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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.
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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)
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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For the majority of households right now, 20meg is more than sufficient.
l o l Bless .. 
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I said majority, not all. Don't forget, there are LOTS of people who simply want to watch iPlayer, do a bit of browsing, send a few emails. Typically the likes of people on this forum are not those. We are the very small minority 
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I said majority, not all. Don't forget, there are LOTS of people who simply want to watch iPlayer, do a bit of browsing, send a few emails. Typically the likes of people on this forum are not those. We are the very small minority
You could be right Mr Lee btw that was and still is one of my fav late 80z/early 90z dj/producers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUsztunGKvc
i still think you might be surprised though how little 20Mb is in bandwidth in the year 2016. some netflix,online gaming and the kid/kids wanting to use youtube etc .. saturation to say the least lol
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I'm on a 3 megabit connection, and live in a household of 3 people. We all use around 250-400GB of our broadband connection every month, which I would consider to be reasonably heavy usage.
I can honestly say, as annoying as it is - websites take slightly longer to load and it's difficult to watch high-definition videos - it really isn't as bad as people make it out to be. So I'd presume a 20Mb connection is easily sufficient for pretty much anybody.
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I'm well aware how much bandwidth 20mbps is. I have 6 right now and I can watch iPlayer while my partner is streaming music/watching youtube videos/browsing the web etc.
If anything, it's the majority if people don't realise how MUCH 20mbps is as opposed to how little.
There are always going to be exceptions, but I'm talking about joe public, the average home. Not houses with 5 and 6 people all wanting to use bandwidth heavy applications all day every day.
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I'm well aware how much bandwidth 20mbps is.
i don't actually think you are tbh lol
it's 2016 rem not 2013
Edited by djfunkdup (Wed 30-Mar-16 18:54:53)
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You don't know me, so you can't make that assumption.
I do know that it's enough to watch 3, possibly 4 HD streams (averaging 4.5-5mbps each). If you use video which is endcoded in h.265 that can be brought down considerably more.
20mbps is still quite a lot for average internet use.
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So why do you think the likes of BT and VM are investing so much in superfast broadband if it's not required ?
Genuine question btw not trying to be sarky
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People want it. They want their software updates to download in 5 minutes not 10. They want the little needle so say they're getting 200meg despite most of the time probably not utilising 10% of it.
I'm not saying there isn't a need for faster speeds, there is and I'd far rather have speeds available that are over and above what is currently needed than need faster speeds and them not be available.
This h.265 I mentioned is great and is just starting to become more popular. A 1080p blu ray movie rip (granted it's not as good as native) can be compressed down to around 600mb. I've watched a few and the quality is quite impressive given the amount of compression.
My parents get a whopping 3.6meg throughput and it's enough for my dad to stream the footy on a saturday in 720p quality without any buffering.
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I dare say that even if everyone had FTTP giving 1gb, people would complain that Openreach wasn't doing enough to give them 10gbps.
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People want it.
Not sure they do. Virgin has not sown up with it's higher speed service.
I have just checked TB speedtests in a village I know which has only FTTP or exchange based DSL services on 3 cabinets. I have not seen a single ultrafast speedtest.
Similarly I have checked 2 new local sizable newbuilds with copper and FTTP supply. Again, not a singe ultrafast speedtest.
In my opinion, punters are not buying utrafast FTTP products. Punters are still buying slower LLU copper services in FTTP areas in their droves. Punters are still buying Openreach delivered services in Virgin areas and where punters are buying Openreach services in FTTP areas, they are buying products that could be delivered by FTTC. Or LLU copper.
In my view, the market is not demanding ultrafast services. The market is demanding cheap and providers with content.
Virgin has content too and i reckon it's content drives more sales than it's speeds.
Edited by deleted (Wed 30-Mar-16 21:36:41)
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An interesting philosophical debate. I have long held the deeply unfashionable view that that most people don't actually want it - they think they need it.
I'm often bemused by the posts from folk who are irritated to report that they contracted for 80mb/s but only get 63.5, or whatever. What on earth are they actually doing (apart from running speed checks)?
For my part, I'm irritated by the frequent press releases from BT about their release of a bright shiny new megazillion service (often reported here by TBB). As someone has already posted that's not going to be of interest to even 1% of users - although they're probably in London EC2. Say no more.
Surely there'd be more brownie points in serving the many, many who get desperately low speeds. But no profit, of course.
