Virgin Media shows off stylish 50Mbps cable modem

This truly may be a world's first: a cable modem you don't feel incredibly pressured to relegate to the rear of your networking stash. Yes friends, that succulent device you see above is Virgin Media's shockingly stunning 50Mbps cable modem, which unsurprisingly relies on DOCSIS 3.0 technology in order to provide such 1337 speeds. It's still not as speedy as Ambit Broadband's channel bonding modem, nor can it hold a candle to whatever Sigbritt Löthberg had going on in Sweden, but 50Mbps isn't anything to sneeze at. No word on pricing just yet (don't worry, you'll pay it), but it should be available for UK-based speed freaks before the year's end.

[Via TrustedReviews]

[Sam of the Sun Posted Nov 9th 2008 6:36AM]

+1 for Be. Only ever used there support team once and the guy in question absolutely knew his stuff. Never had any problems with being capped either; I easily d/l 50Gb+ each month and have never noticed a performance drop.

[ITRanger Posted Nov 9th 2008 9:51AM]

I have to agree, the Virgin Media customer service is by far the worst customer service I have ever experienced in my life.

I used to have broadband with them but at one stage it got to be a joke, the connection kept dropping and I would have to call out an engineer. This happened 10 times in three months. So, I finally gave up and moved to ADSL. That was several years ago and I am very reluctant to try them again. I've never had a problem with ADSL.

I still have cable tv with them, but that is really only because it very rarely goes wrong. God forbid there is a problem because it involves at least a twenty to forty minute wait to get through to someone. I might add that it is not a freephone number either, unless you have telephone services with them, yet another service from them I got rid of!!

[Mongoos150 Posted Nov 8th 2008 8:58PM]

Now if only I could get a reliable 50mbps downstream cable connection, I'd be smitten.

[SilverBlade Posted Nov 8th 2008 9:10PM]

Sure, a 50Mbps modem is great, but not when the infrastructure needed to use this thing to it's full potential is pathetically slow in being created.

[Wwhat Posted Nov 8th 2008 10:44PM]

DOCSIS 3.0 actually allows upto 160Mbps, so if this modem is compatible it should be able to do that and the 50 is what they decided to offer for now but that's not the specs of the modem.
Incidentally, DOCSIS 3.0 is also designed for IPv6 and this thing has a gigabit port too I hear, so it's more 'now'.

Here's a link with some info from motorola regarding their DOCSIS 3 offerings, but obviously much of that info is to the point for any DOCSIS 3 product:
http://business.motorola.com/ultrabroadbandsolutions/resources.html

Interesting things include the improved support (including security) by DOCSIS 3 of multicasting, that means an ISP could push TV over their broadband network without having to waste tons of bandwidth for instance, and improved management by ISP's using a more expansive XML based system, and IPv6 as I said already.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 8th 2008 11:03PM]

Why does everyone bash BT? BT are awesome, you people have no insight.

Do you know why BT don't offer 20mbit broadband and only up to 8mbit ADSL? Its because they are pouring all their money into upgrading the UK's infrastructure for gigabit by 2011. They are rest piloting it where i live (in dundee) and other than the annoyance of dug up roads, its going to kick ass. 100mbit here i come :)

[Wwhat Posted Nov 8th 2008 11:42PM]

BT has a long history of selling broadband which then was 'shared' with the neigbours and at any sort of peak time they basically designed it to be slow, that annoys people, especially if in the rest of the world every person with DSL got his own line, and the backbone had to get congested for things to go slow.
And they can promise gigabit but if you believe you get that at any point 10 years before the entire world already has it... well send in your picture for publication in dictionaries next to the entry 'gullible' please.

[excelsium Posted Nov 9th 2008 8:14AM]

BT? BT is just a boulder in the path of faster connections.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 9th 2008 9:11AM]

I've had Telewest/VirginMedia broadband for 6yrs+ now and have only ever had two outages which were for no more than 24hrs. I have had the fastest connection possible (so I am on 20Mbit currently) and I have always got the advertised speeds. Speedtest.net has always been pretty spot on and when I download the stuff I download I get around 2.34Mb/sec which is exactly what I would expect.

Yes their customer services sux a bit but as I haven't really had to use them much I don't care plus I would guess they are no better or worse than anybody else. Bandwidth shaping/limiting does sux too so I just set everything to download during the night anyway.

As for Be giving you upto 24Mbit downloading speeds, great! Virgin are just about to double it and Be aren't going to be able to get any faster.

