UPC/Virgin Media's new "Connect Box" high-speed modem

The Cush

On show at IBC 2015 in Amsterdam, Liberty Global's new high speed modem. The boxes displayed the logos of UPC, Ziggo, Telenet and Virgin Media. Full details to be announced in the coming weeks.

http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2015/09/15/liberty-global-to-roll-out-new-connect-box/

Niemoj

Interesting. I presume that it'd be the Virgin Media one released here.

Will miss you UPC!

Cuddlesworth

Niemoj wrote: »

Interesting. I presume that it'd be the Virgin Media one released here.

Will miss you UPC!

Assuming UPC Ireland has been quite profitable, they will probably have autonomy to continue to provide the low tier equipment they currently supply. In business terms its a pretty sound plan, sell 240mb broadband locked hard into a device that can supply roughly 50-70mbs total for most households.

pizzahead77

I'm guessing UPC are trialing it already - there's a poster over on the Talk to UPC forum asking questions about the functionality of a new modem they have been invited to trial

http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057494133

bk

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Assuming UPC Ireland has been quite profitable, they will probably have autonomy to continue to provide the low tier equipment they currently supply. In business terms its a pretty sound plan, sell 240mb broadband locked hard into a device that can supply roughly 50-70mbs total for most households.

I think you will find that they will do quite the opposite.

Given that Eircom is now offering a pretty decent 802.11ac router and is starting to offer 1Gb/s FTTH, it makes no sense for UPC to leave it's service fall behind.

Specially given that they have invested so much in building a top quality network, it makes no sense for them to cripple a 500 million network investment for the sake of saving a few euro per customer on poor CPE.

colm_mcm

bk wrote: »

Specially given that they have invested so much in building a top quality network, it makes no sense for them to cripple a 500 million network investment for the sake of saving a few euro per customer on poor CPE.

Look at all the money thrown at horizon, and all the consistently poor ED3 modems so far. It makes no sense but this is what is happening.

They had a golden opportunity when eircom had a max of 24mb to build up a happy broadband customer base but focused on theoretical download speeds and not real world wifi performance.

bk

colm_mcm wrote: »

Look at all the money thrown at horizon, and all the consistently poor ED3 modems so far. It makes no sense but this is what is happening.

They had a golden opportunity when eircom had a max of 24mb to build up a happy broadband customer base but focused on theoretical download speeds and not real world wifi performance.

The problem is that even if you supply a 802.11ac router, it doesn't guarantee improving real world wifi performance. The reality is never mind 802.11ac, most of the wireless clients out there still only support 2.4GHz 802.11n!!

5GHz 802.11n is only now making it's way from high end laptops and smartphones into the more mainstream devices that joe public use.

So it is really only the last 12 months where faster wifi has become more important.

Hopefully we will soon see them offer better routers and offer easy bridging for power users like us.

ED E

I thought that too BK, but 5Ghz is far more pervasive than you'd think. Even the Galaxy S3 from 2012 supports it, so theres a real market for it now. Obviously you grannys Toshiba from '06 wont support it, but plenty do.

IMO the F2000 is one of the really big selling points of eircom for average joe right now.

ThisRegard

ED E wrote: »

I thought that too BK, but 5Ghz is far more pervasive than you'd think.

Yeah, I was surprised to find the original Hudl even supports it as the Nexus 7 from that era doesn't.

Thor

bk wrote: »

The problem is that even if you supply a 802.11ac router, it doesn't guarantee improving real world wifi performance. The reality is never mind 802.11ac, most of the wireless clients out there still only support 2.4GHz 802.11n!!

5GHz 802.11n is only now making it's way from high end laptops and smartphones into the more mainstream devices that joe public use.

So it is really only the last 12 months where faster wifi has become more important.

Hopefully we will soon see them offer better routers and offer easy bridging for power users like us.

I have had wireless 802.11ac on my last few smartphones for over two years now. Even longer availability before that. I know some devices, haven't had it or still don't, but 5GHz 802.11n alone has been on smartphones for much longer.

To be honest, the current market of clients doesn't really matter. It's not like putting 802.11ac prevents other standards from working, and instead future proofs their hardware for users to take advantage of.

