Virgin Media 70, 150 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

http://store.virginmedia.com/special...d-upgrade.html

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2015/09/12.jpg
Launching this autumn, we’re giving you even faster, even better broadband.

Today you have the fastest widely available fibre optic broadband, that’s 2 x faster than Sky Fibre and BT Infinity. But we’re not stopping there, because we’re going to be increasing your broadband speeds once again. So you can do even more of the things you love doing, whether that’s more shopping, sharing, movie watching, or meeting. It’s all thanks to our Docsis 3 technology, the magic in our cables.

Do more with even faster broadband

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLgSTbeslsY

T&C
We will start the upgrade programme on 1 October which will offer a free upgrade to our base. This will roll out to 90% by the end of 2015 and the remaining will be completed in early 2016. As an area of the network is upgraded we will write to all of our customers in that area letting them know that their upgrade is ready and all they need to do to accept the upgrade is log on to their account online to confirm and we will then increase their speed. By writing to them we are not forcing the upgrade upon them and if they want to stay as they are they can. If they decide not to take it at that time then the customer is able to log into their online account to take the upgrade at any time before the program is completed in 2016.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

And the upload speeds?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Glad I downgraded to 100mb now, price was much better. Could do with upload speeds though, in the middle of a crashplan initial backup and its taking its sweet time.

The speed at which they claim to be able to upgrade everyone is much, much better though. Well done

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Upload back to the 10/1 ratio ? https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2015/08/6.gif

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I doubt upload speeds are going to even double from what they are now.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Someone has to ask, and it may as well be me...

instead of doubling the speed from 50 Mbps to 100, why not give the option to stay at 50 and cut the charge in half ?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Because that's not as profitable :)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

And cost effective to do so. Broadband speeds becoming faster is due to the fact there is demand for faster speeds because there is content there to be had at a faster rate so staying in line with demand is a must for VM. If speed isn't a concern to you then there is always ADSL to turn to.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Why do you have to log in and accept the changes? Will this be classed as a new contract or acceptance of new t&cs?

Never had to do it before.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Makes me even more curious about the broadband trial now. With the speed bumps already announced I wonder what it could entail? Early access to test for issues? New modem + bump? Can't wait for the next email. Hopefully this and the network upgrades might solve our utilisation issues. If not I'll be offski. No point doubling our headline speed if the TV stays off 12 hours a day and the broadband is up and down like nobody's business.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

No new contract. VM done the same or pretty similar with previous upgrades. Its part of engagement with customers which there will be a lot more of as this rolls out.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

A price increase will probably follow the upgrade.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I doubt the 300mbit is going to apply to existing modems, so my relatively educated guess is the trial is a new Superhub, one that probably is capable of 16 Downstream channels with 12 being active for the initial rollout. There may be other features on the hub such as VOIP, but I have no doubt in my mind that the trial is for a new hub and the hub is required for 300Mbit.

I think 200Mbit will be the highest the SH1/SH2 will go on Virgin's network, at least officially.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

i do hope it is a new hub, although i am only on 100mbit atm and no intention of paying for more speed as i think it is only willy waving now.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Yeah that's what I thought. Fingers crossed for some improvements. Only one way to find out. :D

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

It could just be a coincidence that this upgrade news comes out on the same day as some of the people find out that they have been chosen to trial a new piece of hardware... Maybe not?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

The fact that Virgin's slowest speed is 25% faster than BT's and Sky's top speeds is an impressive figure and one that I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of in the future... unless Openreach can quickly do something similar?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Well I'm gonna get full benefit then I wonder when I'm gonna get my new modem

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Current Package: 50Mbps [3Mbps Upload]
New Speed: 100Mbps (6Mbps Upload)

Current Package: 100Mbps [6Mbps Upload]
New Speed: 200Mbps (9Mbps Upload)

Current Package: 152Mbps [12Mbps Upload]
New Speed: 300Mbps (15Mbps Upload)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

5,10,15 too boring?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Source?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Virgin Media still traffic management on upload, 6, 9 and 15 from October

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

taking 1 meg from the lower tier and putting it on the middle tier isn't going to kill the network is it?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

This information is incorrect the Upload information will be given around october time.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Don't you know Telford is secretly the CEO of Virgin Media, I am welcoming and extra 100mb on my download speed

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

His rear end.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Am I correct to say that SB2ac can be maxed out @450Mbits/sec?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Oh i know he lives under a bridge. ;)

---------- Post added at 09:49 ---------- Previous post was at 09:48 ----------

Probably, that is why i asked for a link. ;)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

As I understand it 6 / 12 / 16-20 is more likely.