Edited by deleted (Wed 30-Mar-16 21:29:10)
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Just because people aren't testing using the think broadband test doesn't mean no one has taken up the service. In a 1/2mile radius of my postcode there are about 5 sets of results. There are hundreds of houses in the capture area, this doesn't mean only a few people have broadband.
Also, most people will test on wireless. Even if you have 330mbps FTTP, you might only get 20meg throughput on an older wifi device.
People are buying the services otherwise the companies in question wouldn't bother offering them. Of course, FTTP services are going to typically have a much higher take up in rural areas than they would do in an area that is close to an exchange where people can get 20meg plus on ADSL2+.
What faster VM service are you refering to? The 300meg service? Or 200meg?
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I agree, people THINK they need it but in reality, they do not. As I have shares in BT though, long may the "need" continue
I knew all along I couldn't be the only person that thinks this way. I often wonder what these "speed demons" as I call then feel you can not do with 40meg that you can with 50, 60, 80 or even 300meg (aside from download files a bit quicker)
They're obsessed with the needle on a speedometer without actually understanding what it means.
The only time I ever do a speedtest is if whatever I'm wanting to do isn't working, just to rule that out before I start looking at other possible causes.
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Just because people aren't testing using the think broadband test doesn't mean no one has taken up the service.
Of course, we only have TB data to look at, and looking at the data, demand is not proven at all. Even of a 1/2 mile area only had 5 speedtests and that area was FTTP or LLU copper, you would expect a showing of ultrafast, I'm not seeing this at all in areas with far higher population and TB data.
People are buying the services otherwise the companies in question wouldn't bother offering them.
In FTTP areas. mass market providers like Sky and TalkTalk are not offering FTTP services. These guys really know their market. They are selling copper DSL services from their kit in the exchange, They have no desire to offer FTTP services. It's all about cheap and content.
If Sky and TalkTalk were feeling threatened by Virgin Ultrafast, they would be all over FTTP in available areas. I don't think they are feeling threatened by Virgin Ultrafast.
Edited by deleted (Wed 30-Mar-16 21:53:56)
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I believe the reason they're not offering FTTP at the moment is due to the cost of training employees, the time it would take, the changing of systems etc versus the small percentage of the country that it's been deployed in. I'd be interested to know what the actual takeup of Openreach FTTP is. We know FTTC is around 20% but again, portions of that will be in areas where people can get 10meg plus on ADSL services.
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I believe the reason they're not offering FTTP at the moment is due to the cost of training employees, the time it would take, the changing of systems etc
Nah. What training does an employee need to order an FTTP service on Openreach's Equivalance Management Platform when they are are already ordering on that system for their LLU copper and FTTC services tens of thousands of times per day.
If Sky and TalkTalk were losing market share because of Virgin and BT Retail's ultra fast services, they would be all over it like a badly fitting set of overalls. They are not and so they are not. These guys know the market and they have the customer numbers, even in Virgin areas to prove it.
Edited by deleted (Wed 30-Mar-16 22:09:37)
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It's more the technical support side I was referring to, plus all the system and marketing changes. It's just not worth it for the number of potential customers at the moment I think.
I think Sky are however teaming up with a fibre network in York? Or have I just made that up?
Plusnet, Zen, AAISP and BT all offer FTTP through Openreach, there must be profit it in otherwise they wouldn't offer it.
I dislike Sky and TalkTalk just because of their attitude towards the Openreach roll of out FTTP. They basically want all the expensive and tile consuming donkey work done by Openreach so they can flog it cheap and make money. They never complain that they can't utilise VM's network however.
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It's 2016, things are moving very fast in technology, the future is happening right now. Gigabit should be the norm for a country like ours. We have AI making leaps and bounds, autonomous vehicles round the corner, VR, 4K, and I'm even able to play my maxed-out games from my powerful gaming PC on my relatively weak MacBook Pro within the home network, and you're saying I should be just fine with a paltry 18 Mbps upload? It just doesn't seem like forward thinking to me.
I should be able to back up and retrieve all my files regardless of the size in one or two seconds. Not only that, I should be able to play games from my gaming PC in other places without a problem. Sadly though, it comes down to one thing for the telecom businesses... What they get out of it and it just isn't worth it right now.
I'm not saying most people will make use of gigabit, but it will make a difference to our lives, the way we use technology and the economy.
-----------------------
Relevant little rant:
I'm in my early twenties and when I was fifteen (not that long ago) it wasn't common for one to know anything about programming, but that has changed and I'm now seeing a lot of fifteen year olds that are starting to program. This is because education's constantly getting better and more easily accessible which means there's likely going to be a higher creative type/consumer type ratio compared to now in the not-too-distant future, which could really benefit from better technological infrastructure.