It is shocking how many times people complain about not getting the speed advertised when their using an old 802.11g card on a Windows XP device, or something of the sorts. Although that being said, UPC have are pushing higher Mb broadband nearly every year and as such it results in users getting faster connections then previous hardware can handle, and they don't even realize, but again, better for them to move forward, than worry about the mainstream.

Cuddlesworth

bk wrote: »

I think you will find that they will do quite the opposite.

Given that Eircom is now offering a pretty decent 802.11ac router and is starting to offer 1Gb/s FTTH, it makes no sense for UPC to leave it's service fall behind.

Specially given that they have invested so much in building a top quality network, it makes no sense for them to cripple a 500 million network investment for the sake of saving a few euro per customer on poor CPE.

You're making the assumption that a significant portion of irish customers know or care what wireless standard they are being given. Having seen what other UPC entities in other countries offer, it's pretty obvious that the irish branch have gone out of their way in the past to offer some of the worst products I have encountered. And that they have made significant efforts to force people into those standards through trying to hide bridging capabilities. And I don't even want to start on their implementation of DS-lite. That's a penny pinching exercise on a extreme scale.

DECEiFER

The big question is whether they will allow us to bridge with it. I'd be inclined to say no, as it would further ruin their already ruined Wi-Free service (that never feckin' works seamlessly for me when I'm out and about).

lotas

bridge mode better be available... moving from 2 ciscos to this and loosing bridge mode would suck... Also, one thing i don't understand: the DSLite thing: Why is it that you can get a private IPv4 address and a shed load of public IPv6 addresses, or just a public IPv4? where is my public IPv4 and IPv6?

DECEiFER

lotas wrote: »

bridge mode better be available... moving from 2 ciscos to this and loosing bridge mode would suck... Also, one thing i don't understand: the DSLite thing: Why is it that you can get a private IPv4 address and a shed load of public IPv6 addresses, or just a public IPv4? where is my public IPv4 and IPv6?

If you get put on DS-Lite, you can ask to be switched back to IPv4. The reason for IPv6 is that we're running out of IPv4 addresses. So by giving you a shared public IPv4 along with your unique IPv6, you're essentially set up for servers using IPv6 while retaining the ability to connect to those that still use IPv4. So by sharing your IPv4, it lessens the amount of addresses required for their customer base. It sucks, especially if you want to run a server of your own, or want to do any sort of IPv4 port forwarding (which you won't be able to do on DS-Lite) but that's the rollout path they've chosen. I just hope the opt-out option remains for that reason.

lotas

DECEiFER wrote: »

If you get put on DS-Lite, you can ask to be switched back to IPv4. The reason for IPv6 is that we're running out of IPv4 addresses. So by giving you a shared public IPv4 along with your unique IPv6, you're essentially set up for servers using IPv6 while retaining the ability to connect to those that still use IPv4. So by sharing your IPv4, it lessens the amount of addresses required for their customer base. It sucks, especially if you want to run a server of your own, or want to do any sort of IPv4 port forwarding (which you won't be able to do on DS-Lite) but that's the rollout path they've chosen. I just hope the opt-out option remains for that reason.

yea, i was on DS-Lite for a few hours before i got pissed off and told them where to shove it, but why dont they offer both proper IPv4 and proper IPv6? Assuming a non Lite version of the Dual Stack standard exists?! How hard could it be?! What could possibly go wrong?

DECEiFER

lotas wrote: »

yea, i was on DS-Lite for a few hours before i got pissed off and told them where to shove it, but why dont they offer both proper IPv4 and proper IPv6? Assuming a non Lite version of the Dual Stack standard exists?! How hard could it be?! What could possibly go wrong?

