Virgin pilots 200Mbps broadband

[ASG]

Virgin Media is piloting broadband speeds of 200Megabit per second (Mbps) for a small group of users in the UK.

Following successful trials in the lab, 100 "lead adopters" in Kent will have access to the high speeds, believed to be among the fastest in the world.

Virgin will be using the high speeds to test applications such as 1080p high definition TV and 3DTV.

The pilot will last six months before the results are analysed. A variety of upstream speeds will also be tested.

Virgin is able to achieve the speeds thanks to a technology called Docsis 3, which makes more efficient use of the capacity of fibre to the cabinet connections used by Virgin.
The challenge in making use of the speeds is the inability of wireless networks to cope with 200Mbps connections therefore requiring hard wired connections.

Users also need high-specification computers that have gigabit Ethernet ports that can deal with such fast data speeds.

There is also the issue that many websites only have 100Mbps connections into data centres, meaning they are unable to serve pages or content at a speed to take advantage of the fast service.

Virgin said the 200Mbps service is the fastest speed in the world achieved using Docsis 3 technology.

In a statement Virgin Media's chief executive Neil Berkett said: "We're at the forefront of innovation and understanding when it comes to ultrafast broadband services and the 200Mb pilot will give us further insight into how true 'wideband' services might be used by consumers."

Sucks to be stuck years behind with our "fast" 384kbs and "fastest"4024kbs lines.

 

[Ou grote]

 

[mercurial]

 

[Shake&Bake]

:'( RAS

 

[LabAnimal]

 

[kris860911]

 

[Spartaniz]

this is why South Africa sucks.

 

[Pooky]

 

[gregmcc]

RAS!

 

[smokey]

 

[Yuu]

 

[Stickfigure]

 

[Thestealth]

I don't see why you guys are getting upset. They only have 4-5Gb caps anyway...

 

[Dave]

I don't see why you guys are getting upset. They only have 4-5Gb caps anyway...

Dont know where you got that idea, I'm on Virgin with a 10Mbps line (which is their middle speed plan) and have no cap at all, they do have a "throttling" system where if I was to hammer my connection in peak time (more than 1GB downloaded between 3pm and 9pm) they then restrict the speed down to 2Mbps for the next 5 hours.

Outside of the peak hours I can download any amount I want, and some months easily go into the hundreds of GB and have even gone to almost a thousand GB of downloads in a month without a problem.

 

[deanstein]

I don't see why you guys are getting upset. They only have 4-5Gb caps anyway...

People always make comments like this and they don't understand one simple fact: IF YOU GONNA CAP YOUR ACCOUNT, YOU MIGHT AS WELL (OR YOU WOULD LOVE TO) DO IT AT THE FASTEST SPEED POSSIBLE, SIMPLE...

 

[sdrawk]

Dont know where you got that idea, I'm on Virgin with a 10Mbps line (which is their middle speed plan) and have no cap at all, they do have a "throttling" system where if I was to hammer my connection in peak time (more than 1GB downloaded between 3pm and 9pm) they then restrict the speed down to 2Mbps for the next 5 hours.

Outside of the peak hours I can download any amount I want, and some months easily go into the hundreds of GB and have even gone to almost a thousand GB of downloads in a month without a problem.

You make me sad (esp. since I'm posting over GPRS here).
Hey any plans for Virgin to bring ADSL services like that here to ZA? Would be brilliant if they did

 

[Ziym3]

why would some1 possibly be capped if they had a 200mbps line??? Thats like me having a 4mbps line with a 256mb CAP..lol!

 

[Thestealth]

Cheese and rice!!! Chill out guys. I was joking. You guys obviously missed the sarc in my comment

 

[WoW]

We are so behind!

 

[Lycanthrope]