Virgin Media subscriber numbers

beauf

I think it depends which old router you mean. I don't think its on the TC7200. You can use other method, but far from simple.

De-Consolidating (splitting) the modem from the Horizon box used to incur a charge. Not sure if it still does.

bk

beauf wrote: »

I think it depends which old router you mean. I don't think its on the TC7200. You can use other method, but far from simple.

I've my TC7200 bridged, it involves using a command line, but only takes about 5 minutes and not really difficult if you can follow instructions.

beauf wrote: »

De-Consolidating (splitting) the modem from the Horizon box used to incur a charge. Not sure if it still does.

It doesn't any more and hasn't for quiet a while now.

In fairness, they seem to have taken onboard most of the complaints those of us had about their broadband service and have worked towards correcting them.

beauf

Cool do you have a link to that command line? I'm going to set up a new ac router at the weekend.

scamalert

go to networking section,or use search ,type in your cisco docsis model into search should bring you to main forum and theres sticky on the top made years ago,just follow first couple pages,its using opera or whatever to open up source code and replace with full one on router to enable extra functions if i remember correctly-since upc made cuts on functions,thus what your doing is basically bringing them back.

Also think you cant do hart reset once its in place,but that said,i would work out some deal to get new router instead,since they ran quite long promotion on their new 360 deal,and i added extra 5 that i got hit with as means to get newer router and better speed,since them old boxes are real crap,specially after works began with vm overtaking things,thus hadn't any issues so far compared as before needing to reset router after running some download or stream that would completely drain all mac addresses and start to crash on me every time i or someone else used BB.

that said wifi is also better can easily get uploads over 36,but speed is still around 40mbs-that said there are few options to boost hz on it to strengthen signal,also capable wifi card is required on the pc end to handle stronger signal and support for n,c protocols that can handle well over 100mbs,and also interference is still huge player even if all done correctly.

Thus while VM made many mistakes still at least they pushed far beyond other ISPs to deliver more speed,rather then living in 2000,that said they didnt account that most use wireless nowadays-thus bottleneck on their block that everyone speaks of,still new to whats causing it,but lack of education on people that use service and usually expect at least near speeds on wireless cost them a fair bit.

beauf

The TC7200 I have is not a Cisco. Anyway I have no problems with 120gb I don't need 360gb other than to get a better modem to get better WiFi features. I must ring for a better deal anyway.

The Cush

Liberty Global (Virgin Media) Q1 2016 numbers published today (in brackets, quarter on quarter +/-)
http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/press-release/LG-Earnings-Release-Q1-16-FINAL.pdf

Video Subscribers - 332,600* (-10,700*)
--- Analogue Cable - 30,900 (-1,200)
--- Digital Cable - 301,700 (-9,500)
--- MMDS - (see note below*)
Internet - 367,700 (-3,500)
Telephone - 355,200 (-2,900)

Total Subscribers - 1,055,500* (-17,100*)
Premises - 468,200* (-7,000*)

Mobile Subscribers - 10,500 (2,900)

*Note: As a result of their decision to discontinue the MMDS service, they have excluded subscribers to their MMDS service from the numbers reported above effective January 1, 2016, which resulted in a reduction 22,200. The estimated figure at MMDS shutdown on April 18th was just under 10,000 subscribers.

bk

Putting aside the expected drop in MMDS customers * a drop of 17,000 digital TV and broadband customers has to be very concerning.

I have to say the rebranding to Virgin Media was very poor and the following significant price increases has hurt them significantly.

I think they thought rebranding to Virgin would give them a PR bump that would allow them to increase prices, but clearly they were very wrong about that. Eir had a much more successful rebrand and both Eir and Sky are kicking them in advertising and value for money with their bundles along with Vodafone.

The market is much more competitive now and increasing prices so much in the face of this competition was a very bad move. I think they need to get back to the UPC of old of undercutting Eir, et al. while offering much higher speeds.

Their entrance into the mobile market has been very poor and hamfisted. No 4G and prices higher then existing MVNO's, not disruptive at all.

* The loss of the MMDS customers is not necessarily bad for them, they can likely make significant savings in shutting down the MMDS towers and gear and other various support costs. It is possible that the loss of these remaining customers won't actually be an over all lose.

beauf

I don't think its the price. Its the terrible software, terrible billing and abysmal support.