I wish they could or would. It's a difficult problem to address as the rollout of IPv6 isn't synchronous. If every server/provider was to switch over on one set date worldwide, it would be perfect. But that's just not feasible. They just better not force DS-Lite on us without the opt-out. If they did, I'd break my contract straight away and move back to using the phone line. Though, after the 1Gbps FTTH GPON rollout is in our areas, it might be worth a change as I can only imagine the latency would be better than UPC's hybrid fiber-coaxial alternative, without taking the throughput into account. We'll have to wait and see.

lotas

but they dont need to do a ds-lite install... they can provide both IPv4 and IPv6... proper dual stack service. they just need to enable it... they either give us half what we want (IPv6 with a crap internal IPv4 address) or the other half (proper IPv4 with no IPv6). they still wont "fix" it and give both... gobsh1ts in charge by the sounds go things... FTTH would be nice... just wondering what UPC/Virgin will give in response...

DECEiFER

lotas wrote: »

but they dont need to do a ds-lite install... they can provide both IPv4 and IPv6... proper dual stack service. they just need to enable it... they either give us half what we want (IPv6 with a crap internal IPv4 address) or the other half (proper IPv4 with no IPv6). they still wont "fix" it and give both... gobsh1ts in charge by the sounds go things... FTTH would be nice... just wondering what UPC/Virgin will give in response...

It would be nice but it's about reducing the amount of IPv4 address allocations at the end of the day. Now, if we think about it like this: keep allocating unique IPv4 addresses to customers (dual-stack) until such time as there's a fairly near complete switchover commercially, then we probably wouldn't run over the limits while retaining decent backward compatibility with all the trimmings until it's no longer required.

Also, I reckon the Virgin rebrand is a mistake. Us Irish don't unanimously respond well to UK company names/takeovers, and besides, UPC is ubiquitous Ireland since 2009/10 and Virgin has had very little presence here at all ever. Even their cola product was short-lived in the Irish market during the late '90s. A friend of mine who does some work for them in the business infrastructure sales area via a contractor, was saying he reckons it's due to Virgin Mobile. But what's wrong with UPC Mobile or similar? It just makes no sense.

bk

DECEiFER wrote: »

It would be nice but it's about reducing the amount of IPv4 address allocations at the end of the day. Now, if we think about it like this: keep allocating unique IPv4 addresses to customers (dual-stack) until such time as there's a fairly near complete switchover commercially, then we probably wouldn't run over the limits while retaining decent backward compatibility with all the trimmings until it's no longer required.

Another solution would be to implement DS-Lite by default, but have an easy to use option on your UPC account website to switch to Dual Stack for us power users.

For many, if not most people, they wouldn't notice a difference.

DECEiFER wrote: »

Also, I reckon the Virgin rebrand is a mistake. Us Irish don't unanimously respond well to UK company names/takeovers, and besides, UPC is ubiquitous Ireland since 2009/10 and Virgin has had very little presence here at all ever. Even their cola product was short-lived in the Irish market during the late '90s. A friend of mine who does some work for them in the business infrastructure sales area via a contractor, was saying he reckons it's due to Virgin Mobile. But what's wrong with UPC Mobile or similar? It just makes no sense.

I think it has more to do with logically merging UPC Ireland with Virgin Mobile so that they can be both sold separately to for instance Vodafone.

Both markets have a great deal of overlap, both English speaking, very similar channels and geographically close, so it makes sense to merge them if you were ever thinking of selling them off.

Certainly UPC Ireland has far more in common with Virgin Mobile then it does UPC Netherlands. The fact that they use to peer and route through the Netherlands made zero sense.

It noticeable that throughout Europe the UPC brand is being dropped, Ziggo, Cablecom, Virgin, etc.

Each brand represents a part of the company which would make sense to sell off separately if you were to break up the company.

I see this very much as a high level, Europe wide, strategic business decision, rather then having anything to do with the Irish market or advertising to the Irish market.

As for consumer reaction to it here in Ireland. I think it will be largely positive. UPC is a relatively new brand and many people still call it NTL. Also I've always thought the UPC name and branding to be very boring. Looking at the Virgin branding in the UK, it is a lot more exciting and sexy IMO.

In particular they do a great job in highlighting the advantage of cable.

I think Virgin is a much more memorable name then UPC. Remember the Virgin name has a long history in Ireland, Virgin Megastores were very controversial being the first place to sell condoms in Ireland.

I could see the Virgin name and branding adding a lot of excitement and sexiness to the company and higher profile. I know it sounds silly, but this sort of stuff really does make a difference.

