Cable ISP Virgin Media UK Bring 1Gb Broadband to Manchester
Cable operator Virgin Media UK (Liberty Global) has today announced that the second UK city area to benefit from their new 1Gbps broadband speed upgrade is Greater Manchester, which is set to benefit around 500,000 premises in the area and follows Southampton (100,000 premises) as their first city last month.
Just to recap. The new speed is being made possible across both Virgin Media’s existing Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network and their latest Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines thanks to an upgrade via the latest DOCSIS 3.1 technology. As previously announced, the provider expects to cover 1 million UK premises with this by the end of 2019 and then the rest of their network (currently 15 million premises) by 2021.
As well as Manchester city centre and surrounding areas such Wythenshawe, Sale, Didsbury, Fallowfield and Old Trafford, towns including Altrincham, Warrington, Bury, Bolton, Stockport and Knutsford will also benefit from this upgrade.
Customers who take out the Gig1Fibre package will also be sent a new HUB 4.0 (TG3492LG-VMB / Gigabit Connect Box) router and you can see the specification for that at the bottom of this article from September. You cannot get faster than their 500Mbps tier without the HUB 4.0 because the existing Hub 3.0 doesn’t support DOCSIS 3.1.
Prices start from £62 per month for their standalone broadband service or £67 when bundled with phone (18 month term); with a guaranteed price freeze for at least 24 months. The new gigabit service is being promoted alongside an average download speed of 1104Mbps and an average upload of 52Mbps.
Jeff Dodds, Chief Operating Officer at Virgin Media, said:
“Manchester is a major centre for Virgin Media and the place our Project Lightning network expansion first started, so switching on our hyperfast gigabit services will help to once again transform connectivity across the city and surrounding areas.
This service is more than 26 times faster than Manchester’s average broadband speed, meaning that households can do everything they want to do online, at the same time, without delay and are well set for whatever comes next.
The Government has called for nationwide gigabit connectivity and we’re helping them leap forward to reach this ambition by turning on our next-generation Gig1 broadband across our entire network over the next 24 months – a speed and scale unmatched by anyone else.”
Regular readers will recall that we leaked details of the provider’s initial launch cities in July (here) and if the operator keeps to that plan, as they have done so far, then we expect the large town of Reading could be the next to go live (Reading is a big area and if Virgin’s main hubsite were enabled then we could easily see Basingstoke and Bracknell being added). After that the rollout pace will become much more rapid and less piecemeal.
Otherwise here’s Virgin Media’s official performance table for their predicted average broadband speeds across different packages. One caveat with this is that their slower plans are using the 10:1 ratio for upload speeds (i.e. on the 100Mbps package existing customers should get 10Mbps uploads) but new customers are still being sold the older tiers (e.g. the 100Mbps package is advertised with uploads of 6Mbps).
| Product | Advertised DL Speed* | Expected DL Speed Range** | Minimum Guaranteed DL Speed | Advertised UP Speed* | Expected UP Speed Range** |
| M50 | 54 Mbps | 53 – 55 Mbps | 27 Mbps | 5 Mbps | 5 Mbps |
| M100 | 108 Mbps | 108 – 111 Mbps | 54 Mbps | 10 Mbps | 10 Mbps |
| M200 | 213 Mbps | 208 – 219 Mbps | 107 Mbps | 20 Mbps | 16 – 21 Mbps |
| M350 | 362 Mbps | 342 – 379 Mbps | 181 Mbps | 36 Mbps | 35 – 37 Mbps |
| M500 | 516 Mbps | 405 – 521 Mbps | 258 Mbps | 36 Mbps | 36 – 37 Mbps |
| Gig1 Fibre Broadband | 1104 Mbps | 935 – 1137 Mbps | 552 Mbps | 52 Mbps | 46 – 52 Mbps |
* The advertised download and upload speeds for their Virgin Fibre packages are calculated by taking the median average, or the mid-point between the fastest and slowest speeds for each package at peak times (8-10pm), each month; in line with the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) guidance.
** The expected speed range is the normal download and upload speed that you could expect at peak times (8-10pm, Monday-Sunday); in line with Ofcom’s guidance.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Some of those towns aren’t going to benefit. Different hubsites with different technology.
Stockport won’t, last I heard. Warrington will, despite being on its own hubsite. Some of these other towns are also not on the Manchester hub site. Bolton has its own, Bury I vaguely remember does.
Wonder if it’s a franchise thing? The builder of some of the ex-CWC networks purchased by ntl built some good stuff. Some of the other stuff not so much.
Some of the networks are not going to able to support Gig1 until mid-late 2020 due to spectrum congestion.
Virgin claim they’re all live today (where their network is present).
Yep. Evidently I was misinformed as to Stockport.
I’m in Stockport, speaking to someone on the live chat now, who says the fastest I can get is 350.
SK1 postcode so pretty central.
@Mark Jackson
“As well as Manchester city centre and surrounding areas such Wythenshawe, Sale, Didsbury, Fallowfield and Old Trafford, towns including Altrincham, Warrington, Bury, Bolton, Stockport and Knutsford will also benefit from this upgrade.”
Wrong information. They told me on the phone that all those areas are not currently available for Gig1 Speeds!
Please amend it and double and triple check with your Virgin Media contacts. So in the future you write correct and proper and accurate articles that are true and not falsely written.
@Rob
If you read what @MJ has posted it will be clearer.
“Stockport and Knutsford **will** also benefit from this upgrade.”
The future tense might be rather important.
My general experience of dealing with large infrastructure companies is that you speak to 3 different people and get 3 different answers. Even VM’s mobile site and main site don’t agree if you look at comments further down the thread.
So I’m not sure that @MJ is to blame here – it feels like there is a load of internal confusion as well. As well as, maybe, a phased release?
@A_Builder – Well also explain this as well and the Huge banner when you goto https://www.virginmedia.com then on the banner it has a button “show me” Which when I click it, it takes me to this page: https://www.virginmedia.com/shop/customer/gig1-gigabit-broadband?intcmpid=house_excusthp_desktop_hb_Gig1_Manchester_OCT19
So If you read it clearly states it is NOW available as well. I also just lodged a complaint with the Executive team. I have the phone number that that Executive team as I have dealt with them many times for broadband issues and some other issues over my period I have been with them.
I am sorry @Mark Jackson – I suppose you are right in the article if you compare what the article says to that link I added above 🙂
^^^ Might be an idea if you learned to read properly. Not only did you not read MarkJ news item properly but it appears you can not read the FAQ section on that Virgin link you gave.
Upload speed is absolutely laughable! I currently have the 350 from them that’s absolutely plenty, I have a home media server the extra upload would be awesome, 50 on 1000…. joke
They should be able to get a big boost by switching upload to 3.1. Clearly the backhaul capacity is there if it can support 1gbps down. They’ve already had to configure equipment for 3.1. Almost seems out of spite to keep it as low as they are.
Is there any future plans for VM to do symmetric uploads or something more substantial than today’s announcement?
Symmetrical would require DOCIS 4.0 which supports up to 10Gb over coax symmetrically.
The existing network arranges to don’t allow a simple changeover.
4.0 requires every node to be fed by fibre. ATM some of the nodes are daisy chained with heavy duty coax backhaul.
The exception being the Project Lightening areas where it is all fibre and symmetrical 1G/1G could easily be implemented.
So I do expect VM to start to roll out fibre to every cabinet particularly where FTTP starts to appear so they don’t lose market share to the upload hungry. VM can’t stand still otherwise they will Take on OR’s mantle of playing catch up.
If you need more than 50Mb to stream media reliably and in decent quality i would suggest that is a user error. You can do decent looking 4K with half that.
No shock as is common for you on VM items to talk rubbish.
^^^ Yeah, even Netflix 4K typically only needs 25Mb download speeds. Maybe he is streaming a load of old rubbish MPEG2 encoded with needlessly high bitrate which does not improve quality or he does not know how to set up transcoding properly.
@Ferrocene Cloud
Whilst 3.1 can in theory support 10G/1G it does depend on how the coaxial part of the network is implemented.
3.1 is by definition of the standard 10:1 asymmetric *at best*.
Now while it is true that in optimal cases 10G/1G is possible on 3.1 most of the VM network can’t do that because of the way the channels (frequencies) have been allocated/used. Changing the way the channels are used would require changing a lot of hardware.
Because of the channel congestion the 10:1 potential of 3.1 can’t be fully delivered.
Hence my comment that 4.0 is really needed to cleanly leapfrog to the next unified technical standard. Whilst messing around doing a lot of expensive coax work would allow going from 20:1 to 10:1 it probably isn’t worth the bother.
On the VM network backhaul come both in the guise of pure fibre and on some of the parts of the network there is effectively coax back/middle haul.
As CarlT alluded to above there are lots of different styles of build that VM have aggregated into one network. Some are much easier to upgrade than others. And the desire to have something close to a single technical standard probably drives as well as limits the attainable outputs.
@A_Builder
But they’ve already moved the downstream channels to use 3.1 for the new service which gives them a lot more headroom. If they’re able to migrate downstream to 3.1, why is it impossible to migrate upload to 3.1? Since they clearly can, why not do it?
There’s no reason not to, because they’ve already had to go through and reconfigure/upgrade equipment to enable 3.1 downstream. They’ve had to go through and provide new CPEs to support the service. They’ve had to go through and increase backhaul capacity to the headend to support the higher download speeds. Even if they had no plans to increase upload, it would still make more sense to migrate from 50Mbps up on 3.0 to 50Mbps on 3.1 so they can easily change profiles at a later date when forced to by the competition.
Even with no changes to the frequencies, moving from 256QAM to 1024QAM would give a 4x increase in upload bandwidth, turning that 50Mbps to 200Mbps. We’re not talking about maxing out the 3.1 standard here just enabling the standard in the first place.
They easily have the capacity to increase upload speeds by moving them to 3.1 and there’s very little reason not to do so. And it’ll ultimately mean more work later on when they’re forced to migrate because they’ll have to reconfigure the equipment again.
@ Ferrocene Cloud
You put that very well.
And an interesting point. I still think the issue is refarming.
And I do take your point that QAM1024 gets them pretty much to OR upload speeds.
If it was that simple to implement QAM1024 then I suspect VM would have done it.
The VM network is a patchwork quilt of various different HFC builders efforts. So the issue might be more around implementing a single unifying thread which is increasingly hard.
So far VM have worked hard to implement a single unified network. That may have to change.
I suspect VM could implement QAM1024 in quite a few areas but there are other area where the physical plant just won’t cope.
So my strong suspicion is that VM will fork the network.
Can anyone illuminate the upstream speed debate – my current understanding is that technically it is within the specifications to do so, but operationally the increased bandwidth will need the reverse transmission path equipment to be of sufficient capability since the downstream and upstream equipment (and I’m thinking amplifiers and repeaters) are different AFAIK
The upload currently runs at 64 QAM. That’s as high as 3.0 ATDMA goes.
1024 QAM doesn’t give quadruple the capacity 256 QAM does. It gives another 25%, at the expense of requiring 6 dB better MER.
Enabling 3.1 downstream doesn’t mean heavy duty upgrading of equipment – the line cards and CCAP already support it, it just needed configuration and licensing.
3.1 upstream can be enabled to run on the same frequencies as 3.0 by time sharing. A reasonable estimate is that it’ll allow for about 100 Mb upstream tiers.
This does require some care as it substantially increases load on return path lasers and risks clipping.
On the up side it doesn’t need replacement of amplifiers. Only perhaps some optical nodes that have Fabry-Perot optics with nodes with DFB diode lasers.
Gadget – it’s the same kit handling both forward and reverse paths. Diplex filters separate the upstream and downstream bands, they run through their respective amplification circuitry and are then transmitted in the appropriate direction.
A last point on upstream channels: the whole point of 3.1 is that it uses OFDMA and loads of small carriers. These will have various modulations depending on the MER of each carrier.
The SC-QAMs have 64 QAM as their target but can drop to 16 QAM or even QPSK if conditions require it. The 3.1 carriers can target 1024 QAM but most of them won’t get near that even with the much improved Low Density Parity Check error correction providing some coding gain over old school FEC.
One big bonus of the OFDMA return is that VM can go lower in the spectrum. At the moment they only go down as low as 22.6 MHz in most areas. An OFDMA block can go lower and tail off modulations as it reaches the noisier spectrum.
BTW the licencing is per MHz of channels for 3.1, which is worth considering. It’s per downstream or upstream channel on 3.0.
HTH.
One more.
‘4.0 requires every node to be fed by fibre. ATM some of the nodes are daisy chained with heavy duty coax backhaul.’
All the nodes are fed by fibre. However they feed a series of coaxial amplifiers. The vast majority of cabinets in HFC areas house coaxial amplifiers. In the case of the about 500 premises passed node I’m typing this through there are, I think, nearly 20 coaxial cabinets.
There are 2 ways to do DoCSIS 4.0. One of them means no amplifiers while the other one does. One variety the upstream and downstream share the same frequencies and noise cancellation separates the respective signals, this is Full Duplex DoCSIS,the other they are frequency multiplexed so that can be run over amplifiers and doesn’t require fibre everywhere, that’s ESD – Extended Spectrum DoCSIS.
Feel free to share any of this on VM’s community forum. I haven’t used it in months and have no intention of doing so.
Thank the lord for people like CarlT 🙂
You’re very welcome, beany. Happy to spread the knowledge where I can.
It is very refreshing to read technical information and explanation rather than utter BS and the supposition a select few idiots bring on every VM news item.
It is much appreciated from this particular backside in chair. : )
Thanks Carl. What’s your interpretation on why 3.1 hasn’t been done upstream – from your comments it sounds more like penny pitching and lack of competition rather than any technical challenge?
Er he explained why already. Christ sake.
Always comes down to money, Ferrocene.
They want to get Gig1 out to as many homes as quickly as possible. They’d have to upgrade the plant in some areas to allow for the increased return path laser load.
Depending on the kit they are using they might well have to upgrade return path line cards too.
They’ll go mixed mode eventually but for now the race is to get gigabit to homes before Openreach pass too many premises with the gigabit product they are releasing next February (I think?) or an altnet rock up.
Upstream behaviour on the Arris platform was…. interesting.
@ beany
We all respect CarlT for his unusual level of knowledge on the VM network.
VM’s network architecture is not as open as OR’s or as consistent.
I am careful with language. If I know something it will be stated as fact. If I’m speculating then I make it clear that I’m doing so. That is the nature of mature debate.
But all of this boils down to VM’s network can’t go a lot faster upstream without a decent amount of investment.
All I’m saying is that if you start spending that kind of money on upgrading the upstream pathway to QAM1024 to get a bit faster upgrading the whole thing to 4.0 might well be not that different in net cost and then you have a future upgrade pathway to boot.
As Carl says on his final post on the thread, echoing my point, it is all about money and maintaining a competitive edge over OR and Alt Nets.
And that is why I suspect (speculation alert) that the upstream upgrades will be driven by when others pop up in the neighborhood or where there is perceived demand to lock in an area.
Drama not required or necessary 🙂
This post is necessarily going to be technical. There is nothing in it that isn’t public knowledge. Feel free to share with credit anywhere you feel the need to 🙂
This first part is generic to cable companies as a whole and is just background on the technology.
On the matter of 1024 QAM: this comes with running OFDMA upstreams. The carriers are much smaller and some of them can and will run at much higher order modulations than the current SC (Single Channel) QAMs used in 3.0 and below.
Remember – the modulation order of a 6.4 MHz wide SC-QAM upstream has to be a lowest common denominator – a single spike of noise a few hundred kHz wide will prevent the channel running properly at a higher order modulation.
As I mentioned before a big part of the efficiency gain on OFDMA / DoCSIS 3.1 comes from being able to utilise more spectrum rather than the modulation order necessarily. Although it’s on Google for ease of access I will point out again that 1024 QAM is not quadruple the capacity of 256 QAM – the capacity is actually a function of the exponents of 2 – 4 QAM / QPSK = 2^2 = 2 bits per symbol / Hz. This carries on. 16 QAM = 2^4 = 4 bits per Hz, 64 QAM = 2^6 = 6 bits per Hz, 256 QAM 8 bits per Hz, 1024 QAM 10 bits per Hz.
With all these in mind jumping from the 64 QAM that VM currently use to 1024 QAM only increases the capacity by 2/3rds even if every single carrier runs at that 1024 QAM which isn’t going to happen due to impulse / narrow band noise.
Now, on the VM specific side.
For right now VM use up to 6 x 6.4 MHz wide, 64 QAM carriers upstream. They were previously bonding 4 of them per modem but have now started bonding all 6. There are reasons to bond 4 rather than 5 or 6 – there is a maximum transmit power range a modem can have been channels, can’t be too large between the lowest channel and the highest, and a maximum transmit power range in total depending on channel count being bonded as the transmitter in the modem can only transmit so many dBmV.
The ‘standard’ VM channel plan for DoCSIS 3.0 is this – I’m using the central frequency so the actual full channel extends 3.2 MHz in each direction up and down from here:
25.8 MHz
32.6 MHz
39.4 MHz
46.2 MHz
53.7 MHz
60.3 MHz
End to end that’s 22.6 – 63.5 MHz. Due to guard bands in between channels, can’t overlap them as you can OFDMA, roll-off, avoiding some impulse noise at certain levels there’s 40.9 MHz of bandwidth there of which 38.4 MHz is nominally being used by carriers and 30.72 million symbols of data are being carried a second.
OFDMA carriers can overlap ramp up and roll off, VM can go lower in the spectrum without any concerns over it getting noisier down there (power supply noise ripples up the spectrum, lower frequency = lower attenuation so ingress from outside is far more of an issue) and have no need to lose either the spectrum in between the SC-QAMs or the 1/6th of each SC-QAM that could be carrying data but is guard band / ramping.
No reason why they couldn’t stick a 48 MHz wide OFDMA band in between 63.5 MHz (I imagine they stop there to avoid amplifier roll-off in areas where the amplifier return paths stop at 65 MHz) and 15.5 MHz. With the higher efficiency, the coding gain from LDPC I mentioned earlier, higher average modulation order thanks to smaller carriers, having more RF bandwidth devoted to carrying actual useful symbols, etc, cable companies are reporting an 80%+ gain to capacity using the exact same spectrum as the SC-QAMs – VM can exceed this as, unlikely US cable companies with their profoundly limited spectrum, they haven’t had to go below 22 MHz – I’ve seen US cable companies going as low as about 14.
Which all thrown together makes a 10:1 ratio on the gigabit product realistic even in areas that are on the basic EuroDOCSIS 1.0 specification – 5 – 65 MHz upstream path.
Any networks that can’t meet that 5 – 65 MHz return path specification have/are being upgraded anyway due to both return path and forward path performance issues. They should be capable of 5 – 85 MHz return paths by the time that’s done, field upgradable to 5 – 204 MHz.
A last point on how open VM’s network is – while it’s not widely broadcast and the network capabilities vary they really vary in a similar manner to how Openreach’s copper network varies. Some bits of the Openreach network use different thicknesses of copper, some have SCPs connected to PCPs, etc.
The VM networks are hybrid/MDU HFC cascades. An optical node has a certain number of coaxial branches it powers. These branches split into smaller branches which happens in cabinets. In most of these cabinets there are coaxial amplifiers and tap banks. The signal gets amplified and split to be fed into a tap bank on one split where it goes into properties and to go to the next amplifier in the cascade.
