Virgin Media network expansion

KOR101

Newly filed accounts show the company recorded turnover of €344.5 million last year, up from €342.6 million in 2016 as pre-tax losses declined from €11.3 million to €9.05 million.

Capital expenditure jumped to €99 million from €64.9 million as the company continued to invest in its infrastructure.

Over the past two years, Virgin Media has added 100,000 new homes and businesses to its network map in Ireland and is on target to reach the one million milestone over the next two years.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/virgin-invests-nearly-100m-as-full-year-revenues-rise-1.3678978

9726_9726

They are having major issues with concrete and tarmac disposal costs in certain council areas and are slowing FTTH deployment in the new year.

KOR101

Has anyone heard anything about when VM are next going to upgrade their speeds?

tsue921i8wljb3

KOR101 wrote: »

Has anyone heard anything about when VM are next going to upgrade their speeds?

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=109276136&postcount=4

KOR101

Alvin Thousands Wit wrote: »

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=109276136&postcount=4

Thanks @Navi.

VM in Ireland were always quite focused on having the highest speeds, so maybe Ireland will be a priority especially when Eir get going. Got an offer of €49/month for 12 months in the post this morning. If it was 1Gbit speeds I'd be sorely tempted.

jeffk

Love the upload speeds to get a serious boost with trying to backup to cloud taking days(I know a once off then backup as you go usually)

Downloads into seconds unless you download a big big file

But probably easier to say download x thing in x time as thats all most people will buy into

KOR101

Virgin Media Group CEO, Tony Hanway said the company’s network expansion programme meant its services now reached 923,000 homes.

“In 2018 we extended our reach in multiple locations including Arklow, Athy, Portarlington, Tuam, Wexford, Wicklow, Gorey, Enniscorthy, Ennis, Dundalk, Drogheda, Ballincollig, Shannon and Limerick,” he said.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/revenues-at-virgin-media-ireland-rose-7-in-2018-1.3809619?mode=amp

shanec1928

KOR101 wrote: »

Virgin Media Group CEO, Tony Hanway said the company’s network expansion programme meant its services now reached 923,000 homes.

“In 2018 we extended our reach in multiple locations including Arklow, Athy, Portarlington, Tuam, Wexford, Wicklow, Gorey, Enniscorthy, Ennis, Dundalk, Drogheda, Ballincollig, Shannon and Limerick,” he said.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/revenues-at-virgin-media-ireland-rose-7-in-2018-1.3809619?mode=amp

Sure when they keep putting the prices up its hard not increase revenue. They have zero competition in the area i live, its either them or 4Mb dsl..

tsue921i8wljb3

KOR101 wrote: »

Virgin Media Group CEO, Tony Hanway said the company’s network expansion programme meant its services now reached 923,000 homes.

“In 2018 we extended our reach in multiple locations including Arklow, Athy, Portarlington, Tuam, Wexford, Wicklow, Gorey, Enniscorthy, Ennis, Dundalk, Drogheda, Ballincollig, Shannon and Limerick,” he said.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/revenues-at-virgin-media-ireland-rose-7-in-2018-1.3809619?mode=amp

Why is there a large disparity (485800) with the number of homes mentioned by Mr Hanway and the premises figure in the Liberty Global Q4 2018 figures as posted by The Cush?

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=109546331&postcount=321

ED E

Alvin Thousands Wit wrote: »

Why is there a large disparity (485800) with the number of homes mentioned by Mr Hanway and the premises figure in the Liberty Global Q4 2018 figures as posted by The Cush?

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=109546331&postcount=321

Reached = passed?

tsue921i8wljb3

ED E wrote: »

Reached = passed?

You're right. I probably should have just looked at the pdf. 923000 is the premises passed figure. I guess the other one is actual subscriptions.

KOR101

Virgin also confirmed plans to launch 500 Mbps broadband in the UK in spring 2019 to extend its broadband speed leadership.

https://www.telecompaper.com/news/virgin-media-adds-23500-rgus-in-uk-and-ireland-confirms-500-mbps-broadband-launch--1282701

jeffk

KOR101 wrote:

Virgin also confirmed plans to launch 500 Mbps broadband in the UK in spring 2019 to extend its broadband speed leadership.

KOR101 wrote:

Virgin also confirmed plans to launch 500 Mbps broadband in the UK in spring 2019 to extend its broadband speed leadership.

As usual nothing upload speed

KOR101

jeffk wrote: »

As usual nothing upload speed

The big news today is that they’ve confirmed their plan to launch a 500Mbps (35Mbps upload) service this spring, although the results don’t clarify whether this will be coming to the residential or business side of their network first (we’re checking). The new tier, so far as we’re aware, will continue to use their existing EuroDOCSIS 3 network and not the forthcoming DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade (3.1 also requires a new router).

Elsewhere we note that the pace of their £3bn Project Lightning network expansion appears to have dramatically increased during the final three months of 2018. Virgin’s FTTP and Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) based EuroDOCSIS cable broadband and TV network has now reached an additional 1.6 million UK premises since it began in 2015/16.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/02/virgin-media-uk-to-launch-500mbps-broadband-in-spring-2019.html

KOR101

NOTE: The downstream config rate for the new 500Mbps speed appears to be over-provisioned (Virgin always does this) at 575,000,000 (575Mbps), while for upstream it’s a similar story on 38,520,000 (38.5Mbps). Hence why their average advertised speeds often go above the stated plan speed, capacity allowing.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/02/virgin-media-uk-to-launch-500mbps-broadband-in-spring-2019.html

KOR101

Virgin Media Hints at Launch of Two UK Gigabit Broadband Cities

The boss of European cable operator Liberty Global, Mike Fries, has revealed to investors that they intend to launch “two gigabit cities” in the UK this year via Virgin Media, which as the name suggests could result in related homes gaining access to speeds of 1Gbps (1000Mbps+) using the latest network upgrades.

