In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

We had Virgin Media installed through Nextfibre and from reports on our village Facebook group alot of issues with downtime are being reported.
Glad I didnt move and stuck with FTTC

TBH given the comments here, unless there is some compelling reason to change that's what I plan to do

The thing is often their isnt reason to change. A 40/80 mbps FTTC is plenty for most. The only real difference you will see is in direct downloads which if a gamer is big thing but thats it.

Its not going to effect streaming services as 4k requires about 25mbps so unless you have multiple streams running then that wont see an improvement.

People are conditioned to want the fastest possible connection even if they only max out a fraction of it

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

The thing is often their isnt reason to change. A 40/80 mbps FTTC is plenty for most. The only real difference you will see is in direct downloads which if a gamer is big thing but thats it.

My only problem is that the line is detiorating. It started as a 40/10 with a potential max of 50+ but has gradually dropped to 30/7. Some of that will be the physical line, some will be noise due to crosstalk and the number of people on it.

It is possible the line will partially recover if sufficient people move to the Virgin offering, reduce crosstalk and free up some of the better quality lines if any remain, but that's a wild guess.

My current intention is to stay with iDNet and see what happens. If the line really heads south then I shall have to consider Virgin, but given their reputation it's something I'd rather not do.

It's said that FibreHeroes and FullFibre have expressed an interest but I won't hold my breath.

One of the first things we noticed going from 70Mb to gigabit was streams loaded near instantaniously, which was a supprise because they weren't slow to start before but that extra second or two makes it feel a lot less seemless. When seeking to a different part of the videos as well it will burst to 3-400Mb/s instantaniously and playback starts again near straight away, it feel a lot more responsive. Even if you don't do big transfers the burst speed can still make a big difference.

How long are these Nexfibre builds? I live in a village West of Wrexham, they turned up in March, laid some new footway boxes, dug up the pavements in a handful of places, and put a lot of VM branded boxes half way up telephone poles with cable ties. Other poles have had loops of green fibre taped to them, and some poles nothing at all. Some of the boxes ended up being moved to brackets at the tops of poles but only a handful.

That was a few months ago - nobody has seen hide nor hair of them since. Nobody has had any literature through the door (the only literature we have had was Cityfibre in 2022 but no build ever started).

To a layman it seems like they just gave up!

In reply to a post by bornacorn:

.........they turned up in March, laid some new footway boxes, dug up the pavements in a handful of places, and put a lot of VM branded boxes......

Souinds similar to what's happening round here. They're laying new fibre in Virgin style, 50cm deep trenches in the pavement, but that's only in one of the newer estates in the village.

One van turned up with a reel of what looked like fibre at 'my' pole and did some work at the bottom of the pole and then disapeared. Logically he would have worked on the other poles first but nobody has seen them again.

There is actiivty here and there but all you get if you ask the sub-contractors is that it's 'virgin fibre' We'll see what happens, but since Virgin are involved I'm not expecting much.

VM are totally fine if the network is good, which it will be in XGS-PON nexfibre areas. I've had absolutely 0 issues on VM DOCSIS in the past 2 years in my area (absolutely no contention in this area, which isn't even a consideration on XGS-PON). 0 downtime.

I really don't know why you would stay with any FTTC vs XGS-PON, even if it is only from VM.

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

I really don't know why you would stay with any FTTC vs XGS-PON, even if it is only from VM.

Agree, the VM ISP network is very good; the concerns about VM on Thinkbroadband were usually related to issues with DOCSIS in oversubscribed student areas, many of which have been resolved. The brand is still suffering from the issues from 2005 through 2014 ish timeframe.

Can you use your own router with Virgin? My understanding is that you can't and the supplied router is locked down, although apparently there are some (expensive) ways round this.

By the time the network goes live round here this may have changed, but it's a case of wait and see.

In reply to a post by Tacitus:

Can you use your own router with Virgin? My understanding is that you can't and the supplied router is locked down, although apparently there are some (expensive) ways round this.

in DOCSIS (coax cable) and RFOG areas - YES, you put the Virgin Media provided box into “Modem mode”. These are the Hub 3, Hub 4 and Hub 5.

In nexfibre areas there is a combined router/ONT which so far doesn’t apparently have a modem mode. This is the Hub 5x. Since this is just software, it will eventually arrive, but the problem is Virgin Media can take forever for this.

More here:
https://mightygadget.co.uk/virgin-media-hub-5x-vs-5-...

Edited by jchamier (Wed 14-Aug-24 00:14:03)