Virgin 50Mb cable modem pictured

currently the top service of 20mbit is capped heavily.

6gb of data between 10am and 3pm and then 3gb of data between 5pm and 9pm. So for half the day you get 25% of your speed (5mbit).

Clearly their network isnt capable of handling 20mbit nevermind 50mbit so I would take this with a pinch of salt. clearly marketing to sell rather than a company interested in supplying the best service to their customers

Looks nice, sounds nice, but once you've go it you'll still be on the same massively oversold network. Plus what's the point of a 50Mb download ability, if using it for just a few minutes will push you straight over their ridiculously low usage limits and kick in to action their speed caps meaning you suddenly end up with your speeds slashed to a crawl again. That's all if you're lucky enough to get anywhere near the 50Mb speed anyway. I'm currently on their 20Mb XL service and from about 3pm onwards the service is frequently slower than dial up speeds.

don't see the point in 50MB access when Virgin will probably cap your a$$ back down to 500kb after 4GB.............bit like they do now with the 20MB service.

I am about to receive my 50mb+ modem in the next two weeks or so from virgin. Im on 20mb now, so its only double and bit extra speed. Should be good to try though. It Will be interesting to see how much they cap the speed when it gets to busy and what download speed rates are achieved at busy periods. I Still feel that 50mb is still somewhat short of what some of our continental friends are providing, If we want to compete as a nation in the broadband market, I think 75 to 100mb, (cost and fesability willing) would provide a better intisment for customers to opt for this service. Dont get me wrong 50mb is fast but with hd content hovering in the wings awaiting to be downloaded I think a 50mb connection will become very overstretched very quickly.

Pity cable isn't available here in rural Somerset.

Where in the UK will you get anywhere near the speed that can output BT are doing a small sample of 100mbps lines in London.

Anywhere like Hull which wont even see the 1st stages of Fibre Optic until 2067 wont get it.

Abit over the top when the UK's BB structure is 10yrs behind if you ask me.

Please someone from Indonesia duplicate this. To make more and more Indonesian people access the internet.

No information about who makes the modem? That would be interesting, is it motorola like most cable modems in the world?

And yeah hok is right, we need more muslims on the net, chatting away about who made an innocent cartoon and such, that's what the world needs.[/sarcasm]

The morning cap is from 10am until 3pm, and you can download 6GB without being capped. Now, suppose you (like the majority of the country) go to work for 9am, and leave the house at 8.30am. Start a download at 8.30am and on 20mb cable you can download 18.5GB before you are capped. 2.36MB/sec (is what I get all the time when not capped) x 60 (seconds) x 90 (minutes until 10am) = 12.74GB in an hour and a half. + 6GB that the morning cap allows, and between 8.30am and 10.45 you can download 18.5GB and still be under the cap.

The night cap *is* more harsh, BUT it doesn't start until 4pm. That's right! Between 3pm and 4pm there is no limit. On 20mb, you can download 8.5GB in an hour. So start the download at 3pm, and get 8.5GB without capping, then get another 3GB after this. 

So lets say you got up at 8.30 and downloaded as much as possible in the morning. Then you downloaded during 3-4pm. Then you downloaded without being capped after 3pm. This would mean, that without being capped, in 12 hours you can download 24GB. Of course, if you really wanted to test VM, you could download ANOTHER 93.5GB during the night after 9pm and before 8.30am. 

So, do you really need to download 117.5GB a DAY? OK, VM would probably contact you if you did, but used wisely, the VM cap isn't a problem to anyone (who is using the service legitimately or even semi-legitimately). I like to "obtain" 720p TV shows, up to about 12GB a day, and have never been capped. Get over it.

It kinda looks like what would happen if you shrunk a ps3.

Looks pretty but...I had MASSIVE problems getting anything near to the 4Mb (subsequently and theoretically upped to "10Mb") I was offered by their retentions team over a year ago and went through a pair of routers (at MY expense) a pair of Virgin mediocre's modems and numerous tech support calls/ visits to find out that they'd be sending the wrong Docsys (?) file to my modem limiting my speed, as well as forcing that ridiculous traffic management on me. Sometimes I couldn't even sign into Xbox live on a "10Mb" connection ffs!
If they could even provide 20Mb when I'm NOT asleep/ working I'd be almost pleased but I got NO assistance of worth from a staff member in their CEO's office and he ended up telling me that I could go elsewhere if their technical team couldn't diagnose the fault on their damn network. I'd be jumping ship but I don't want to go near british telecon either :(

Completely missing the point.

"On 20mb, you can download 8.5GB in an hour."

Assuming you get anywhere near 20Mb, which doesn't appear to be the case.

"So, do you really need to download 117.5GB a DAY?" 

No I don't, but I would like to be able to download what I want when I want, which is currently impossible on VM's network due massive under capacity and STM at times when anyone would actually like to use it.

There is simply no point to 50Mb on VM's network, they're incapable of delivering service to the customers they've already got.

I have had TX load issues since September 2007 (UBR over utilized / too many users sharing what little bandwidth there is)

VM have attempeted to upgrade my UBR for over 14 months and the 9th attempt is the 18th of November 2008.

When I see the VM adverts on TV I just laugh, having dumped the unreliable V+ (failed recording etc) for sky+ I would drop VM like brick if I was not over 5 miles from the BT exchange.
I'm in 20mb and only ever get advertised speeds after 1am.

STM does NOT work, they dont slow your speed down when STM'd they slow your PACKETS down, hence even with 5mb(20mb STM'd) I get 150+ ping to Counter strike and usually booted from Age Of Conan several times during a raid due to a 300-1000 ping.

STM does not work, they admit it does not and have been waiting MANY months for (so VM say)cisco to upgrade the firmware for STM.

5mb feels like dailup when STM'd and I hope the 50mb does not use STM, that would be funny,
how long to get STM'd on 50mb ?? 3 mins ?