Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: Bowdon on August 31, 2016, 10:40:49 AM
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Virgin Media Add Faster Uploads to 200Mbps Gamer Broadband Package (http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/08/virgin-media-add-faster-uploads-200mbps-gamer-broadband-package.html)
Cable operator Virgin Media will today launch a refreshed range of broadband and TV bundles, which take account of the recent price rises and also introduce a new VIVID 200Mbps “Gamer” package that includes two big changes: 1) Faster upload speeds and, 2) The removal of Traffic Management.
At present subscribers who take Virgin’s normal 200Mbps (Megabits per second) broadband package will receive an Internet upload speed of just 12Mbps, but back in May 2016 we revealed that the operator was also in the process of trialling faster upload speeds; this reflected a 10:1 ratio of download to upload performance.
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I wonder what the pings and routing is like on VM?
If these are good, and with the increase in upload speed and the removal of traffic management I think VM are attempting to move in to being a viable option of online business people.
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What exactly do they mean by “traffic management” ?
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Virgin heavily limit things like bittorrent/p2p. It's not just simple Qos, they are 1 of the worst ISPs for their traffic shaping/traffic management.
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I wonder if this includes the non disclosed QoS they "appear to have" activated recently.
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I presume VM's throttling is going to be illegal under the EU net neutrality law soon?
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Is the UK still subject to EU laws since brexit?
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It will be at least another two years before we actually leave the EU.
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Ofcom and the U.K. government will have to put this EU stuff into operation ASAP, and then it will be established long term. I do think it's great stuff, but they need to be about silly mistakes in the wording having undesireable accidental effects.
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Virgin heavily limit things like bittorrent/p2p. It's not just simple Qos, they are 1 of the worst ISPs for their traffic shaping/traffic management.
The DPI kit doesn't shape anymore, monitoring only.
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Ofcom and the U.K. government will have to put this EU stuff into operation ASAP, and then it will be established long term. I do think it's great stuff, but they need to be about silly mistakes in the wording having undesireable accidental effects.
Net neutrality as the 'purists' want it is moronic. As long as companies are open about how they manage their networks they should have every right to manage them as they see fit. Without being able to manage networks they cannot ensure that important traffic like VoIP gets through during periods of congestion.
If people don't like the manner in which the network is managed they just don't buy a service from that ISP.
I'm a fan of letting the market rule this one. :)
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What exactly do they mean by “traffic management” ?
That would be this (https://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy-thresholds.html).
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I wonder what the pings and routing is like on VM?
If these are good, and with the increase in upload speed and the removal of traffic management I think VM are attempting to move in to being a viable option of online business people.
Generally the pings are equivalent to or sightly higher than FTTC, the jitter is noticeably worse and the routing can be 'interesting'.
VM's network shifts more data than any other consumer ISP and is built accordingly.
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heh VOIP prioritised during congestion, or avoid the congestion?
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Ignitionnet makes a very good point about letting companies run their own networks. I tend to agree and disagree at the same time, which makes absolutely no sense. ??? ::)
However, I would say
* managing traffic according for QoS when the traffic needs it is explicitly allowed in the EU docs, as long as it's done for technical requirements, not because of some deal done by the money men.
* I agree with Tim Berners-Lee concerning the pressure that very big ISPs can exert on service providers and content providers by discrimination going against net neutrality rules. I doubt this is at all good for the growth of the Internet and for healthy innovation.
But generally, I hear you. My instinct is that customers should be absolutely free to choose a crappy, crippled ISP if that's what they want. Unfortunately though, there are additional considerations should one outfit become too dominant in market share.
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question to those in the know.
VM's new 20mbit upload package, how much of the shared node capacity % wise, will that take up for one such user?
At the time I left I think my node had 3 18mbit upload channels, which would be 54mbit capacity. I would hope that has since been increased significantly to allow for these unthrottled 20mbit upload users.
Also to address your comment weaver, I am glad this regulation has been introduced because if isp's are allowed to do what they want it can be quite aggressive. We already have ASA guidelines which for the most part enforce this new EU directive (no throttling that is more than moderate allowed on unlimited usage products), the EU directive only now also applies this to non unlimited products. Basic prioritisation is still allowed as I understand it, what is not allowed is throttling traffic to levels that amount to single digit % of line access speed and for good reason.
