Question VOTE NOW.....New Gamer Service?? Doesn't seem right...

Is it fair to charge more, or should we all be getting non-throttled broadband as standard?


  • Total voters
    8

MacrosTheBlack

Prominent Member
Joined
Jun 12, 2006
Messages
2,201
Reaction score
655
Points
563
Location
Kent (South East, UK)
Anyone noticed the new tier from Virgin media broadband? Vivid 200 Gamer
http://www.virginmedia.com/shop/broadband/compare.html

Up to 200Mbps download + Up to 20Mbps upload + No traffic management
Boss-level broadband for gamers
  • Made for gamers – play online, stream gameplay and chat, all at once
  • Faster upload speeds – loads of extra bandwidth for gaming traffic
  • No traffic management – keep playing for as long as you want
  • Totally unlimited broadband – as much data as you need
  • The UK’s only widely available ultrafast WiFi
Ok, so they've boosted upload speeds from 12Mbps to 20Mbps, helpful but a marginal 8Mbps increase when they could of offered something significant like 50Mbps uploads.

What's "grinding my gears" is this No Traffic Management statement!! It doesn't seem right to say to their customers oh you need to pay extra not to have your legal legitmate bandwidth crippled on our standard super fast broadband service.

I moaned at Virgin for years about their throttling of the PSN network on the PS3 with no joy. They continually denied it again and again until finally a 2nd line support guy admitted it, after I proved to him the issue existed by using a proxy on my NAS to change the ports and massively increase my PSN downloads whenever I swapped the PS3 onto the proxy. This makes a massive difference for game downloads and patches which are often several GB's in size (though the PS4 PSN downloads thankfully don't seem to be as crippled by Virgin).

So what do people think? Place your votes please.
 
The bills are going up from the 1st of November by £2.99 a month.I asked about the vivid 200 for gamers they wanted to send me a superhub 3 for self install and then charge me £14.99 activation fee!!! So they want to charge me that for me too replace my superhub...I declined the offer...To be fair we don't need upto 200 meg with 20meg upload speeds for gaming Imo.
 
Its mostly for streamers, also great for Plex server users wanting to access their catalogue away from home or letting family and friends access it too.

Oddly enough I rang up the Virgin media retention's department recently to ask about my situations which was as follows:-

Hi I currently pay £40ish for 200mb, and there will be a price increase of £2.99 soon which will make it £43ish but Virgin charge £45.25 for this, If i want to upgrade to the Vivid Gamer, would I still retain the £1.50ish saving. He replied with it would be £43.50ish for the Vivid Gamer for me, saving £7.50ish and not £50.25 as advertised or even £48ish which I was looking to get. All because I'm not in contract and this will put me in contract for another 12 months.

I was charged £9.99 instead of the £14.99 for the "activation fee" but I will also get the Hub 3, I currently have the outdated Superhub 2.

Either way I'm happy with this deal, people not in contract should give them a call.
 
Outdated superhub 2? What do you mean by that?
 
I don't see how this is a "Gamer" option. You don't need 20Mbps for gaming at all and you certainly don't need 200Mbps download. Their basic 50Mbps would be fine. Though the speed does help for updates and DLC

What they should call it is the "torrent" option as thats where the speeds are more relevant.
 
I don't see how this is a "Gamer" option. You don't need 20Mbps for gaming at all and you certainly don't need 200Mbps download. Their basic 50Mbps would be fine. Though the speed does help for updates and DLC

What they should call it is the "torrent" option as thats where the speeds are more relevant.
Well I'd completely disagree with you there. 50Mbps is of course fine for gaming itself. But not for downloading the games and the endless patches. 200Mbps really helps for getting your games updated with the latest 5GB patch download. God knows how anyone with 2Mbps ADSL gets online with a PS4 to play games....

The 20Mbps upload does help if you are one of youtubes many vloggers and you like to play games and vlog together. It's of no real advantage to torrenters unless they wish to share more uploads.

However the big difference is the removal of throttling. Something I again argue shouldn't be happening in the first place. Especially throttling gaming traffic as that's perfectly legal legitmate use for super fast broadband!
 
I mentioned it would help for patches. However for the massive price difference I would rather just wait longer for it to download, especially with the PS4 where you can download them in rest mode.

Never really thought about the whole vlogger side of it as I've never understood the fascination people have with watching others play games lol.

However they are marketing it like you need it for gaming when you really don't. If people want to pay the extra to download a patch X amount quicker that is fine but many will assume they need this service as they play online games.

My mate for one had the 50Mbps package and was having disconnection issues playing online. Virgin recommended the 150Mbps package which he went for and it was no better. The actual issue was the wireless connection and nothing to do with his broadband speeds!
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is Home Theater DEAD in 2024?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom