Virgin Media to dump neutrality and target BitTorrent users

[awesometeeth]

i was seriously looking at going back to virgin when i moved next year...

i wont bother now, this and STM is just a royal pain the bum. Not like i even use torrents much, but i do use it to share legal software and im not going to be told when i can do it.

just more restrictions which make virgin even less appealing and im so tired of them bringing in more and more rules as to how you can use your service.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Anyone that thinks residential broadband should be a gaurenteed level of service is living in cloud cuckoo land.

You're using the word guarantee, when I don't think many people are expecting guarantees of it always being 50Mb.
infact it's Virgin who are making it sounds as if it's guaranteed.

You can stream crystal clear HD video straight to your computer with virtually no buffering at all.

If there's virtually no buffering at the full 50Mb, is it going to be stuttering like mad at even half of 50Mb?

It's enough for everyone to share in the same house. download movies, stream TV shows, browse online and game online all at the same time and all at ultra fast speeds.

Everyone all at the same time.

Yes, those reasons are it's more reliable and faster than ADSL. No where when you sign up does it state you are gaurenteed any level of service.

No, they are not selling it as the expectations being that it is more reliable and faster than ADSL. they are selling it as what you can do with it.

If you are a heavy downloader you will NOT find an ISP that is happy to have you.

So why 50Mb if they don't want you if you are going to do everything they are telling you that you can do with it?
they don't want you to use it, they just want you to buy it.

[hokkers999]

Originally Posted by broadbandking

I am right in thinking utorrent passes the throttling? with the encyption option enabled?

I use uTorrent in encrypted mode, I also route all that traffic through an encrypted vpn to somewhere in Switzerland.

At that point it is only "traffic" and there is *zero* way to tell what it is.

www.swissvpn.net

---------- Post added at 21:10 ---------- Previous post was at 21:06 ----------

Originally Posted by Hom3r

ISPs can easily find out who is accessing dodgy torrent sites, so be afraid.

leagal torrents you will be OK.

Not if you pass it through an encrypted VPN first

[Nilrem]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Luckily we're nowhere near as stupid as Americans, and the first debate on net neutrality in this country was summed up by saying it is "an answer to problems we don't have, using a philosophy we don't share".

There are EU regulations which specifically allow ISPs to prioritise traffic based on application, so don't hold your breath waiting for a similar ruling on it being illegal here.

Net neutrality is essentially an American created issue with no real world viability. It's dangerous to the sustainability of the internet and is essentially about Amerians beating their chests and going "ZOMG FREEDOM" rather than any usability issues. Every single usability issue for the internet (and any network) points well away from a neutral network and instead towards QoS that targets and prioritises latency dependant traffic at the expense of other traffic.

Or to put it another way, my voice call and online gaming trump's timmy's need to download another copy of the latest Batman movie

As someone who both plays games, and uses p2p from time to time, i've no problem with any isp taking measures to prevent the heavy p2p guys from affecting my gaming/browsing, as long as they don't use quite the stupid system comcast used (which iirc basically kept reseting all p2p torrent uploads).

[sk8er_boi6000]

No offence, but what gives you the right to assume that your demand for gaming bandwidth is more important than someone else's right to use their bandwidth for P2P applications? The use of a P2P application doesn't automatically imply pircay or legal activity. The arrogance of people these days who assume they have the moral high ground because they don't use torrent applications is both immensly annoying and moronic in the extreme.

I have personally used torrent applications for legal means, both for distribution and download, do I deserve to have my usage automatically throttled just because the type of bandwidth usage I am employing is considered unfavourable by others?

Also, even if I where to use a torrent for an illegal means, so freakin what. I am getting sick of internet smart alecs who seem to think it is their god given right to be judge, jury, and executioner to everyone who has ever pirated something.

Virgin are doing this for one reason, and one reason only. To be tight and save themselves from upgrading their network, and if this plan does come to fruition I will be ditching my services pronto.

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by sk8er_boi6000

No offence, but what gives you the right to assume that your demand for gaming bandwidth is more important than someone else's right to use their bandwidth for P2P applications? The use of a P2P application doesn't automatically imply pircay or legal activity. The arrogance of people these days who assume they have the moral high ground because they don't use torrent applications is both immensly annoying and moronic in the extreme.

Oh, I dunno, maybe something to do with the small matter of gaming traffic being extremely time sensitive and latency being pretty damn important with it?

Your p2p traffic can wait, it doesn't matter if it has a trip time of 500ms, with gaming traffic it does.

Feel free to ditch your service. You'll struggle to find an ISP that doesn't traffic shape and has no intention of doing so, especially as more and more people start using bandwidth heavy applications.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by sk8er_boi6000

Also, even if I where to use a torrent for an illegal means, so freakin what. I am getting sick of internet smart alecs who seem to think it is their god given right to be judge, jury, and executioner to everyone who has ever pirated something.