Faster speed means nothing if most people can't get it. Most people might get better speeds at their laptop, desktop or mobile with other networks because their equipment is better for the non-technical consumer.

The Horizon box is a buggy mess. There's a lot of filler content too.

Speed increases and bill increases are terrible value in the above context.

bk

beauf wrote: »

Faster speed means nothing if most people can't get it. Most people might get better speeds at their laptop, desktop or mobile with other networks because their equipment is better for the non-technical consumer.

In fairness, their new 360Mb/s service does come with a new high quality 802.11ac wireless router, which genuinely fixes most peoples wireless issues and delivers great speeds.

They also now semi-officially support bridging.

These were the two complaints people had above Virgins broadband service and in fairness to them, they seemed to have listened to us and fixed both.

Hopefully they are also listening to peoples complaints about Horizon and will fix that too [1]

I agree that their support has taken a significant drop in quality and they need to sort that again! [2]

[1] They seems to be a new, advanced, 4k set top box coming to Virgin UK soon. No one seems to know if it will be TiVo based or Horizon based, but it will be interesting to see if we end up getting this same box here, similar to how we have gotten the same wireless router as Virgin UK too now.

[2] We have been here before, we had a massive drop in support quality after UPC took over NTL. Over time they built up the quality of the support until it was very good. The quality has dropped significantly again now that they have off-shored it. I think this was a big mistake, just look at the mess Tesco Mobile has now found itself due to their poor off-shored support. Virgin better improve this in face of pretty excellent support at Sky, Virgin and Eir.

JTMan

The Cush wrote: »

Liberty Global (Virgin Media) Q1 2016 numbers published today (in brackets, quarter on quarter +/-)
http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/press-release/LG-Earnings-Release-Q1-16-FINAL.pdf

Video Subscribers - 332,600* (-10,700*)
--- Analogue Cable - 30,900 (-1,200)
--- Digital Cable - 301,700 (-9,500)
--- MMDS - (see note below*)
Internet - 367,700 (-3,500)
Telephone - 355,200 (-2,900)

Total Subscribers - 1,055,500* (-17,100*)
Premises - 468,200* (-7,000*)

Mobile Subscribers - 10,500 (2,900)

[/I]

What a dreadful set of results.
--> TV declines are accelerating as to the structural move to online TV continues. I bet there is a decade of gradual decline ahead as TV moves online.
--> Analogue cable numbers are reaching a level that cut off of analogue households is a more viable prospect to make room for broadband capacity. It would be interesting to see what percentage of analogue cable subscribers are analogue-only subscribers as apposed to analogue and digital subscribers.
--> Broadband is supposed to be VM's flagship product but is declining. Sky, Vodafone, Eircom resellers and a small number of mobile-only households must be to blame.
--> Phone stats are largely meaningless. Active phone subs would be more meaningful.

beauf

bk wrote: »

In fairness, their new 360Mb/s service does come with a new high quality 802.11ac wireless router, which genuinely fixes most peoples wireless issues and delivers great speeds.

They also now semi-officially support bridging.These were the two complaints people had above Virgins broadband service and in fairness to them, they seemed to have listened to us and fixed both.

Only for the techies. Most people won't even heard of bridging. Or need it either.

So basically we need to pay for the top broadband product to get workable router. Something they should have had years ago.

bk wrote: »

Hopefully they are also listening to peoples complaints about Horizon and will fix that too [1]

I agree that their support has taken a significant drop in quality and they need to sort that again! [2]

[1] They seems to be a new, advanced, 4k set top box coming to Virgin UK soon. No one seems to know if it will be TiVo based or Horizon based, but it will be interesting to see if we end up getting this same box here, similar to how we have gotten the same wireless router as Virgin UK too now.

[2] We have been here before, we had a massive drop in support quality after UPC took over NTL. Over time they built up the quality of the support until it was very good. The quality has dropped significantly again now that they have off-shored it. I think this was a big mistake, just look at the mess Tesco Mobile has now found itself due to their poor off-shored support. Virgin better improve this in face of pretty excellent support at Sky, Virgin and Eir.

Support on UPC was bad aswell. The horizon box has been bad from day one. Theres been a load of recent issue with it. Most peoples non techies IMO problems would have been billing, and the poor TV boxes vs SKY etc.

dub45

When you consider that the drop in numbers was in spite of a huge marketing campaign the drop must surely be a major concern to LG.

