Virgin Media subscriber numbers

beauf

headline speed is meaningless for a lot of people.

7upfree

dub45 wrote: »

I can echo this experience. I get to meet a considerable number of students over the course of the month and it is amazing how many of them are non teccy (contrary to general expectations) and just want a reliable wifi signal which will extend throughout the house or apartment. Most of them wouldn't even know what speed they are supposed to be on. I think VM overestimate hugely the appeal of the headline speed and the basic requirement for a good reliable wifi signal.

:D:D:D:D:D

7upfree

scamalert wrote: »

with that said thus it refers in networks course that even thou cable coax is able to support faster speeds,but phone line bb is more consistent

:rolleyes:

bk

beauf wrote: »

My point is from the set up by their installer someone on eir will most likely get a better wifi connection than someone with the horizon box, or the older VM modems. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my perception and my experience. I've lost count of the number of none technical people who have complained to me about their VM service, many of which have switched to Sky and some other BB provider.

Yes, a person who actually gets 100Mb/s from Eir is likely to get better wifi performance then someone on Virgins 240Mb/s service with the old router.

However that wouldn't be true of people who sign up to Virgins new 360Mb/s service, which now comes with a genuinely good wifi router. Also you need to remember that Eir's service is "upto" 100Mb/s. It can be as low as 7Mb/s for people who live too far from the FTTC cab. Such a person would definitely be better on Virgin 240 even with the old router then with Eir at 7Mb/s (or anything under 50Mb/s).

Remember it is much easier to fix wifi issues then it is to fix access issues. If you have Virgins 240 service but bad wifi, that is easily fixed by spending €70 on Amazon. If you are only getting 7Mb/s from Eir (or anything under 50Mb/s), then their is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

BTW it would be ironic if people are moving to Sky due to bad wifi, as Sky's wifi router is just as bad Virgins (it is also a single channel 802.11n model). Sky have only now fixed this in the last month with their new Sky Q hub which supports 802.11ac. But the Sky Q hub is only available to people who sign up to their expensive Sky Q TV service, they continue to supply the crappy old router to everyone else.

Eir in fairness to them, were the only ISP that were regularly supplying a decent 802.11ac router over the last two years. Vodafone, Sky and Virgin were all using crappy single radio 802.11n routers up to the last few months (and are partly still using).

dub45 wrote: »

I think VM overestimate hugely the appeal of the headline speed and underestimate the basic requirement for a good reliable wifi signal.

I agree with you that in the past they certainly were blind to this and were to focused on the access layer and basically ignored the in-house network. However this has definitely changed now and I think they are now very aware of the importance of decent wifi. Here is a comment from the Liberty Global CEO just a few days ago:

He said that Liberty’s new Wi-Fi router, the Connect Box, which is now available in multiple European markets, “sets us even further apart from the competition” by providing up to 1Gbps across in-home networks. “This is a big issue,” he said. “When you’ve driven average customer speeds up to 100Mbps but you don’t control the in-home WiFi router, customers complain.”

In fairness to them, they do seem to have fixed many of the complaints that we had about their wifi with their new Connect Box. From what I've heard their purchase of Virgin Media UK had a big impact on this. VM UK were much more aware of this issue and have long had an 802.11ac routers as standard. VM UK also have their own dedicated wifi testing lab, something UPC didn't have.

My only complaint now is that they are still supplying the old routers to people who buy the 240 service. They really should bin any left and supply the new router to all.

In the longer term I think all ISP's need to start looking at multi-room Access Point setups to boost wifi performance. However it is still early days for this sort of tech in the consumer speace, with it only now starting to launch this year in various high end consumer products (see Eero, Luma, Amplifi, etc.) and likely needs to develop and mature for another 2 or 3 years before we canexpect ISP's to start picking it up.

mackersdublin

What's the model number for VM's new 360Mb modem?

Thanks

Wabbit Ears

ch7465

L1011

Wonder if the price increase even came close to covering the subscriber drop and medium term (3-9 month) revenue drop caused by people getting negotiated deals. I canned the TV entirely costing them about €48 a month from it.

dub45

L1011 wrote: »

Wonder if the price increase even came close to covering the subscriber drop and medium term (3-9 month) revenue drop caused by people getting negotiated deals. I canned the TV entirely costing them about €48 a month from it.

Well if you do a quick calculation - 17,000 customers at an average of €60 per month (probably conservative enough amount?) = €1,020,000 in one month or over €12,000,000 per year!

dub45

bk wrote: »

........................................


