Forum Discussion

tepark's avatar
tepark
On our wavelength
2 years ago

Virgin Media's answer to CityFibre?

Hi All,

I have been a Long Time Virgin Media customer mainly because they have been the only company to offer me higher than 5mb broadband service. Now that CityFibre is available in our area I was curious to understand what Virgin Media are going to do to make them selves more competitive with the new providers. 

Firstly I am interested to know if Virgin Media are going to increase their "consumer" upload speeds. Provides using CityFibre's network get uploads speeds that are considerably higher than those on Virgin Media. For example I am currently on a 600mb download speed with Virgin Media with an upload speed of 40mb max. I can't find on Virgin Media's web site the price for broadband only for this package so pricing is a bit of a pain to check. However for a package that includes 500MB down and up 500MB upload with a minimum of 250mb up/down guaranteed are Virgin Media considering or going to increase the Upload Speeds.

Now the reason I bring this up is that more and more people are working from home, and if you work in a IT Support Role sometimes you need to handle "large" (3gb or greater for example here) log files on the 40mb at best upload speed for Virgin Media it take a while. On these new services using the City Fibre Network this would be much better.

I know the paragraph above is a "smaller" subset or users however this could apply in other area's, such as content creators, Accounts or people that work on larger files. It would also help improve VPN Speeds for Business Users that have a requirement to work on documents that remain on their corporate network.

I am aware that there has been some "issues" on CityFibres' side however, it seams a bit of a shame that Virgin Media can't just increase the Upload Speed (network infrastructure dependent) and retain some of their customers. 

Yes the TV is good however more and more people are moving to streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu etc. 

What is everyone else's thoughts on this? 
Virgin Media - do you have plan to address this (that is not moving to a Business Broadband Solution)?

Broadband
Cityfibre
speed
Virgin Media
  • Andrew-G's avatar
    Andrew-G
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    A long and complicated story behind it, but no, VM can't just increase their upload speeds - the core cable technology permits around 10:1 ratios.  Within that there's some leeway to offer more to some customers than others, but overall the ratio holds true. 

    As and when VM have a true fibre offer that's not got a DOCSIS element in the chain then yes they can consider symmetrical speeds (which is not to say that the economics will make that attractive to VM), but for this even to be an option they'll need to have upgraded the network to XGS-PON, and the customer droplinks, as well as replacing the customer's hub.  That's part of the strategy but it is years away.  If you want faster upload, go with CityFibre.  If you want VM's bundles, TV offering, regular massive price rises, and top notch customer service then stick with VM.

    • tepark's avatar
      tepark
      On our wavelength
      2 years ago

      What is interesting is that within the same postcode you can get VM's Business Solutions that use a similar hub (including network) and give much better upload speeds but consumers seam to be left behind... 

      Andrew-G wrote:

        If you want faster upload, go with CityFibre.  If you want VM's bundles, TV offering, regular massive price rises, and top notch customer service then stick with VM.


      Yes the massive price increases are forcing my hand, and the "customer Services" well... far from "top notch".

      • carl_pearce's avatar
        carl_pearce
        Community elder
        2 years ago
        tepark wrote:

        What is interesting is that within the same postcode you can get VM's Business Solutions that use a similar hub (including network) and give much better upload speeds but consumers seam to be left behind... 

        Andrew-G wrote:

          If you want faster upload, go with CityFibre.  If you want VM's bundles, TV offering, regular massive price rises, and top notch customer service then stick with VM.


        Yes the massive price increases are forcing my hand, and the "customer Services" well... far from "top notch".

        From what I can see on VM's site all business connections conform to the 10:1 ratio.

        Since the introduction of the DOCSIS 3.1 upstream channel it appears that VM had/have plans to roll out 100Mbps upload for Gig1 residential users, so you never know, they may roll out 10:1 for other subscriptions.

  • rbetts100's avatar
    rbetts100
    Dialled in
    2 years ago

    I’m waiting for CityFibre to become active in my area then I will be leaving VM. The price increase is stupid, customer service is now terrible. 

  • Aaron2's avatar
    Aaron2
    Well-informed
    2 years ago

    Excluding reports about 100Mb upload, I doubt there there will be any "major" changes until the XGS rollout as that would make most sense, at least in my eyes.

  • rbetts100's avatar
    rbetts100
    Dialled in
    2 years ago

    I’m on OpenReach full fibre via Shell. It’s cheap, and fast and great upload speeds. VM has lost the plot with pricing and customer services. 

  • Martyn's avatar
    Martyn
    Superfast
    2 years ago

    even those on xgs now have bad upload 😛 its annoying no information on packages ever gets released until that day, be nice to know whats coming if and when. 

  • vmguru's avatar
    vmguru
    Joining in
    8 months ago

    I was in similar position been with virgin media long time perhaps 20 years has always been the fastest available service in my location, fabulous download speeds however upload has never been enough. I have now moved to cityfibre 1GB up and down which amazing.