Virgin Media offically "Throttling" users

Brodel · 3 May 2007 at 7:45PM

Broadband Size: M - 2mb
During peak times, the top 5% on the Size: M package download at least 350MB of traffic each.

Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till midnight) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed – their download speed will be set to 1Mb, with their upload speed set to 128Kb. This will last for 4 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.

Broadband Size: L (4mb)
During peak times, the top 5% on the Size: L package download at least 750MB of traffic each.

Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till midnight) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed – their download speed will be set to 2Mb, with their upload speed set to 192Kb. This will last for 4 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.

Broadband Size: XL (20mb - old 10mb)
During peak times, the top 5% on the Size: XL package download at least 3GB of traffic each.

Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till midnight) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed – their download speed will be set to 5Mb, with their upload speed set to 256Kb. This will last for 4 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

Whilst I don't agree with throttling, those on the 20mb service don't have it too bad. Those on the other speeds however, are really being stitched up in my opinion.

peter999 · 3 May 2007 at 9:43PM

Brodel wrote: »

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

Whilst I don't agree with throttling, those on the 20mb service don't have it too bad. Those on the other speeds however, are really being stitched up in my opinion.

This just means they have failed & the network/systems aren't up to the job.
You can't keep upgrading speeds without consequences if the hardware isn't upgraded or up to the job.

My area suffers from congestion in evenings, I get 300-600kb/s and am on 2Mb/s service.

Throttling users should help me, but it's a sign there are problems.
Maybe I'll get a straight answer from Virgin Media, instead of nonsense I got from NTL.

I will monitor performance of my service.

peter999

darwin-rover · 3 May 2007 at 11:27PM

Only really affects the BIG downloaders . Apparently 5% of users are responsible for 30% of downloads .
Still the only ISP to offer anything close to "Unlimited" downloads .
If you are a big downloader , just try to do it after 12 ?

peter999 · 4 May 2007 at 12:11AM

What surprises me is it's taken them this long to realise the following:

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

How do we know this will work?
We found that this small minority of customers were actually downloading or uploading enough information to significantly affect the service for other customers' broadband service. To put it another way, just 5% of customers were affecting the service for the other 95% during peak times (that's between 4pm and midnight).

What's more, we noticed that when we restricted the speed of the service for this 5 % of users, we had a positive response from customers (there were less calls into our technical support teams regarding problems with broadband performance). We also noticed that the broadband speed was faster for the vast majority of users.

Means there's been a lot of frustrated customers, who haven't been getting service they expected & probably not getting the truth when they complained.

peter999

mar7t1n · 4 May 2007 at 1:04PM

Why should everyone suffer just because some people want it all. Traffic management is hear to stay. It's like the roads. If you want to get there faster then you need a helecopter and that will cost ya!

If you want to download more than 350Gb a day (10Gb a month), 750Mb a day (22Gb a month) or 3Gb a day (a ridiculious 90 Gb a month). Then your affecting everyone else and should be stopped.

All the companies do it, just that some are more open about it than others. One company send the mob round and pull your wire out!

I don't get to 3Gb a month, I'm not sure how I would. Perhaps leave a webcam on 24hours a day or something? You can only possibly be downloading dodgy copys of movies to use 90Gb+ in a month surely?

banger9365 · 5 May 2007 at 1:13AM

it was long time in coming and it will benefit a lot off people which is good, I think the amount you can us in the peek time is a little low put you only lose haft your speed on the low packages in that time and for 4 hours put you still have 16 hours that you can hammer it,put how long for ??,
and the best thing is i work in peek time and only see it on my days off and may bee the last hour off peek :rotfl:

peter999 · 5 May 2007 at 1:31PM

It's good to see Virgin Media making an impact & taking control to provide a reliable service.

As certain areas need network hardware upgrade to support the speed increase to 20Mb, hopefully it should sort out congestion problem I experience in my area.

Broadband Size: XL speed increase
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/existingcustomers/q2/speed.html

"Please note that in a very small minority of areas, where the network has capacity restrictions, speeds of up to 16Mb may only be achievable. This network infrastructure will be upgraded, however a time for this upgrade has yet to be scheduled."

Where's my upgrade? -rollout plan
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/existingcustomers/faster/schedule.html

peter999

Saeed · 5 May 2007 at 2:59PM

This is looking really bad for us on low speeds. I am on 2mb at the minute so this means if I download and episode of Heroes which is 350mb usually, they will start to restrict my traffic. The only problem is I have VoIP which uses upto 100kbps up and down so if my up speed is lowered to 128kbps as stated by Virgin, my VoIP may cease to work. This happened to me last night, (even though I am not a big downloader, I only download about 2-4GB/month), my voip service would not ring for 5-30 seconds after the number would be dialled. Sometimes it would not dial even after this time. FOR ME THIS IS SERIOUS as I am hoping to get rid of the Virgin/Telewest phone line.

peter999 · 5 May 2007 at 3:35PM

Saeed wrote: »

This is looking really bad for us on low speeds. I am on 2mb at the minute so this means if I download and episode of Heroes which is 350mb usually, they will start to restrict my traffic. The only problem is I have VoIP which uses upto 100kbps up and down so if my up speed is lowered to 128kbps as stated by Virgin, my VoIP may cease to work. This happened to me last night, (even though I am not a big downloader, I only download about 2-4GB/month), my voip service would not ring for 5-30 seconds after the number would be dialled. Sometimes it would not dial even after this time. FOR ME THIS IS SERIOUS as I am hoping to get rid of the Virgin/Telewest phone line.

I think Virgin Media should forget about massive speed increases to 20+Mb/s and concentrate on providing a stable & reliable service for the majority of users.

The caps on the 2Mb service users may be too tight.

peter999

banger9365 · 5 May 2007 at 11:23PM

the thing that i do not like is that if you have not rang up and got your packages cheap and us it in peek only your paying for a lott for not so many GB's a month and dare i say it talk talk gives you more in GB's in peek .
i also think the speed upgrades should nnot happen until they sort the net work out with out the traffic management or a leased up the peek time limit at leaesed another 500mb's for the low ones ,i can see where there coming from has i am one off them poeple that are affected in peek with the low speeds before the trafic management came in and i do my downloading at late at night or early morrning after work

Alfie_E · 6 May 2007 at 12:40AM

When I read the Virgin Media text, the “last for 4 hours” immediately struck me. If you read it strictly, it implies, if you get restricted at one second to midnight, the restriction will last until 4am the following day. This agrees with other people’s interpretations, such as this independent FAQ.

The whole thing is disingenuous of Virgin Media, given how they stress the ‘unlimitedness’ of their broadband services. I expect this to suffering from creep. A succession of small changes where: the hours might be widened; the thresholds might be lowered; or, the degree of throttling might be increased.

I’m not likely to be much effected. But, should I choose to start downloading, say, a Linux ISO, at 11:30pm, rather than 12:00am, I don’t see why my connection should get crippled for up to four hours after midnight.

Virgin Media offically "Throttling" users

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