So what do they mean by “gigabit city“? Broadly speaking, this appears to be the long.. awaited start of their new DOCSIS 3.1 network upgrade (i.e. like Liberty Global has already started in Germany and Poland). The 3.1 standard is theoretically capable of delivering peak downstream speeds of 10Gbps and uploads of 2Gbps, although end-user packages will obviously start at a much lower rate.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/02/virgin-media-hints-at-launch-of-two-uk-gigabit-broadband-cities.html

jeffk

KOR101 thanks, I read it a few times and got bamboozled with all the numbers

Be nice if that upload speed comes to residential,time will tell

ED E

jeffk wrote: »

KOR101 thanks, I read it a few times and got bamboozled with all the numbers

Be nice if that upload speed comes to residential,time will tell

The provisioning ratios will likely stay the same, 10:1.

360_36
500_50
1000_100

I doubt we'll see 2000_200 in 2019 for res users as 10Gb eth is still an expensive add on vs somewhat common.

jeffk

ED E wrote: »

The provisioning ratios will likely stay the same, 10:1.

360_36
500_50
1000_100

I doubt we'll see 2000_200 in 2019 for res users as 10Gb eth is still an expensive add on vs somewhat common.

36 better than 20 odd and then I can still remember less than 1 so I suppose there is progress even if its taken YEARS

Gonzo

This has been a rather long gap since VM upgraded to 360. I presume the 360 will automatically get upgraded to 500 and the 1000 if launched will be a new plan at a price point above the current maximum plan. VM have been well surpassed by Eir and Siro FTTH, so this upgrade is needed.

Marlow

Gonzo wrote: »

VM have been well surpassed by Eir and Siro FTTH, so this upgrade is needed.

Not really. The majority that buy a OpenEIR based connection only buy the 150 Mbit/s package. And a lot of people can't even utilize the 240 or the 360 Mbit/s on VM, nevermind faster packages. SIRO is mostly Gbit/s connections, but that's no good to you, when your PC only has a 100 Mbit/s interface

I don't think VM is too pushed in partaking in the rat-race. They are more after passing more premises and for obvious reasons, it makes sense to use the newer technology for those.

/M

banie01

I see VM have now increased their top speed package to 500mb.
6 month introductory discount, €39 for 6 months and €69 for the remaining term.

KildareP

I just wish, rather than continually chase the headline speeds, they'd put in a proper dual stack IPv4/IPv6 solution and allow open peering at INEX. Would offer a top-notch product than what they currently have with the half-baked DS-Lite "solution" and routing traffic to Amsterdam and back when the furthest it really need go is Dublin West.

Gonzo

Virgin now have 3 plans, the 240, 360 and now a 500.

jeffk

Great "fun" today

Seen post, got onto them, get upgraded
Soon after no internet
Wait two hours
On the phone
Reset router to factory etc, nothing
Engineer be out Monday(not having that)
Push and on off hold with them, I suggest to move back to 360 and see
Moved to a loyalty team member, 90 miles a hour taling trying to charm me to stick it out
Eventually I won the battle, got a word or two in and moved to the tech team in Limerick
More or less agreed was their end(was getting an IP address but something about provision), push it through and will email someone etc

30 minutes later was told its fixed, turn router off and on, waited on call and after few minutes got it back working
Said a few of them calls today, so either system isn't ready or someone making mistake upgrading

flexcon

KildareP wrote: »

I just wish, rather than continually chase the headline speeds, they'd put in a proper dual stack IPv4/IPv6 solution and allow open peering at INEX. Would offer a top-notch product than what they currently have with the half-baked DS-Lite "solution" and routing traffic to Amsterdam and back when the furthest it really need go is Dublin West.

So glad I read this. I thought i was going mad when i saw there was consistently a lag on some sites and they were being pulled from Europe when i did traveroutes. Even my netflix was coming from USA!

CinemaGuy45

jeffk wrote: »

Great "fun" today

Seen post, got onto them, get upgraded
Soon after no internet
Wait two hours
On the phone
Reset router to factory etc, nothing
Engineer be out Monday(not having that)
Push and on off hold with them, I suggest to move back to 360 and see
Moved to a loyalty team member, 90 miles a hour taling trying to charm me to stick it out
Eventually I won the battle, got a word or two in and moved to the tech team in Limerick
More or less agreed was their end(was getting an IP address but something about provision), push it through and will email someone etc

30 minutes later was told its fixed, turn router off and on, waited on call and after few minutes got it back working
Said a few of them calls today, so either system isn't ready or someone making mistake upgrading

Mine was painless they seem to have things sorted now.

jeffk

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

Mine was painless they seem to have things sorted now.

Seems to be on and off around that today

Bubonic

Do they offer the €39 a month to existing customers if you say the right thing?

cherryghost

Bubonic wrote: »

Do they offer the €39 a month to existing customers if you say the right thing?

No, they will chop off 10/15 euro for 6m on loyalty call.