Edited by deleted (Thu 31-Mar-16 00:01:27)
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I said majority, not all. Don't forget, there are LOTS of people who simply want to watch iPlayer, do a bit of browsing, send a few emails. Typically the likes of people on this forum are not those. We are the very small minority
You could be right Mr Lee btw that was and still is one of my fav late 80z/early 90z dj/producers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUsztunGKvc
i still think you might be surprised though how little 20Mb is in bandwidth in the year 2016. some netflix,online gaming and the kid/kids wanting to use youtube etc .. saturation to say the least lol
Due to a fault I was running at 20Mb downstream for a while. It rarely saturated.
There are 2 teens and 3 adults using this connection. One of the adults works from home 5 days a week, another is currently at home all the time due to recuperation from an operation. The other has Now TV. The two kids are You Tube addicts with one of them frequently gaming.
Usage in the past week.
Last 24 hours.
Last 48 hours.
Edited by deleted (Thu 31-Mar-16 00:25:00)
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I said majority, not all. Don't forget, there are LOTS of people who simply want to watch iPlayer, do a bit of browsing, send a few emails. Typically the likes of people on this forum are not those. We are the very small minority
You could be right Mr Lee btw that was and still is one of my fav late 80z/early 90z dj/producers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUsztunGKvc
i still think you might be surprised though how little 20Mb is in bandwidth in the year 2016. some netflix,online gaming and the kid/kids wanting to use youtube etc .. saturation to say the least lol
Due to a fault I was running at 20Mb downstream for a while. It rarely saturated.
There are 2 teens and 3 adults using this connection. One of the adults works from home 5 days a week, another is currently at home all the time due to recuperation from an operation. The other has Now TV. The two kids are You Tube addicts with one of them frequently gaming.
Usage in the past week.
Last 24 hours.
Last 48 hours.
Ok then lets say the bandwidth getting used in your home is average for a family home situation .. .. we will agree on that for the time being ..
Now i would say that you are a pretty level headed guy and the facts you state above are indeed correct..
Now lets go to the question that you first asked,the one thats up for debate here in this thread
Subject: Re: Has the Openreach / Virgin speed gap ever been wider?
Why on earth would these two companies in question spend tens of millions of pounds updating older networks and installing new networks investing in superfast broadband if it is not required ?
The question you raised is indeed an interesting one but the way you replied to me suggests that superfast broadband is not required in the uk ?
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please recognise VM do have a tendancy to market more then they can supply due to capacity issues something you always seem to shrug of as some extremely minor issue only affecting 0.1% of people or something.
A big gap with the marketed speeds but be honest with yourself, what do you need 300mbps for? You work from home, family uses netflix, but I doubt you need to be carrying out 4k streams with work colleagues or sending files that are like 50gigabytes in size?
Now peak times speeds tells a different story.
So if i go back say 5 years pre FTTC for my area, then peak time VM speeds would perhaps be anything from about 2mbit.sec up to about 20-30mbit/sec. Whilst the openreach product was a circa 5mbit adsl line, which had peak time speeds of 5mbit so a % range from about 33% up to about 600%.
Now VM peak time speeds in the sorrounding areas based on data from my neighbours and nearby family/friends is usually from about 5mbit/sec up to about 60mbit/sec, whilst openreach lines on FTTC in the surrounding area should be syncing up at least in the 60s with sustained speeds during peak.
So % wise its now shifted much more in openreach favour with it been about 8% up to about 100%.
People are slowly moving on from headline speeds to "does it work good enough", netflix etc. will work just as well on openreach, if not better due to the improved contention ratios Websites will just be as aresponsive and so on. VM is only really attractive for those who like to shift large bulks of data such as torrenters and those with really poor openreach services e.g. long line adsl only.
Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 31-Mar-16 04:00:07)
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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.
For Grandparents, maybe.
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It's 2016, things are moving very fast in technology, the future is happening right now. Gigabit should be the norm
Most users are more price conscious than speed conscious. The majority that have access to the high speed products (Virgin or FTTP) go for the lower packages. They don't buy gigabit packages unless they are the only ones available or they are very cheap.
My brother has moved in to a house with FTTP - he has the BT Infinity 1 package and it is plenty for what he wants and he will not upgrade. The majority of the country do the same thing. A very small percentage of Virgin customers are on anything above the lowest tier package - they would not pay extra for gigabit even if the suppliers invested in delivering it.
