Virgin Trials 200Mbit Broadband, Reports Strong Q1 Comments

It sounds like they'll need all that extra bandwidth if they plan on opening their network up to other ISP's.

Virgin Media - moving ahead but not finishing the job first. I don't think I'm alone in having problems getting the bandwidth promised. How about they get what they sell now working before doing the next thing. I've had an average less than 2Mbps since starting to pay for 10Mbps three months ago! Infrastructural issues are the cause according to their technical support team. With no fixed dates promised for correction.
BT sent me a cocky letter when I switch from them to virgin media, saying I'd regret it. Guess what, they were right.

Have to agree with savaged here, this sounds completely ridiculous. Me and my house mates are on a 20Mb contract with them, we get that 20Mb speed for about 2 hours a day at absolute best, early in the morning. By about 2 in the afternoon its usually down to 10Mb and by 7 in the evening were lucky to get 2Mb, some evenings I've even had download speeds slower than my upload........... We weren't even being capped as the upload was still at the full 700Kbps, not down to its 250ish cap. Now I'm back living at home on my parents BT connection even though its only 3Mb, its 3Mb all the time and I can deal with it. I would much rather have 3-5Mb all the time, than 20Mb some of the time, and 1Mb some of the time.

I can't agree about the speeds, have always got what they sold me or a bit higher. I'm on the 2mbit connection but I think I have a low contention ratio so speed is fine. but! traffic management is ridiculous, dropped down from the premium product because of it and now they get me by the back door - making the min 10mbit and charging me £2 a month more for something I don't want. they must be setting themselves up to sell something to us or that speed is pointless.

The good thing is that once that trail finishes and that 200mbit is opened nationwide, they'll have to offer it as an option to the wholesalers. So hopefully some one like Be*, if they expand to cable, will be able to offer it as well.

Up to 200Mbit, absolutely pointless. How about you start selling connections with typical values Virgin? I'm apparantly on a 10Mbit line, it achieves that only between 2 and 5 in the morning, currently I'm at 600kbits download.... 11 upload! Piss poor, don't go with Virgin

200mbit would still take 30 minutes to download a full blu-ray disc so if we want connections that enable us to fairly instantly buy movies online we need something closer to 4000mbit (4Gbit).

200mbit connections would allow full blu-ray quality HDTV and streamed films though.

And on the speed issue, building a database of real speeds would be easy - it would just require Ofcom to force Virgin and BT Wholesale/Openreach to give them everybody's sync speed (or better, line stats), that way you'd be able to tell pretty accurately what speed you're likely to get by the speeds your neighbours are getting.

How people would feel about allowing it though, I don't know.

I'd rather have unlimited 20mb than (i.e. Be There) than 200mb with an draconian FUP.

Or even better a 20mb/20mb residential option.

@Gordon: Streaming only works when you want to watch the movie there and then, it doesn't offer the opportunity to hear about a good film during your lunch hour, buy it and then shut down your computer until the evening when you'd want to watch it.