Virgin Broadband really 20mb?

stphnstevey

I am tampted by this and they say the speed is not dependant on the distance from the exchange like broadband over a telephone line - those that have this, is it really 20mb?

gaming_guy

i think its dependent on how many users are connected to the service and i guess you will probably get slightly less than 20mb

Blacksheep1979

you get (or rather I do) 16mb on a good day - I was on the trial before 20mbit came out properly and got better speeds then, but that was back in the day when it was ntl and in general the broadband seemed better then.

Hippychick

My DH has this at home and regularly gets 19.5mb on speedtests. We were told by a virgin engineer though that our area didn't have that many customers, hence the excellent speeds

BillScarab

Personally I wouldn't bother with the 20Mb service. Currently I'm on the 4Mb service and and they're upgrading all of those to 10Mb this year for no extra cost.

In terms of reliable speeds Cable is much better than ADSL. If they say you'll get a particluar speed you'll get something very close to it. On a 4Mb line I've never seen less than 3.8Mb. Although I also think the service has got poorer since Virgin took over, it was better with Telewest.

Stageshoot

I live in an "old Foggey" area, so get 20mb 24 hours a day 7 days week

if you live in a student area you would be lucky to get 2-4mb on a 20mb line at peak times,

If you get a good service its superb, if you get a poor service its DIRE

All you can do is ask any neighbours if they use it and how they find it.

Nilrem

Cable (almost) always connects at the speed it's sold at - unlike ADSL you don't have any problems with the distance from the exchange affecting the speed you get, and it tends to be much less trouble than ADSL as it's running on lines intended for that use (and much higher quality to start with*).

The downside is that you do get your speed affected by the number of heavy users in your area, and they do implement shaping/speed limiting if you download/upload more than a set amount during certain times (with 20mb you get limited to 5mb for something like 4 hours after you hit the certain bandwidth usage between 4pm and 9pm).

It's also got the ability to be speeded up quite a lot, much easier than ADSL (Virgin are getting ready to roll out 50mb using some new equipment on the existing lines, and I think the people that design the equipment are working on much faster versions).

However, as Vickyhurn says if you're in an overloaded area the speeds can be dire, but the combination of the speed limiting, removal of analogue TV on the lines, and the roll out of the 50mb should help a bit with that (the 50mb level uses bandwidth the current equipment can't use, and they are hoping to move the really heavy users over to it).


*I was having a conversation with my brother in law earlier as he'd been asked to move an ADSL modem to another room for someone and when I explained the things that might affect how he could do it his words were something line the lines of "For Smeg's Sake, why couldn't he (his friend) have proper broadband"

LadyMorticia

I normally get 18-19mb in the early morning/early afternoon and then sometimes 8-10mb late afternoon/early evening when kids are home from school and people are home from work and using the internet. That's on ethernet though. When I'm using wireless I get about 4-5mb.

bingo_bango

This is what the 4mb service is getting me this morning. Sooner it goes to 1 the better.

planemad

I'm on 2mb for £10 per month. More than enough for me.

Ken68

Plus net £10 a month, less initial cashback. 8mb but more than a mile from the exchange so mostly 4mb plus. Pleased.
We all old fogeys tho so don't want it too fast :-)