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Virgin 1Gb now available.

loyatemu

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/virgin-makes-gigabit-internet-available-across-its-service-1.4334185

TBH I don't see the point of 1Gb for domestic users, 500Mb should be sufficient for 99.9% of subscribers (I downgraded to 250Mb and didn't notice any difference). But anyway, it's now (or shortly) available to VM subscribers.

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ted1

TheQuietBeatle wrote: »

If working at home it's definitely useful.

Why? What devices have you that can utilise that bandwidth?

lotas

loyatemu wrote: »

how many large file transfers does the average person make, and even if they do can the server they're downloading from deliver at > 250Mb/s and can their network card and hard drive receive at that speed? There's a lot of variables - IMO you'd only see the benefit if you have a lot of simultaneous heavy users, most people would see more benefit from upgrading their WiFi kit.

1GBit/s is 125MBYTEs a second... thats fairly easily doable, even with hdds...and hardwired...XBox One, PS4, AppleTV and NVidia Sheild all have GigE connections, if wired in. Apple device updates are 2-3GB each... in our house, thats 2 iPhones, an iPad and 2 Apple TVs... the quicker they finsih a download, the better... and yes, upgraded wifi kit is important... I run Ubiquiti gear all around the house 3 APs and their Dream Machine Pro run the network... but important gear is still hardwired...

lotas wrote: »

1GBit/s is 125MBYTEs a second... thats fairly easily doable, even with hdds...and hardwired...XBox One, PS4, AppleTV and NVidia Sheild all have GigE connections, if wired in. Apple device updates are 2-3GB each... in our house, thats 2 iPhones, an iPad and 2 Apple TVs... the quicker they finsih a download, the better... and yes, upgraded wifi kit is important... I run Ubiquiti gear all around the house 3 APs and their Dream Machine Pro run the network... but important gear is still hardwired...

As a person heavily invested in a massive variety of IoT devices, 8 HD IP cams, multiple google homes devices, all lights are Philips Hue, etc. I'm on VM 250 and I see absolutely zero issues with speed and these IoT devices.

The most important need for IoT devices is a good solid wifi setup. Most IoT devices use incredibly low amounts of data to operate. The once exception would be the IP cameras and uploading, but even 25Mb/s proves fine for those. What you do need is a good quality wifi router or mesh setup that supports large numbers of connected IoT devices. Many ISP supplied routers are limited here.

Devices like iphones/ipads/apple TV updating, sure, but that mostly happens automatically in the background, often it should happen overnight when you are asleep anyway, most people wouldn't even notice, either way.

Same with most cloud uploads, just leave it run away in the background, no need to actually bother about it.

Also most servers you are downloading from likely deliver far less then 1Gb/s to an individual download.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure their is a niche of super hardcore users who might actually benefit from it. Photographers, videographers, devs uploading big VM's for work constantly. But the majority of people, even techies of various types, probably won't see much real world benefit.

But hey, you have an Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro, very cool piece of kit, so clearly money is no issue, so fire away and go for it. But really is seems overpriced for most peoples needs IMO. For an extra €300+ per year, most ordinary people would see more benefit from upgrading their wifi equipment.

GhostyMcGhost

JDxtra wrote: »

It's listed on their web site now...

€60 a month / €85 a month after 6 months

https://www.virginmedia.ie/broadband/buy-a-broadband-package/

I literally got it for €40 pm with Vodafone
€480 per year vs €870

VF upload is 200Mb vs 50Mb on VM

Seems to me like it’s not in the slightest bit trying to be competitive

CoBo55

stevek93 wrote: »

Is it fiber across the top of the houses I thought all copper?

You're confusing things here. Across the top of the houses as you put it is co-ax cable with a fat copper centre core, this cable bears no resemblance to the flimsy twisted copper wire that was laid by the post and telegraphs last century. This routing of co-ax is the old ( now updated) legacy system. All new builds which have the VM service are connected by a system similar to siro/eir ftth i.e. ftth and co-ax from a converter box to the VM router.

Valhallapt

Any idea how stability, ping times etc would compare to an eir 100mb ADSL connection. I'm about 250m from the cabinet. 100mb is the fastest I can get from eir, its slow but its reliable to be fair. 1Gbps is very appealing to me.

CoBo55 wrote: »

You're confusing things here. Across the top of the houses as you put it is co-ax cable with a fat copper centre core, this cable bears no resemblance to the flimsy twisted copper wire that was laid by the post and telegraphs last century. This routing of co-ax is the old ( now updated) legacy system. All new builds which have the VM service are connected by a system similar to siro/eir ftth i.e. ftth and co-ax from a converter box to the VM router.

