is there any point to 50Meg

with Virgin Media's traffic management policy reducing speeds to around dial up at peak times for people using news groups etc is there really any point to it?

What else would you use this kind of speed for? my line manages well with streaming video I can download an MP3 quickly enough from I Tunes and when I am gaming I don't suffer any serious lag?

Do you think that Virgin Media would re-think their policy if we all started to downgrade to 20 or 30Meg? we have put up with being bullied by ISP's for years, they tell us what we can and can't do with the products we pay for and we simply fall in line.

I have spent some time in France and they would not put up with it, they said NO and the ISP's had to back down.

Piracy.

It's hard to find a reason for more than 5Mb/s for a single user at the moment. 10Mb/s for a household, perhaps 15Mb/s ought to be ample for most properties. I suspect that's why BT is struggling to get people onto its FTTC service. The only people who would really benefit are those currently on less than 10Mb/s. For anyone else it's pointless by and large.

Really I think FTTC is pointless in a lot of cases and isn't being used where it would do the most good. I'm all for upgrading the network but right now we have enough time to wait while FTTP is rolled out. Use FTTC for not- and slow- spots or places where FTTP will never be viable.

Unfortunately the economics just don't seem to support that strategy so we're stuck it seems with a half-arsed solution that will need replacing by the time there's a real need for high speed.

Edited by Andrue (Mon 18-Apr-11 20:22:49)

Yes, it's fabulous for those of us who want to get large files from Steam, etc, you know things we've actually paid for, and want to do it more quickly.

Also great for working from home and shifting large amounts of data quickly.

Virgin Media won't rethink their policy. They don't want the business of people who pay a relatively small amount for their products and use them to leech hundreds of GB of copyright material each month.

If you don't like the product an ISP supplies take a service from another one, same as if you don't like the cars Ford make you buy from another manufacturer or you don't like your mobile service you change to another. You dictate to operators by not paying them and moving elsewhere.

Regarding your comments on France multiple ISPs shape.

Why do u say Piracy?

I have 50mb because i enjoy having a fast connection, i can download videos that my friends make who are backpacking in Australia which are usually 1GB+ cos they are HD, download emails and browse at the same time where when i had 20mb it would struggle.

I opted for it cos at the time Virgin give me a damn good deal on it.

Not everyone who has a fast connection wants it for purposes you are suggesting, mine is purely for convienience and ease of what i stated.

Andrue brings up a very good point, BT is mainly installing in area's with either cable (VM, smallworld media, ect) or where the adsl speeds are very good (10meg+) so few people want to bother with the costs/hassle of changeing.

Now if BT installed in areas like where i live that has a adsl speed of LESS then 3meg (and b4 anyone say's anything yes i do live in a city and not a small town) then they would most likely find they would need to install mutiple roadside box's because just about everyone would want it.

I greatly respect BT for this fiber rollout but theve gone about it the wrong way, they should have started in the area's where theres low speed and low competion, only a fool would leave a 50meg service for something that gives 40meg max (at the momment)

What is it, a year (if that) into the proper roll out?

Look at where ADSL was back in 2001 at the same stage. In a few years everyone will be using a FTTC or FTTP based product and ADSL products will be obsolete.

All this talk of "no one really needs it" or "i want it but can't get it" is short sighted and short termism.

Andrue makes an assertion that "5mbit ought to be enough". Do people not learn that speed in itself is irrelevant? If there are services out there that make use of greater speed then greater speed is desirable. At the moment I reckon most people can do what they like on something around 12-15Mbit but speeds will only continue to rise as technology advances. I'm sure in 2003 Andrue probably pimped 1Mbit as enough...a few years down the line and that speed is cause for vociferous complaints from those unlucky enough to "only" be getting it.

As it'll take BT a few years to do this roll out it'll soon become the benchmark with people say "30Mbit is probably enough" and "why would you need 100Mbit?" and so it continues.

BT is installing all over the country in areas that have VM, those that don't. Big cities and dormitory towns, town centre and outskirt. It's simplistic to try and label the rollout as focusing on areas of a particular type - they might just happen to be the areas with the most people.

Edited by orly (Tue 19-Apr-11 02:28:47)

In reply to a post by orly:

If there are services out there that make use of greater speed then greater speed is desirable.

Name them. Go on, feel free. Don't just look at the UK. Look at countries that already have high speed internet connections and tell me what applications and services they are using them for. We are not at the forefront of development here. There are several countries we can look to if we want to see what services and applications a high speed connection makes available.

I'm sure in 2003 Andrue probably pimped 1Mbit as enough...a few years down the line and that speed is cause for vociferous complaints from those unlucky enough to "only" be getting it.

First off, no, I don't think I did. Back then I was often having to download applications and I could see the advantages of video over IP. I didn't know much about video encoding then so probably thought that fibre was a basic necessity.

Secondly I haven't denied the need to upgrade. Read my post again. What I've said is that FTTC is a half-way house. We should be aiming for universal FTTP and using FTTC only where FTTP is not practical. My point about 5Mb/s being enough is to show that we have time to spare. Instead of rushing the majority into FTTC we can concentrate on getting them FTTP. Use FTTC where it will do the most good.

Oh and as for needing a fast connection to work from home:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/3993659-re-...

I'll concede that when I needed to download the ISO for BackupExec(*) it was lucky I did my preparation and was able to kick it off overnight but that's the only time our office connection has been an issue.

(*)3.4GB for a backup package. Presumably it comes with your data already backed up

Edited by Andrue (Tue 19-Apr-11 08:26:03)

50mbps will be too slow for many business users, especially with given bandwidth caps. Proper 100mbps fibre optic services should be offered everywhere where there is a demand. Things are often made worse because the upload speed usually is only a fraction of the upload speed. Reliability of a broadband is important, the network shouldn't go down on its knees next time there is a big football game or a tennis match in Wimbledon. BT already has all the ducts and telecom poles, so why not offer fibre lines on demand to users who need them rather than doing global rollouts to areas where there is no demand?

"network shouldn't go down on its knees next time there is a big football game or a tennis match in Wimbledon"

Which is nothing to do with the local loop, and the core network is already fibre based.