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So are they advertising upload capacity that they don't really have? 'Cos of congestion if you're just plain unlucky and several users on your cable happen to upload at the same time.
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Well yes and no.
The capacity is there, in a sense that providing not many are utilising it the line will be able to pull those speeds. (note this comment is based when I was on VM). But of course if say 3-4 people on the node max out their lines at once (on the top tier product), the node cannot cope and congestion is alive.
In my area VM always seemed one node split behind what was needed, e.g. the node split they did to rollout their 30/3 product was done 6 months before they activated the new speeds, those 6 months was a pretty good service and how it should have been all the time, but VM would have seen that as under utilised, and when they flicked the switch congestion was back.
I do have family members and some friends on VM, and most of them the service has declined in the past 2 years since LG tookover. The one guy I know in a good area which is a low populated area edge of leics forest east has a low utilised node and has good service still.
LG do have money as evidenced by the footprint expansion and that they are about to buy the entire F1 racing franchise for several billion.
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Shudders. Could be quite good I imagine, if the money men weren't so determined to sour it.
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question to those in the know.
VM's new 20mbit upload package, how much of the shared node capacity % wise, will that take up for one such user?
At the time I left I think my node had 3 18mbit upload channels, which would be 54mbit capacity. I would hope that has since been increased significantly to allow for these unthrottled 20mbit upload users.
In most instances there'll be 3 or 4 x 27Mb channels. Where necessary there may be 5.
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How many users will have to share that, typically? What kind of range of numbers, if anyone knows?
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So are they advertising upload capacity that they don't really have? 'Cos of congestion if you're just plain unlucky and several users on your cable happen to upload at the same time.
Nah. The capacity should be there. Will I'm sure be isolated incidences of congestion but for the most part it should be fine.
VM have been releasing additional channels and upgrading legacy ones to provide more bandwidth.
Regarding your question on node sizes it varies wildly, however if it helps as a guide VM are building 500 premises passed per node in the new stuff and the uptake they see nationwide is around 40%. 200+ across all the channels on the node is a reasonable estimate I think though there will be much smaller and much larger nodes. In odd areas, especially student ones, there's the odd instance where there's fibre to the last cabinet pretty much.
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Well yes and no.
The capacity is there, in a sense that providing not many are utilising it the line will be able to pull those speeds. (note this comment is based when I was on VM). But of course if say 3-4 people on the node max out their lines at once (on the top tier product), the node cannot cope and congestion is alive.
I do have family members and some friends on VM, and most of them the service has declined in the past 2 years since LG tookover. The one guy I know in a good area which is a low populated area edge of leics forest east has a low utilised node and has good service still.
LG do have money as evidenced by the footprint expansion and that they are about to buy the entire F1 racing franchise for several billion.
They do, and have an ongoing network rebuild programme running. There have been some issues slowing node splits and additional channels unfortunately.
I saw a forum post from a guy today who had zero congestion issues on his 300Mb running on 12 downstream channels and has just been upgraded to 20 of them. Issues were around lack of bandwidth, when I say that I mean RF, and space, power and air conditioning at hub site for new equipment. Evidently sorted, new hardware installed and straight onto 20 downstream channels with modulation upgrade on the upstreams.
Regarding service declining VM use the same capacity planning methodologies they always have and have never targeted a congestion free service but Quality of Experience metrics. If customers have to do speed tests before they know an area is congested it's probably not that big an issue.
This isn't the case with upstream capacity, though. That gets horrible really quickly due to being TDMA so is monitored more carefully.
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On another point raised elsewhere, as has been noted other members of the LG family do have services with higher upstream speeds and in a number of cases downstream speeds.
VM are delivering what they need to in order to compete with BT's widely available services. I say widely available specifically.
As soon as G.fast goes commercial they will leapfrog it, which is why they are delivering 20 channels to areas, on the average 1Gb of aggregate capacity is good for 500Mb downstream retail services and there's no urgent need to even deliver that, 350Mb would be fine.
