virgin media speed upgrade

[solidsteve]

ok people calm down

virgian media use wire not fiber, used to be with them years ago when they where cable and wireless

now the thing is a familey member of mine is with them and was on a 2mb connection and getting 1.8 at peak times, she has just upgraded to a 20meg connection and is not getting 18meg on peak and off

now its 12.15pm over here now and just ran a speed test and got 18meg connection again

be thankful of that connection though because i am on BT and paying for 8meg but getting 3.1meg off peak and 1.9-2.1 on peak and i only live a mile away from the main exchange

 

[KSoD]

I am calm. I was just trying to explain that Fibre and Cable are not the same. As they seem to think that i do not know what i am talking about. Which my point was proven by 2 other people. I was no where near losing my cool yet.

 

[Kharn]

I am with virgin I just paid for the 20mb upgrade an i am waiting for a new modem turns out my old one isn't able to make use of the speed I am paying for. As far a fiber goes in the UK it goes to the local exchange only and not to your house if i did an when they upgrade to house hold fiber conections we will see massive upgrades in the phone network.

 

[Darth Daver]

OK guys, just to clear things up. Virgin media is/was a cable company but has been upgrading it's lines to fibre optic over the past few years. It is still known as a cable company but now uses mostly fiber optic cables which is where the confusion lies. This is obviously a different to how Americans describe things.

Virgin Media are hoping to bring in 50MB download speeds within the year to certain parts of the UK, obviously this can only be done with fiber optic lines.

Edit: By the way I am with Sky (uses BT lines which are copper) and I live very close to a hub. I get a solid 16MB connection, pretty much any time of the day

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

Darth...... are you referring to FIBER TO THE HOME/PREMISE? This is COMPLETLY different than a company using Fiber as trunks... some people seem to get confused by this....

 

[KSoD]

I know of Fibre Optic Cables. The ones that lie under the ground and are used to transfer the signal from hub to hub. But still they are converter to regular cbale conenctions when put into use with a household.

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

I know you knew Mak.... I know that there are many other people out there that don't know.... More of them I know in person, than on the boards.....

 

[KSoD]

Thanks for the support E_D. You know more about networking than me. I just try to help out.

 

[Kharn]

Virgin is using fiber right up to the exchanges in the UK not to the house, I know this as I am talking to them to be able to sell there Business broadband to clients.

Fiber to your house is a idea they are toying with in small select areas but sadly most of the UK's phone system is out dated and needs a massive overhaul to allow us to get fiber to your door - this is down to the way there was the selling off of parts of BT to cable company's back in the mid to late 90's. BT still own the exchanges an are reluctant to allow company's who are not endorsing the tech they are using to upgrade so fiber is only available to a certain number of house holds in the UK. There are plans in progress to force BT to allow the upgrades so hopefully we will get a better phone system, and better internet speeds.