You may be happy to pay for gigabit but most aren't. TBB does not represent the "average" user.
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It's 2016, things are moving very fast in technology, the future is happening right now. Gigabit should be the norm for a country like ours. We have AI making leaps and bounds, autonomous vehicles round the corner, VR, 4K, and I'm even able to play my maxed-out games from my powerful gaming PC on my relatively weak MacBook Pro within the home network, and you're saying I should be just fine with a paltry 18 Mbps upload? It just doesn't seem like forward thinking to me.
I should be able to back up and retrieve all my files regardless of the size in one or two seconds. Not only that, I should be able to play games from my gaming PC in other places without a problem. Sadly though, it comes down to one thing for the telecom businesses... What they get out of it and it just isn't worth it right now.
I'm not saying most people will make use of gigabit, but it will make a difference to our lives, the way we use technology and the economy.
-----------------------
Relevant little rant:
I'm in my early twenties and when I was fifteen (not that long ago) it wasn't common for one to know anything about programming, but that has changed and I'm now seeing a lot of fifteen year olds that are starting to program. This is because education's constantly getting better and more easily accessible which means there's likely going to be a higher creative type/consumer type ratio compared to now in the not-too-distant future, which could really benefit from better technological infrastructure.
You, or rather we (the collective on this forum) are very much the exception rather than the rule).
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Couldn't agree more, Lee. But, although I have questioned the general need for speed, I now find myself in a contrary position!
A current thread on the TBB PlusNet forum discusses PN's policy change from upload at 20 to 2 on their 40mb/s offering to new customers. I'm somewhat concerned that they may also seek to apply that to me when I renew next month. Currently I am very happy with 37/13.
But then, most of us can hold two widely conflicting views at the same time, can't we?
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As far as upload is concerned I agree - I wouldn't go to PlusNet because of the 2Mb. I get 15Mb sync on upload and pay for the 80/20 package primarily because of this. I only use it sometimes but when I do I am uploading a lot of data.
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Ok then lets say the bandwidth getting used in your home is average for a family home situation .. .. we will agree on that for the time being ..
Now i would say that you are a pretty level headed guy and the facts you state above are indeed correct..
Now lets go to the question that you first asked,the one thats up for debate here in this thread
Subject: Re: Has the Openreach / Virgin speed gap ever been wider?
Why on earth would these two companies in question spend tens of millions of pounds updating older networks and installing new networks investing in superfast broadband if it is not required ?
The question you raised is indeed an interesting one but the way you replied to me suggests that superfast broadband is not required in the uk ?
In the case of Opereach because their all-copper ADSL network doesn't cut it for many anymore. It delivered average speeds close to or actually in single figures in many areas.
In the case of Virgin Media marketing.
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For Grandparents, maybe.
No grandparents here, but check the graphs on my post at http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4473774-re-...
An entire series of House of Cards was watched in 1080p during the past week alongside the 2 You Tube users, the home working, the Now TV, regular web browsing, some downloading of expansion packs for DA:I, etc, etc.
I could get by on 20Mb, sure, but pay more as I have a patience problem.
I appreciate that in TBB world everyone needs a gigabit and rubbishes the statistics and predictions from the BSG and others predicting usage of perhaps 30Mb/s at peak periods in 5 or 10 years but based on my own experience they don't seem too far out.
I could certainly make 20Mb insufficient by caning torrents and usenet but have no legitimate application I make regular use of that would cause anything other than bursts over 20Mb.
Note I said regular use - I appreciate that a full resync of the Steam library would be heavy but is likely something not done with regularity.
It's actually quite interesting measuring usage via one of these graphs. Highly recommend it.
Edited by deleted (Thu 31-Mar-16 11:04:52)
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You, or rather we (the collective on this forum) are very much the exception rather than the rule).
I really have to disagree with this. I live in a 5 person house, not one person apart from me is even the slightest bit technical in this household.
At 18Mbps the connection was a nightmare daily, with the upload being saturated with basic tasks such as a Sky download and somebody online gaming or having a Skype call. Pings would go above 100, streams would buffer, overall a bad experience.
Even at 40Mbps down and 10Mbps upload we still have issues with buffering. I would say my household represents more than most the "standard" house.
Netflix is a 15Mbps stream now, Sky downloads a movie at 4Gb, iPhone records in 4K and multiple people have this automatically uploading to dropbox and iCloud etc.
I would say you are in the minority if 20Mbps is good enough for 6 users.
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I've never specified the number of people using a connection. I said average household, which I believe is about 2.4persons per home.