DECEiFER

bk wrote: »

Another solution would be to implement DS-Lite by default, but have an easy to use option on your UPC account website to switch to Dual Stack for us power users.

For many, if not most people, they wouldn't notice a difference.

That would make too much sense. The same with allowing us power users to bridge any of their routers, all of which are capable of it if unrestricted in UPC's firmware.

bk wrote: »

I think it has more to do with logically merging UPC Ireland with Virgin Mobile so that they can be both sold separately to for instance Vodafone.

Both markets have a great deal of overlap, both English speaking, very similar channels and geographically close, so it makes sense to merge them if you were ever thinking of selling them off.

Certainly UPC Ireland has far more in common with Virgin Mobile then it does UPC Netherlands. The fact that they use to peer and route through the Netherlands made zero sense.

It noticeable that throughout Europe the UPC brand is being dropped, Ziggo, Cablecom, Virgin, etc.

Each brand represents a part of the company which would make sense to sell off separately if you were to break up the company.

I see this very much as a high level, Europe wide, strategic business decision, rather then having anything to do with the Irish market or advertising to the Irish market.

As for consumer reaction to it here in Ireland. I think it will be largely positive. UPC is a relatively new brand and many people still call it NTL. Also I've always thought the UPC name and branding to be very boring. Looking at the Virgin branding in the UK, it is a lot more exciting and sexy IMO.

In particular they do a great job in highlighting the advantage of cable.

I think Virgin is a much more memorable name then UPC. Remember the Virgin name has a long history in Ireland, Virgin Megastores were very controversial being the first place to sell condoms in Ireland.

I could see the Virgin name and branding adding a lot of excitement and sexiness to the company and higher profile. I know it sounds silly, but this sort of stuff really does make a difference.

All valid points but they already joined forces, so to speak, in October or last year (or was it December?).

The UPC branding has always been a bit bland. Light blue on white, whereas the devilish color-scheme of Virgin is sexier, but I still think the name could either be changed to something else or remain as UPC sexied up. I know the history of the Megastores, but they've been gone a long time now and the brand has been scarce since then in Ireland.

Anyway, it's going to happen so it'll have to be sucked up. After all, Vodafone worked out. I'd be fine with it really and I might even switch my SIM-only mobile to them if they have a decent offer, but they ought to leave their traffic management policy in the UK. It's an archaic policy, or rather, it should be in this day and age. That and data caps need to go away. Apparently they're also strict enough when it comes to torrent site blocking, but that could be a UK-specific thing regarding their high court rulings in favor of the content owners. I know in the UK it's more difficult to get onto a TPB proxy or other torrent sites when compared to here, on any ISP, as there's more of a clampdown.

ThisRegard

bk wrote: »

UPC is a relatively new brand and many people still call it NTL.

I'm sure there's people who still call it "the pipe", if not at least cablelink.

DECEiFER

ThisRegard wrote: »

I'm sure there's people who still call it "the pipe", if not at least cablelink.

In my part of the country it was previously Chorus (before becoming Chorus/NTL) and before that, Irish Multichannel. From my observations, I don't often hear people referring to UPC as Chorus or anything previous (certainly not NTL here). NTL must be a more memorable name!

bk

Yes, to be honest I was never impressed by UPC's name, branding or advertising.

I mean what does UPC even mean? * It is a very bland and boring name and then their website is very white and pastel.

All sounds very boring and old fashioned, not at all representaive of what is an exciting, fast moving technology company that is delivering some of the fastest and best value broadband in Ireland and has really revolutionised things!

They tried to make things a bit more exciting with the Horizon brand and mostly black colour scheme, but I think it was only partly successful and the problems with the Horizon boxes hurt that brand.

The Virgin name on the other hand is much more memorable. Right off it is much more sexy, after all the name is related to sex in a very obvious way. It is much easier to remember. I've often heard people call UPC UPS, UCP, etc. Then their is their colour scheme, Red and black, are colours which make people think of sexy, fast, dynamic. Things you want people thinking about when you are promoting a tech company.