I agree with you that in the past they certainly were blind to this and were to focused on the access layer and basically ignored the in-house network. However this has definitely changed now and I think they are now very aware of the importance of decent wifi. Here is a comment from the Liberty Global CEO just a few days ago:

In fairness to them, they do seem to have fixed many of the complaints that we had about their wifi with their new Connect Box. From what I've heard their purchase of Virgin Media UK had a big impact on this. VM UK were much more aware of this issue and have long had an 802.11ac routers as standard. VM UK also have their own dedicated wifi testing lab, something UPC didn't have.

My only complaint now is that they are still supplying the old routers to people who buy the 240 service. They really should bin any left and supply the new router to all.

In the longer term I think all ISP's need to start looking at multi-room Access Point setups to boost wifi performance. However it is still early days for this sort of tech in the consumer speace, with it only now starting to launch this year in various high end consumer products (see Eero, Luma, Amplifi, etc.) and likely needs to develop and mature for another 2 or 3 years before we canexpect ISP's to start picking it up.

Their new connect box will only be available to new subscribers and those upgrading. This does not in any way affect or improve the lot of the existing customer base. And any new customer for the 360 box is likely to be on ds-lite so that will affect bridging.

Any horizon customer on 360 will be given the new horizon box and that is hardly like to be capable of any wifi improvements given the record of the previous horizon box and its likely domestic location which decreases the likelihood of decent wifi.

7upfree

dub45 wrote: »

Their new connect box will only be available to new subscribers and those upgrading. This does not in any way affect or improve the lot of the existing customer base. And any new customer for the 360 box is likely to be on ds-lite so that will affect bridging.

Any horizon customer on 360 will be given the new horizon box and that is hardly like to be capable of any wifi improvements given the record of the previous horizon box and its likely domestic location which decreases the likelihood of decent wifi.

So, essentially, the only thing people are nit-picking at is WiFi performance. Were it not for NTL/UPC we'd still be stuck in the tech wilderness regarding broadband.

They drove it forward like a steam train. And still are. Eircom were dragged kicking and screaming to the main event. And still can't deliver in many areas.

beauf

Geographically Cable can't can't deliver in even more areas

Considering most devices will connect via wifi and its sub par unless you got the latest router which is only available with the top BB package. That would suggest the majority of people probably get a subpar experience, with the configuration they have.

While no one can defend Eircom, you can't directly compare the telephone network with the TV network. There's a lot of historical and technical differences that mean TV cable isn't as widely available and telephone cable has technical limitations.

For those reasons a lot of people are still stuck in tech wilderness

The most recent Akami State of the Internet report found that while average Irish broadband speeds are now among the best in the world, there is staggering inequality in internet speeds across the country. The Akami report for the first three months of 2015 showed that while the average broadband speed was 17Mb/s, ranking in the top 10 average speeds worldwide, speeds above 15Mb/s were available to just 21pc of the population. The vast majority of the Irish population, 69pc, have access to broadband speeds over a basic 4Mb/s, with more than a quarter, 27 pc, dealing with staggering slow speeds of less than 4Mb/s.

7upfree

beauf wrote: »

For those reasons a lot of people are still stuck in tech wilderness

Only in rural areas. Cable now covers a huge amount of cities and towns.

beauf

The figures say otherwise....

bk

dub45 wrote: »

Any horizon customer on 360 will be given the new horizon box and that is hardly like to be capable of any wifi improvements given the record of the previous horizon box and its likely domestic location which decreases the likelihood of decent wifi.

You are wrong again, just as you often are!

Anyone who signs up to 360, including Horizon customers, gets the new router. The new router supports 24 DOCSIS channels versus 8 DOCSIS channels on the old router and horizon box. Thus 360 only works on the new router, the new service requires the extra DOCSIS channels.

And BTW, you could always ask for the separate broadband router even when ordering Horizon and in fact I believe they do that by default now.

7upfree

beauf wrote: »

The figures say otherwise....

http://www.libertyglobal.com/oo-ireland.html

836,000 homes passed by UPC. That's 836,000 with access to broadband speeds of 360 Mbps.

7upfree

bk wrote: »

You are wrong again, just as you often are!

Anyone who signs up to 360, including Horizon customers, gets the new router. The new router supports 24 DOCSIS channels versus 8 DOCSIS channels on the old router and horizon box. Thus 360 only works on the new router, the new service requires the extra DOCSIS channels.

And BTW, you could always ask for the separate broadband router even when ordering Horizon and in fact I believe they do that by default now.

Ah he has a chip on his shoulder about UPC. Change the record Dub45!

beauf

7upfree wrote: »

.... Eircom were dragged kicking and screaming to the main event. And still can't deliver in many areas.

