virgin FTTN can be problematic if to many are connected to the same node (like where i live) and the result is Packet loss on some of the congested upstream channels (lucky the one i am locked onto is mostly ok, but my next door and person over the road are not so lucky)
problem VM make the issue Worse by upgrading users to the super-hub and upgrading there speeds and in turn giving users more upload speed to trash the upstream even more if any thing they need to Drop the upload speed for every one, and only up it when the node has more upstream channels, for the most part you got to think of VM cable as Wifi with loads of channels once they get saturated it starts to brake (norm around 70-80% load)

where as BT FTTC is mostly like ADSL at the exchange just a lot closer and tad a lot faster normally and working QOS (drop speed to keep packet loss at bay) where as you treat each BT FTTC or ADSL as an Dedicated connection for the most part

check out my funky BQM stats in my sig

once BT FTTC comes VM will lose at least half or more customers where i live including me maybe (depends if we can lose enough VM customers to drop the ping to good level my next door is thinking of going full sky and live with sub 1mb ADSL until FTTC comes, better off with slow speed 30-40ping, then 50-300ping+ packet loss on VM (as he cant game with 5-20% packet loss)

Hi Guys,

Thought I'd give my view. I've been on Virgin Cable for a long time and recently my cab was enabled. At the same time I noticed my VM Cable performance has dramatically improved, I notice I now have 6/7 Downstream channels and 2 upstream channels. I joined up with Sky FTTC and unfortunately the maximum speed attainable for myself is 45mb, as the cab is very far away. I also have issues with my home wiring which has led to further problems. I did a few speed tests and downloaded several files to compare speeds, on Virgin I was getting a good throughput of around 3.1mb/s on sky fttc I was getting around 2.6mb/s. The upstream on sky fttc was of course much better!

I kept my Virgin Cable as a backup and have now cancelled my Sky FTTC and stuck with VM Cable. So just a note if your going for FTTC make sure your home wiring is up to scratch and not star wired like mine!

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

The definitions are weird. FTTC doesn't actually stand for FTTCabinet but FTTCurb.

Nice try, but in the UK this would be Fibre To The Kerb (FTTK)!

In reply to a post by John_Gray:

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

The definitions are weird. FTTC doesn't actually stand for FTTCabinet but FTTCurb.

Nice try, but in the UK this would be Fibre To The Kerb (FTTK)!

Interesting turn of phrase, however we're the country that gave birth to fibre optic broadband for cable and telephony terms are worldwide I'll stick with FTTCurb. I seriously doubt that in Netherlands, Japan and Germany the letters hold true as acronyms for either fibre to the curb, cabinet, premises or node but that's what they're called.

If FTTN/C+VDSL were allowed to be called FTTCabinet Virgin and other cable operators should also be considered FTTC in areas where they've no further cabinets serving customers, such as those areas where the rest of the plant is purely underground.

I'll stick with the internationally held definitions over BT's press releases, for the sake of consistency, until such a time as I see KPN announce glasfiber naar de beteugelen and Deutsche Telekom Faser an den Stra�enrand. My apologies to people who do actually speak those languages, that was a Google Translate job.

We're not the centre of the telecommunications universe and the definitions are there to avoid ambiguity, which they do well so long as everyone plays. Check international coverage on BT's deployment and you'll find numerous references to FTTN.

Edited by deleted (Fri 15-Mar-13 17:42:06)

FTTK would be right in front of the house (that's how most role outs of FTTP happen, you just make your own trench from house to curb, lay the provided fibre and Plug in the fibre box that is just out side your gate)

most call it fibre to the cab FTTC

(Cool TB site your forums support the save data when typing stuff in (this pc BSOD twice and i still had this post when i pressed back )

I've been on Virgin cable for a year.
Don't care personally for download speed - for me it's all about the latency.
First 8 months were OK - 60-100ms ping and only occasional packet loss (compared to Zen ADSL I was always 30-50ms and 0 packet loss).
However in Decemeber pings crept up over 100ms midday to 4pm and then got really bad with 20% packet loss that lasted from 4pm- midnight.
When I called they told the "over-utilisation" issue will be fixed IN APRIL. I had 12 hours or so outage this weekend and pings/packet loss seem much better. Perhaps it's been fixed early... we shall see!

on Friday morning (around 8:30am) they seem to have enabled 2 upload channels now all ping monitors for my street are now normal 2 other houses are no longer at 5-40% packet loss but ping is still getting to around 150ms ish at peak time (one of them cant really be fixed as the modem is not where it should be)

YouTube now works correctly (no buffering issues as they no longer have packet loss) and i get constant 12mb on me phone where it was better to turn off wifi before as my 3g connection on my phone was better

log into your modem 192.168.0.1 or 1.1 click on status top right and click on upstream you probably see that there is 2 channels working (before it would of been 1) so the load seems to get spread across the channels (like the downstream)