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Good news for those with Virgin’s blazing 100Mbit broadband; after doubling everyone’s speed for free, meaning 50Mbiters already got upgraded to 100Mbps, the cable company has just started bumping you all up to 120Mbit, and you don’t have to spend a penny to get it, either.
It’s all part of Virgin’s continuing effort to get everyone on its network doubled in speed, which should complete by the middle of next year. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to double its top tier 100Mbps connection (that really would have been something), so you’ll have to make do with a modest 20Mbit bump. Hell, that’s faster than quite a lot of people’s broadband to start off with, so a free 20Mbps jump is nothing to be sniffed at.
Considering 4G’s about to come in and best quite a lot of fixed-line broadband connections, our traditional ISPs better up their game to make sure that a hard line is still the fastest way to connect in the home. I guess a 120Mbit connection isn’t a bad start, roll on 300Mbps.
Image credit: Speedo from Shutterstock
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Hope BT follow, I have infinity 2 and get wireless speeds of 75Mbps. FREE boost would be nice!
BT is limited by the copper on the end and potential interference with other stuff on the network so it’s unlikely any time soon unless you go to full fibre.
I’d say its obvious that Virgin have gone to 120 because it’s half again BT’s best offering (80), “50% faster” makes a much better advert than “a bit quicker”.
“We’re gonna need a bigger megabit guage on our stock photo!”
#firstworldproblems
Oh no! I can’t spell gauge!
#magicguppyproblems
I know right. The only other speedo I’ve got in my stock armoury is the needle on fire one.
Pretty sure if you’re that far away from the beach they are just called underwear Sam..
You provide the track and I’ll get you the picture of the needle anywhere up to 170.
Or just photoshop in Bytes and start measuring internet connections the same way we measure file sizes?
they need to do this. so many people think 10Mb is the same as 10MB. it would reduce any confusion. or are people too aware of the terminology now?
The way I had it explained to me is like the speed in your car. If you are talking to a friend you say 70mph. If you are describing the physics you would use 31.3m/s. Both say the same thing but when doing the calcs it is easier to use the lower level SI units.
And maybe it has something to do with it sounding 8x faster than using MB/s
It sounding faster is undoubtedly the reason.
In the car scenario the current method is like giving speed in furlongs per hour and measuring distance in miles (1 mile being 8 furlongs). Except it’s more confusing because at least the word “furlong” doesn’t sound like “mile”.
Measuring data transmission in bits far predates broadband and it’s not to do with being faster so much as that pre broadband you’d always be talking fractions if you did it in bytes.
It’s the reason you never tell people your height in kilometres.
Yeah I understand the history, and I agree that it would be stupid to give your height in KM but that’s because no one is anywhere near a KM tall! Where as internet services are starting to offer more than 8mb down speeds and we’re talking about 100mb down, in that environment transition to bytes starts to make sense.
After all we now measure files in bytes, non technical people understand file sizes in bytes, things that we download over these connections are (for the most part) measured in (mega/giga/tera) bytes.
It seems to me that the historical method of measuring data transmission is being preserved only because it inflates the headline numbers ISPs can advertise and to a lesser extent because it’s a good way to trip up students doing networking exams.
I see your point but the majority of people would stil wind up talking in fractions all the time. Plus whoever changed first would lose all their customers because everyone would think they were 8 times slower than the competition.
Not too sure about files but I think they were also always measured in bytes because its the smallest meaningful size, a file thats a bit in length would be next to useless (outside of tron).
I’m with you, but I say we go the other way and start measuring file-sizes in bits!
“I’m sending you an email, it’s a hundred meg” People would shit their pants.
Isn’t it still 3Mb upload though?
I have already been boosted to the 120mb download connection. My upload always was and still is 6mb.
I am still a month or so before my download boost but yes the upload for me is around 5mb, which is a bit crap to be honest as it normally means on average it will hover around 3mb.
Personally I didn’t even notice when my Virgin upload kicked in!
Nor did I, until I was checking my TV package yesterday against the latest deals on AVforums, and notice my area had been upgraded. I guess the places I download from are the bottlenecks. Either that or the fact I usually start downloading, leave my PC and come back later when they’ve finished.
But does Youtube still buffer? I’ve just switched from O2 ~12Mbs to Virgin 60Mb, and while downloads are speedy, watching Youtube is just painful!
In general no you can stream multiple HD content fine… except when there’s network issues then it can be a bit jarring once you get used to HD goodness.
I still have some issues streaming hd on my tv from iPlayer, but that generally only happens once I have reached the daily allowance
While the 100-120mb download speed is nice but I would say 50mb range is more than enough for most. Virgin upload speeds are still pretty bad at around 1-5mb.
I use a personal cloud storage with a NAS setup at home to store work files, so I can really feel the slow upload speed when I have to retrieve files.
I’m thinking of switching to BT Infinity as they have much better upload speed at around 20mb while retaining around 75mb download. Anyone of BT Infinity think it’s a good idea?
The connection is good (i get about 74up/20down) but their home hub is shite. well, for the wireless connection anyway. it continually drops out – seams to only like 1 or 2 things connected at a time and if one of them is streaming media then anything else connected will continually drop out. quite a few people suggest not using the home hub and just get a netgear router (or the brand of your choosing)
Thanks for the heads-up.
Your download/upload ratio to me at least is the ideal situation as I would never utilize 120mb fully unless I was downloading all the time, and even then they would throttle your speed.
A good upload speed is much more desirable these days.
Do you have a lot of neighbours with wireless connection that could be interfering hence the dropouts? But yes their home hub is not the best.
They did a lot earlier this week, I was on 50MB broadband and getting the full 50MB through speed tests.
However I got the email to say they had doubled my speed and so far I have been unable to get anything over 80MB not sure if its worth giving them a ring or wait till they “increase” me to a so called 120MB line
My advice? Complain, complain, complain.
Make sure to note the times and frequency of the speed being lower than advertised and call them up to discount your bill until they fix it.
You are paying around £35-£40 on average(including phone line rental or not) so you stress that you expect to have the service you pay for. I did this for the time they were doing their 2-4 months maintenance in my area and got them to knock £20-30 a month off my bill.
i had an email saying my 30mb had been upgraded, but when i check on the upgrade page it says my area is dec12 to feb13 and when i perform speed tests they are usually between 22 to 29mb so i guess i am still on 30mb