---------- Post added at 09:51 ---------- Previous post was at 09:50 ----------

You can get 400Mb/s of useful throughput out of it but it's not advisable to go beyond 200Mb. If someone is on 300Mb and locked to 8 channels they will be eating, in full, 6 of them, leaving 100Mb for everyone else on that 8.

Makes the statistical contention get messy.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

no wrong, it will be 6, 9, and 15

---------- Post added at 09:54 ---------- Previous post was at 09:53 ----------

there isn't any source yet until october

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Who should we believe - a Networks expert with a long history of accurately predicting stuff, or a sub-bridge dweller.

Tricky one........

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Exactly so stop spreading crap and go back under your bridge.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

So what do you guys think about the time frame of around 6 months to do the full upgrade ? Yes / No

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Interesting. Wonder why they tested 200/12 and 300/16 in the field earlier this year. :confused:

---------- Post added at 10:16 ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 ----------

Yes.

I could tell you why but then I'd have to kill you and the train fare there on East Coast and Virgin is nasty.

:sniper:

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Sure looks like 16 to me..

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/6...e-spotted.html

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Am happy with just yes put your sniper away :Sprint:

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

200/12 and 300/16 is rather poor upload

should be like this:

100/10
200/20
300/30

but you all gonna to end up like this:

100/6
200/9
300/15

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Incidentally to be fair to Mr Telford the upstream on the top tier is a bit up in the air last I heard.

The other two are pretty set in stone, 100/6 and 200/12.

Much on the 300Mb depends on how deployment of extra upstreams goes. The trial had a higher data rate than 15Mb but would probably be sold as 15Mb, it was however done on just 2 bonded upstreams while active work is going on both to increase upstreams to 64QAM and to bond 3 or 4.

We'll see. 300Mb/20Mb would be ideal and is definitely an aspiration if possible, but it might not be, at least not everywhere.

---------- Post added at 10:50 ---------- Previous post was at 10:43 ----------

I don't do snipers. You'd be amazed how hard it is to get planning permission for an intermediate range missile silo in the back garden. Not impossible mind you.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

VM ahead of BT plans then and happy to receive my increase from 50 to 100MB download.

I know BT are asking internal staff for triallists internally for their ultrafast BB using G.fast (300MB+) at 2 locations. But that sounds start of trials so 12 months behind VM?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

BT G.fast won't be rolled out until 2016/17 and it take up to 10 years to completed. So, G.fast will be completed 100% by 2026/7

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

If I was a betting man, I'd bet that Virgin is relying on being able to be at least 2x what BT can do. So while they're rolling out 300Mbit now, it's in anticipation of G.fast rollouts starting, so that in 12-18months time, 300Mbit can turn to 600Mbit and beyond.

Of course, there's a convergence then, as DOCSIS 3.1 should be getting trailed and rolled out around then.

It's not a bad little arms race to be on the sidelines of :)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Indeed :)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I think I've already gone on record as saying that VM could, if they chose, be at 600Mb by 2016.

If the commercial need is there they can do it without the costs being too extortionate.

BT's G.fast will be distance limited just as other xDSL technologies are, and will need new fibre installs deeper into the Openreach network. It will not be a competitive consideration for VM for a while, just as Openreach FTTP isn't right now, as it only covers about 200,000 properties in the country.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I was wondering how much it will be cost 300Mbps broadband between BT and VM.

VM 300/15 £52 a month (?)**
BT G.fast 300/30 £29 a month (?)**

** cost without line rental

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

The G.fast test is being done at 330/30-50. No-one really knows how the pricing will be, it's very early days yet and BT Wholesale have a new backhaul product to produce to carry it in addition to the new Openreach products.

VM's 300Mb service isn't going to cost £52 + line rental.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

It's always nice to have BT G.fast 330/30-50 and VM 300/15 to be bonding together to get around 630/45-65 :)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Will it be a free or chargeable upgrade?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

You quoted the answer!

"We will start the upgrade programme on 1 October which will offer a free upgrade to our base."

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I was going to say that :(

---------- Post added at 15:24 ---------- Previous post was at 15:21 ----------

I thought Superhubs were designed for indoor use only, why on earth are they installing them in fields?

---------- Post added at 15:25 ---------- Previous post was at 15:24 ----------

Not even electronically enhanced snipers running Linux with night-vision auto-aim?