Even still, I would expect your home and usage to be within a very small percentage, if even 1% of the "average" type of usage.
Edited by deleted (Thu 31-Mar-16 11:16:04)
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The trick is to use QOS
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aside from that early burst it looks like you was never saturating the connection.
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the 3 tasks you listed wouldnt be enough to saturate upload. Someone been naughty and was seeding perhaps?
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What are you using to monitor data usage on connection that creates these nice graphs?
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Nobody knows how to torrent in my household apart from me. Perhaps it was not saturated, but performance suffered with 18Mbps down and 1Mbps upload.
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I think 20 Mbps is fine for the average household, if the upload was far higher than 1Mbps. Alas, that is not the case, once the upload becomes saturated everything slows to a crawl.
If I had 20Mbps down and up, I think we would be fine.
One skype call can use the full 1Mbps upload.
I have fibre mainly for the upload. You can do multiple streams on 20Mbps just fine, albeit not 4K.
Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 31-Mar-16 11:45:28)
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http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/
That would certainly work but I'm using Observium.
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Even at 40Mbps down and 10Mbps upload we still have issues with buffering. I would say my household represents more than most the "standard" house.
Netflix is a 15Mbps stream now, Sky downloads a movie at 4Gb, iPhone records in 4K and multiple people have this automatically uploading to dropbox and iCloud etc.
The public stats I read from Sandvine alongside the anecdotal information provided me by ISP employees disagrees.
Just using Netflix at 15Mb indicates use of 4k which isn't exactly common. Making and uploading 4k video via an iPhone on a regular basis isn't something that many people do either - the default setting is 1080p.
http://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/OurNetwork/Fi...
Bear in mind those are mean averages, while the more accurate measure would be the median. 25% of households skew the mean by using 75% of the bandwidth. The 'standard' median house, even on FTTC/P, would use considerably less than the numbers in the Fibre Index.
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Well, RRDTOOL is what it says on the graphs... I guess the stats gathering is the tricky part.
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yeah but pretty much noone uses rrdtool directly these days, they will use a frontend such as what ignition linked to, other alternatives are cacti and zabbix.
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The only reason I've had to go for a higher speed Virgin package is to get better upload speed as this is the one area where they really suck. I was on 100/6 and now have 200/12. This is more to do with my voluntary stuff for community radio than anything else but I still get the swirling circles in iPlayer and other video streams, despite what David Tennant used to say in the VM adverts.
If I had FTTC I could get 58/16, according to the line checkers. The drawback is having to have a new line put in and losing loyalty discounts built up with Virgin over 20 years. What I have got, more as backup than anything, is a small EE mobile broadband box that gives me 46/28 quite happily - I have line of sight with the mast. If it wasn't for the fact that service is capped at 15Gb a month it would be on all the time.
The 'gap' is not just about upload speed...
Virgin Cable (200/12) + EE Mobile BB
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Well, RRDTOOL is what it says on the graphs... I guess the stats gathering is the tricky part.
Indeed it does. I tried a couple of solutions that were annoying to various degrees before settling on Observium.
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Yes I am the 15Mbps netflix user, but even then I use that rarely.
Also you are right, my phone is recording in 1080p not 4K, the setting is not 4K by default as I assumed.
Even so, still get slowdowns on 40Mbps. I think it boils down to I need a router supporting QOS but don't want to pay for that!
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Yes I am the 15Mbps netflix user, but even then I use that rarely.
Also you are right, my phone is recording in 1080p not 4K, the setting is not 4K by default as I assumed.
Even so, still get slowdowns on 40Mbps. I think it boils down to I need a router supporting QOS but don't want to pay for that!
Ah.
When I was stuck on 20Mb/8Mb I was making a fair amount of use of the QoS available to me.
Hardware Generic ARMv7
Operating system Linux 2.6.36.4brcmarm
System name rt-ac87u
F/W: Merlin 380.57_0
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Thanks, I'll give Observium a closer look for my needs.
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If Sky and TalkTalk were feeling threatened by Virgin Ultrafast, they would be all over FTTP in available areas. I don't think they are feeling threatened by Virgin Ultrafast.
Are there any places that even have both Openreach FTTP and Virgin?
I mean, it's said that Cornwall comprises a large percentage of Openreach's FTTP rollout. Cornwall, except for one town, is a Virgin-free zone.
To me it makes no sense why Sky and TalkTalk don't even sell 40 and 80Mbit on FTTP. That said, Sky doesn't really want to sell you even 80Mbit FTTC - they charge a hell of a lot more for it (you might as well go with Zen)
I dare say that even if everyone had FTTP giving 1gb, people would complain that Openreach wasn't doing enough to give them 10gbps.
