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Does anyone had problems on VM Fibre optic (not ADSL) ?

Hi all,
I just moved from South Korea and started searching for an ISP here in London.
I did an extensive search over 3 days to choose an ISP between O2 and VM, and found that only VM provides fibre optic (to the cabinet) services.
While searching, I found that their ADSL service is far below avg, but didn't find many issues about VM's fibre optic broadband service, though it's expensive.
Since my home is available on fibre optics, I'm thinking to have 10 or 20mb fibre optic broadband from VM, or 20mb ADSL from O2.

I need to run my server for my homepage, and I often download big files.
Could you guys give me any comments on making decision?
Any experiences on VM fibre optic regarding capping (I read some articles saying that it actually is NOT unlimited.), speed, or reliability would be appreciated.

Thanks a lot in advance.

- Q
 
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Internet access here is a far cry from what you are used to in South Korea.

Virgin Media do not operate a fibre to the home network, they instead run a cable network, which they market as fibre optic (fibre runs to the street cabinet, from there is it coaxial cable).

Although the same services are offered throughout the Virgin Media network, the service you receive does vary wildly depending on your location. Over subscription is a common issue, with Virgin reacting very slowly to upgrade where there are problems (with a true fibre to the home network, this wouldn’t be such an issue).

Uploads are the biggest issue with most broadband providers in the UK, Virgin Media’s top tier 50Mbit package only offers 1.5Mbit upload!

If upload is important and you live close to your BT telephone exchange, then I would recommend Be Broadband, they offer up to 2.5Mbit upload (up to part is very important, it depends on the quality of your telephone line).
 
My 2nd line at home is on the VM 50meg product, it is quite good and I haven't seen any slow downs (I'm in north Manchester). Also VM are trialing a 10meg upload in some areas with a view to rolling it out to all the 50meg customers in the near future.
 
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Virgin Media's cable product is a lot better than their ADSL based one, you're correct. If you expect to be doing really heavy usage and don't want limits then I would suggest the more expensive 50Mbps product as it is still largely unrestricted.. for now. You can find details of their traffic management policy here, just scroll down a bit from the top:

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html
 
Thanks guys.
Mark.J's suggestion was extremely helpful, on clearing out the exact policy about VM's traffic control. I compared Be, VM and O2, and decided to use O2's pro package since they told me on the phone that they do not have such a traffic control policy both for down/uploads. They provide 2.5M up / 20M down (at max, of course) + static IP. Now I don't have to pay for the dynamic dns service, too. (dyndns)

Following kev_plymouth's suggestion, I checked the location of exchange nearby, and it was within 0.2 miles. (as the crow flies...).

On the other hand, VM has limit on 1.5M up even on the 50MB package. Be Broadband also looked charming(2.5M up/ 24M down), but since I'm already an O2 mobile customer, O2 gives me 5 pounds discount every month.

The only thing matters is that BT told me that they'll come to our home after 15 days...even though the line is installed in our home. Maybe I should call them again.

Thanks for all your opinions. This site really rocks!
 
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