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/...he-real-world/

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Opps :erm:

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Ken you'll be charged a special fee ;)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

It looks like I'll be taking a dose of my own medicine soon then. I'll be pushing my Linksys E3000 on the wan to lan throughput so it is time to start hunting for a replacement and invest in a quality ac router.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Do we get to keep the equipment after the trial ? (depending what the trial is ofc, since no one knows yet.)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Yes.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Historically, yes.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I take it from this article that the Virgin Media WiFi network, partly based upon using customer's superhubs to create hotspots, is connected to the speed upgrade, i.e. In exchange for using your SH to create public hotspots you get a free speed upgrade.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...expansion.html


EDIT:- BTW I got a letter yesterday giving notice of network upgrades in my area and of temporary outages. I'm assuming that this is partof the speed up grade and maybe also that VM is converting all the street boxes to WiFi hotspots too.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12...ming-your.html

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

From The Telegraph link above..

NO! VM should not do that. It will just scare the customer!! VM have to outright push the wifi hotspots on its own.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

BT Fon already do this, and have done so for a number of years.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Its BS anyway! The VM email states clearly..

The Telegraph need a kicking or whoever has fed incorrect information!

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Given your desperation to save a few quid on Virgin Media services as you happily tolerate crap speeds from Plusnet in return for a big discount it's fair to say you aren't the right person to look to for beta testing of BT's G.fast products.

G.fast is a way from production yet, sadly. Longer term Openreach have bugger all to compete with Virgin Media as they made the wrong bet. They hoped they could spend the bare minimum on FTTC and collect the plaudits for delivering 'fibre optic broadband' and it's looking increasingly like they were wrong. Virgin Media can deliver 600Mb without breaking a sweat, Openreach can't deliver 500Mb to me without further investment in deeper fibre.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Problem is that these days it's the WiFi itself and not the WAN connection that's the bottleneck. When you are sharing the WiFi then other users will affect your connection even if there's dedicated bandwidth upstream of the router.

---------- Post added at 00:59 ---------- Previous post was at 00:58 ----------

Last I heard VM had no plans to deliver anything to you, has that changed?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

That's really funny, I still haven't received my free automatic upgrade from the last time around, that slipped nearly 9 months anyway...

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

We can see now, why Virgin put their prices up twice this year... :P

Question for a non-cable-tech, do you need DOCSIS 3.1 in your area before you can get 300 up from 152 or is this speed capable from the current infrastructure?

Was very surprised they are upgrading so early but might have been doing lots of work in the background. Lat time it was months before the actual roll-out stared. Don't get me wrong though, all for it!!

On a side note: I am definitely a Virgin Fanboy

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Are you sure about that? What are you on and what are you supposed to be on?

---------- Post added at 08:28 ---------- Previous post was at 08:27 ----------

You don't need DOCSIS3.1, but you will likely need a new superhub.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

[QUOTE=Kushan;35794296]Are you sure about that? What are you on and what are you supposed to be on?[COLOR="Silver"]

I am on 60, which was supposed to be increased to 100, my area has been done - services checker says 152 is available - but it has never been lifted.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

[QUOTE=OhReally;35794301]Really? What does your modem configuration screen say? I'm surprised there's still areas left.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

That may well be so, but in practical terms very few of us in residential streets are going to have enough people using our hotspot for long enough and heavily enough for us to notice. To log on to your spot they are going to need to be using Virgin Mobile and sharing their own Virgin hotspot anyway. My neighbour on VM will not be using my hotspot because he has his own. So, it has to be down to passers-by.

As I said elsewhere ( http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12...ming-your.html ) only two people have logged on to my pure FON hotspot in the last 10 years even though there are 100s of thousands of people sharing their BT Fon hotspots to give them the right to roam. I tested my FON spot only yesterday and it gave me 10Mb download in the street and 8Mb upload, so it is worth using. ( I got similar figures of my ASUS router connected to my SH. ) Mostly what will happen is as people pass my house their device will automatically log on to my hotspot and then log off again as they move on. Just maybe they will notice and stop to make a call or have a quick browse., but seeing as how they can go stand by one of our two street boxes dishing out 300Mb then why bother standing outside my house getting perhaps 20Mb from my 300Mb connection?

The main thrust, and usage, of the VM WiFi network will be in public place like stations and quite possibly around street boxes.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

In the trial so will probably be getting the new hardware to test on.

Thanks for the quick reply.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Nope, not so. It's either a virgin mobile customer OR Sharing their hotspot. And this assumes Virgin won't try to sell access to their wifi deployment as well (like "the cloud").

You are right though, I don't think many people are going to notice or care. Virgin's implementation should be more solid than BT's equivalent and I don't think many people care there.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

[QUOTE=Kushan;35794302]60 down / 3 up

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Oh wow. Well, hopefully you'll jump to 200Mbit soon, then!

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Yes, Kush you are right about not having to be a VM mobile customer to access VM Hotspots. Sorry.

