I'm unclear how you can claim the fixed rate ADSL products maxed out anything.
They maxed out the viable technology being used at the time (maxing out Moore's law perhaps?). Moving to ADSLmax needed new hardware, new technology, same line, new speeds. Moving to ADSL2+ needed new hardware, new technology, same line, new speeds. Moving to VDSL2 needed new hardware, new technology, same line, new speeds. With new hardware & technologies in the backhaul and core required at various points too.
Or do you think the DSLAM that gave me 2Mbps in 2000 was the same as the one that gave me 8Mbps in 2006? It certainly wasn't the case for the modem.
A reminder that the context I replied in... You said
BT painted themselves into a corner over expectations that a line can achieve more over time. BT maxed out FTTC in 2011/12
Yet the plain truth is that lines have been achieving more over time. But each achievement has needed steps in technology ... and that "maxing out" one technology (in your exemplar, FTTC) is nothing new, nothing noteworthy. There's no "painting into a corner" because the steps keep happening.
Likewise VM need to invest in new steps of technology to live up to the speed increases they keep bringing. We've been through 2 variants of DOCSIS with a third coming, and multiple iterations of the in-home modem (limitations of Moore's law again?). In fact, didn't some of the cableco's start broadband before DOCSIS was chosen?
My message? Merely that this is all business as usual.
I'll rephrase slightly. My line, alongside perhaps 50% of the country, can go basically nowhere without deeper fibre right now regardless of what is put either side of it.
Absolutely true.
Likewise, your line (if it existed in 2009, and you used it, but you know what I mean...) would have been ADSL2+ at best, and "could go nowhere without deeper fibre right now". And that is what happened to it (eventually).
Just like your current house could use VM's service, but it can go nowhere "without deeper coax right now". Which might be happening.
Advances require .... advances.
Virgin Media's issues are somewhat different. In most areas they have ample bandwidth it's just capacity that's the problem. BT's issues are the opposite, capacity not a problem but a lack of bandwidth.
Absolutely, though you also accentuate my point. If VM didn't work on their capacity issues, they'd have an attractive-looking product that worked terribly (cue moans from some people). If BT didn't work on their bandwidth problems, they'd have an unattractive-looking product that worked near perfectly (cue moans from others). Both networks need work, in their own individual ways. Neither are painted into a corner, even if it feels like it at times.
For me, VM's apparent delaying tactics to improve capacity makes me feel that VM is "maxed out" more than than BT. Your mileage has differed, patently.
