ok not mega rich lol but when you consider the owner hates Rupert Murdoch hes gunna want to stick one over on sky that means he has to beat them in some way, Bringing 200meg un-throttled/shapped broadband could be a nice way of snatching sky customers away lol

Ash

BT may have dark fiber but your forgetting the limitation of VDSL2 even in perfect conditions the max is is capable of is about 200mbit virgins network is capable of 1.5gbit (obviously we wont be seeing this any time soon) so short of BT aggressively roiling out FTTP(OD) VM could have the upper hand if they get there heads out of their backsides

were also forgetting if VM do a 200meg package it will more likely be about 210-220 so you actually get the 200 after overheads (again presuming they pull their heads out and invest in some backbone) where as with VDSL2 its 200max including over heads

obviously not every one will goto virgin just because its the fastest in the land but there will be some people like that

on the 8th im ordering fiber with sky (have to wait 30 days from my last change) but im going to be going for the 40/10 because im not fussed about having the fastest download going im quite happy back on ADSL download wise but im finding the upload limitation horrid 10up will do but 1up is horrible i share a lot of game maps with my friends and host a lot of game servers and finding its taking for ever and a day to get into the game when 4 people are trying to get the map off me at the same time lol also back stuff up to drop box and what not too,

But back to the point personally when i used to be on VM100 it was actually for the upload and even then i thought it performed quite badly so i wont be in rush to go for a 200/20 from VM when i can get a 40/10 or 80/20 for a decent price but my point stands if VM pull it out they they could do some damage to BT

Ash

both technologies have their downsides, but the future of FTTC has many potential upswings not considered here.

We have vectoring, and line bonding, both combined I would expect can support something like a 200/60 service.
Then there is gfast which looks promising for future deployment when existing vdsl2 starts showing its age.

So both companies have potential for much higher speeds but the difference is BT are stronger financially and are more likely able to support their products and able to invest.

The complexities of upgrading exchange backhaul is less then eg. doing a node split.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 27-Aug-13 18:44:03)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The 200 Meg rumour is just that as far as I am concerned, perhaps late in 2014 once they've been able to see vectoring erode their margin of fastest major provider.

A lot depends on what investment Liberty Global is willing to make in the operator, or whether it will be a case of decreasing numbers of customers but improved ARPU and thus shareholders happy.

BTW do you think there is any millage in VM exploiting their own version of vectoring on the node--> cabinet --> premises section of their network?

In reply to a post by roughbeast:

BTW do you think there is any millage in VM exploiting their own version of vectoring on the node--> cabinet --> premises section of their network?

The VM network doesn't have any crosstalk as the feeds out from each node are independent of each other and all subscribers on that service group share the same physical cabling.

Each modem transmits when it's told to and receives all data sent to all modems then sifts out the bits meant for the devices behind it and forwards them.

So, no, vectoring is of no use to the VM network, it's designed as a broadcast network from each node not a series of point to point links to the node which can interfere with each other as VDSL is.

To deliver higher speeds VM either need to do any or all of the following:

1) Reduce the amount of modems on each node;

2) Increase the modulation density in use to push more data down the same number of downstreams, or

3) Increase the number of downstreams per node.

The issues with these are:

1) Needs fibre pushed deeper into the network which costs money in civil engineering work, and more line cards / uBRs / CMTS in the hubsites.
2) Needs cleaner networks downstream and needs a modem swapout to remove any devices which can't handle 512QAM and 1024QAM, it also is big time diminishing returns as moving from 256QAM to 512QAM only adds another 33% capacity and then to 1024QAM a further 25% on top of that while requiring an extra 3dB SNR for each move and
3) Requires CPE that can bond more than 8 downstreams and VM have only just deployed a new Superhub 2 which is an 8 downstream bonding device.

I've ignored upstream for now but you get the idea just from downstream.

And so c&w and virgin media and geo and fibrecity and the list goes on. Masses of dark fibre in uk just tends not to run between those who want it or are willing to pay for it