Also given the 30 day cancellation requirement the figures only reflect cancellations given in February so recent issues such as the Netflix problem, the new Horizon issues and the ongoing customer service issues will surely see a similar if not worse fall in the next quarter.

scamalert

Just went past studying coaxial service-and found it interesting that to increase speed basically what they need to do is just to remove a tv channel to make more room for RF (radio frequency space) thus you get speed increase without really changing any infrastructure.

Then again if using coaxial -it means your using shared line,thus spikes in speed drops etc when many are connected and streaming.

Thus only real solution is to lay fiber closer to customers and deeper into estates,but given costs they seem rather spend more cash on re-branding and using same structure to charge more.

But dont know what to say to those who use tv service and bb,surely most people dont even need speeds past 100Mbps thus other alternatives to choose for tv services,since when price increase came in they gave free pass for anyone to move onto any other service.

That said their old routers were crap,the Compal ones seem decent,but even that wont solve issues with wifi which 99% use at homes nowadays,thus besides either buying 200e router to boost signal and manage traffic,using directly connected cable is where you get that extra speed.

Kensington

JTMan wrote: »

What a dreadful set of results.
--> TV declines are accelerating as to the structural move to online TV continues. I bet there is a decade of gradual decline ahead as TV moves online.
--> Analogue cable numbers are reaching a level that cut off of analogue households is a more viable prospect to make room for broadband capacity. It would be interesting to see what percentage of analogue cable subscribers are analogue-only subscribers as apposed to analogue and digital subscribers.
--> Broadband is supposed to be VM's flagship product but is declining. Sky, Vodafone, Eircom resellers and a small number of mobile-only households must be to blame.
--> Phone stats are largely meaningless. Active phone subs would be more meaningful.

I think "Analogue subscribers" are people who take analogue TV as a product only.

The actual net usage of analogue is therefore likely much higher as people use it for multiroom.

True though that the results are dreadful for TV subs, although I don't think it's entirely cord cutting as sky are at a record high in subscriber numbers and growth Q on Q.
Some of Virgin Media's loss likely attributed to cord cutters but I think a lot of it is down to people defecting from a flawed, unreliable and very user-unfriendly TV offering which alongside with the recent price hikes removed the previous edge Virgin Media might have had over Sky on price.

bk

JTMan wrote: »

--> Analogue cable numbers are reaching a level that cut off of analogue households is a more viable prospect to make room for broadband capacity. It would be interesting to see what percentage of analogue cable subscribers are analogue-only subscribers as apposed to analogue and digital subscribers.

The number quoted is people who are analogue only. It doesn't include people on Digital TV or Broadband only, who use the analogue TV service as a "free" multiroom.

I think Virgin will have to be very careful about switching off analogue TV without any replacement * as they risk devaluing their digital TV and broadband products.

* In other EU markets where they have switched off analogue TV, they have replaced it with up to 60 free unencrypted DVB-C channels. I think Virgin Ireland will have to do something similar in order to support their digital TV and broadband products or risks losing more costumers to Freesat, etc.

beauf wrote: »

So basically we need to pay for the top broadband product to get workable router. Something they should have had years ago.

You can easily buy your own router and use it with their 240Mb/s service with excellent results, as I do (200Mb/s over 802.11n).

I agree that they should also supply the new Compal router with the 240Mb/s, I suspect that when they run out of supplies of the old router, they will start doing that.

In some ways it is quiet understandable. The new compal router isn't just a better wifi router, it is also supports far more DOCSIS channels. It thus must be significantly more expensive for Virgin then the old router.

Remember that Sky is also still supplying a crappy single radio 802.11n router to most of their broadband customers. Only people who sign up to the new, very expensive Sky Q TV service, get their new improved 802.11ac router. So Virgin certainly aren't alone in doing this.

scamalert wrote: »

Just went past studying coaxial service-and found it interesting that to increase speed basically what they need to do is just to remove a tv channel to make more room for RF (radio frequency space) thus you get speed increase without really changing any infrastructure.

Sort of, the reality is vastly more complicated then that.

scamalert wrote: »

Then again if using coaxial -it means your using shared line,thus spikes in speed drops etc when many are connected and streaming.