7upfree wrote: »

836,000 homes passed by UPC. That's 836,000 with access to broadband speeds of 360 Mbps.

The financial accounts also show that Virgin's broadband growth has slowed considerably, rising 2pc on the same time last year to 371,200. It is the company’s slowest rate of broadband customer growth in Ireland since it introduced the service.

Eir this morning (27 January) reported its second quarter financial results, in which it revealed it is now passing 1.4m homes with fibre-based broadband at speeds of up to 100Mbps.

Even using your "passed" figure what ever that means. Its still nothing close to the coverage of Eir.

beauf

bk wrote: »

Y...And BTW, you could always ask for the separate broadband router even when ordering Horizon and in fact I believe they do that by default now.

I've always had the seperate modem with horizon. The wifi is no better on that. So I have almost always used my own router. Its not even the range of the wifi. Its just far more unreliable than my own router. I have no idea why.

It must drive people who are not techies, crazy.

This is all very old news. We've had threads on these issues on boards for years.

beauf

bk wrote: »

You are wrong again, just as you often are!

Anyone who signs up to 360, including Horizon customers, gets the new router. The new router supports 24 DOCSIS channels versus 8 DOCSIS channels on the old router and horizon box. Thus 360 only works on the new router, the new service requires the extra DOCSIS channels.

And BTW, you could always ask for the separate broadband router even when ordering Horizon and in fact I believe they do that by default now.

At least now we have an option. Even if its the most expensive one.

Sam Russell

beauf wrote: »

Even using your "passed" figure what ever that means. Its still nothing close to the coverage of Eir.

The "passed" figure, I assume, refers to the number of homes who could receive the service if they wished. The difference is that eir has a limited number of slots in each cabinet while Upc does not afaik.

beauf

The web (UK) seems to suggest...

.... but take note that their “homes passed counts are based on census data that can change based on either revisions to the data or from new census results“...

I have no idea what it means.

7upfree

beauf wrote: »

Even using your "passed" figure what ever that means. Its still nothing close to the coverage of Eir.

The difference being that the 836,000 homes ALL have access to those speeds. As for Eircom........ "up to 100Mbps".

If you're 15m away from a cab.......

beauf

Of course they do...

icdg

I really hate to step in here, but I feel I must and remind people that this is the Cable and IPTV forum, with TV being the operative part. There is a very successful Broadband forum elsewhere on Boards. Yes I know in these days of "triple play" that often these buying decisions are tied up together, but I don't want to step on the toes of the Broadband forum either.

The Cush

Liberty Global (Virgin Media) Q2 2016 numbers published today (in brackets, quarter on quarter +/-)
http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/press-release/LG-Earnings-Release-Q2-16-FINAL.pdf

Video Subscribers - 323,300 (-9,300)
--- Analogue Cable - 29,800 (-1,100)
--- Digital Cable - 293,500 (-8,200)
Internet - 364,200 (-3,500)
Telephone - 352,100 (-3,100)

Total Subscribers - 1,039,600 (-15,900)
Premises - 461,500 (-6,700)

Mobile Subscribers - 11,800 (+1,300)

L1011

Massive drops in TV subs continue as peoples price deals expire. Could see digital under a quarter of a mil in a year now Setanta is gone.

I was one of those 3,500 who left during Q1.

The Netflix problems kicked things off and encouraged me to research VM's routing and peering. And I found it to be awful. I decided that I'd rather have a slower raw speed and better performance in the backend, so I moved to an Eir VDSL connection. I was lucky in that I was able to get the full 100Mb from the cab and I'm much happier with that 100Mb connection than I was with Virgin's 360. Router performance didn't come into it since I'm using my own router anyway; the ISP CPE was always just bridged.

JTMan

What a disastrous set of results in Ireland for Liberty Global.

- The trend continues with TV subs on a downward curve. The speed of the decline is accelerating.
- Analogue cable takes another step towards the grave.
- Internet continues on a new-ish downward curve. Worrying when this is their core future focused product.
- Telephone heading downwards with internet as VM have finished force bundling 95% of their broadband customers with telephone.
- Tiny mobile subs but early days.

Why the declines? My thoughts ...
- Cord cutting, Netflix etc.
- People going with FTA satellite and Saoirview.
- People moving to Sky.
- More competition from Vodafone, Eir etc.
- People leaving VM after price increases.
- Force bundling landlines etc that nobody wants.
- Some VM service issues such as the now resolved Netflix issues.
- Price increases.

irishguy1983

Left VM myself - wifi was poor (I'm based in very central location in city) and over all I thought it was very expensive. I know plenty who have left VM.

