Virgin Media FTTP without coax

Virgin media has recently become available at my property. I was quite surprised because I hadn't seen any works happening. I thought VM always installed their own infrastructure with a cabinet at the end of the street and coax to the property.

Our current copper lines are underground, and it looks like VM (or UPP) has installed a fibre line in the existing ducting. I was able to get the image when they were installing for a neighbour. You can see the yellow UPP tag on on the fibre

So this must mean that VM must be installing fibre all the way to the router with no copper cable?
VM has always been behind other fttp ISP's in terms of latency, I assume because of the last stretch of coax. So does full FTTP virgin bring the same latency levels? .

[img]https://i.ibb.co/0fkTwsd/20240920-132220.jpg[/img]

Edited by nickm85 (Mon 30-Sep-24 09:25:37)

VM are indeed rolling out full fibre with the help of a partner called NexFibre.

If you look here, you might see them working in the area: https://bidb.uk/

I can't comment on latency, as I don't have a connection with them, and it would really depend on their network.

In reply to a post by AndyPandy:

I can't comment on latency, as I don't have a connection with them, and it would really depend on their network.

I wonder if their service is better with fibre than it is with their traditional cable network? Round here, I hear endless anecdotal complaints about their service being unreliable and unpredictable, and this seems to be echoed elsewhere as they are generally regarded as the worst of the major ISPs in the UK.

They cabled up my area a couple of years back (completely bypassing my little corner of it), but as far as I know this was all traditional coax.

I’m on a1gb/1gb virgin media fibre feed in Sheringham Norfolk. This was installed by UPP/Nexfibre in July and apart from a few short breaks in service at the start has been solid since.
Speedtest.net shows approx 1100/1100 on average and latency seems to stay the same at 15ms
There is no modem mode on the supplied 5x router but my existing unify access points work fine with it.
Others may know if connections to the nexfibre network even touch the vm network before peering off.
There was an issue with vm billing forgetting not to charge for installation (it was free) and a weeks delay in connecting was not automatically compensated for but a formal complaint help solve both issues.
I’m now on monthly billing with no further surprises other than the flagged price increase next year. If nexfibre sell through other isps by the time the contract is up I would look to switch as I believe virgin will increase the price by quite a bit at that point.

I guess it depends on what's causing the issues on VM's network. If it's the old infrastructure of cabinet and coax, then moving to full fibre should help.

If it's within their core network (lack of bandwidth, congestion etc.), then I don't see how it could help.

In reply to a post by nickm85:

So this must mean that VM must be installing fibre all the way to the router with no copper cable?

As I understand it, VM have two completely different types of fibre network:

1. "RFoG" (Radio Frequency over Glass) which is DOCSIS: they modulate the same cable TV signals onto fibre, and convert it back to coax at a box on your wall.

2. XGS-PON, which is essentially a data network and offers services up to 2G/2G symmetric today (potentially higher in future). The new Nexfibre builds are like this.

Latency does not just depend on their last-mile technology. In some areas the coax cable TV network is heavily oversubscribed and congested, but that's likely to show as jitter and packet loss rather than a fixed higher baseline latency. It also depends on their core network and their external routing/peering arrangements.

It is a curiosity that I also have. Virgin Media appear to be installing in my area following a letter back in April. It is with Nexfibre and more works are scheduled in my street in 2 weeks time.

We also have Community Fibre here. Naturally, if it is Full Fibre then the service should indeed be the same regardless of ISP. Nexfibre will also act as a Wholesale network in future, where the CEO claims more ISPs will join the network soon.

That way we will need to read and watch more reviews to find out how well Nexfibre will perform with other ISPs as well vs that of Openreach, CityFibre, Netomnia, etc.

Obviously the comparison of the ISP alone from coax vs full fibre will not be the same. Just like FTTC and FTTP for the very same ISPs will differ in network performance and reliability.