It should be pointed out that probably 98% of Virgin Media customers are on the Coax (HFC) network. They have only started doing FTTH in the last year or so and even then, only as they expand into new areas not already covered by their coax network.

You are right though, Coax and DOCSIS support much higher speeds then copper telephone lines running VDSL. HFC + DOCSIS is quiet competitive with FTTH.

Valhallapt wrote: »

Any idea how stability, ping times etc would compare to an eir 100mb ADSL connection. I'm about 250m from the cabinet. 100mb is the fastest I can get from eir, its slow but its reliable to be fair. 1Gbps is very appealing to me.

About 25ms to ping boards.ie, sub 10ms to google.ie. This is on VM 250, though I wouldn't expect much difference on 1gig

djivide_

Valhallapt wrote: »

100mb is the fastest I can get from eir, its slow

As someone who has gone from 26.4 kbit/s (at best) dialup through isdn, 0.5mbit adsl and currently on 240mb virgin i have to laugh when people say 20+ mbit is slow.

besides that I would imagine it would similar enough latency and reliability to eir but higher latency than any of the true FTTH products.

CoBo55

Valhallapt wrote: »

Any idea how stability, ping times etc would compare to an eir 100mb ADSL connection. I'm about 250m from the cabinet. 100mb is the fastest I can get from eir, its slow but its reliable to be fair. 1Gbps is very appealing to me.

With interleaving turned off ping times on ADSL are impressive. Ping times in VM would be longer. Is it ADSL you have or fttc? It's just that you mention distance from the cabinet not the exchange, what speeds are you getting? For me personally VM has been rock solid but in their defence all my other providers with the exception of sky were rock solid too I'm about 600m from the cabinet, even before fttc I always had a good steady reliable connection. Being an underground line probably helps.

Valhallapt

bk wrote: »

About 25ms to ping boards.ie, sub 10ms to google.ie. This is on VM 250, though I wouldn't expect much difference on 1gig

Thats poor by comparison, I'm getting <13ms to boards and <3ms to google.ie. Would the DOCSIS3.1 offer a bump in speeds? But maybe ping times aren't everything...

tazzzZ

The upload is the only thing that has been pushing me to top tier offerings... at 50Mb/s this is a big fail in my opinion. As others have said after a certain point the download speeds are irrelivant in a domestic setting.

I run unifi gear too and its of no benefit there either as if you use the security settings (which you likely buy that type of gear for) your throughput is heavily hampered. On SIRO I never get above 750Mb/s with the security settings i use and on average i sit at 600-700Mbps, but as i said it was for upload reasons that i switched from VM to SIRO.

You would think they have done this as not only a means to compete but to get custom back from SIRO or Eir FTTH. but with this offering there is 0 reason to choose VM unless you have literally no other option.

Valhallapt

djivide_ wrote: »

As someone who has gone from 26.4 kbit/s (at best) dialup through isdn, 0.5mbit adsl and currently on 240mb virgin i have to laugh when people say 20+ mbit is slow.

besides that I would imagine it would similar enough latency and reliability to eir but higher latency than any of the true FTTH products.

I've been on the same journey, but I had FTTH 1Gbps in my last house, and its hard to go back to 100mbs after that.

I believe I'm on FTTC

TheBigEvil

I've been using DigiWeb Siro 1gb down / 200mb up for last couple of years, and have found it brilliant, very reliable and very consistent speeds.

Originally got it for €10 for first 3 months, and then €54.95 there after, which was what I was paying at the time for 100mbps with SKY. And they were very good on repeating that offer of €10 for first 3 months to renew the second year, and this year its €24.95 for first 3 months, and €54.95 for rest of contract, so a little saving.

Also, I have to say their router (Fritzbox 7560) has performed fantastic. No issues with it, whether working, streaming, gaming etc. Performs really well.

To really be taking advantage of the 1gb link there are a couple of points to note:

1] The speed of the Ethernet port on your device. Most devices like TVs/Laptops etc. still only use 100mb ports, so thats as fast as you're going, wired!
2] If the speed of your Ethernet port is 1gbps, then you need to make sure that your Ethernet cable is at least CAT6a, which supports speeds of upto 1gbps, otherwise, again, you are only getting 100mbps speeds on the older CAT5 Ethernet cables.
3] If you are using wi-fi to connect to your router, 5ghz gives the best speeds, I can easily get 330+mbps down on wi-fi, on 5ghz devices.