At least we'd know that Openreach deployed a network that could easily and quickly provide 10Gbps if the demand appeared, without basically obsoleting millions of pounds of hardware and requiring extensive work to rollout - not like FTTC at all.
(and it could be flexible enough to give the cheapskates their 20Mbit service while power users and businesses can have that 1Gbit without the considerable expense and effort of a leased line - again, not like FTTC)
I find it interesting how people think it's a good idea to make long term investments (potentially "once in a lifetime" for some areas) on the basis of speeds and technologies that were considered a bit old hat even several years before BT installed the first cabinet. Especially when they aren't even consistent about it, leading to situations like farmers in the middle of nowhere being able to get FTTP while people in denser areas can't (at least not unless they went for FTTPoD). My favourite is where BT has deployed FTTP to one side of a street but not the other.
Edited by deleted (Fri 01-Apr-16 11:19:00)
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I'm not sure why you think Sky over price their 80/20 product, it's price is identical to BT aswell as Zen, EE and providers such as Plusnet, TalkTalk and Vodefone who offer it cheaper are only doing so based on 18 month contract or in Voda's case because of being a Vodafone Mobile Customer.
I agree with your comments regarding Sky & TalkTalk not mkaing there services availble via FTTP... though I think it should be more Openreach's responsibilty to make FTTC&P one ordring system.... so if I was ordering Sky 40/10 it would be the same for both me and SKy to order it whether I was in an FTTC area or FTTP one.
One thing that does make it hard though is the hardware and connection support from Sky/TalkTalk for FTTP customers, it just means Sky don't find it reasonable enough to train its staff to deal with a tiny percentage of customers and would prefferably like to leave it until a later time.
As it currently sit for us city dweller's, we're going to be stuck with copper for a long time yet, and only with further upgrades such as G.Fast are we going to get closer and closer to an FTTP solution....
It may start with G.Fast rollout and then newbuilds will start to see Fibre installations rather than the basic copper installs and then as lines start to require replacement fibre will be put in place... or we could even see the cost of FTTPoD slashed to the point where providers may run copper to fibre switch deals...
However the above may be a bit optemistic and the future may not hold any improvements for the existing dwellings and only new builds will start seeing fibre's.
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I'm not sure why you think Sky over price their 80/20 product, it's price is identical to BT aswell as Zen, EE and providers such as Plusnet, TalkTalk and Vodefone who offer it cheaper are only doing so based on 18 month contract or in Voda's case because of being a Vodafone Mobile Customer.
So it is. TBH I don't even look at the "big ISP" pricing as I never intend to join one.
With Sky there are other reasons why it puts people off - to have the 80Mbit "pro" service, you have to phone them, but if you want ADSL or 40Mbit, no problem - order online
I agree with your comments regarding Sky & TalkTalk not mkaing there services availble via FTTP... though I think it should be more Openreach's responsibilty to make FTTC&P one ordring system.... so if I was ordering Sky 40/10 it would be the same for both me and SKy to order it whether I was in an FTTC area or FTTP one.
Are they actually different ordering systems? That seems like an "interesting" decision to make
One thing that does make it hard though is the hardware and connection support from Sky/TalkTalk for FTTP customers, it just means Sky don't find it reasonable enough to train its staff to deal with a tiny percentage of customers and would prefferably like to leave it until a later time.
There's not that much to train though, I'd have thought. If anything FTTP is easier to troubleshoot - you can ask the user what lights are on the ONT and if it's something obvious like a loss of optical signal you get Openreach involved. There are many more variables with copper, surely? (especially now that FTTC is self install and with ISP supplied modems)
Sky and TalkTalk seem happy enough to go through the process for their own FTTP network in York, after all
As it currently sit for us city dweller's, we're going to be stuck with copper for a long time yet, and only with further upgrades such as G.Fast are we going to get closer and closer to an FTTP solution....
It may start with G.Fast rollout and then newbuilds will start to see Fibre installations rather than the basic copper installs and then as lines start to require replacement fibre will be put in place... or we could even see the cost of FTTPoD slashed to the point where providers may run copper to fibre switch deals...
However the above may be a bit optemistic and the future may not hold any improvements for the existing dwellings and only new builds will start seeing fibre's.
