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Is Virgin Media experimenting with bit rates?

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  • 18-08-2022 3:33pm
    #1
    metzomagic
    Registered Users Posts: 6 ✭


    I'm a Virgin Media broadband customer located in the middle of Swords, so we have fiber to the house. My subscription is for 256mbps, but in the past few months I've noticed that on occasional days I get 255+mbps over wireless in the 5GHZ band, measured using Ookla's on-line speed test. This should be technically impossible, as wireless is half duplex, so the max theoretical rate I would expect even in perfect conditions would be ~125mbps. In fact, I usually get 80 - 90mbps on the best days.

    When this happed today, I looked at the wireless connection properties on my year-old Dell Latitude work laptop (running Win 10) and was surprised to be informed that the line rate was 526mbps! That explains how I could get 255.26mbps over wireless in Speedtest.

    So, has anyone else noticed this? It doesn't happen every day AFAICT, only sporadically. I'm wondering if, since Virgin are now offering 1gbps, are they experimenting to see if they have the capacity to keep all their customers happy/thinking of auto-upgrading existing customers on 256mbps to 512mbps for free. Wishful thinking, I know.



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    #2
    KildareP
    Registered Users Posts: 1,476 ✭✭✭KildareP


    The connection properties on your laptop's network adapter is the link between it and the modem, it has nothing to do with the speed your modem is able to transfer to the internet at.

    Plug in a LAN cable between the laptop and the modem instead of WiFi and it'll report 1Gbps but you won't get 1Gbps unless that's the package you're paying for.



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    #3
    CoBo55
    Registered Users Posts: 8,994 ✭✭✭CoBo55


    I'm on the 500 meg package and get 490+ consistently over wireless on all devices that can use a 5ghz network. I think they might be dropping the 250 speed and just offering 500 and 1gig as the 250 and 500 are both the same price.



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    #4
    metzomagic
    Registered Users Posts: 6 ✭metzomagic



    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119489831#Comment_119489831

    Thanks. I would plug it straight into the router with an ethernet cable, but it would require borrowing a docking station from the office, and I'm semi-retired so not going to make a trip into Dublin just to satisfy my curiosity on this issue.

    So I suspect Virgin have, as CoBo55 alludes to above, just auto-upgraded me to 512mbps because it's the same price as 256mbps now. I was only getting it sporadically before, will have to see if it stays that way. Thanks for the quick answers, guys.



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    #5
    dam099
    Registered Users Posts: 1,096 ✭✭✭dam099


    I don't think half duplex works like you seem to describe i.e. halving the internet line rate.

    If your router has a WAN speed of 250Mbs (probably 260-270 as Virgin often overprovision slightly) then it should be possible to max that out even on WiFi if you have a router and device supporting a WiFi standard like WiFi5 (AC).

    My WAN rate on FTTH is 1Gbps (actually 940Mbps due to overhead) but I have pulled down 850Mbps+ over WiFi 6 (AX) close to the Access Point.



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