Without limits, for now
INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER Virgin Media has announced
plans to start rolling out 100Mb broadband to homes by the end of
2010.
The cable media operator has also been trialing 200Mb broadband for
some time now and said that it will be extending that trial. Currently
only available in Kent, Virgin 200Mb broadband will be rolled out to
Coventry this year. However if you don't live in Coventry you will have
to make do with 100Mb, once that arrives.
The deployment is far enough in the distance that Virgin was unable
to give us any further details or pricing. However when asked about fair
use policies, the spokesman was able to say that it would have similar
traffic management policies as are currently present on its 50Mb
service.
According to Virgin's website, that
would suggest no limits on downloads at all. On the face of it, the
policy avoids various peak time traffic management tactics that reduce
line bandwidth once a certain transfer threshold has been breached.
So while 100Mb broadband might seem like a boon to downloaders,
Virgin Media told us that it would not rule out implementing some sort
of traffic management policy should its network require it. Its network
might, however, catch a breather depending on the price of this service.
With its 50Mb service costing 38 quid a month without bundled telly and
phone, you're most likely looking at the thick end of £60 per month for
100Mb broadband. The upside is that you will get access to a rather
handy newsgroup server which the spokesman said - and we verified
ourselves - has seven day binary retention.
The problem for Virgin Media is that if everyone uses its fibre-optic
network to the best of their ability, without traffic management it
will end up providing poor quality of service levels. With the pressure
of seemingly being caught by competitors, the probability of Virgin's
network buckling under its own marketing success means that traffic
management could rear its head at some point. So the question becomes,
will it stay at 100Mb once you start to use it?