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Virgin media increase mobile broadband speeds to 7.2meg
Tuesday 01 December 2009 13:30:40 by John Hunt

Virgin Media have today announced that they're now offering 7.2Mbps mobile broadband services. The new products will introduce more competition in to the higher speed mobile market as most networks currently have 7.2Mbps products.

Virgin are rewarding their current customers who have TV, broadband or a landline telephone service by offering the products at a slightly lower cost. Packages are available on an 18month contract (which reduces the cost of the modem) or on a fixed 2-month contract which goes into a 1 month rolling contract. Full details are in the table below.

Contract	Data Limit	Monthly Cost	7.2Mbps USB Modem
18 Month (non-virgin)	1 GB	£10	£9.99
18 Month (non-virgin)	3 GB	£15	£9.99
1 Month (non-virgin)	1 GB	£10	£34.99
1 Month (non-virgin)	3 GB	£15	£34.99
18 Month (virgin)	1 GB	£8	£9.99
18 Month (virgin)	3 GB	£12	£9.99
1 Month (virgin)	1 GB	£8	£34.99
1 Month (virgin)	3 GB	£12	£34.99

Of course, speeds are, dependent on the distance from the cell tower and the number of users connecting at the same time. It's unclear in how many places the 7.2Mbps service will actually be available.

[ Topic: Mobile Broadband | 21 comments | link to this item ]

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Posted by JDPower 4 months ago
Have I missed your story on Virgin's 'Phorm' style tech rollout (CView) or have you missed reporting it?:

Privacy International, said: “This software works in the same way as Phorm and raises exactly the same privacy issues as Phorm did”

Posted by CARPETBURN 4 months ago
^^^ No it does not, it doesnt even identify IP address let alone other personal individual detail.

Posted by JDPower 4 months ago
Then how on earth can they identify individual P2Pers then which is the sole aim of the system?

Posted by GTEN 4 months ago
I find my Virgin bill has been increased by £3 per month without any official notice. Can they just do this?

Posted by keith969 4 months ago
This is just so much nonsense though. The chances of actually getting anything close to 7.2Mbps are remote... I recently got an Orange USB dongle based on their coverage map telling me there's be good 3G coverage where I am... there wasn't, I could only get GPRS at 30-40Kbps.

Posted by CARPETBURN 3 months ago
quote"Then how on earth can they identify individual P2Pers then which is the sole aim of the system? "

CView is to identify P2P traffic not the individuals.
It looks at traffic over the network and reports x% is http, p2p etc etc it doesnt identify IP addresses, the previous virgin/cview news story on this site explains what Virgin are using cview for perfectly.

Posted by JDPower 3 months ago
I did do a search of the site but found zero results and I don't remember seeing it reported here

Posted by CARPETBURN 3 months ago
^^^ See thread here...
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/general/f/3749574-new-technology-can-monitor-illegal-file-sharing.html?vc=1

Link to story here...
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/gchq-supplier-outlines-why-mandy-s-anti-piracy-plans-won-t-work-654339

DOES NOT identify the individual

Posted by acahopkins 3 months ago
"Virgin media increase mobile broadband speeds" - should that really be Virgin [i]Mobile[/i]? I have the service and it was arranged by Mobile, and they bill it.

Posted by Dawn_Falcon 3 months ago
No, Carpet, they're saying that their product won't match the legal requirements if the government legislates on the matter.

Posted by CARPETBURN 3 months ago
quote"No, Carpet, they're saying that their product won't match the legal requirements if the government legislates on the matter."

Nothing to do with what JDpower asked, the article clearly states...
"Virgin Media is using a Detica product called Cview to monitor its own web traffic, but Klein noted that Detica will not enable file sharers to be identified through CView."

As i said their system doesnt identify the individual, its nothing like phorm

Posted by JDPower 3 months ago
The point is it's the same technology and yes they may not be identifying individuals AS YET but any ISP wanting to launch a system like that would be stupid to jump in with both feet after the uproar over Phorm, which they all would have liked a piece of no doubt. It's only then a small step for them to justify identifying individual users to track down those oh so evil P2Pers.

Posted by JDPower 3 months ago
It may not sound like it but I'm not a tin hat wearer and never use P2P, just surprised it's not been reported here when it has everywhere else. It may not be a story on the scale of Phorm (and certainly not on the scale as the tin hatters at NoDPI) but it is still broadband news - the focus of this site.

Posted by CARPETBURN 3 months ago
Its not the same tech this is nothing more than packet inspection, phorm was something different entirely which monitored your individual use and displayed ads based on that use... Not to be rude but you dunno what you are talking about, search for phorm stories and compare to this totally different.

Posted by JDPower 3 months ago
So they're not both deep packet inspection methods for examining data content? I know the long term purpose of both is different, I never said otherwise, but the same potential privacy implications are there if further down the line Virgin decided to take the extra little step beyond aggregated data.

Posted by JDPower 3 months ago
And if you're going to be rude at least have the balls to just do it instead of prefacing it with a disclaimer.

Posted by CARPETBURN 3 months ago
I wasnt being rude, this is nothing like phorm, it doesnt impact upon your privacy in any way shape or form (pun intended) like phorm was going to, seriously id suggest to anyone to read what phorm was and then read what this is.

Ive already provided a link to show no individual is identified, this is nothing more than a system for the ISP to see which protocols are using the most bandwidth.

Posted by CARPETBURN 3 months ago
The most thats likely to come out of it is new restrictions on Virgins 50Mb service (probably only allowing certain traffic or amounts of that traffic to users at certain times).

I have no idea why you think this is anything like phorm, theres more than a single ISP that uses packet inspection. Be it to just see what protocols cause heavy traffic or to throttle stuff like p2p.

They cant take as you put it the next step, the system does not identify individuals or IP addresses, its nothing more than a system to analyse what the entire user base are doing most of all online.

Posted by CARPETBURN 3 months ago
Im not going to answer anymore, ive provided a link which explains directly what this is and what it is being used for, and clearly states "...will not enable file sharers to be identified"

I dunno why you keep thinking this is like phorm even with links to show its not, but continuing either makes you at best sound like you just dont like VM and a worst completely lost your marbles like conspiracy nutcases.

Posted by otester 3 months ago
@CB

It can provide details, the company just said they "promise" it won't.

However, even in the case of this being true, OFCOM can use DPI to monitor ISPs and take action based on levels of P2P (regardless of t he individual user).

Posted by CARPETBURN 3 months ago
The system does not monitor individuals use and even if it did as you point out that can already be done. Again this is nothing like phorm, phorm was a service which was going to deliver random material to your machine based on your habbits online, even if this monitored the individual it still would be nothing like phorm was going to be.