The same with GPON FTTH and the whole internet in general. Unless you are paying thousands per month, no one is getting uncontended connectivity.

scamalert wrote: »

Thus only real solution is to lay fiber closer to customers and deeper into estates,but given costs they seem rather spend more cash on re-branding and using same structure to charge more.

Virgin/UPC Ireland has spent in the region of 500 million upgrading almost their entire network with Fibre very deep into the network (close to peoples homes) and have even upgraded much of the coax to support much higher bandwidth!

The 240Mb/s and 360Mb/s and likely 1GB/s products we will be seeing over the next year or so, simply wouldn't be possible without the massive network upgrades that they have been doing.

There is a lot to be critical about Virign, but investing in their network certainly isn't one. They offer by far the highest speeds in Ireland and are the only reason why Eir starting rolling out FTTC.

scamalert wrote: »

That said their old routers were crap,the Compal ones seem decent,but even that wont solve issues with wifi which 99% use at homes nowadays,thus besides either buying 200e router to boost signal and manage traffic,using directly connected cable is where you get that extra speed.

The new compal modem supports dual channel, dual radio, 802.11ac wifi. It is a massive improvement in wifi performance and should fix most peoples wifi problems.

Also you certainly don't need to spend €200 on a good router. The Archer C8 is one of the best 802.11ac routers on the market and costs just €100 and there are plenty of very good options for €50 too. The new Compal has comparable performance to these.

Kensington wrote: »

Some of Virgin Media's loss likely attributed to cord cutters but I think a lot of it is down to people defecting from a flawed, unreliable and very user-unfriendly TV offering which alongside with the recent price hikes removed the previous edge Virgin Media might have had over Sky on price.

I agree completely, I think management has gotten their market positioning all wrong. UPC gained their market share by offering a lot more for less money. But now they seem to gone off half cocked thinking they have a premium product and can charge a premium price. I think they are in for a shock!

scamalert

wont argue with you mod seems you have more experience anyway,just pointed what i learned,the expenses well its only figure from my head.

speaking of wifi will need to try the ac mode being close to router on 5ghz to see how it performs,but with that said there are many laptops or people using dongles that dont support the n/ac then depending on house layout how many interference obstacles many non tech people think its issues with ISP.

as for saying shared line,phone lines are considered sort of :quote from my notebook:. The advantage that DSL has over cable technology is that DSL is not a shared medium.

with that said thus it refers in networks course that even thou cable coax is able to support faster speeds,but phone line bb is more consistent,but offers less speed,even thou technologies are changing.

Its wide topic so guess wont make many sense to many to go into proper workings of ISP and issues when it comes to speeds,or QoS.

bk

scamalert wrote: »

speaking of wifi will need to try the ac mode being close to router on 5ghz to see how it performs,but with that said there are many laptops or people using dongles that dont support the n/ac then depending on house layout how many interference obstacles many non tech people think its issues with ISP.

I can get 200Mb/s out of 5GHz 802.11n in a crowded city apartment building. Obviously older 802.11g, etc. won't see much of an improvement * but then that is like trying to get blood out of a stone and is equally true of all ISPs

* Actually I have found better 802.11g performance out of newer routers. This is due to them usually having faster CPU's, more RAM and better antenna layouts along with better firmware, but you still can't expect miracles on 802.11g and b.

scamalert wrote: »

as for saying shared line,phone lines are considered sort of :quote from my notebook:. The advantage that DSL has over cable technology is that DSL is not a shared medium.

As you say sort of true. But then only as far as the exchange or cab (for VDSL) and then it ends up getting contended on the backhaul.

And then you have to consider that you are only trying to squeeze 30MHz of radio frequency out of a crappy unshielded copper pair! Yes, Coax is shared, but it is using a shielded coax cable capable of at least 860MHz, going right up to 5GHz depending on network design.

I'd take a well designed HFC network over a crappy "uncontended" VDSL network any day. And you can see that from Virgins network. I've a samknows box connected to my Virgin 240Mb/s service and the monthly reports show that I'm always getting almost the full 240Mb/s. On Eir's VDSL 100Mb/s is the max possible and it can be as low as 7Mb/s depending on how far you are from the exchange!

Saying DSL is uncontended is pure marketing and not really relevant to anyone who understands how the internet actually works. What is more important is the level of contention and congestion across the whole network and actually reported average speeds.

scamalert wrote: »

with that said thus it refers in networks course that even thou cable coax is able to support faster speeds,but phone line bb is more consistent,but offers less speed,even thou technologies are changing.

