Has the Openreach / Virgin speed gap ever been wider?

Open question and for discussion:

The fastest widely available package via Openreach is sold as 76Mb and capped at 80Mb downstream.

The fastest widely available package via Virgin Media is sold as 300Mb and capped at 330Mb.

Can anyone remember when the gap between them was ever this wide?

I can remember the various iterations of the products and things like Virgin Media selling tiers at twice the speed or even a little more than those available through Openreach-based products but I can't recall quadruple the speed before.

Correction welcome, discussion welcome.

Clearly this isn't considered a priority by Openreach to address, so it seems reasonable to presume that their customers and, in turn, those of Wholesale, don't see it as a priority.

Those really interested in delivering higher speeds are building their own networks where they can.

Those who offer higher quality services at higher prices likely don't want the kind of user base for whom 76Mb VDSL 2 doesn't cut it. They'd charge heavily for it regardless.

Most of the rest are I suspect the ones who see broadband as a value add or are budget suppliers. They are likely more worried about how cheaply they can sell something remotely competitive than being on the bleeding edge.

Certainly two of Openreach's three largest customers fall into the last category, one being budget the other using broadband as a value add for TV, as do much of BT Wholesale's base.

Those who really want higher speeds and are prepared to pay for them are clearly a tiny minority of the end user base not really worth catering to for the most part.

Were virgin dishing out 50meg or even 100meg before the large scale rollout of 21cn? Even so, most customers didn't get 8meg on 20CN, and even fewer get 20meg on 21cn.

If they were offering 100meg while Wholesale still only had 20cn then yes, the gap has been wider.

However, there isn't really anything you can't do with 76meg. OK so movies download a few minutes quicker but how many households actually need and use that much throughput on a regular basis? It's enough for something like 15 HD streams (assuming 5mb/s). I'm yet to find anyone who realistically doesn't think that 76meg is enough bandwidth today.

People get far too hung up on headline speeds and the results of speedtests without actually knowing how much they actually need or use on average to do whatever online activities they do.

With the advent of better video codecs such as H.265, bandwidth for video is becoming less important to a degree. People saying we need x speed by 2025 don't seem to consider that other technologies inmprove reducing the need for such super high bandwidths.

The reason I mentioned video is because it accounts for some 64% of all data used in the UK.

Edited by deleted (Wed 30-Mar-16 14:05:40)

The other thing to consider is that very few people choose the higher Virgin packages. Most of the market aren't looking for these high speeds and the majority will happily buy 40/2 without missing a thing.

Yes I agree, there isn't really much need for anything more than 80Mb/s in a household of 5, however 80Mb/s isn't being acheived by many due to the poor infrastructure (copper/alum pair) that the majority of the rollouts use.

I think 100Mb/s should be the target but the reality is it isn't required by everybody, but that is for a customer ordering to decide... the other thing that seems to get overlooked (specially by Virgin Media) is upstream bandwidth.

We're becoming a nation of sharers and creators, upstream bandwidth surely does need to increase as quick as downstream, I do beleive as you say our current demand for speed for things like streaming is certainly stable enough and dropping.

I would like to see a much higher ratio of upload to downstream, currently 20Mb/s upstream is good enough (but only just), I would appreciate it being slightly faster (30) but inevitably 'I' think it should get to a point where is would be 50% of downstream.

Indeed. Most of those who do want the fastest speeds just seem to see it as a [censored] contest

For the majority of households right now, 20meg is more than sufficient.

Edited by deleted (Wed 30-Mar-16 14:35:58)

As far as the upstream / downstream is concerned I do largely agree but most people are downloading (streaming) video at high res (HD or 4K) whereas most upload youtube quality video.

The sharing is normally done on relatively low quality video whereas consuming is probably high quality.

I do some large uploads at times of holiday photos uploading gigabytes of photos. But, I only do it occasionally and if it takes 24 hours to do it then that is fine.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

The fastest widely available package via Virgin Media is sold as 300Mb and capped at 330Mb.

I'm pretty sure that's only available for businesses, and with a 15Mb upload speed. The fastest thing consumers can get is 200/12Mb.

Also, back when VM launched 50Mb, there was no FTTC, so even if you had the newly launched ADSL2+, unless you lived incredibly close to the exchange, VM's service was many many times faster, even then.

When it comes to your wider point though, while Openreach want to be able to compete with VM on speeds, they're aware that the vast majority of consumers are a lot more price, rather than speed conscious, and for most users, FTTC is easily fast enough for them at the moment. Having said that, their efforts when it comes to G.Fast and FoD2 show they're not completely content with the status quo.

Virgin are now offering customers in some areas a "home worker" package which I think costs an extra £9.99 a month and gives a 300/30 service.

I don't think Openreach have ever said they're bothered about competing with VM on speeds. Quite the opposite in fact. They're not bothered about what VM are doing.

In reply to a post by ian72:

As far as the upstream / downstream is concerned I do largely agree but most people are downloading (streaming) video at high res (HD or 4K) whereas most upload youtube quality video.

The sharing is normally done on relatively low quality video whereas consuming is probably high quality.

I do some large uploads at times of holiday photos uploading gigabytes of photos. But, I only do it occasionally and if it takes 24 hours to do it then that is fine.

Last time I looked phones where now shooting 4K video.... Game DVR's recorded in 1080P and often upto 60FPS.... Twitch also streams in Full HD... the cloud is becoming a normal thing now too... so while 20Mb/s is 'just' holding up I know that Virgin's mid tier 100/6 is somewhat a rubbish ration of upstream to the downstream and I've found that uploading on a 200/12 connection renders the connection useless for many things such as streaming...

Broadband needs to multitask, not do one thing at a time... I know living with one other that when they're uploading anything, the connection quality drops... and I don't ,ean running a test shows it or even my BQM... just browsing and streaming becomes rubbish.... thats what operators need to be combating

In reply to a post by lee111s:

For the majority of households right now, 20meg is more than sufficient.

l o l Bless ..