Virgin Media testing DOCSIS 3.0 to new limits with 200Mbps, 3D and 1080p
By Richard Lawler 
posted May 6th 2009 2:38PM
posted May 6th 2009 2:38PM
[Via Hexus]
posted May 6th 2009 2:38PM
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Awe, how come European cable companies are nice?
VM is far from nice. You wont actually be able to use the 200Mbps, as they throttle harshly. They are also in bed with phorm.
Fiber to the house? Meh who needs it if Cable can compete with their speeds...
@Platinum_Skeet
It can't compete with fiber, they are pushing the copper to the max right now... Fiber is just not being taken full advantage of yet. In the end though, DOCSIS will always be bottlenecked by the medium (copper). 200Mbps might be enough for us now, but we'll eventually need to replace all copper with fiber
Virgin are far from the greatest, in heavily populated areas they have a habit of overselling their infrastructure and only vaguely thinking about fixing it when they get sufficient complaints. I spent probably 5 months out of 12 with far less than the 20Mb I was supposed to get on their then top tier speeds; and worse it was with significant latency. The latency was so high even something simple like an SSH session was unusable.
Gave up in the end and changed to another provider as I was fed up of routinely dealing with clueless support staff who couldn't understand simple networking concepts (at the time I worked on top tier support for another ISP and was able to provide them all the diagnostic information they could possibly want, but had wanted Virgin's cable+tv+phone package)
Virgin also have a crazy bandwidth cap in place. If I downloaded at full speed for 10 minutes during "peak time" (pretty much any time I was actually at home during the week) I'd be hit with a bandwidth cap, supposedly 3Mb but in reality closer to 512kb with latency spiking up to 200ms. Okay(ish) for basic web browsing but screwed up anything else I might care to do. Like SSH, or online gaming.
@giyad
HDMI is 10 Gbps and that's a copper based medium...
Do your research Copper is no where near using it's full potential for data delivery. As of now with Docsis 3.0 the coax medium is only using 6Mhz of the available spectrum 60Mhz it has. Which is 1/10 of it's potential. The next docsis iteration most likely will be Gbps speeds easily. The only thing slowing US cable companies down is laws that are made by the FCC on who can lay fiber. A cable company like Time Warner or Comcast would have to pay their competition (AT&T or Verizon) to strengthen their backbones. So until most of the world is on Gbps internet with no problems wake me up. Because at this point you'll have to theoretically be 30 Gbps range for copper to be obsolete...
So why lay fiber to your house when you can get the same thing for less? Plus everyone knows Verizon uses coax to run from the house to the fiber it's 90% of the time it's not straight fiber to your house?
It doesn't make since to me honestly especially when consumer fiber is at it's early stages and doesn't give that much of a benefit to the average consumer...
That's my take on it, my internet speeds fluctuate from 22-30Mbps and I'm a comcast customer. When Docsis 3.0 comes out I'll be paying the same price for double my speeds.
I honestly see no reason for any consumer to jump to Fiber unless their cable company blows complete ass like the millions out there that have Time Warner....
That's my rant for today....
THE END
That 10Gbps HDMI is only going around your TV set up, or at most, around your home. After about 100ft, at most, your HDMI signal would drop off and you'd need to put some boosters in.
Its not just about the type of cable, its about how long the cable is.
8-channel DOCSIS 3 provides a maximum of about ~400mbps down and ~100 mbps up per node, which serves >30 houses in a neighborhood. For now with so many people still using the internet for simple browsing and email, these cable speeds will be ok. But In the future, as more and more people watch/rent HD television and Movies (and find other high-bandwidth activities online) expect to get nowhere near 200mbps or even 50mbps. And this could definitely be a problem right now if you are in an area with a half-dozen heavy users sucking down torrents all day.
Although technology always improves, we are reaching physical limits with cable just as physical limits with DSL are already pretty much met because of signal noise. At some point,
On the other hand, fiber-to-the-home is nearly unlimited as we are nowhere near hitting a ceiling...
If I has that speed I'd just download stuff for fun lol
I download many things for fun
Count me in! Sometimes I download the same thing; over and over....and over.
Take that TW. Ha
Yay... I live in Kent, but aren't available in my area... so no yay.
yeah, double no yay for living in kent
Just a shame about Virgin's shitty bandwith caps...
lawl, i'm guessing that was a sarcastic comment...
I wish it was! 10Mbps here and only 2GB's (ish) daily bandwith
What are you signed up to? I've been a VM customer and Telewest before that for 10 years and never had a bandwith cap.
So far there doesn't seem to be a cap on 50Mbps VM, I'm sure it's just a matter of time.
Bandwidth caps? Virgin Media never had bandwidth caps for cable, or are you talking about mobile broadband which is a total different story?
I have 20mbps with Virgin media and i am happy with it, I hardly get disconnected (infact I never) and I always get 20bmps download speeds, no matter what time of the day.
I am really interested in their high speed HD content but I predict they will become pricey
I'm on VM 10meg. If you download more than 1gb between 4pm and 12pm your speed gets limited to 2meg
D:
Umm (to those above) -VM were one of the first companies to introduce caps & later throttling & still do it
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html
I think he's referring to what they call STM (Subscriber Traffic Management) http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html
They say it only effects the top 5% of customers but on most packages the limits are bound to effect alot more then that, essentially just watching a BBC iPlayer program can at times trigger the management during peak hours on certain packages and alot more then 5% are using that.