Eck!! Then that wasn't a very good networking course!!!

With the exception of FTTH, coax outperforms DSL and telecos all over the world. A modern HFC network is a competitor for gigabit FTTH, while DSL is last centuries technology.

I recommend you spend the day watching the videos here to get a better understanding of the various technologies. You will get a much better real world view of the industry then what your networking course incorrectly tried to teach you:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6g0sFW0KhoPT6gy3Bjuv3w

beauf

Some how I don't think the fall in numbers is due to people who KNOW to set up their own router along side the Virgin modem or Horror box. Rather the opposite.

My point is from the set up by their installer someone on eir will most likely get a better wifi connection than someone with the horizon box, or the older VM modems. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my perception and my experience. I've lost count of the number of none technical people who have complained to me about their VM service, many of which have switched to Sky and some other BB provider.

dub45

beauf wrote: »

Some how I don't think the fall in numbers is due to people who KNOW to set up their own router along side the Virgin modem or Horror box. Rather the opposite.

My point is from the set up by their installer someone on eir will most likely get a better wifi connection than someone with the horizon box, or the older VM modems. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my perception and my experience. I've lost count of the number of none technical people who have complained to me about their VM service, many of which have switched to Sky and some other BB provider.

I can echo this experience. I get to meet a considerable number of students over the course of the month and it is amazing how many of them are non teccy (contrary to general expectations) and just want a reliable wifi signal which will extend throughout the house or apartment. Most of them wouldn't even know what speed they are supposed to be on. I think VM overestimate hugely the appeal of the headline speed and underestimate the basic requirement for a good reliable wifi signal.

scamalert

BK course is for inside networking thus crumbs of ISP info and wireless just part to know that i found interesting,but thats were my knowledge ends.

And as above poster said its not like tech people majority would be who changed providers.since a lot has do do with hardware which in almost many cases boxes dont even have external antennas and are just mass ordered from china,since when had old black router,3 yrs later asked for replacement got same one,and them yokes were made in early 2010 so whats inside is just out of date to handle multitasking and little place to improve beside briding.

beauf

headline speed is meaningless for a lot of people.

7upfree

dub45 wrote: »

I can echo this experience. I get to meet a considerable number of students over the course of the month and it is amazing how many of them are non teccy (contrary to general expectations) and just want a reliable wifi signal which will extend throughout the house or apartment. Most of them wouldn't even know what speed they are supposed to be on. I think VM overestimate hugely the appeal of the headline speed and the basic requirement for a good reliable wifi signal.

:D:D:D:D:D

7upfree

scamalert wrote: »

with that said thus it refers in networks course that even thou cable coax is able to support faster speeds,but phone line bb is more consistent

:rolleyes:

bk

beauf wrote: »

My point is from the set up by their installer someone on eir will most likely get a better wifi connection than someone with the horizon box, or the older VM modems. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my perception and my experience. I've lost count of the number of none technical people who have complained to me about their VM service, many of which have switched to Sky and some other BB provider.

Yes, a person who actually gets 100Mb/s from Eir is likely to get better wifi performance then someone on Virgins 240Mb/s service with the old router.

However that wouldn't be true of people who sign up to Virgins new 360Mb/s service, which now comes with a genuinely good wifi router. Also you need to remember that Eir's service is "upto" 100Mb/s. It can be as low as 7Mb/s for people who live too far from the FTTC cab. Such a person would definitely be better on Virgin 240 even with the old router then with Eir at 7Mb/s (or anything under 50Mb/s).

Remember it is much easier to fix wifi issues then it is to fix access issues. If you have Virgins 240 service but bad wifi, that is easily fixed by spending €70 on Amazon. If you are only getting 7Mb/s from Eir (or anything under 50Mb/s), then their is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

BTW it would be ironic if people are moving to Sky due to bad wifi, as Sky's wifi router is just as bad Virgins (it is also a single channel 802.11n model). Sky have only now fixed this in the last month with their new Sky Q hub which supports 802.11ac. But the Sky Q hub is only available to people who sign up to their expensive Sky Q TV service, they continue to supply the crappy old router to everyone else.

