Nialli's unofficial blog on Virgin Media's UK cable TV services
March 23, 2018
Virgin's broadband top speed up again
Virgin Media is once again upping the maximum broadband speed it offers, bringing the fastest speed available in the UK up to 350Mbps. And if you already pay for the company’s 300Mbps then Virgin will upgrade you to 350Mbps for no extra charge.
If only I could get 300Mb, the maximum I can get is 200 - they tried to add 300Mb a couple of months ago and you loose broadband altogether, I would love the upload speed :(
I am mystified by the obsession with speed. Sure we want it quick but would trade it off with reliability. How many websites allow you to access them at a fraction of that speed, much less download/upload content at that rate.
All in all VM is pretty good for broadband and probably the main reason many of us are with them. They used to be streets ahead, not so much now but still decent in the North. I am not sure how they compare in the South.
Virgin... Child in melt down yet again when playing on xbox internet off so game rank lost!!! Been with them since NTL move in 6weeks and never again had enough!!!
Using wi-fi on every device, I would probably get the same performance if I had 50mbps as 350. Big downloads are still way too slow for what you’re paying.
i've been getting 350Mbps DL for awhile now. about a Year and it's great but 21 Mbps UL is still too slow. Virgin only throttle UL speeds because of Torrenters and it's so annoying for gamers plus with the intel puma fault on the superhub 3s Virgin seriously need to FIX IT!
I had a sh3 and downgraded again to a sh2ac which was faster and gave me my full 200 (yes 200 not 350) was contemplating the 350 service but when I looked at my network performance I realised I don’t need it. I have Unifi kit... access points and switch. Tivo boxes are hard wired on Gb Ethernet. Wi-Fi devices connected mostly on 5g (which get close to 200Mb/s download when doing a speed test. With kids on YouTube, and the PlayStation gaming, a couple of tivo boxes streaming boxset or netflix, I’m still peeking out with demand below 100Mb/s when 5 or 6 devices are streaming. The only way I see the need for greater demand if if stream UHD contend but even if 4x a standard netflix stream, I recon it is only going to get to 150Mb/s. Currently, I can only see the advantage of the higher speed service for upload speeds or downloading torrents, but even then I question it’s real value.
As dannysat said, I’m with them and have been since they launched cablemodem with Telewest some 18+ years ago because of reliability. I need the Internet to work as I work from home. The only down time I’ve had was scheduled and I knew in advance. And in one property there was a fault in the green box outside which took a month to identify as it was caused by water so only occurred when it rained! I’ve been lucky and don’t have half the problems people talk about, oh and I use my own kid as routers and access points and put their kit in modem mode, so I know the stuff works and I don’t have an issue.
As an aside, there is a reason in a company you have an IT team to set up the network and yet people are expected to be network experts in their home! Do they understand why a Wi-Fi signal may not reach them across the house or why they get slow download speeds across Wi-Fi? To add to the problem, vendors put the box somewhere convenient to bring cables into the house not in the best place for a single box, which is being a jack of all trades, to act as a half decent access point that covers the house. And vendors now have set the expectation that a consumer router is free and so people get rubbish performance and don’t want to pay for a great router and access point in the property. People should consider a mesh access point network if they have a choice, but they are forking out at least £300.
6 comments:
If only I could get 300Mb, the maximum I can get is 200 - they tried to add 300Mb a couple of months ago and you loose broadband altogether, I would love the upload speed :(
I am mystified by the obsession with speed. Sure we want it quick but would trade it off with reliability. How many websites allow you to access them at a fraction of that speed, much less download/upload content at that rate.
All in all VM is pretty good for broadband and probably the main reason many of us are with them. They used to be streets ahead, not so much now but still decent in the North. I am not sure how they compare in the South.
Virgin... Child in melt down yet again when playing on xbox internet off so game rank lost!!! Been with them since NTL move in 6weeks and never again had enough!!!
Using wi-fi on every device, I would probably get the same performance if I had 50mbps as 350. Big downloads are still way too slow for what you’re paying.
i've been getting 350Mbps DL for awhile now. about a Year and it's great but 21 Mbps UL is still too slow. Virgin only throttle UL speeds because of Torrenters and it's so annoying for gamers plus with the intel puma fault on the superhub 3s Virgin seriously need to FIX IT!
I had a sh3 and downgraded again to a sh2ac which was faster and gave me my full 200 (yes 200 not 350) was contemplating the 350 service but when I looked at my network performance I realised I don’t need it.
I have Unifi kit... access points and switch. Tivo boxes are hard wired on Gb Ethernet. Wi-Fi devices connected mostly on 5g (which get close to 200Mb/s download when doing a speed test.
With kids on YouTube, and the PlayStation gaming, a couple of tivo boxes streaming boxset or netflix, I’m still peeking out with demand below 100Mb/s when 5 or 6 devices are streaming.
The only way I see the need for greater demand if if stream UHD contend but even if 4x a standard netflix stream, I recon it is only going to get to 150Mb/s. Currently, I can only see the advantage of the higher speed service for upload speeds or downloading torrents, but even then I question it’s real value.
As dannysat said, I’m with them and have been since they launched cablemodem with Telewest some 18+ years ago because of reliability. I need the Internet to work as I work from home. The only down time I’ve had was scheduled and I knew in advance. And in one property there was a fault in the green box outside which took a month to identify as it was caused by water so only occurred when it rained! I’ve been lucky and don’t have half the problems people talk about, oh and I use my own kid as routers and access points and put their kit in modem mode, so I know the stuff works and I don’t have an issue.
As an aside, there is a reason in a company you have an IT team to set up the network and yet people are expected to be network experts in their home! Do they understand why a Wi-Fi signal may not reach them across the house or why they get slow download speeds across Wi-Fi? To add to the problem, vendors put the box somewhere convenient to bring cables into the house not in the best place for a single box, which is being a jack of all trades, to act as a half decent access point that covers the house.
And vendors now have set the expectation that a consumer router is free and so people get rubbish performance and don’t want to pay for a great router and access point in the property.
People should consider a mesh access point network if they have a choice, but they are forking out at least £300.
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