I'm not actually a city dweller. I live in a mid sized village that got FTTC through Superfast Cornwall. Less than 5 minutes down the road (still within the village) there are FTTP deployments. I know someone who lives across the road from our exchange. He was EO but got FTTC through a new cabinet. Meanwhile, his neighbour behind him is on FTTP. It makes little sense. (and this person isn't very technically inclined, but he was the one who told me about that - so some people do care).
But since I'm not in an area that has Virgin or another form of competition I doubt we'll be getting anything else from BT, any time soon - at least not unless the state intervenes or BT voluntarily drops FTTPoD pricing. We were one of the last to get ADSL back in the day.
However, in a nearby town centre (still no Virgin), there is quite a lot of FTTP. Except where they decided they couldn't be bothered and just did FTTC
Edited by deleted (Fri 01-Apr-16 12:09:00)
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end of the day sky are free to set their prices how they want and sell how they want.
As it turns out (in my view) they have one of the best 80/20 products on the market, probably as a result of their policies with loads of people using a poor router and a lot of their customers on lower end packages, it has meant that likely they have favourable contention ratios on their network, and my performance indicates that as well.
They also the only provider i am aware off which even considers customer request's to change DLM profile.
Sky's 80/20 isnt cheap but its also not outrageously priced.
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end of the day sky are free to set their prices how they want and sell how they want.
and at the end of the day, I am free to criticise their decisions and say why I wouldn't join them
As it turns out (in my view) they have one of the best 80/20 products on the market, probably as a result of their policies with loads of people using a poor router and a lot of their customers on lower end packages, it has meant that likely they have favourable contention ratios on their network, and my performance indicates that as well.
They also the only provider i am aware off which even considers customer request's to change DLM profile.
Sky's 80/20 isnt cheap but its also not outrageously priced.
If they offered true "pro" features like multiple IP addresses, IPv6, and most importantly total freedom to use any router you like, then it might be more enticing. But since they don't, it's off my list.
I assume that Sky still makes you use their horrible "hub" even on "pro"?
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this is what I dont get, so many people moaning about sky stopping them use a router, they dont stop you from doing anything, they not enforcing it via a mac whitelist. I havent used their sky hub at all after they activated me, it was only powered up to grab the auth info.
Regarding IPv6 unless I am mistaken sky have done the biggest rollout of it so far from all the major uk isp's.
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this is what I dont get, so many people moaning about sky stopping them use a router, they dont stop you from doing anything, they not enforcing it via a mac whitelist. I havent used their sky hub at all after they activated me, it was only powered up to grab the auth info.
Regarding IPv6 unless I am mistaken sky have done the biggest rollout of it so far from all the major uk isp's.
But Sky calls it a "pro" service. When I sign up, I want them to tell me exactly what I need to know to connect my router to their service, without having to resort to hacks to extract details from the Sky router, and then hope it keeps working.
They are the only UK ISP to make it so difficult. Even Virgin has a bridge mode that takes all of 2 minutes to get working.
Do Sky have IPv6 rolled out to end users yet? All of the big ISPs have finally woken up and announced trials for small groups of users and employees, but I don't think any of them have publicly deployed it yet?
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it seems at least a big bulk of their adsl users now have ipv6 activated. Dont think any vdsl have it yet tho.
End of the day you make your own choice, if the lack of official support to you is a massive deal then sky is not suitable for you.
There is no perfect isp sadly its a case of picking which ones have the least problems you are prepared to deal with.
I will check the sky pro forums and report back here if I read anything that indicates a vdsl ipv6 rollout is incoming.
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It may be possible that Sky & TalkTalk's UFO project may work much differently to Openreach's systems thus the reason for not using Openreach and maybe they have so suprises up there sleeves...
As far as rollout's go they do seem to make people mad, with situations like your friends, however it may of been a case where your friends line to the exchange may not have ducting for significan't parts of the line which lead to him getting FTTC rather than FTTP...
Also last time I looked all in one PCP and FTTC DSLAM had a limited number of ports for use, and it may have worked more conveinient to run FTTP to the other addresses further from the exchange due to them having ducting availble to use... they're could of also been restrictions on where the FTTC DSLAM could be placed and that may have cost more to divert the network and/or dig roads Ect....
I live in a newly converted office building in the centre of Crawely....we're 400-500 metres (Cable length) from the BDUK Funded DSLAM, getting connected was a nightmare due to Openreach not updating systems correctly and for failing to complete neccesary work earlier in December...
I was so annoyed that I wanted to go back to Virgin Media and just deal with the utilisation issues as they came, however most people in the block seemed to be more interested in Sky than Virgin and enough people didn't register interest it seems...