On the upstream side VM are as I mentioned in the midst of an ongoing network upgrade programme. Previously when they went to a 10:1 upstream ratio back in 2010/11 they had to rebuild some networks as they were upstream bandwidth limited, only 25 MHz capacity total there and not all of that usable. They're now in the process of dealing with areas with 35 MHz and 45 MHz upstream, upgrading to 80 MHz, which can be switched to 199 MHz with a module swap.
Eventually the entire network will be 1.2 GHz plant with upstream band of 5-85 MHz, going to 5-204 MHz when required, downstream going up to 1.218 GHz.
Downstream channels are being freed up by a combination of going to IP-everything bar broadcast and moving to MP4.
When needed DOCSIS 3.1 can be released however there's no driver right now. DOCSIS 3.0 alongside node splits will deliver 1Gb retail.
Other than that other LGI territories have to deal with far more aggressive ILECs that are deploying gigabit FTTB/P and/or planning deep fibre G.fast. VM have no requirement to upgrade more rapidly than they are and have a smooth upgrade path following cable best practices and standards.
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In most instances there'll be 3 or 4 x 27Mb channels. Where necessary there may be 5.
ahh so they have upgraded since then, thanks.
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Net neutrality as the 'purists' want it is moronic. As long as companies are open about how they manage their networks they should have every right to manage them as they see fit. Without being able to manage networks they cannot ensure that important traffic like VoIP gets through during periods of congestion.
That is fine, as long as all VoIP traffic is treated the same. Net Neutrality helps ensure ISPs don't strike a deal with one commercial VoIP provider and prioritise their traffic above their competitors. It ensures a level playing field.
ISPs should deal with congestion by investing in additional network capacity, and by not overselling their services.
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I think the basis behind it is protocols are not even supposed to be favoured.
Personally I have no issue with QoS systems that are only used in temporary uncommon situations. The problem I have is when a network is designed to work with QoS running as a everyday event basically a network is built to not handle demand without assistance of QoS.
This is not just for wanting to have no congestion but also that traffic shaping system's are known for breaking stuff, e.g. only 2 days ago I was diagnosing why I could not do a ipv4 ssh session from one server to another (ipv6 worked fine), it turned out the isp was covertly doing some kind of QoS on ipv4 traffic and it was malforming the ssh packets. Coincidently that isp has had dodgy network performance for a couple fo years at least now, I only tolerated it because I have no need for high performance on that particular server, but now things are actually breaking I am reviewing the location of the server.
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ISPs should deal with congestion by investing in additional network capacity, and by not overselling their services.
Indeed. Shame few in the UK are willing to pay the prices needed for such capacity.
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Very insightful that post about VM, Ignitionet. I understood most of it as well, which is a bonus. :blush:
Thank you. :)
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You're welcome. Thought it would be good to share details of a fairly standard network upgrade programme with the forum. Cable is expensive business. Can't just attach a pod to an existing cabinet covering hundreds of premises, use existing fibre, power and copper in place, and claim job done.
There are a few bits I left out, things like upgraded CCAP (http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/service-provider/converged-cable-access-platform-ccap-solution/index.html), Remote-PHY (http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/cable/RemotePhy/solution/b-remote-phy-overview.html) and potentially Remote-MAC-PHY (http://www.cablelabs.com/cablelabs-new-remote-phy-specifications-expand-docsis-network-deployment-options/).
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I agree with highpriest. I am willing to pay the full whack, and I do. I don't get much bandwidth, and I am determined to not lose any of it unless it's absolutely unavoidable.
But many users don't even notice when they are not getting the very high speeds that are sometimes delivered. My sister claimed she couldn't tell the difference between 50k dialup and 0.5 Mbps fixed-rate ADSL. (50k but with V powerful lossless compression, of course only on that which is compressible in the first place.) She was only ever doing email and web browsing, no video. That was back in 2004.
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What is the route from the VM user to the outside world like now over IPv6?
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As they've no public IPv6 peering that I can see not that great I imagine.