There might be exceptions but this covers the overwhelming majority of architectures. The capabilities and performance of the individual optical nodes and amplifiers may vary but it’s that basic infrastructure so it’s fairly well understood.
The other varieties are trunk and branch style, these tend to be overground on poles where amplifiers are placed periodically on trunk lines and are tapped wherever they need to be to feed homes, and star networks where an optical node has a series of coaxial lines coming out of it each feeding an amplifier which then feeds homes.
It’s really tricky to explain it words, sorry if it doesn’t make sense.
Commercials: Basically once BT / A N Other with big network reach make a big deal out of upstream speeds. At the moment and since time immemorial they don’t. Once that killer app for upstream speeds appears, is adopted, and makes a catchy selling point then VM start turning mixed-mode on.
I would imagine they’ll also be handing Hub 4s to people not on Gig1, too, to take load off the old SC-QAMs and 3.0 downstreams. While they are quite a bit more expensive than the Hub 3 it’s also very expensive and commercially silly to be paying for the licences and infrastructure to run DoCSIS 3.1 and having a small fraction of the customer base using it, while the 3.0 network’s utilisation increases constantly.
Cheers Carl.
Interesting if the Hub 4 is a lot more expensive why it hasn’t been future proofed. No 802.11ax and sticking to 1GbE ports mean that it’s useless when the next generation comes along… I guess they’re confident that there won’t be a need for a package above 1Gbps for a long time.
Not sure how much it would have cost to put a 2.5/5/10G NIC in. Existing backplane capacity should be fine (at least with a 2.5/5 port).
Based on what you say they can migrate lower package users to it but VM will be reluctant to do so. Looks almost like the CPE was rushed to the market.
That CPE is the same one 3.1 was released on last year in other Liberty Global territories. The extra cost is from the 3.1 modem. 3.1 silicon is still not cheap though the cost is slowly coming down.
No real business case for multi-gig ports and definitely none for 802.11ax – how many people have multi-gig NICs or 802.11ax cards? Remember 802.11ax hasn’t been finalised yet, it’s still in draft phase.
Later on they can release CPE with multi-gig ports and 802.11ax if they need to but for now the uptake of even the Gig1 service is going to be so low for a while that there’s no real point in incorporating them into this first incarnation.
VM have 2 varieties of Superhub 2 – the standard and one with 802.11ac WiFi. The group may elect to release an updated version if/when products of >1 Gb become required.
Certainly wasn’t rushed to market – it’s the standard 3.1 CPE across Europe Liberty Global are using and have been for a year.
802.11ax has not been fully ratified yet, so would be stupid to include early draft versions of that in any device (there is not a single ISP device that has it).
802.11ac Wave 2 with 4×4 MIMO which the VM hub 4 has is technically capable of 1733Mbps.
Stating Gibabit ports are not good enough is also ridiculous as even ISPs selling 1Gb down and 1Gb up services only provide that with their supplied devices. You can create your own multi gigabit network if you need it.
It seems no matter how many people try to educate. Some on here like you never listen.
@beany
Of course 1gbe ports are enough for a 1gbps service, congrats on the obvious comment of the year award. But if you can’t see the logic of providing 1.1gbps which can never be achieved via wired (and very unlikely via wireless) then perhaps you should spend less time making snide condescending remarks and more time thinking about things. It would be just as strange if Openreach started selling a 2gbps service with 1gbe ports and making a huge deal about an unachievable service level.
It’s also a little stupid to accuse someone of not listening while they are soliciting the opinion of someone with more expertise. Which you also made a rude response to, incidentally. Thankfully Carl took the time to respond with further information. Perhaps you should follow his example in conducting yourself?
“But if you can’t see the logic of providing 1.1gbps which can never be achieved via wired (and very unlikely via wireless) then perhaps you should spend less time making snide condescending remarks and more time thinking about things.”
