Virgin Touts 150Mbit Cable Broadband By 2012 Comments

Seems utterly pointless to me, I'm on there 20Mb XL line and I'm currently getting a download speed of just under 2Mb. We get almost full speed nice and early, before 10 its normally at about 17 or 18Mb, but then it just gradually decreases as more people are using the internet. Some evenings were lucky to even get 1Mb and the occasional speed test has shown my upload higher than my download.........

I would rather get 10Mb reliably all the time than 150Mb for 1 hour in the morning and be stuck back to 1Mb every night.

Second that. I'd go so far as to say it's misadvertising.

They should take the mean speed over a one month period, as measured by an independent body then tout that figure around.

I'm on Virgin 10Mb and get the full download speed even though, from reading comments, it seems I may be in the minority.

Although you have to remember, that with Virgin's Traffic Management, you may not get the speed you're paying for anyway if you go over your data limit.

I third that ;) I have the same problem. When I arrive home from work I get reasonable bandwidth, but after a short while, say by about 8pm, it's down to dial up speeds! Virgin keep refunding me money when I complain, saying it's a fault with the cables in the area.

I'm no Virgin fanboi but I'm a long time cable subscriber and apart from the last couple of years the speed has been as advertised on the tin or even higher overnight. the throttling at early evening is the problem now, was a premium subscriber but due to the previous dropped down to 2 meg package but soon to have 10 meg when i don't want it and have to pay them £2 more a month. I third that, utterly pointless speed when you can't do anything with it. possibly the previous 2 posters have slower speeds because they are on high contention ratios as everyone in my town that I know & game etc are happy with the connection just have problems with Virgin service. I know someone who sells broadband wholesale for BT and some of those contention ratios are scary, the mobile phone companies. I also know someone who installs the Sky equipment in exchanges and says they are quite good. pays yer money!

Gordon is biased to Virgin since he uses them and seems to like them.

Personally I think you all need to ditch your ISP's and move to O2 or Be. O2 are the best ISP I've used. Very fast (I get 11-13mbits consistently), very reliable, very cheap (I pay £15/month), good (free) tech support and unlimited use. Am I missing something: why do people even bother with Virgin?

@Williamn...

Going to the following url will tell you why...
www. samknows .com / broadband / checker2 .php

Not all of us live within a mile of the exchange. I live 2.5 miles from the exchange and even o2 cannot guarantee anything more than 1.5 megabit.

So we plod onwards with virgins traffic-shaping madness until a wireless provider offers a reliable connection of better quality. I used to live in the hope that WiMax would spread fast and wide but that seems to have been stumped by those already in the broadband business.

Seriously considering moving house to get that ADSL option..

And i'll chip in, not a chance of wireless local loop ever taking over from a wire solution. The stuff just doesnt work properly.