Virgin Media to spend £3 billion improving fibre network

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Virgin Media has today announced plans to spend £3 billion improving its fibre-optic broadband network, creating 6000 jobs in the process. These improvements will roll out over the next five years and is the largest investment in the UK’s broadband infrastructure made in the past decade.
 

The investment is currently being referred to as ‘Project Lightning’, which will increase the network’s reach from 13 million to 17 million homes and businesses by the year 2020. Virgin Media will also be able to offer speeds of up to 152Mb to more customers.
 

Virgin Media CEO, Tom Mockridge, has said that “Millions of homes and businesses will soon be able to benefit for the first time from broadband speeds at least twice as fast as those available from the other major providers. Consumers and business owners who want to make the switch to better broadband speeds now have an alternative: you can call on Virgin Media to ‘Cable My Street’.”
 

However, rural areas with not many residents may not be able to generate enough ‘cable my street’ requests to become a priority, meaning some rural areas may continue to be stuck with slow speeds.
 

Source : http://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/virgin-media-to-spend-3-billion-improving-fibre-network/

[ttam]

Please. Come. To. The. US.

We need you.

[iHammmy]

Please. Come. To. The. US.

We need you.

But you have gigabit internet D:

[Trik'Stari]

Now if only he could buy our ISP's, and fire everyone that works in their management departments.

 

 

 

out of a cannon, into a brick wall covered with spikes...coated with acid.

[Thony]

Please. Come. To. The. US.

We need you.

Shut up, u are getting google fibre all over the place

The VM better improve their throttling here in UK. I remember how I could hardly watch YouTube at certain time of the day....

[brownninja97]

interesting as BT is saying they will 500mbs for people by 2020

[Chronos5618]

With Virgin Media at the moment. Pay for 150mbs...get 4. Such value.  

[Thony]

interesting as BT is saying they will 500mbs for people by 2020

But VM says "152mb to more people"

BT is common in south, havent seen it in north.

VM is in most of the country, not in Cornwall.

Honestly I'd rather have 152mb available everywhere for let's say £50 a month + landline (or maybe broadband only) than over £100 for speed most homes won't even make a use of.

[ttam]

Shut up, u are getting google fibre all over the place

The VM better improve their throttling here in UK. I remember how I could hardly watch YouTube at certain time of the day....

Yeah, but in all the wrong places and the places that do get it, only have it in small areas

[Inkz]

Shut up, u are getting google fibre all over the place

The VM better improve their throttling here in UK. I remember how I could hardly watch YouTube at certain time of the day....

In very select places in a very geographically large country. I know for example there is none even close to my area, the ISPs in this country are a joke. Hopefully Tittle 2 might help. Although the UK is much smaller so it would be immensely easier to get fiber to more places.

[brownninja97]

But VM says "152mb to more people"

BT is common in south, havent seen it in north.

VM is in most of the country, not in Cornwall.

Honestly I'd rather have 152mb available everywhere for let's say £50 a month + landline (or maybe broadband only) than over £100 for speed most homes won't even make a use of.

yeah im only able 5 miles away from london so i guess it benefits me more

[Tim Drake]

Please. Come. To. The. US.

We need you.

No. Virgin Media sucks ass.

[ZestyJalapeno]

VM's advertised speeds are completely irrelevant. Sure I get 75mpbs...AT FOUR IN THE MORNING. It's slow af in the afternoons and evenings when you actually need to use it.

[Jamdude]

I've never had a problem with VM, always achieve their advertised speeds and their prices are good. Nice to see them increasing further.

[Altecice]

With Virgin Media at the moment. Pay for 150mbs...get 4. Such value.  

 

You must be super unlucky then. I have only ever heard good things from VM. I pay for 150 and get 154.

 

For all the people asking for 1Gbit Internet you need to understand that VM use a protocol called EuroDOCSIS 3.0 and this is whats holding them back as the 8 channels used cap out at around 500Mbits/s i believe.

 

Edit: Seems as if my memory fails me 'download bandwidth of 1.5 Gbit/s and upload of 150 Mbit/s based on DOCSIS 3.0.'

[Poohy14]

Well also, another good news is that my local ISP is rolling out fiber next year as well and increasing their bandwidth for their wireless towers as well so we can get 100 down instead of 15 down max. They are just hoping they can be under Title II to achieve the fiber they want to roll out.

[Chronos5618]

You must be super unlucky then. I have only ever heard good things from VM. I pay for 150 and get 154.

 

For all the people asking for 1Gbit Internet you need to understand that VM use a protocol called EuroDOCSIS 3.0 and this is whats holding them back as the 8 channels used cap out at around 500Mbits/s i believe.

 

Edit: Seems as if my memory fails me 'download bandwidth of 1.5 Gbit/s and upload of 150 Mbit/s based on DOCSIS 3.0.'

I live in Birmingham at the moment, in a predominately student area, where the demand is so massive that the line simply can't handle it. They've done nothing about it in years despite 100s of people complaining, but still offer completely unrealistic speeds they have no way of providing. But I agree, outside of a few isolated pockets, they seem pretty good.  

[ttam]

No. Virgin Media sucks ass.

But they are willing to spend 3 billion... That's better than our ISP's

[multifrag]

You must be super unlucky then. I have only ever heard good things from VM. I pay for 150 and get 154.

 

For all the people asking for 1Gbit Internet you need to understand that VM use a protocol called EuroDOCSIS 3.0 and this is whats holding them back as the 8 channels used cap out at around 500Mbits/s i believe.

 

Edit: Seems as if my memory fails me 'download bandwidth of 1.5 Gbit/s and upload of 150 Mbit/s based on DOCSIS 3.0.'

Don't forget about their terms and conditions. They can and most times will lower your speed by half in peak times. Throttling... Maybe 150 to 4 is harsh example but 150 to 75 is real and it is sad.

[Dabombinable]

If they bring fiber into my area, and its less than $50 for 70GB, then I might switch (though this Summer on my current plan I had my plans data doubled at no extra cost for 3 months, and I get another 5GB added every 6 months as well).

[WelshDdraig]

From what I heard, VM throttle your speeds like S**t. Yes it maybe Fiber but when you get less than 1/10 of advertised speeds, something is going wrong. My fiber connection is with BT, never had VM as it has never been available where I live.

[fringie]

For me VM used to throttle me p bad. Nowadays it's great 95% of the time then it's horrible for a lil while (like 5mbps for 2-3 days randomly) then great again. For the price I can't really complain they've got much better in the past year but better reliability would be nice. If they could just improve that so we don't need to deal with customer service reps who can't fix any problems that'd be great..

[Daegun]

Shut up, u are getting google fibre all over the place

The VM better improve their throttling here in UK. I remember how I could hardly watch YouTube at certain time of the day....

Yup, in all 11 cities. We have Google fiber everywhere

[mymouthandi]

In comparison to other ISPs here in the UK, Virgin Media are pretty good. However, it's a best of a bad bunch situation. Their customer service is appauling, their reliability is poor and their cable coverage is bizarre and patchy, even in London (part of the reason for the new investment).

 

For example, the company I work for is moving to a bigger office just down the road and the new building appears to be the only building in the area that Virgin don't run cable to. We have also had multiple outages in the last year or so, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for full days and their customer service has been crap during these periods, sometimes outright denying any problems. 

 

On the positive side, fast internet for not a lot of money and they don't appear to throttle (though hard to tell on a 150mb connection) so when it works it's good. No other ISP matches the speed for the price, not even close. 

[Tim Drake]

But they are willing to spend 3 billion... That's better than our ISP's

From my experience the less you pay, the less they care if something happens to your internet.