[excelsium Posted Nov 9th 2008 11:50AM]

Hmm £36/month for wildly varying performance or £18/month for consistent performance.. :].

Hopefully all the other ISPs can offer more than ADSL2+ to break Virgin's monopoly in higher speed links (Virgin doesn't provide the potential of the link).

[Callanish Posted Nov 9th 2008 3:26AM]

Everyone's talking about the download speeds of Virgin Media, so what about the potential upload speeds using this modem with virgin media service? Also, does Virgin media have caps for monthly downloads?........reason I ask is due to a setup of a slingbox in the U.K streaming to a slingcatcher in the U.S and the better the future potential upload speeds using a modem like this, the better the picture quality on the other end watching it using the slingcatcher.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 9th 2008 5:03AM]

I have 120 mbps down / 10 mb up on UPC Eurodocsis 3.0 in the Netherlands. And I actually get this speed as well. They sent somebody to optimize my connection and finalize the installation. € 80 including taxes per month. Price will come down, it has been introduced las month.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 9th 2008 5:51AM]

I switched to Virgin Media 10Mbps from BT Broadband 8Mbps and I can honestly say I think BT was the better provider. I nearly always got the full 8Mbps and even thought I wasn't on unlimited, when I went over by 10GB every month, I just paid like, 50 per GB extra, which wasn't bad in my eyes.

Yea', this modem is sexy, but, what's the point? Haha, well I know the answer is, "Why not?".

I don't think I'll be switching to this 50Mbps connection anytime soon anyway, I'm quite happy as I'm the only person downloading in my house =]

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 9th 2008 5:52AM]

Don't be alarmed!!!

I meant 50p, not £50.

[excelsium Posted Nov 9th 2008 8:17AM]

Just remember that in some other countries you can download/upload 500gb-1000gb+ per month with no extra cost, no slowdowns and no complaints from your ISP.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 9th 2008 6:22AM]

I'm with Be as well. I pay for 24MB but receive 24.5MB.
I also get that speed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week regardless of how much I download.

[excelsium Posted Nov 9th 2008 8:19AM]

Yup, Be* and O2 are the best.. I hope it lasts.. and improves, they are a diamond in the rough of the UK ISP market.

[Saltank Posted Nov 9th 2008 6:19AM]

During peak times their 20Mbit service can't cope with the capacity issues. Speeds go down to 2mbit sometimes, and if you reach the download limit, throttling kicks in for 5 hours and you're crippled, any form of digital entertainment you wanted to experience has been ruined by lack of proper capacity from the ISP.

This used to be different. This used to be perfect, when Telewest was the company, when there was no throttling and no capacity issues.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 9th 2008 8:38AM]

I was going to reply but Comcast says I just reached my bandwidth cap...

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[GetYOID Posted Nov 9th 2008 12:10PM]

Dont try this on Time Warner in Charlotte, NC USA. You would be LUCKY to get the advertised 8Mbps even if you pay for it.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 9th 2008 3:46PM]

I have both Virgin Media and O2 (aka Be) Broadband.

On Virgin Media, I'm supposedly on a 10 Megabit connection, and I am with them on Cable (not ADSL). However I have never been able to download a more the 5 Megabits (550 Kilobytes/sec), even when trying at some time like 3 am in the morning. My area must be heavily saturated with other Virgin Cable users (I live in London, England), because between 4pm-Midnight every day I only ever get about 1 Megabit (120 kilobytes/sec) regardless where I download from. Sometimes the speed is throttled so badly at peak times, I am unable to stream BBC iPlayer or 4onDemand. I pay £25 a month for this.

On the other hand I also have O2 Broadband over ADSL2.
I'm on an 8 Megabit connection with them, and because of my distance from the phone exchange, I realistically only connect at about 6 Megabits (700ish kilobytes/sec). However at all times I get this speed regardless, no speed caps, no traffic shaping, no bandwidth limits. I download as much as I want and always get the same speed. BBC iPlayer and 4onDemand stream perfect all the time. I pay £7.50 a month for this.

You can see who the clear winner is here. And I would like you to consider my experience when Virgin claim they intend to deliver 50 Megabits.

Mike

[excelsium Posted Nov 9th 2008 10:57PM]

http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php

O2/Be* on top.. Virgin media on bottom with terrible reviews and ratings :].

[kingu Posted Nov 10th 2008 8:56AM]

Im not sure i want a representative of the music industry to make my modem...