Virgin Media Looks For 50Mbps Triallists - 17th Sep 2007 4:58pm
Originally Posted by Digital Spy
Virgin Media's trial of 50Mbps broadband is now in the second phase, it was revealed today.
The cable operator's trials team network architect told DS forum members today that Virgin Media is looking for people willing to test the 50Mbps downstream service in Ashford, Folkestone and Dover.
The trial service is priced at £47 per month - £10 more than Virgin Media's current 20Mbps top tier service - and comes with a 1.5Mbps upstream.
The trial will last until December 31 and participants will be provided with a new cable modem.
The cable operator's trials team network architect told DS forum members today that Virgin Media is looking for people willing to test the 50Mbps downstream service in Ashford, Folkestone and Dover.
The trial service is priced at £47 per month - £10 more than Virgin Media's current 20Mbps top tier service - and comes with a 1.5Mbps upstream.
The trial will last until December 31 and participants will be provided with a new cable modem.
This is in a way good news... but in way its stupidity. Firstly, what does one need 50Mbps at home for? Secondly, how does Virgin propose to allow people to download at these speeds without problems on the network and eventually being forced to impose caps in the future due to escalating bandwidth and peering costs. And thirdly, why is the upload so freaking lame lol!!
With ADSL2+ service already running at upto 2.5Mbps upload and ~8Mbps downstream being more then enough for anyone tbh, would it not be better for Virgin to offer a higher upload speed on any new service rather then just taking the easy route and offering high download speeds.
I understand how DOCSIS works and how bad it is at handling uploads, but all a 50Mbps service is going to do, is offer 50Mbps that people can rarely use more then 10Mbps of lol.
I think it would be much better for them to look at implementing the DOCSIS 2.0 standard across their network, maybe even considering the DOCSIS 3.0 standard and looking at higher upload speeds rather then just continually increasing download speeds.
Mind you, as with all ISP's nowadays, its a numbers game, its the new big con tbh. But at nigh on £50 per month for the service, one would have to be crazy to want it lol.
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