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Virgin Media Wi-Fi service
PCPro reports today that Virgin is thinking of starting up it's own network of public wi-fi hotspots akin to BT's The Cloud openzone but inspired by Cablevision in New York.
What do people think of this? I think the idea is basically to use the green streetside boxes for more things.
From a commercial point of view, it is good. As improving home services becomes more expensive and difficult, mobile data is probably the most lucrative service they could currently provide and clearly data demand is growing faster than 3G networks can keep up.
What do people think of this? I think the idea is basically to use the green streetside boxes for more things.
From a commercial point of view, it is good. As improving home services becomes more expensive and difficult, mobile data is probably the most lucrative service they could currently provide and clearly data demand is growing faster than 3G networks can keep up.
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But if Virgin are going to offer it as well, thatll be superb! I can ditch my mobile broadband dongle from 3 as well.
So if Virgin can have a very good coverage in towns/cities, means i wont need to bother using my 1GB/month 3G cellular data allowance.
Given the slowness of the TiVO rollout and the upcoming capex for the 100Mb rollout. I would imagine that it would be this time, 2012 before we see any meaningful amount of coverage. They probably won't do much about it in 2011 perhaps beyond technical feasibility tests. Any real launch would have to take place in 2012.
For a long time I've thought they need to beef up on the mobile side because that's where money is still being made. Home broadband is commoditised and Sky has all the power now in terms of tv content. My idea was for them to merge with 3, move their customers from T-Mobile to 3 and improve their customer service of that network but take advantage of being an actual network operator plus all the technological innovations they can bring (like mobile virgin player).
3 have shown themselves to be really open to innovations. E.g. Virgin could make their cable modem/routers into having FON part for public WiFi (like BT FON) and also a pico-cell (like Vodafone's gateway).
3 would then have amazing coverage from all these virgin broadband homes providing additional cellular coverage.
Secondly, I'm sure they are quite capable of doing more than one thing at a time.
That would be the "Tivo rollout" that is, as far as we know (ie excluding rumours on forums) running exactly to schedule, yes?
:rolleyes:
Now talk of a wifi hot spot for the UK, this would help to cover the need for more speed as we all start to use mini PC as our 21st century Mobile phones, with app's and Internet on all the time bandwidth has become trouble for most of 3G networks with them tell customer that unlimited data on all new services. so companies have find more, hot spots are great for that as these communication PC with phones can switch between services to keep all working on the networks.
I see one trouble with Virgin doing this is that it's cable network is not going to be the size of BT's version as it small area of cable then copper.
I would say that virgin could save money in putting the wifi hot spots in customers homes with a lower cost to the customer for this services and cost to help with power then the hot spots would be saver for damage on the streets.
Also if they have money to do this then while no new SD & HD channels and 1TB box's
:rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
It's all very well something running to schedule if it is an unambitious schedule for rollout. It's like Microsoft saying we'll release an OS in the next ten years.
Second, initial impressions by press releases implied it would have had a proper launch in H2 of this year and it should be widespread by now. Then later press releases suggested Q4 of this year. Now the schedule is "soft launch" this year with employees and select customers this year and do a full launch Q1 next year.
So, a) unambitious schedule and b) moving the goalposts along the way too.
Same here I get approx 1.5 around 6oclock!!!!!!!
i asked similar question there
So yes, still on-track for launch in 2010 as stated in their original Press Release this time last year.
http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=205406&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1359213&highlight=
I assume you meant Q2 there? If so then sorry but that's complete rubbish. The very last line of their original PR was...
So absolutely no mention of Q2 at all. Furthermore a quick Google search for "virgin media tivo Q2" brings up not one relevant mention.
This was confirmed by VM themselves back in July.
Sorry. Wrong again. The "Soft launch" has been known about since May. That's two month before the Q4 confirmation mentioned above!
Not sure what you mean by "unambitious" but I think around a year from initial annoucement to finished product is actually very ambitious.
And no-one has moved the goal-posts even one bit. You, however, do seem to have got your 'facts' completely and totally wrong
The last we heard was last month when they were on track for the first homes by the end of the year. They still have plenty of time to get it announced and the first customers installed. Same with 100MB which is also this year.
Virgin Media Q2 2010 Results
http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=205406&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1452728&highlight=
Bringing "Digital Entertainment" into homes
Think about how that statement could be fulfilled.
A soft launch in December 2010 is the weakest and latest form of delivering on that statement. Is it even a real soft launch? we have yet to see, that is a launch without a real marketing fanfare.
At the moment, sounds like it's just going to be employees and you sofa type people. That's not really a soft launch, that's just an extended beta.
Real launch in 2011. Besides TiVO already had an established product working for cable systems. I wonder how much the software has changed from their standard product. How much has the remote changed. Seems like the mai thing they've done is put it on this new Cisco box.
As of the 25th of november we're yet to see any form of public ordering process for the product yet alone a price, which baring in mind it's 4 weeks to xmas.. what are the chances of any actual customers getting the Tivo installed for xmas?
Not that most people will be too surprised.. i had my telewest TVdrive on trial for 6 months before people could actually order them. All we can hope is that tivo doesn't take quite that long after the internal trials.
That said back on topic, a VM wifi network although a good idea, perhaps does not fulfil the real need which is Wifi networks in city centres. The question here is how VM would look to provide this kind of usage.
And just to say i did try the VM Wifi at V festival, and it really struggled to keep up with demand. Once the site was full around 2-3pm it simply didn't work.. But nothing was lost as the G3 data network didn't work either, as it rarely does with large numbers of people in small areas.
The point is that Virgin effectively operate an FTTC network. Fibre up to the street cabs. (If we're technical about it, it's FTTN - to the neighbourhood node).
There's enough capacity in the fibre connected to each cab. The bandwidth oversubscription problem is in the capacity of the coax. The public wifi would not be sitting on that final coax loop.
Potentially, if rolled out correctly and widespread, this could be one of the biggest visual marketing VM has out on the streets. Making the point above even more likely.
Just a thought.
As for the TiVo on time or late, VM can't win. They used to be known as the 'coming soon' kings so now they are more realistic and now get slagged off for saying x,y,z, will soft launch by the end of 2010 as that's too vague??!!! At the end of the day they could easilly class a employee trial (who afterall pay for services and the installs etc albeit at a subsedised rate), as a soft launch so assuming that happens or is happening, means therefor that they met their original commitment ontime.
What like XP being launched in 2001 and vista launching 2007 - some 6 years later.
not so far off the 10 years you mentioned. And Windows 7 was only here so soon after vista because of the disaster vista was.
Vista was an exception, most other Windows OSes (which includes the 9x family, the current NT family, the Server products, WHS etc) have all been quite regularly on time.
Vista was supposed to be released in '04 or '05. It was late because they scrapped a lot of technology (such as WinFS) and restartec the project.
And the main point is that everyone, Microsoft included, called it late. Here we are trying to say TiVO won't be late.
They didn't say "end 2010", they said it will arrive in 2010 and they said that 12 months ago.
Anything less than the beginning of a rollout to the general public is not a launch and even if they do manage to start a proper launch in December, that's cutting it damn fine.
We have a good guess of what's happening now. They are trialling it with employees before the wider scale launch. That in itself says it's not a launch.
Anyway seriously off-topic now so I will leave that strand as it is.
If you can actually get 5Mb on this public wifi you are doing well compared to what average real-world 3G speeds are like.
Which was my original point. They're on track and haven't (as the OP stated) "moved the goal-posts" in the slightest.
If you don't understand something, it is probably better to leave it rather than post.
The idea sounds good - and I hadn't really considered that a lot of the network is already there - just run the wifi service from the nearest cab.
Although, I don't know what other towns/cities are like, but round here cable is available in residential areas, but not in the city centre - where it'll probably be of more benefit.
Virgin are now themselves contradicting it:
https://tivo.virginmedia.com/public/interest
"Our new TiVo service is launching in early 2011"
Still want to argue Virgin has launched TiVO in 2010?
The last day of 2010 and it's still at the pre-launch signup for info stage for when we release it in the future. This isn't a proper launch by any measure and you would be a greater spinner than Alastair Campbell to call this a soft launch either.