As previously said, despite your download speeds from your internet provider, you are always at the mercy of the server that is feeding your download. So if those sites/serves throttle their speeds, then you aren't getting the full benefit of what you are paying for from you provider.

djivide_

TheBigEvil wrote: »

2] If the speed of your Ethernet port is 1gbps, then you need to make sure that your Ethernet cable is at least CAT6a, which supports speeds of upto 1gbps, otherwise, again, you are only getting 100mbps speeds on the older CAT5 Ethernet cables.

For all bar very long runs Cat5E will also do 1gbit/s

Valhallapt wrote: »

Thats poor by comparison, I'm getting <13ms to boards and <3ms to google.ie. Would the DOCSIS3.1 offer a bump in speeds? But maybe ping times aren't everything...

Depends on what you are doing. If you are a competitive twitch type online gamer, then latency would make a difference to you.

As a software dev who has been working from home for years, dialled into VPN lots, ssh'd into servers and using vim, lots of zoom calls, etc. I've found no real world difference in latency for my usage.

BTW I was on ADSL2+ before moving to VM and I didn't notice any real world difference with latency for my usage, even though it is probably about 10ms slower.

tazzzZ wrote: »

You would think they have done this as not only a means to compete but to get custom back from SIRO or Eir FTTH. but with this offering there is 0 reason to choose VM unless you have literally no other option.

Yes, but for most of the country, there is very little overlap between the VM network and Eir/Siro FTTH networks at the moment. For example most of Dublin City, you only choice is VM or VDSL.

So for the most part, they aren't really directly competing.

I suspect part of the reason they are rolling out this now, is to try to slowly get people on 1gig before Eir/Siro FTTH arrive in most of their areas and start offering real competition.

Most non-techies will just look at the headline speeds of 1gig and not at details like upload speeds and latency unfortunately. People are generally slow to move and if they already have VM, it will be easier for them to just upgrade to 1gig, then to get Eir/Siro out, have them dig up your drive, drill holes in your wall, etc.

People on this forum will of course know better and shop around. But this will definitely make life much harder for Eir and Siro and their FTTH rollouts.

Tempora

So the potentially good news here is that the SuperHub 4 which they're providing in the UK for Gigabit service uses a newer version of the Intel Puma chipset (Puma 7). The SuperHub 3 uses the Puma 6. According to this user on Reddit, the Puma 7 seems to be a massive improvement: https://www.reddit.com/r/VirginMedia/comments/g4egjo/anyone_on_1gighas_a_hub_4/fojuqfg/

I don't even care about going from 300Mbps to 1000Mbps but if I can finally get a modem that isn't a pile of crap that will be great news.

Valhallapt

Valhallapt wrote: »

Thats poor by comparison, I'm getting <13ms to boards and <3ms to google.ie. Would the DOCSIS3.1 offer a bump in speeds? But maybe ping times aren't everything...

I'm earlier ping times were wrong, I was running them off an AWS box I was logged into. more like <19ms boards and 9ms for google. not such a big difference now.

towger

Tempora wrote: »

So the potentially good news here is that the SuperHub 4 which they're providing in the UK for Gigabit service uses a newer version of the Intel Puma chipset (Puma 7). The SuperHub 3 uses the Puma 6. According to this user on Reddit, the Puma 7 seems to be a massive improvement: https://www.reddit.com/r/VirginMedia/comments/g4egjo/anyone_on_1gighas_a_hub_4/fojuqfg/

I don't even care about going from 300Mbps to 1000Mbps but if I can finally get a modem that isn't a pile of crap that will be great news.

And that it has Bridge mode so we can still use our own routers ....

Tempora

towger wrote: »

And that it has Bridge mode so we can still use our own routers ....

Pretty much every VM box for the last few years has supported a "modem only"/"bridge" mode.

Ultimately it doesn't even matter as much as people think. The DOCSIS standard requires layer 3 interaction (which is why the Puma chipsets cause such issues even when in modem mode). You can produce something pretty close to modem mode by just setting a DMZ on your second router and disabling any firewalls/etc.

thenightman

Good to see! don't understand the whingefest that happenned in previous posts. If ya don't want it, don't get it. I download/upload a tonne of stuff for work and personally so always useful to have gigabit as an option. Especially seeing as eir have left us at a max 7mb VDSL for over a decade and seem more interested in hanging fibre in booreens in the arsehole of nowhere and Siro don't seem too bothered about majority of Dublin.

banie01

okidoki987 wrote: »

If you can get Siro that is an expensive price for first 12 months at €72.50 a month average.
Vodafone 1Gbps for €30 a month, Sky 500mbps for €30 a month, Pure 1Gbps €35 for 12 months on a 12m contract.

