Just a quick follow up. I've now tried a whole bunch of different speed tests and I'm beginning to suspect that the OOKLA app is the dodgy one. 

Using my laptop, all agree that the speed squirting out of the patch cable is between 145 and 165 mbps. Using the telly, OOKLA says between 18 and 25, Netflix's own diagnostics is consistent at 33.5, and all the other web based tests (I tried 5 different ones) returned between 65 and 108. 

Netflix is looking at its own streaming servers and that's probably what its app is using. As all the other web based apps returned a far higher result than OOKLA I think that it (which is a beta in any case) is probably not playing nicely with WebOS and the television.

Bored now...

Well if you're getting 108 then it should handle high bitrate stuff fine enough. All depends on the server pushing at the other end!

Ookla annoys me. Don't know about other ISPs, but on virgin it always defaults to a speed test server hosted by VM at your local VM connection point thingy. That's great for telling me the quality of my line, but doesn't give much insight to real speed.

If VM are hosting the server then a) no traffic is going on to the Internet, so it's not an Internet connection speed test anymore, and b) if VM are hosting the server, then they can traffic shape the transfer and ensure I get a top speed even when their network is congested and running like a pigs arse.

It did exactly the same when I tried it on WebOS (this was the beta non-flash version). In this case, the other servers gave similar results.

The VirginMedia way of working is strange and made worse by the hugely old-fashioned technology that makes up the majority of their consumer base. It's no wonder they fiddle their bandwidth figures, like Volkswagon whose cars run on fairy tears and emit honey and angel farts.

They have a unique client server model, that nobody who ever ran a client server setup was ever stupid enough to imagine - except them. 10% of their cable network is reserved for things like iPlayer, catch up. Netflix etc. Nothing wrong with that. The problem is they also stick ordinary interactions with the set-top boxes there. Press a menu button and your Tivo nips off onto the cable network alongside Netflix and Angry Birds to check what to do and get the next screen. Just about possible so far - except - they divide up that 10% in equal geographic chunks. The bad news is that if you have 50 people in your chunk playing Angry Birds and watching Netflix, it may take you 30 seconds just to get to the channel you've selected from the menu, that took you another 30 seconds to get to. And of course, they divide up broadband the exact same way. 

 

Ah, so that's why the tivo box is do slow? Sounds a bit daft.

When I switched back to virgin (about 18 months ago) there was huge network congestion issues, pretty much unusable at peak times. They did some upgrades and I've got to say it's been pretty flawless since. Can max out my 200mb line downloading steam games, xbox games etc. Wanted to play borderlands the other week, xbox said it needed a 4 gig update. By the time I'd made coffee and a sandwich it was ready to go.

I can't really complain about speeds either. No idea how busy the network is locally but when I moved in there wasn't any BT fibre, only about 4mbps ADSL so Virgin was the only reasonable option. If only the upload was better.

Getting the option of 1gbps synchronous soon :D

Cost? No chance of that near me. And I only bought the house because Virgin available. Some people thought I was stupid for not viewing houses with shit Internet, I refused to have any bathroom type issues!

Aye, I've been similarly benefitted by Virgin, internet access has always been reliable and fast. We downgraded to 50mb (from 100mb) a few months ago, the only thing I ever max out our connection with is Steam downloads and they're few and far between nowadays, but when I do I get the full download speed. We don't stream anything (yet), so the service is fine for what we use it for.

I've been looking into the Virgin V6 boxes which purports to do what Sky have been crowing about recently, recording on that device and stream to another (which will let me watch recorded shows on my PC). It does come with some caveats though:
 

My contract is up with virgin this month, considering ditching the telly entirely - but suspect that will cost more because of stupid pricing.

Also need to ring them about my other account (at mum's house, was easier to leave it in my name then change it!), currently paying 35 a month for 20mb broadband only. Their minimum package now is 34 quid for 50mb :@

Not sure yet, not cheap I'd guess.

It's these guys laying fibre, might be coming near you?

https://www.cityfibre.com/network/

I'm supposed to be getting a V6 box this afternoon - not convinced the engineer will turn up though as the ordering and delivery system is a bit fucked up at present. I ordered online last week and got an appointment for Monday with an email about the prices etc. Engineer never arrived and when I phoned to ask why, I was told there was no record of my ever placing an order. 

That's why I was looking at network speeds for the telly. They were prattling on about having the cable modem next to the V6 box, but since all my cables are tucked away under floors with hardwood on top, and my modem is in a different room with a couple of servers, it's not exactly easy to move around. Apparently all they need is a decent network link and I was able to thread an additional ethernet cable though and stick a gigabit switch on it - and so on and so on...

wtf?

Yup. I hate modern console games for that.

Got a new controller at Xmas, connected it up and the xbox immediate says "your controller needs an update...". Wtf! It's a Fucking controller! What are they doing with the update, adding more buttons?

Can they not do deltas?

Was the first time launching the game, so likely that it was actually downloading most of the game - not sure of the reasoning but when you install a game it normally doesn't install the game data until you launch the game itself. Like its Fucking surprised that you paid for a game and then wanted to play it.

Disvlaimer: I bought/installed the game for my birthday, last January. Got round to playing it in December

Ah, yeah that's plausible.

Curiously, the calendar app on my phone has a note of your birthday, but not my g/f of 35 years.

Do you need my address to post the present?

Actually, what date does it have? Can probably work out which service it was scraped from by the fake date.