Edit . I do use BT Fon, but not that much. The signal is not good enough mostly. I park outside a BT Fon hotspot on the school run waiting for my kids and barely get enough bandwidth to stream or browse, let alone download.

On another subject, I find it interesting that people are talking about needing a different, superdooper, superhub to handle 300Mb. People here, who say they are on the trial, are expecting a new SH to test 300mb, yet we are only 6 or 7 weeks from the beginning of the roll out! Surely, with the announcement, these particular trials will be tailing off, and VM must have thousands of new trialled superhubs stashed away ready to go. I know that the science indicates a new SH, but I do wonder.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

The hardware is probably ready, but the software is likely what's really being tested. I don't think the "new" Superhub is going to be a totally new device, it's going to be a device that's already used by other ISP's.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

...but re branded of course.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I wonder if this also includes congestion fixes in any given area too.. I'd like to think they'd roll them into one and kill both birds with one painful stone..

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Presumably at 100Mb my ol faithful DIR-615 will need to be replaced, wonder if there's something suitable in a similar footprint.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Yep, I'm technically on the 152 atm, but I dont get that as both my DIR-615 and Dual WAN routers only have 100 Mbit ports.

Its not a major concern to me atm as I'm on the tier more for the upload rather than the download, but when it eventually switches to 300/16 I'll probably look at a new router with Gbit ports.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Both my PC & Android box have Gigabit ethernet, I just used the 615 primarily because at the time it was cheap and the wi-fi was a degree of magnitude better than my shub1 (Which I've still got incidentally)
Maybe upon upgrade whenever that'll be, I'll get a shub3 or whatever is around then, and the wi-fi will be better anyway.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

SH1 since when? Have VM not offered an upgrade of some sort since then?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Guess not, I had a shub1 when they first came out, I've been on the lowest tariff since then & no ones tried to swap it out for anything.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Surprised that nobody's mentioned that in many areas (including mine) 50mb tier customers have had several weeks at 100mb, presumably as a test run for this.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Some others have been on 200Mbps+, it has been mentioned

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

the new shub had better have modem mode

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I don't think VM dare remove that option. So many of us have invested tidy amounts into our own routers to give us router features that no version of SH ever will.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

BT, sky etc really need to start advertising their better upload speeds. Even with a pointless 300mbits from virgin, it looks like a BT Infinity user will still have better upload speeds.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Very few customers in that enterprise for right now.

BT, Sky, etc, could try leaning harder on Openreach to provide more competitive technology and indicating a desire to pay for it, rather than in the case of Sky and especially TalkTalk complaining about the price Openreach charge them for FTTC.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Didn't one of the companies moaning at Ofcom to split off Openreach also say they would totally invest a lot of money into Openreach if it was separated?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Vodafone.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Which shows how silly the EU 5ghz channel range is.

Although more than 8 channels are available, lots of vendors are locking them off as they dont want to implement complex restrictions on the radar channels.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

I think you're talking about two different things?

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

yeah.

Of course delivering access speed and throughput are two different things, I have no trust in VM to have the right capacity in my local area.

For me personally FTTC has been overall great, In reality 40mbit+ speeds are fine for my usage, and as such both g.fast and VM's upgrades dont excite me as its a decreasing rate of returns the higher you go. Higher speeds will of course excite those who have torrents going 24/7 for 4k content and as such the demand on backhaul will skyrocket and it will be a test for both BTw and VM if they can cope.

What I value is stable low latency and reliability during peak hours not just been fast at off peak.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

We will have to see if VM's network upgrades will delver that continuity of service geographically and throughout the typical day and week.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

if openreach was any good they wouldnt do half a job, only half my road has infinity and no chance of me getting it anytime soon i've no choice but to have vm for internet as bt cant even give me a decent speed

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

There's a certain sense of Irony in being able to get VM but not BT.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Not sure of the relevance of DOCSIS channels to the 5GHz WiFi band. :)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

It's been like that for ever here, when VM was 4Mb adsl was 512Kb here, even now I can't get above 16Mb with adsl but have 152Mb constantly with VM :)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Same here dude, the most i can get through openreach is 53/16 whereas on VM i pretty much always get 152/12 (recently significantly more)

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Why is it though both BT and Virgin only do part of some roads and not others?.

My friend lives on a street where only the opposite side of the road can get Virgin.

re: Virgin Media 70, 100 & 200 Mb Upgrades
 

Because at some point, someone calculated what it would cost to cable the other side of the street and deemed it wasn't a good investment. I'm sure there's some reason why the opposite side of the street would have been marginally more expensive - perhaps capacity was hit in that area, or some kind of landmark prevents a straight run. Green boxes can only accommodate so many connections (40 or something?), maybe they hit their limit and it wasn't worth the cost of building another?