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 ...
Forum Discussion
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.
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".
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.
Virgin Media's answer to CityFibre?
tepark wrote:
Yes the massive price increases are forcing my hand, and the "customer Services" well... far from "top notch".That's polite sarcasm, as it pleases the forum staff more than outright humour with a sharp edge (which I find gets me a brief ban from the forum).
But I've already voted with my feet, and left VM a couple of months back.
I've been a cable broadband customer for a long time and there has been a number of cost-free speed increases at unpredictable intervals. We're now expecting all the Gig1 customers to get 100Mbps upload at no cost, in which case there will be headroom, in a manner of speaking, for those on M500 to get an upload increase to (probably) 50Mbps.
As for TV: yes, there is more streaming than before and VM is well aware of it, which is why there are more apps (Disney+ has arrived and Paramount+ is coming).