I moved to EIR which is very cheap - I've lost a few things but overall I'm happy. WIFI is outstanding and whilst TV service it no where near as good as Sky I knew that going in and I pay a cheap price.

7upfree

The Cush wrote: »

Liberty Global (Virgin Media) Q2 2016 numbers published today (in brackets, quarter on quarter +/-)
http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/press-release/LG-Earnings-Release-Q2-16-FINAL.pdf

Video Subscribers - 323,300 (-9,300)
--- Analogue Cable - 29,800 (-1,100)
--- Digital Cable - 293,500 (-8,200)
Internet - 364,200 (-3,500)
Telephone - 352,100 (-3,100)

Total Subscribers - 1,039,600 (-15,900)
Premises - 461,500 (-6,700)

Mobile Subscribers - 11,800 (+1,300)

Do Eircom ever release details like this I wonder?

7upfree

JTMan wrote: »

What a disastrous set of results in Ireland for Liberty Global.

- The trend continues with TV subs on a downward curve. The speed of the decline is accelerating.
- Analogue cable takes another step towards the grave.
- Internet continues on a new-ish downward curve. Worrying when this is their core future focused product.
- Telephone heading downwards with internet as VM have finished force bundling 95% of their broadband customers with telephone.
- Tiny mobile subs but early days.

Why the declines? My thoughts ...
- Cord cutting, Netflix etc.
- People going with FTA satellite and Saoirview.
- People moving to Sky.
- More competition from Vodafone, Eir etc.
- People leaving VM after price increases.
- Force bundling landlines etc that nobody wants.
- Some VM service issues such as the now resolved Netflix issues.
- Price increases.

You mentioned price increases twice there. Interestingly, it looks like TV from EVERY provider will decline as the proliferation of streaming services increases.

This is inevitable. It is technology progressing. But what Liberty seem unable to understand is that if you keep incessantly raising prices then people will leave.

This is also inevitable.

There is a younger generation coming up now who will not subscribe as their ancestors did. TV as we know it is in a terminal decline. It is only a matter of time.

scamalert

nothing new with stats really just shows people coping on -that paying for cable service is waste of cash,netflix other streams same a lot of material that nowadays its easier to get it online then wait until someone decides to release different shows movies in diff countries which averages 6-12months on average,landline phone service - dunno old people and businesses that would use it,so seems natural progression towards mobile be it vm,tesco,three or any other.

Other user mentioning switching due to wifi,which given at least 10 variables from router to network cards,distance,interference its not VMs end to be responsible for,and even with best gear youll hardly get advertised speeds,since cable connection is shared,thus means if any users are hogging hard on same line youll see massive variables in speed,even on cable.

As for price increase anyone who did little work mostly got similar prices once getting to promotional team,where you can go forth and back to get decent price.

That said i was annoyed one too many times with VM on different issues,but eventually id rather stay with company that keeps improving services,even thou theres plenty to choose but dont see any need to take steps back when technology is moving forward.

bk

One thing to keep in mind, Virgin Media Ireland actually increased their revenue and profitability, despite the decrease in customer numbers! This is because of the price increase. Yes the price increases caused people to leave, but most people stayed, and the extra these customers paid, made up from the lost revenue from those that left.

Seemingly this was a Liberty Global decision and they had similar price increases all across Europe. Perhaps gearing up to buy Vodafone.

Of course they need to be careful going forward not to become too uncompetitive and lose too many customers or this maths could reverse.

Luckily for them Eir wholesale (OpenEir) are also looking to increase their broadband prices significantly and this will have a knock on effect with Eir, Sky, Vodafone, etc. all increasing broadband prices and thus closing the price gap.

On the whole not good news for consumers.

icdg

I would expect a significant drop from Eir Sport subscribers moving to other platforms in the next set of results. If we take Virgin's statement that there were 30,000 Setanta Plus Pack subscribers I'd expect the vast majority to leave. There's also going to be a (much) smaller number of people who will leave because there's now no way to watch the entire Formula One season on the platform.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

They'll lose quite a number of UFC fans too I would imagine.

icdg

Yeah, but I was counting them in the 30,000 Setanta Plus subscribers who I expect nearly all of to move.