100% agree.
Have had issue with VM's pricing model for years but this is madness.
I live in an area that currently has only VM as the high speed option but, that will soon also have SIRO and OpenEIR FTTH enabled and available.

Once the option to switch to FTTH goes live, I'm gone from VM.
Stable service is it's only plus.
Cost and Customer service are dire, the headline pricing is constantly used as a way to sell discounts.

6months at 50% off?!
Why not actually just price the contract at the actual notional base price of the 12 month total ÷ 12!

Surely VM have cottoned on to the fact that people check prices for service as whole year or contract term?
Not the magic discount they pluck from the air?

beauf

Tempora wrote: »

Pretty much every VM box for the last few years has supported a "modem only"/"bridge" mode.

Ultimately it doesn't even matter as much as people think. The DOCSIS standard requires layer 3 interaction (which is why the Puma chipsets cause such issues even when in modem mode). You can produce something pretty close to modem mode by just setting a DMZ on your second router and disabling any firewalls/etc.

The only one I had that could is the HUB3.

But I've never found it as steady as my old Cisco box. I get micro drops which don't effect gaming or streaming that much, but any VPN or meeting freezes and and its 50:50 if it recovers. I'm usually remoting into a number of machines (like inception) so its a PITA.

beauf

banie01 wrote: »

100% agree.
Have had issue with VM's pricing model for years but this is madness.
I live in an area that currently has only VM as the high speed option but, that will soon also have SIRO and OpenEIR FTTH enabled and available.

Once the option to switch to FTTH goes live, I'm gone from VM.
Stable service is it's only plus.
Cost and Customer service are dire, the headline pricing is constantly used as a way to sell discounts.

6months at 50% off?!
Why not actually just price the contract at the actual notional base price of the 12 month total ÷ 12!

Surely VM have cottoned on to the fact that people check prices for service as whole year or contract term?
Not the magic discount they pluck from the air?

I would switch to EIR in an instant only I'm worried I'd get worse support.

Rattlehead_ie

Wonder if they would be willing to give the new hub to someone without upgrading them!

Rattlehead_ie wrote: »

Wonder if they would be willing to give the new hub to someone without upgrading them!

They have done that in some locations in the UK. I think areas that have bandwidth issues, but no guarantee you could get that here.

I'd jump on that if I could get it with the 500/50 product.

Tabby McTat

I'm on Vodafone ADSL 80/20. In real usage terms would I notice a bit step up with the VM plans?

My usage would be fairly standard...IPTV, a bit of gaming but nothing major, phones, a few IOT devices and working from home so Skype/Zoom. All run through a trip band mesh WiFi system.

Tempora

beauf wrote: »

The only one I had that could is the HUB3.

But I've never found it as steady as my old Cisco box. I get micro drops which don't effect gaming or streaming that much, but any VPN or meeting freezes and and its 50:50 if it recovers. I'm usually remoting into a number of machines (like inception) so its a PITA.

Yeah the Hub3 has a Puma 6 which is appalling. Basically the lookup table for the hardware acceleration is tiny and can't handle anything that involves a large number of packets. Intel "fixed" the issue be heavily prioritizing TCP when contention occurs so most people won't see issues. But if your usage involves UDP (VPNs, VoIP, etc.) then you're going to be seeing big problems.

I have one of the old Cisco EPC3925s but it's got an entirely different issue where it crashes completely and starts making a high pitched whine noise. Tried fixing it with a fan but that made no difference, probably a blown capacitor. It's been a dilemma for a long time for me whether taking an "upgrade" to a Hub3 would be an improvement or not in my general experience. Hub4 seems to tip things in favor of an upgrade based on testing by a few people.

Nonoperational

Tempted for the new modem. Have FTTH VM here and its really great. Only the very last part from my wall box to the point it coax, about 5m. Big spool of fibre coming to my outside wall.

Tempora

Nonoperational wrote: »

Tempted for the new modem. Have FTTH VM here and its really great. Only the very last part from my wall box to the point it coax, about 5m. Big spool of fibre coming to my outside wall.

God that's frustrating, they're bringing optical to 5m from your router and then forcing you to use the far inferior DOCSIS over coax. Real shame they couldn't just terminate it with an optical to ethernet and support some sort of PPPoE for registration.