Eir in fairness to them, were the only ISP that were regularly supplying a decent 802.11ac router over the last two years. Vodafone, Sky and Virgin were all using crappy single radio 802.11n routers up to the last few months (and are partly still using).

dub45 wrote: »

I think VM overestimate hugely the appeal of the headline speed and underestimate the basic requirement for a good reliable wifi signal.

I agree with you that in the past they certainly were blind to this and were to focused on the access layer and basically ignored the in-house network. However this has definitely changed now and I think they are now very aware of the importance of decent wifi. Here is a comment from the Liberty Global CEO just a few days ago:

He said that Liberty’s new Wi-Fi router, the Connect Box, which is now available in multiple European markets, “sets us even further apart from the competition” by providing up to 1Gbps across in-home networks. “This is a big issue,” he said. “When you’ve driven average customer speeds up to 100Mbps but you don’t control the in-home WiFi router, customers complain.”

In fairness to them, they do seem to have fixed many of the complaints that we had about their wifi with their new Connect Box. From what I've heard their purchase of Virgin Media UK had a big impact on this. VM UK were much more aware of this issue and have long had an 802.11ac routers as standard. VM UK also have their own dedicated wifi testing lab, something UPC didn't have.

My only complaint now is that they are still supplying the old routers to people who buy the 240 service. They really should bin any left and supply the new router to all.

In the longer term I think all ISP's need to start looking at multi-room Access Point setups to boost wifi performance. However it is still early days for this sort of tech in the consumer speace, with it only now starting to launch this year in various high end consumer products (see Eero, Luma, Amplifi, etc.) and likely needs to develop and mature for another 2 or 3 years before we canexpect ISP's to start picking it up.

mackersdublin

What's the model number for VM's new 360Mb modem?

Thanks

Wabbit Ears

ch7465

L1011

Wonder if the price increase even came close to covering the subscriber drop and medium term (3-9 month) revenue drop caused by people getting negotiated deals. I canned the TV entirely costing them about €48 a month from it.

dub45

L1011 wrote: »

Wonder if the price increase even came close to covering the subscriber drop and medium term (3-9 month) revenue drop caused by people getting negotiated deals. I canned the TV entirely costing them about €48 a month from it.

Well if you do a quick calculation - 17,000 customers at an average of €60 per month (probably conservative enough amount?) = €1,020,000 in one month or over €12,000,000 per year!

dub45

bk wrote: »

........................................


I agree with you that in the past they certainly were blind to this and were to focused on the access layer and basically ignored the in-house network. However this has definitely changed now and I think they are now very aware of the importance of decent wifi. Here is a comment from the Liberty Global CEO just a few days ago:

In fairness to them, they do seem to have fixed many of the complaints that we had about their wifi with their new Connect Box. From what I've heard their purchase of Virgin Media UK had a big impact on this. VM UK were much more aware of this issue and have long had an 802.11ac routers as standard. VM UK also have their own dedicated wifi testing lab, something UPC didn't have.

My only complaint now is that they are still supplying the old routers to people who buy the 240 service. They really should bin any left and supply the new router to all.

In the longer term I think all ISP's need to start looking at multi-room Access Point setups to boost wifi performance. However it is still early days for this sort of tech in the consumer speace, with it only now starting to launch this year in various high end consumer products (see Eero, Luma, Amplifi, etc.) and likely needs to develop and mature for another 2 or 3 years before we canexpect ISP's to start picking it up.

Their new connect box will only be available to new subscribers and those upgrading. This does not in any way affect or improve the lot of the existing customer base. And any new customer for the 360 box is likely to be on ds-lite so that will affect bridging.

Any horizon customer on 360 will be given the new horizon box and that is hardly like to be capable of any wifi improvements given the record of the previous horizon box and its likely domestic location which decreases the likelihood of decent wifi.

7upfree

dub45 wrote: »

Their new connect box will only be available to new subscribers and those upgrading. This does not in any way affect or improve the lot of the existing customer base. And any new customer for the 360 box is likely to be on ds-lite so that will affect bridging.

Any horizon customer on 360 will be given the new horizon box and that is hardly like to be capable of any wifi improvements given the record of the previous horizon box and its likely domestic location which decreases the likelihood of decent wifi.

So, essentially, the only thing people are nit-picking at is WiFi performance. Were it not for NTL/UPC we'd still be stuck in the tech wilderness regarding broadband.

They drove it forward like a steam train. And still are. Eircom were dragged kicking and screaming to the main event. And still can't deliver in many areas.