Perhaps you should listen to what you have been told already. 1.1 Gbps is the provisioning speed (oh and FFS can you at least start using measures correctly when you get angry and troll VM stories… That’s capital G in Gb for the millionth time). Or as CarlT put it here… https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/10/cable-isp-virgin-media-uk-bring-1gb-broadband-to-manchester.html#comment-212345 when you used another name to make the same flawed logic.
The actual average rate you are expected to get is written in the news item above. A single Gb port will manage a speed right plonk bang in the middle of that quoted expected speed. Nope this still is not going in is it?
“… It would be just as strange if Openreach started selling a 2gbps service with 1gbe ports and making a huge deal about an unachievable service level.”
They already do. By default if you request equipment installed with a BT Openreach lease line product they install a Cisco MR42 or MR52 based access point. Both have only a single gigabit port. Though hopefully they will change that to newer Cisco MR45 or MR55’s soon which have a single 2.5Gb or 5Gb port, just like you think Virgin Media should be doing with their product. Again perhaps you should know what the rest of the market provides before you make more remarks.
“Which you also made a rude response to, incidentally.”
The only people Beany like myself are rude to is dumb people, being polite to the likes of yourself just makes you feel smart when you are not.
“Thankfully Carl took the time to respond with further information. Perhaps you should follow his example in conducting yourself?”
As far as i can see in this short exchange Beany was polite to him on 2 separate occasions, even thanking him for explanation and contribution. You though, not so much and rightly so because you can not f**king listen, not even to Carl and what he has said. (Including WHY higher spec modems are not needed already). It is like you have some mental condition where you can not stand being wrong on every VM item and just argue with anyone that provides logic and fact as to why you have no bloody clue.
That’s quite bizarre since last I checked I thanked Carl for his information. Beany meanwhile made a rude remark to simply requesting further information (which Carl kindly provided), so you’re simply divorced from reality. The defence force is cute though.
So that escalated quickly.
Hope the technical information was useful.
Thanks everyone for being so polite to me – please do share that more widely, this thread became a bit ‘tense’.
If further questions I usually at very least read the comments on VM related stories and will look at this one again later.
“Beany meanwhile made a rude remark to simply requesting further information (which Carl kindly provided), so you’re simply divorced from reality. The defence force is cute though.”
I have not made any rude remarks to CarlT as unlike you he has a valid contribution on VM items.
Feel free to actually link to the post where i was rude to him.
Also feel free at any time to mention a Docsis 3.1 device you think VM should be supplying which has the 802.10 ax wifi and 2Gb/5Gb ports that you want. Not that you can because you unlikely know of one and i frankly doubt one exists.
You have also been told well before this thread in another by myself when using one of your many alias (Just like CarT has had to tell you in this thread) that the TG3492 has been in use within Europe for a considerable time. There is a bright orange version used by an ISP in Poland that looks toy like due to its colour.
Your assertions, accusations and in general (term used loosely) thoughts are to be polite absurd in every regard, in EVERY Virgin thread.
Well that’s pretty funny to be falsely accused of using aliases and “constant negativity” against VM. Shows how crazy some people are though, where any criticism must be coming from the same person.
I’m sure Mark could happily verify I’m using the one account if he wanted to waste his time proving your paranoia but I’m sure he has better things to do.
Less unfounded accusations. More time in therapy.
“Well that’s pretty funny to be falsely accused of using aliases and “constant negativity” against VM.”
NO i stated “Your assertions, accusations and in general (term used loosely) thoughts are to be polite absurd in every regard, in EVERY Virgin thread.”
Not NEGATIVE, just damn right absurd, which they are seeing as you can not even read what i wrote.
As for the aliases unless you just happen to be another similarly hampered user that can not read what was stated, quotes ‘Gb’ as ‘gb’, constantly re-asks questions of others when they answered them in length and detail already, then yep ill stand by my remark you are the same person.
As for the rest of your diatribe, again…
Feel free at any time to mention a Docsis 3.1 device you think VM should be supplying which has the 802.11 ax wifi and the 2Gb/5Gb ports that you want.