I singled out Formula One on the other hand because it was available on the Eir Sport 1 (Setanta Ireland) channel available to basic service customers, and one of the few significant rights left on that channel (although they will have only two more seasons of it after this one before the rights move to Sky. Of Eir Sport's other rights, the other ones which might affect basic (as opposed to premium) subscribers would be the GAA Allianz League, which they have one season of left, but it's such a short competition that I don't ultimately think people would move over. (But watch and see if Eir gain any championship rights in the forthcoming auction). There's also the rugby World Cup, but that's three years away and nobody will be moving over that just yet.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

They also covered Cork City and Dundalk in European action this past week, and they do Irish soccer friendlies, but these are one off type games that surely aren't enough to drive subscriptions in any meaningful way.

I would have to assume that the vast majority of subscribers are there because of BT Sports content and not Setanta/Eirs offering.

Radio Gold

The Champions league live games not shown live on TV3 / RTE2 might cause a drop in numbers but all CL games are shown as highlights straight after the live game on TV3 / RTE2

icdg

If Dundalk do the seemingly impossible and qualify for the group stages of the Champions League that may have an effect, as RTE and TV3 would be required (as they have done with the play off round) to pick all of Dundalk's fixtures at the expense of any perhaps more lucrative ties that may occur.

7upfree

Also worth bearing in mind that Setanta lost 105 on Virgin. 300,000 viewers. Gone. Surely an impact on ad revenue?

The Cush

Liberty Global (Virgin Media) Q3 2016 numbers published today (in brackets, quarter on quarter +/-)
http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/press-release/LG-Earnings-Release-Q3-16-FINAL.pdf

Video Subscribers - 312,200 (-11,100)
--- Analogue Cable - 28,700 (-1,100)
--- Digital Cable - 283,500 (-10,000)
Internet - 363,800 (-400)
Telephone - 352,200 (+100)

Total Subscribers - 1,028,200 (-11,400)
Premises - 457,700 (-3,800)

Mobile Subscribers - 13,600 (+1,800)

JTMan

Wow. The decline in television subscriptions is accelerating rapidly. The figures are stark. Cord cutting is growing as people are not willing to pay for TV bundles anymore.

jack presley

JTMan wrote: »

Wow. The decline in television subscriptions is accelerating rapidly. The figures are stark. Cord cutting is growing as people are not willing to pay for TV bundles anymore.

The outcome of the Eir/BT Sports issue I suppose.

JTMan

That would be one aspect. However, the decline has being evident for a while now. The bigger long term cause is people no longer willing to pay for TV bundles. All LG locations, except the UK, suffered a decline in TV subs.

beauf

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/sky-profits-climb-12-but-customer-churn-increases-1.2737481

I know quite a few people who got rid of UPC TV, kept the bb and got the tv from sky. Mainly because they didn't like the horizon box. Hard to know if that has an effect on the UPC numbers.

Kensington

I don't think it can be attributed to cord cutting, after all:
- Sky's subscriber numbers are higher than ever before and continue increasing
- Eir TV has grown to 45,000+ subscribers in 3 years
- Vodafone TV don't have publicly released subscriber numbers but by all accounts demand is strong

The only ones losing numbers are Virgin Media.

beauf

I think UPC is see as a cheaper alternative to Sky so people will put up with a box that not as good as the Sky box. But when it gets expensive and still isn't a great box, then other options become more attractive. So there are probably a number of factors at play.

JTMan

Exactly, there are a number of factors at play. One of those factors is cord cutting. One just has to take a look at the Android or HTPC forums to see how popular Android TV boxes are. This is having a knock on effect on TV subs.

Szero

When you look at this year-on-year things become far more stark.

TV subscriptions were 375,600 a year ago. TV subscriptions are now 312,200. Massive massive drop. Virgin are loosing TV customers hand over fist.

Regarding the reasons:
- Let's not forget about price. Virgin have hiked prices several times in recent years. This has a direct effect on customer numbers.
- New competition from Vodafone.
- New-ish competition from Eir.
- Competition from online TV providers like NetFlix.
- A better TV experience offered by Sky.
- Growing popularity of free-to-air.
- Piracy from Android boxes.
- Young people no longer caring about TV bundles.
- Problems with Horizon boxes.
- Debacle with Setanta Sports.
- Legacy technology wind downs and closures. Analogue and MMDS.
- Virgin focusing marketing on broadband over TV.
- Global cord-cutting trend as people rebel against TV bundles full of crap.

A tidal wave change is coming to cable. TV bundles seem to be on a terminal decline curve.

Delta2113

JTMan wrote: »

Exactly, there are a number of factors at play. One of those factors is cord cutting. One just has to take a look at the Android or HTPC forums to see how popular Android TV boxes are. This is having a knock on effect on TV subs.

- Ironically without the Android TV boxes the numbers could be even higher.