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According to Virgin Media, my Internet speed is being boosted to 120Mbps

Say What?!?

Me thinks they might have included me on the wrong email list.

Basically, VM have already announced they’re upgrading everyones accounts, as follows:

  • 10Mb: 20Mb
  • 20Mb: 50Mb
  • 30Mb: 60Mb
  • 50Mb: 100Mb
  • 100Mb: 120Mb

Lowering the costs, and increasing the download caps¹. Which is great - but I’m not on 100Mb broadband, I’m on 30Mb as the following speed test confirms:

[It’s running a little slow, I assume because Netflix is on in the background]

It’s interesting they’ve emailed me actually, as my contract “expires” early next month, and I plan on changing it a little - I’ll have to see if they email me again, with any more info.

¹VM have download caps on all but the top tier broadband, during peak times. Which is why people download stuff when they’re asleep. Or so I’m told.

I believe they call this ‘Ironic’

The day after an appeal by BT and TalkTalk, against the UK Governments Digital Economy Act was thrown out, paving the way for the mass ‘banning’ of individuals suspected of copyright infringement, and the blocking of sites that offer users free access to copyrighted material, Virgin Media, have announced a very, very limited trial of their new 1.5Gbps [Down] | 150Mb [Up] Connection.

The new connection, which is being billed as the ‘Fastest’ in the world, is currently only available in a very, very small part of London. Virgin plan, however, to roll it out to home consumers by the end of the decade.

Which implies that come 2020, UK internet users will need access to a 1.5Gb [Down] | 150Mb [Up] internet connection, for any kind of legal reason. Even if services such as iPlayer & LoveFilm offer 1080p 7.1 streams / downloads, users aren’t gonna need a 1.5Gb connection.

- - -

The 2010 Digital Economy Act was pushed through in the final days of the Labour Government, and was, at the time, opposed by the Liberal Democrats. Who, it’ll suprise no one, now support the act.

In a completely unrelated story, Nick Cleggs approval numbers are now lower than Hitlers.

Virgin Media sent me through a shiny (dust seeking) ‘Super’ Hub. Which resulted in my internet speed going from this:

To this:

Good times!
[Queued Post - Second Batch]

Virgin Media sent me through a shiny (dust seeking) ‘Super’ Hub. Which resulted in my internet speed going from this:

Broadband speed: Before

To this:

Broadband Speed: After

Good times!

[Queued Post - Second Batch]

Don’t quote me on this, because I might be wrong, but most customers have had an increase to their upload speed, or are due to have one. The 20Mb connection originally only had a 756Kb upload speed, however VM are upgrading that to 2Mb (Mine got done late last year). As for the ‘Free’ 20Mb to 30Mb upgrade - My understanding, is that the ‘old’ connections - basically anything that isn’t 50Mb runs on Virgins DOCIS2.0 system, which they want to scrap as quickly as possible.
By upgrading customers to 30Mb (Which isn’t technically free - you have to buy a new hub which is similar tech to the 50Mb modem - it’s a one off £30 fee which I think’s fair, especially as my Router is woeful at best), it allows VM to put the 20Mb customers on a new 30Mb tier, which runs on their DOCIS3 backbone.
That way they’re future proofed for a while - in theory the DOCIS3 system can support upto 400Mb connections - I know they’ve been running extended tests of the 100Mb system which seems to work OK, and I think they might be testing 200Mb in certain parts of the country.

Don’t quote me on this, because I might be wrong, but most customers have had an increase to their upload speed, or are due to have one. The 20Mb connection originally only had a 756Kb upload speed, however VM are upgrading that to 2Mb (Mine got done late last year). As for the ‘Free’ 20Mb to 30Mb upgrade - My understanding, is that the ‘old’ connections - basically anything that isn’t 50Mb runs on Virgins DOCIS2.0 system, which they want to scrap as quickly as possible.

By upgrading customers to 30Mb (Which isn’t technically free - you have to buy a new hub which is similar tech to the 50Mb modem - it’s a one off £30 fee which I think’s fair, especially as my Router is woeful at best), it allows VM to put the 20Mb customers on a new 30Mb tier, which runs on their DOCIS3 backbone.

That way they’re future proofed for a while - in theory the DOCIS3 system can support upto 400Mb connections - I know they’ve been running extended tests of the 100Mb system which seems to work OK, and I think they might be testing 200Mb in certain parts of the country.

I’m getting a 10Mb speed increase for FREE!

That’s right bitches - Virgin Media are gonna upgrade my 20Mb connection, to 30Mb, for free.

[Plus, as I’ll be switching to DOCIS3, I’m future-proofed for their 100Mb+ Service.]

Virgin Media (My ISP) have been promising a ‘free’ (it’s not really, the price goes up every year) speed post to peeps uploads, for the better part of a year. Looks like I finally got mine!
inb4 “Slow upload speed is slow”, it used to be around 750kbs before the upgrade.

Virgin Media (My ISP) have been promising a ‘free’ (it’s not really, the price goes up every year) speed post to peeps uploads, for the better part of a year. Looks like I finally got mine!

inb4 “Slow upload speed is slow”, it used to be around 750kbs before the upgrade.

Dec 7
Wow - So this is what the internet looks like, when everyone else is at work. I could kinda get used to it :)

Wow - So this is what the internet looks like, when everyone else is at work. I could kinda get used to it :)

A quick follow-up to this post - While it’s definitely true that the UK lags way, way behind other countries on that list, it’s undoubtedly due to the use of a “National Average” when determining speed.
The image at the top of this post shows my current ‘net speed, and although it’s perhaps faster than normal, it’s not the fastest connection residential connection you can buy - the same company (Virgin Media) also offer 50Mb services, and they’re testing 200Mb connections at the moment.

A quick follow-up to this post - While it’s definitely true that the UK lags way, way behind other countries on that list, it’s undoubtedly due to the use of a “National Average” when determining speed.

The image at the top of this post shows my current ‘net speed, and although it’s perhaps faster than normal, it’s not the fastest connection residential connection you can buy - the same company (Virgin Media) also offer 50Mb services, and they’re testing 200Mb connections at the moment.

Like the philosopher Jagger once said, ‘You can’t always get what you want’ (I’m “missing” around 8Mb worth of download speed)

Like the philosopher Jagger once said, ‘You can’t always get what you want’ (I’m “missing” around 8Mb worth of download speed)