We are still all waiting on what device you think they should be supplying that meets the spec you demand from a Docsis 3.1 device.
Im sure you can mention many that meet this spec seeing as that is what you think they should be providing.
Just put my postcode in burnley area 30/40miles from Manchester and it says I can get gigabit 1 must be wider areas thanks for this info I’ll be upgrading thanks
Burnley postcodes don’t show 1Gb for me
Actually you are right although the mobile website is a little confusing.
@Bob strange aint it one says we can one says we cant
Could someone enlighten me as to where it not the Virgin Media modem supports a multi-gig Ethernet port to make sure of the full 1100Mbps or are we stuck with 950Mbps tops?
“Could someone enlighten me as to where it not the Virgin Media modem supports a…”
I/O error as usual for you on any VM news item. Reboot that jelly in your head.
My bad, as to whether or not the new VM hub has a multi-gig Ethernet port?
It doesn’t. The speed is between VM network and your hub.
The wifi on the hub 4 is capable of over 1100Mbps so yes you would get full speed If that is your concern.
@Akexander
I haven’t touched a Hub4 so I’m only speculating but the software might allow LAN link aggregation?
I’m not sure how this would help in any real context.
Beware that link aggregation doesn’t allow double the bandwidth but can we useful if you are using one device and two (or more) protocols. Although if you do have a server then you are probably just as well off using two different NIC’s with two IP addresses and routing specific protocols to each.
I was only asking as it would be nice to have had 2.5 Gigbit link to my own router.
Hopefully they will release a new hub that will support multi-gig port at some point down the line.
As explained to you before there are plenty of ways to use that device in conjunction with others to achieve faster speeds. A_Builder has just given you yet another example. Not that you could configure a second NIC, afford one or know how to install it.
AND NO the only reason you asked was because you are a troll that was made to look stupid asking this TWICE before, insisting it was not possible.
How rude you are, You should learn some manners.
Just because you are online doesn’t give you the right to be disrespectful to people.
https://i.ibb.co/PTn5ZMW/multigig.jpg
As you have been shown before but do not comprehend. If predicted right you will also follow up with more posts insisting this is still not possible. (what the hell do Netgear know huh?) It is quite clear who you are.
Guessing tameside wont be getting the 1gb
Not available in my area yet 🙁 I am in Manchester too. It shows me when I enter my postcode that I can only get the M500 and not the new Gig1 speed. I am in one of those surrounding areas listed above in this article too.
So this article has been misleading and incorrect once again with the information it is has reported. I also just rang up retentions twice and spoke to 2 different agents to see if 1 or both or none was able to offer it or not. They said it is still not available in my area.
So please edit the article and make sure you make it clear that not all areas in Manchester are able to get it yet.
Just had a follow up phone call from the Executive Complaints Team. They said they was trigger finger happy and released the press releases and the Banner Advertisements to early. They said they will be taking them down today after my complaint I made to them!
She also said to me that the Gig1 Fibre is still not available yet, but very very soon it will be, She said seeming the press release had the Price on it at £62 she said that usually means it is pretty much in the final phases and should be a matter of days if not a week or 2 at max until it is available and the codes get put onto their systems so they can then start to allow customers to get the new service!
^^^ This is not twatter take your multi posting spam elsewhere! Nobody cares about your make believe MAX.
@CarlT: “There are 2 ways to do DoCSIS 4.0. One of them means no amplifiers while the other one does. One variety the upstream and downstream share the same frequencies and noise cancellation separates the respective signals, this is Full Duplex DoCSIS,the other they are frequency multiplexed so that can be run over amplifiers and doesn’t require fibre everywhere, that’s ESD – Extended Spectrum DoCSIS.”
Would it make sense for EPON to be implemented in FTTP areas with ESD in HFC areas?
Well it’s impossible to do FDX in FTTP areas and ESD is quite pointless, needs replacement of every ONT, so EPON it is.
Liberty global please roll out 100gbps we need the future now