Indeed, if it is the core network of Virgin Media that is affected then that will have the same negative impact on FTTP. The latency side should naturally be lower. Congestion will not be an immediate factor as there will be fewer Nexfibre customers vs that of Coax and should also have a less negative impact for the long term with it being FTTP.

Again, I can say from my experience with FTTC that for the same network and cabinet TalkTalk was a worse experience for me than BT. I'd experience connection downtime even when the router was showing as connected every 1-3 weeks on average for roughly 10 minutes to half an hour. I never had over 75 days of connection up time with TalkTalk like I do now with BT. With TalkTalk in the 2 years that I had I'd experience periods of weeks where my connection will stop working randomly (usually at night), Network icon in windows taskbar will sometimes show exclamation mark but router was showing connected. This coincided with TalkTalk network maintenance schedules. Never had that experience with BT for over 2 years since joining.

With this experience I'd confidently say that the core network issues were with TalkTalk. The question is what are people's experience with the very same problematic ISPs that have a bad reputation on ADSL/FTTC. How do they compare in FTTP?

We will need to read and see experiences from other Virgin Media users via Nexfibre to find out what their experiences are.

There's also one other problem to bear in mind. Virgin Media and Nexfibre are targeting areas that don't have existing VM Coax footprint! So, naturally those customers who will choose Virgin Media via Nexfibre will have had no experience of using the same ISP via Coax cable to be able to give us any genuine feedback unless they lived elsewhere that had Coax.

The only scenario here is Virgin Media's Project Mustang, which is a separate FTTP upgrade from Nexfibre. They are upgrading existing Coax customers to FTTP for the existing 14.3 million customers. Those customers will be the only ones at the same premises to be able to have experienced both of them and give a more accurate feedback.

Also the customers on coax differs from area to area due to line length and congestion. Just like with FTTC, some customers have a far better experience than others depending on cabinet length distance and crosstalk. It is difficult to give a genuine and accurate feedback for an ISP when the service is bound to differ.

Edited by BLaZiNgSPEED (Wed 02-Oct-24 03:31:24)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

As I understand it, VM have two completely different types of fibre network:

1. "RFoG" (Radio Frequency over Glass) which is DOCSIS: they modulate the same cable TV signals onto fibre, and convert it back to coax at a box on your wall.

2. XGS-PON, which is essentially a data network and offers services up to 2G/2G symmetric today (potentially higher in future). The new Nexfibre builds are like this.

That is my understanding. With Virgin Media they have those two fibre options via four different fibre programmes they have or are running:

1. Project Lightening - this was Virgin Media infill using RFoG - Fibre to the front door, then like old HFC in house.
2. Project Mustang - this is a current VM project to upgrade HFC (and RFoG) areas to XGS-PON
3. Nexfibre - JV with same parents as VM to deliver XGS-PON to new areas. VM only people selling on this today,
2. Acquisition of Upp - this was an Altnet, I think this has been rolled into Nexfibre.

Not sure if they are selling on the Mustang footprint yet? They've done all the cabinet and fibre works in my part of Sheffield but not sure if it is live yet. For me it still looks like RFoG options.

In reply to a post by daern:

I wonder if their service is better with fibre than it is with their traditional cable network? Round here, I hear endless anecdotal complaints about their service being unreliable and unpredictable, and this seems to be echoed elsewhere as they are generally regarded as the worst of the major ISPs in the UK.

Its fair complaint on the coax/DOCSIS network, but it isn't nationwide. They are heavily regional. My area (Surrey/Hants border) I recommend VM and have no issues. People in Nottingham and other large cities have had no end of problems.

There were two extension projects, one used coax/DOCSIS, and the other used FTTP to the house, and converted to coax to use the traditional TV and cable modem hardware inside building. This was Project Lightning.

Thinkbroadband news reported both of these projects had ended, and now expansion to new areas is with nexfibre (XGS-PON FTTP) or VM themselves deploying XGS-PON.

A project Mustang has started to convert all the coax/DOCSIS areas to XGS-PON, see the TBB news history.

Is there any Project Mustang stuff live yet at all?