Already on the waiting list when 100mb is rolled out in my area.
It's all well and good for Virgin to CLAIM 200 Mbps. I'd really like to see what that translates to, real world.
"full HD" broadband content" thats a joke i pay them for HD and get a half day BBC HD channel and thats it!!!!!!
The trouble is, you'll get 200Mbps on transfers inside the Virgin Media network (someone really needs to set up a VM-only torrent tracker...), but once you leave and start visiting the rest of the internet, you're back on slow speeds. It get's even worse when you go transatlantic.
I've ditched Virgin Media 20Mbps and am now on 'Be' 8Mbps (despite my line supporting much higher speeds). The actual service I get from this 8Mbps on Be greatly exceeds the one I had with VM at 20Mbps. That, and the ridiculous traffic management was going too far...
"...or even the 160Mbps available in on J:COM in Japan."
Wait what? Why are you comparing some medium grade service to a "top of the line service" from Virgin?
In Japan I can get a Gbit up/down, with static ip, with home phone included and obviously no bandwidth cap for about 70 bucks...
It was a bit odd...the BBC atleast mentioned the 1gig service in their report.
Now the only question is what you need to do in Japan to get 70 bucks for internet every month...
@Shinigami
Huh? What do you mean "what do you need to do to get internet every month"?
Is "Pay for it every month?" the answer you're looking for?
I think they're referring to the 160Mbps as that's also a DOCSIS 3.0 service. I assume the 1Gbps up down you have is using a different technology.
Knowing Virgin, you'll get 200Mbps down with only 2Mbps up.
full High Definition sounds like HD, could be actually 720p in 3D.
I hope its 1080p though. Good to see progress.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8036086.stm
Supposedly 1080p AND 3D.
"full hd" is the non technical way to say 1920x1080 which is 1080p. Its not a standard, but its close enough that it won't mean anything else.
they really/ the UK really really needs to expand its fibre network, im still stuck at shitty speeds
Im already on the Unlimited 50 Mb Service, can wait, bring on 200 !!!
Cablevision's uncapped $99 bucks DOCSIS 3.0 will have to do for now. It will be the best the US has to offer.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/28/cablevision-loves-you-will-offer-99-101mbps-uncapped-internet/
Lets just hope they "love us long time" and this isn't some type of CT teaser rate. We shall see...
Woot
Virgin Mobile sux. They claim to be give unlimited use, but they have traffic restrictions, so they take my 10mb service that is usually only 5mb and they make it 2 mb after I download a little:( Which lasts for a whole 5 hours. I already plan to switch to Sky Max which has no restrictions.
People keep saying this...but i download atleast 1gb of stuff A DAY and never had my connection throttled back and always downloading at 1.4mb a second.
I meant Virgin Media, doh!
Virgin has recently signed up on the of the most "fucked up"engineers, who cocked up BIG TIME in the previous company he worked for! So I won't be switching to VIRGIN anytime soon, as I already know that he pulled with him a few contractors which aren't capable to deliver anything!!! Poor VRIGIN, they are going to be screwed big time and very soon!
I'm on Virgin Media 10mb service and I have no complaints. Doubt 200mb/s will be available here in Belfast for a good while tho.
Virgin's capping unbearable, if i was close enoughto my BT exchange i would have been shot of them years ago.
Regarding 200mbs, i believe they have fibre to the box and then copper from the street box to the home, so all they would need to do minor works.
Even gigabit cable and the so-far unannounced DOCSIS 4.0 wouldn't make me want to move to Ashford.
Huh, Virgin, utter crud waste of money. They cap the throughout speeds and the download limits. They I suspect don't have the hardware to cope with the requests on the networks either. Think about it, look at the price, then think what they have to cut back on to achieve that price?
If it was still NTL it would be way better, expensive but you would be getting what your paying for.
does anyone miss the days of when Blueyonder/Telewest ran the show, Geez they ran a tight ship, Call Centers in the UK, No capping or throttling and best of all they gave you speeds that was actually advertised......oh and they didnt spy on your downloading and sent the info to the authorities
I just want to point something out, yes Virgin do throttle speed for some people, but they don't have throttles on the current top speed (50mbps) so I cant imagine them having a throttle on 200mbps if and when they launch it to the general public
Yeah Magalo
And their 50mb service costs £50 too, I ain't paying that just to get no throttling, rather get a smartphone on contract for the extra after paying for a 10mb connection.
Their customer services are useless and a bunch of liars. Twice I was lied to about the price of a services that I could get after my 1 year minimum contract was up and I wasted to upgrade. They would told me £35 per month for tv XL and broadband L, only to get a letter saying it is £45 instead and when I complained they didn't care and accepted no liability. Then I reduced the services to broadand L and tv L and made sure that I was not signed up for another minimum contract of 1 year, for £29 per month and the letter I got said £36. Their customer services call centre is in India, but they lie just like in the Slumdog Millionaire movie saying they are in a UK city, but they aren't, they are told to lie, lie and lie some more! BASTARDS