Annoying too, as Virgin's Fibre and Coaxial networks run 2 metres from the front of the building, they may still add the building to the network though a plan will need to be made and apporved by buldings owners/management...
The annoyance with a building like mine and the other 184 apartment building currently being finshed off next is that they could easily have fibre rolled out in them, but Openreach as you say either won't benefite from it or too busy to do it... though it don't help that developers don't think about it too.
I approached Hyperoptic but they wheren't interested as I was enquiring about my building of 24 and I think they need the developers to contacts them at ealry stages to get something started... (installing POP)
The other thing that will be very annoying soon is that the 184 apartment being built will be connecting to my BDUK funded PCP.... it's only a 96 port cab and is already connecting the busy high streets and other flats and buildings... so most those residents will no doubt be stuck with ADSL at around 12Mb/s
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was going to posts nada, but some guy just replied saying on fiber pro he now has a working ipv6 wan address. So something is been done in the background, but sky are been silent on it.
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it seems at least a big bulk of their adsl users now have ipv6 activated. Dont think any vdsl have it yet tho
Does this matter? I've switched ipv6 off on the router because it made Android devices' connections very laggy.
But to return to the subject matter of this thread, living in a rural area I've found that my Zen FTTC 33Mb/sec is fast enough for VOIP, web browsing and 4K video streaming all at the same time.
If ten times the speed were available for twice the money, I'd probably turn it down.
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not sure what you mean by your question, but rollout of ipv6 most certainly does matter.
Only yesterday I was arguing with a provider for 3 ipv4 I mean THREE, this is how tight providers are getting, we need broadband isp's to rollout ipv6 like yesterday.
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I said majority, not all. Don't forget, there are LOTS of people who simply want to watch iPlayer, do a bit of browsing, send a few emails. Typically the likes of people on this forum are not those. We are the very small minority I don't agree. I think we are the majority (unless you meant minority on these forums in which case I'm not sure). I also think the market has spoken. It's clear that most people are not interested in speed. BT's FTTC is showing a lot of people opting for 40Mb/s even if they could get 80Mb/s. VM keeps having to bump users onto faster packages because they don't choose to upgrade for themselves.
I would estimate that 10Mb/s down is enough for a single user most of the time. So sure, a family probably needs a 50Mb/s connection. But very few people have a real need for anything more at the moment.
---
Andrue Cope
Brackley, UK
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Yes, that's what I meant. The majority of people don't want super speed.
The likes of people who frequent these forums DO want ultrafast yesterday. Those people are the minority if the UK population.
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I said majority, not all. Don't forget, there are LOTS of people who simply want to watch iPlayer, do a bit of browsing, send a few emails. Typically the likes of people on this forum are not those. We are the very small minority
I would estimate that 10Mb/s down is enough for a single user most of the time. So sure, a family probably needs a 50Mb/s connection. But very few people have a real need for anything more at the moment.
Yes i would agree with that as a starting point .. 10Mb for a single user and 50Mb+ for an average size family
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Thanks Ignition, I've now got Observium set up on a Raspberry Pi and monitoring usage on my main FTTC connection and the backup ADSL connection and it works pretty good.
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Thanks Ignition, I've now got Observium set up on a Raspberry Pi and monitoring usage on my main FTTC connection and the backup ADSL connection and it works pretty good.
Must get around to getting a backup connection for it to monitor at some point
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Thanks Ignition, I've now got Observium set up on a Raspberry Pi and monitoring usage on my main FTTC connection and the backup ADSL connection and it works pretty good.
That's on my todo list too. Can you get it to report usage per device? or do you just see total usage?
Otherwise I might be looking at ntopng, or Bandwidthd.
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I've got my new install of Obervium setup to monitor the snmp v1 public info from my routers negotiating the ppp connections.
Obervium is monitoring at a port level so I can see total usage on the routers ppp interface and individual usage on each of the ethernet ports and on the wlan interface but I cant see individual total for any device connected to the ports. I guess if you only have one device per wired port, you can get what you need on the wired interfaces but it doesn't look like it can give you connected device granularity on the wlan interface.
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My setup has too many devices to plug into the router, so I make use of a switch. In addition, there is a Samknows box that everything flows through.
I made sure the switch has support for both port mirroring and SNMP monitoring, so I can use either method for accumulating stats.
I agree, though, that the SNMP method will work for my wired devices, but not for wireless device access via the AP. I don't think I can get SNMP stats out of my AP, but that'll be a separate investigation, I guess.
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