Also they will benefit from cross promotion, Virgin show lots of adds on UK TV channels, which many Irish people watch. Virgin Ireland will then also benefit from this free advertising. This is probably the most important point, UPC Ireland will basically benefit from millions of Euros of free advertising from Virgin UK. Sky similarly benefit greatly from this.

I also quiet like Virgin UK's ads, they really get across the difference between coax cable tech and copper telephone cable and how much faster coax is:

http://store.virginmedia.com/discover/broadband/ultrafast.html?intcmpid=uk_hp_cab_ban2copy_broadbandscience_broadbandandcalls_11september

On the matter of Virgin UK networking policies, etc. I agree completely.

I'm hoping UPC gains Virgins better CPE gear, while keeping their own network policies. The good news is things seem to be improving significantly in the UK since they announced the 3 billion network upgrade and expansion, they seem to becoming more like UPC Ireland, then the other way around. I think since Liberty Global took over Virgin, they have realised the importance of investing in a high quality network to drive people to sign up, much like what happened here when LGI bought NTL/Chorus.

bk

DECEiFER wrote: »

In my part of the country it was previously Chorus (before becoming Chorus/NTL) and before that, Irish Multichannel. From my observations, I don't often hear people referring to UPC as Chorus or anything previous (certainly not NTL here). NTL must be a more memorable name!

I often hear people still call it multichannel (no Irish) down in Cork.

NTL was a much stronger brand due to ads being on UK TV constantly, which many people watched. Something UPC will benefit from greatly once they re-brand to Virgin. That is Virgin UK TV ads on UK channels will also help promote the service here in Ireland.

DECEiFER

bk wrote: »

I often hear people still call it multichannel (no Irish) down in Cork.

NTL was a much stronger brand due to ads being on UK TV constantly, which many people watched. Something UPC will benefit from greatly once they re-brand to Virgin. That is Virgin UK TV ads on UK channels will also help promote the service here in Ireland.

Definitely. The only issue is that offers will mostly be exclusive to the UK, so it'll benefit only in terms of brand recognition and reminder.

Multichannel. Right, that's very Cork and might be a Limerick trait but I haven't heard it much (I'm not from Limerick originally - close, but not close enough). Even the older crowd I'd know call it UPC for the most part. It's a strange one and I think it also varies with different local cultures and attitudes.

Also, fair dues to them for taking the chance to give DOCSIS a mention in their commercials. It's a chancy one because it's a boring technical acronym, but they made it work.

DECEiFER

The only thing I'd say against them, and this could apply to any company's commercials, is that they compare the two cables side-by-side with the coax being thick, rigid, and covered in braiding - how many of our cables look like that? - and the telephone cable being uncovered, twisted, narrow, and frail. It's deceptive (again, what commercial doesn't attempt to deceive us?). Trouble is, though, a strand of fiber is even thinner and it'll be interesting to see if BT or Sky hit back with something creative when they're all fiber (in the main towns and cities at least).

bk

DECEiFER wrote: »

The only thing I'd say against them, and this could apply to any company's commercials, is that they compare the two cables side-by-side with the coax being thick, rigid, and covered in braiding - how many of our cables look like that? - and the telephone cable being uncovered, twisted, narrow, and frail. It's deceptive (again, what commercial doesn't attempt to deceive us?). Trouble is, though, a strand of fiber is even thinner and it'll be interesting to see if BT or Sky hit back with something creative when they're all fiber (in the main towns and cities at least).

No, it isn't deceptive, that is actually the reality and the reason it is such a good ad.

BT and Eircom use unshielded twisted pair copper telephone cable, while Virgin and UPC use much thicker, fully shielded copper coax cable.

Telephone cable is really low quality stuff, it was originally designed to only carry low bitrate voice, while coax was designed from the start to carry large number of analogue TV channels. This is why telephone cable has so little bandwidth available to it, while coax cable has so much.

Eircom only uses 17Mhz for VDSL2 over very short distances, while UPC/Virgin cable is mostly over 850MHz.

This is why UPC can so easily deliver 240MB/s and even 1GB/s over coax, along with 17 analogue TV channels (each using 8MHz, 50MB/s of bandwidth per channel!!) plus hundreds of digital and HD channels.

