Virgin Is In The Dark Ages
joshua_welby
Posts: 9,025 Forum Member
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Virgin is in the Dark Ages now that most of Europe is gradually moving to the new tech standards
namely DVB-C2, HEVC and DOCSIS 3.1 and Virgin have now plans for this currently
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz8EmqCmZ8gLb1ctWTRTMDl5QWc/view?usp=sharing
This is from 22 September 2009
namely DVB-C2, HEVC and DOCSIS 3.1 and Virgin have now plans for this currently
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz8EmqCmZ8gLb1ctWTRTMDl5QWc/view?usp=sharing
This is from 22 September 2009
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I mean no plans for this
They did at some point however new standards take time before they can be deployed and in the case of DVB-C2 there will need to be major upgrades to the cable network in order to take full advantage. One example being the higher QAM that DVB-C2 supports (upto 4096QAM, giving 83Mbits/s bandwidth) requiring a more robust network.
Also many euro operators have been slow to adopt C2, because there is no main driver for it, HD networks already launched on DVB-C and want to avoid changing consumer equipment due to the disruption of service. 4k may be a consideration but Virgin may prefer to deliver that through an IPTV connection similar to how BT delivers its 4k sports channels though Youview.
Besides, as has been said, to get maximum benefit you have to do a lot of work and investment - it's not plug and play and everyone gets 1Gbit/s.
HEVC would need new boxes (maybe something from the UPC side), and at present there's nothing broadcasting in it so it'd have to be transcoded from MPEG2 or MPEG4. DVB-C2 may not be that necessary if Virgin doesn't think it has any capacity issues. I would imagine that any broadcast 4K channels will use both HEVC and C2 though.
BT TV is running very well and prove that 4K can be delivered over internet just fine. Provided you are on infinity 2 and sit around 60-80meg the service is seamless, any lower speeds and being on infinity 1 will work but as the kids start torrenting and streaming well it will suffer.
Concept is very good though. I know wightFibre are going this way but have stalled and just provide broadband now. their legacy TV kit is all gone. (source: employee mate who works there on the network division)
Broadband and cable TV compete for bandwidth on the same pipe so squeezing TV into a smaller space could open up more space for broadband.
But Virgin can also achieve that by driving fibre closer to homes and only using the coax bit from your nearest street cabs.
Apart from in capacity constrained areas, they have no incentive to do that either as they have speed leadership over BT et al until they launch G.Fast.
The city I mentioned had not only got fttn is also getting fttc pushing the fibre even deeper and closer to the home in those areas there isn't now only one single point for the data handling all the traffic as it's now split off on its own fibre from the node to the cab so instead of using the coax from the node to the cab to the amp they ate instslling fibre from the node to cab and replacing the copper link merely using wave division multiplexing using the existing fibres from the node to the local hubsite /headend using the above method increasing the network capacity for that nodal area
Is this part of Virgin's Cable My Street rollout? There's a rollout starting near me and I'm curious if the new deployment still uses coax to the house.