Virginmedia Fibre is it fibre?

[davrob]

I have the offer of a Full Fibre (FTTP) at a very reasonable quotation far better than VM. I consulted VM to ask when are they going to do FTTP in my area but they replied that is already FTTP but I understood it was only Fibre up to the small box on the pavement in front of my house and the rest to the house is a coax cable.

Plus they added they will be doing VOIP within the next few YEARS! - as this will be bypassing phone line will our premiums be reduced as we are not using the line anymore.

Your thoughts will be appreciated  

[jb66]

My thoughts are that I don't care what material is used to deliver my Internet as long as I get the speed I pay for

[carl_pearce · Accepted solution]

There are three 'types':

• HFC - Coax from cabinet to your home.
• RFoG - Fibre to the wall box on the outside of your home converted to coax between the wall box and HUB.
• XGS-PON - Full fat FTTP where a HUB 5x is used that can accept a fibre connection directly.

All are more than capable of just over 1.1Gbps on the Gig1 service (And 2.2Gbps in the future), however, the main difference is latency.

[Stephen93]

I’m have XGS-PON on the gig1 plan, the hub 5x runs at 1132mps but when testing speed on my iPad Pro I get sometimes 910mps & at most 810 on iPhone 15 Pro Max & this is with both next to the router, should I be getting 1 gig on WiFi?

[Client62]

I would ignore the technologies, focusing my attention on buying a connection that provided the services needed.

The range is from a VM high cost big bundles of Internet + TV + Home & Mobile Phones to a pure IP connection from the other provider.

The latter would be perfect for us, but is not on offer here,  so we have VM RFoG internet only + 3 VOIP phones via Sipgate + Sky TV.

But what suits you ?

[robbiekhan]

No. to get the full fat speeds you need to be using wired. Wireless has overheads involved so will never reach maximum speeds generally. Plus no wireless device like those mentioned will ever need or benefit from such speeds anyway.

[jpeg1]

If the new FTTP service is cheaper than VM, by all means go for it, but it won't include any TV channels that you have subscribed for on VM.

You could instead use the new quotation to argue for a better renewal deal at renewal time with VM. 

[carl_pearce]

Too many variables with wireless so no, you cannot always expect full speed to one device.

[Stephen93]

Thanks, but at my mother-in-law she has Vodafone, broadband speed advertised at 200mps, when I test it on my iPhone I get 200mps, her router is behind a curtain about 6’ away must be a better router

[robbiekhan]

200Mbps is nothing and any phone made in the last few years can easily maintain 200Mbps over WiFi. It's when you start getting into the 500Mbps+ internet packages where you really start to encounter the overhead ranges of WiFi and where distance/WiFi type matter more and dictate how fast a speed test will be.