Think of it this way, Eircoms VDSL is equivalent to just two analogue TV channels on UPC's network!!!

This is why copper phone cables are very much end of life and Eircom needs to jump to FTTH, while coax still has massive capacity available and many years of usage.

DECEiFER

bk wrote: »

No, it isn't deceptive, that is actually the reality and the reason it is such a good ad.

BT and Eircom use unshielded twisted pair copper telephone cable, while Virgin and UPC use much thicker, fully shielded copper coax cable.

Telephone cable is really low quality stuff, it was originally designed to only carry low bitrate voice, while coax was designed from the start to carry large number of analogue TV channels. This is why telephone cable has so little bandwidth available to it, while coax cable has so much.

Eircom only uses 17Mhz for VDSL2 over very short distances, while UPC/Virgin cable is mostly over 850MHz.

This is why UPC can so easily deliver 240MB/s and even 1GB/s over coax, along with 17 analogue TV channels (each using 8MHz, 50MB/s of bandwidth per channel!!) plus hundreds of digital and HD channels.

Think of it this way, Eircoms VDSL is equivalent to just two analogue TV channels on UPC's network!!!

This is why copper phone cables are very much end of life and Eircom needs to jump to FTTH, while coax still has massive capacity available and many years of usage.

When you stack the numbers like that, you really do appreciate it. But visually, they made the coax look better than it normally does and the phone copper look worse, and don't even mention that orchestra streaming demonstration (if you have 76Mb broadband, or anything over 10Mb, you can stream two or more Netflix shows at once). But to add to your comparisons, don't forget IPTV, e/eirVision, as well. They reserve 20MB/s for that off your connection instead of just being able to add to it due to that all important capacity.

ItHurtsWhenIP

DECEiFER wrote: »

...
Multichannel. Right, that's very Cork and might be a Limerick trait but I haven't heard it much (I'm not from Limerick originally - close, but not close enough). Even the older crowd I'd know call it UPC for the most part.
...

I have a memory that the original company that cabled Limerick city was called West Side Cable, which I think then went on to be Irish Multichannel, before Chorus took it over.

DECEiFER

MMFITWGDV wrote: »

I have a memory that the original company that cabled Limerick city was called West Side Cable, which I think then went on to be Irish Multichannel, before Chorus took it over.

Dead on! You're absolutely right. A few older colleagues told me about them and you just reminded me of it.

The Cush

MMFITWGDV wrote: »

I have a memory that the original company that cabled Limerick city was called West Side Cable, which I think then went on to be Irish Multichannel, before Chorus took it over.

Westward Cables Ltd - Cable Licence issued 25 May 1983
In 1991, a Westward Cables company, MDS Ltd., trading as Horizon TV Distribution Ltd. was granted 3 MMDS licences for Limerick, Clare and Kerry and 4 MMDS licences for the Midlands.

In 1992 Westward Cables was acquired by Princes Holdings Ltd.*, Independent Wireless Cable Ltd.** (a Princes Holdings subsidiary) previously held a minority share in the company. They traded as Westward Multichannel/Horizon Multichannel. The other cable/MMDS brands within Princes Holdings were Cork Multichannel and East Coast Multichannel**.

The generic Irish Multichannel branding was adopted circa 1996 and by 1998 they all called themselves Irish Multichannel. Irish Multichannel were then joined by Suir Nore Relays and CMI Cable and the three were rebranded Chorus in 2000.

**Independent Wireless Cable (an Irish Independent company) were originally awarded 7 MMDS licences as East Coast Multichannel in 1989. (They also held minority shareholdings in Cork Communications and Westward Cables when they were awarded 4 and 7 MMDS licences respectively)

*In 1992 Princes Holdings was formed as a 50:50 joint venture between Independent Newspapers (Independent Wireless Cable Ltd) and US Telecommunications companies UIH and TCI.
In 1998 TCI bought out UIH's share of Princes Holdings.

Liberty Global who evolved out of TCI/UCG went on to buyout UIH/Philips company United Philips Cable (UPC) (later Pan-Europe Communications). Independent Newspapers sold it shares in Princes Holdings to Liberty in 2004.

The rest is history.