wyndham Square (PL1) who's got the capacity issue now.

Andi_C (hexite) is in Keyham (PL2) and is starting to get it.....

I would be very worried on Virgin in Plymouth atm!!

edit @ Shaithis, that can be said about any company surely? look at scans forums... theres people complaining, even though they have had a faultless service for years .

Seriously, read the threads and how long they run for........I think virgin must work on margins.....i.e. they do not fix anything until a certain percentage of customers have complained to the point where they give them the connections for free until resolved. Once they are running near or at a loss in the area, then they decide to spend the money on increasing capacity.
I know my brother had 6 months or so free before he decided having a £15/month 2mb working connection was better then a free 20mb broken one!

[Hicks12]

Damn that doesnt sound good! Hopefully they dont come to plymstock... i should be alright as Morrisons is right opposite me and uses the network so it is generally well maintained in over subscriptions etc.

If it happens to me though i will leave asap, tv is excellent as it is mostly weather proof unlike sky but if the broadband went tits up here it would be a no brainer .

[Jonj1611]

I have friends in Mount Gould who also have capacity issues

[1stRaven]

I have the 50mb service and have never had an issue, was the same on the 20mb as well for a number of years. Guess we are just lucky around here but I am not complaining.

[jimborae]

Balls, I just switched yesterday from Orange to BT Infinity at the girlfriends house rather than getting Virgin in (due to issues getting Virgin's cable from the street up a brick drive to the house)

[Dareos]

The problem with oversubscription is that due to regulations Virgin cannot refuse to take on new clients in an area, and that internet use as a whole has changed drastically in the last 10 or so years. Virgins network is a hodgepodge of different networks under one name. A lot has been done to bring these networks into line with each other (they now all use the same diagnostic software for instance). Torrenting, social networking, streaming media have boomed in the last few years putting massive strain on a network that was not built with this in mind and upgrading a network is not quite as simple as sticking a few new connections into a cabinet at the end of someones road.

Sometimes upgrades are held back by weather, sometimes by governement and councils and sometimes it just plain doesnt work the way it was expected to. These problems have to be worked out and take time, but Virgin have stated that no expansion will be taking place on a grand scale, until our current network is running at an acceptable level.

Lee, chuck me your postcode in a pm mate, and I will check for issues on either UBR you might connect to, means you get a heads up on whether Virgin is good for you in that area.

[DannyM]

I'm in Bradford and I am on 50Mb and I also have a friend on 50Mb, I've only once had an issue with the 50Mb service, with connection dropping took a bit to sort but once done it's been solid, getting 6.2MB/s fairly often.

We were with Telewest then obviously over to Virgin, we have had a few problems, but Virgin have always sorted it. I do think they are hit and miss though in certain areas. The engineer who did install our new modem for 50Mb did say that we were been put onto a brand new network for it so that may explain it, but I then later heard that everyone was been transferred to that network, so I'm not sure if that is true, if it is then it must be pretty damn good considering I have had no issues.

Can't wait to get 100Mb!

[IronWarrior]

Looking forward to the 100mb speed's, that will really help with uploading and downloading... things.

But the best thing is more bandwidth, I been complaining for a long time that they offer you fast speeds, but crap bandwidth, fed up downloading at speeds of like 2mbs and for the web surfing to suffer.

[flearider]

i like my 24mb 24/7/365 had 1 problem so they sent out a bt engineer changed the pairs on the pole and at exchange bingo done .. be* best there is .. can't wait for them to get fiber to cabnet ..

[Zadock]

I've been with VM for cable broadband for a year now and it has been quite solid although there have been one or two occassions where I have had problems streaming from lovefilm and the i-player on my TV and on both occassions it has been during peak time.

I was thinking about upgrading to the 30mb package but seeing as I am going to get 20mb for no more charge I think I'll hold off.