Virgin are doing this for one reason, and one reason only. To be tight and save themselves from upgrading their network, and if this plan does come to fruition I will be ditching my services pronto.

As I read elsewhere

The internet is far bigger than Virginmedia, and if they are so stupid
as to target their own customers and risk losing the revenue

you have to think that if they are jumping on P2P, then is P2P the main thing that is costing them money? if it is then they aren't going to make any money if you tell these people that they have to go and pay another ISP because we don't want your money.

---------- Post added at 22:16 ---------- Previous post was at 22:13 ----------

Originally Posted by TheDon

Feel free to ditch your service. You'll struggle to find an ISP that doesn't traffic shape and has no intention of doing so,

Scaremongering?

especially as more and more people start using bandwidth heavy applications.

Virgins worst nightmare that.

[sk8er_boi6000]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Oh, I dunno, maybe something to do with the small matter of gaming traffic being extremely time sensitive and latency being pretty damn important with it?

Your p2p traffic can wait, it doesn't matter if it has a trip time of 500ms, with gaming traffic it does.

Feel free to ditch your service. You'll struggle to find an ISP that doesn't traffic shape and has no intention of doing so, especially as more and more people start using bandwidth heavy applications.

Latency is not affected by the amount of traffic generated by other users, it is affected by your distance from the machine that you are in contact with. STM is not going to improve that situation, if a machine is 500 miles away from you it will still be 500 miles away when Virgin throttle my connection. The only possible way for bandwidth usage to slow down your gaming would be if everyone on an exchange hammered it at exactly the same time, which is extremely unlikely to happen.

Irregardless, I am paying the same for my connection as any other customer, therefore the reason for your bandwidth use does not give you right of way.

Also, you are wrong, o2 and BE still don't cap their connections yet.

[n0c0ntr0l]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Oh, I dunno, maybe something to do with the small matter of gaming traffic being extremely time sensitive and latency being pretty damn important with it?

Your p2p traffic can wait, it doesn't matter if it has a trip time of 500ms, with gaming traffic it does.

Feel free to ditch your service. You'll struggle to find an ISP that doesn't traffic shape and has no intention of doing so, especially as more and more people start using bandwidth heavy applications.

I found one, they are known as Be* there and the difference between them and virgin 20Mb is the difference between the moon and the sun, I should know, I've had the two... Be have been perfect been seeing torrent speeds at peak time of well over 1MB/s and they have all the O2 customers on their line as well.

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by sk8er_boi6000

Latency is not affected by the amount of traffic generated by other users, it is affected by your distance from the machine that you are in contact with. STM is not going to improve that situation, if a machine is 500 miles away from you it will still be 500 miles away when Virgin throttle my connection. The only possible way for bandwidth usage to slow down your gaming would be if everyone on an exchange hammered it at exactly the same time, which is extremely unlikely to happen.

Irregardless, I am paying the same for my connection as any other customer, therefore the reason for your bandwidth use does not give you right of way.

Also, you are wrong, o2 and BE still don't cap their connections yet.

Latency is effected by network congestion, if traffic shapping is slowing down your p2p downloads the network IS congested, that's how traffic shaping works, it's not an artificial cap on how much bandwidth it can use.

They key word there is yet. Once the average user is using more bandwidth than they are paying for they will. It's simple economics. The very idea of unlimited broadband is fundamentally flawed and only works whilst average usage is lower than the cost to provide that usage. I've already posted links that show an ISPs external transit costs alone equate to £20 per Mb/s per month, it's just not viable to offer unlimited services that have high levels of utilisation at prices that the consumer will pay.

BTW, thanks for the negative rep, I love spending time explaining real world issues to people only to be called arrogant. Maybe you'd care to find some links that contradict any of my points?

Originally Posted by Gary L

Virgins worst nightmare that.

Not really.

It's only bad when it's consistant traffic and not burst traffic. P2P is so bad because it's consistantly heavy upstream bandwidth, the burst traffic from the downloads isn't really THAT bad, its getss the upload saturated by torrent traffic that hurts.

Virgin are best placed to deal with higher bandwidth applications, as long as those applications don't abuse the upstream as much as bittorrent does.

[Impz2002]

Originally Posted by jokasmoker

also what about the amount of traffic sites like youtube and others generate http://torrentfreak.com/http-traffic...sy-of-youtube/
thats surely more than what p2p traffic is seems like bit torrent is being made the scapegoat.

P2P traffic is by far the largest single use of bandwith online. i think it counts for about a third of internet traffic IIRC !

Impz

---------- Post added at 23:38 ---------- Previous post was at 23:34 ----------

Originally Posted by hokkers999

I use uTorrent in encrypted mode, I also route all that traffic through an encrypted vpn to somewhere in Switzerland.

At that point it is only "traffic" and there is *zero* way to tell what it is.

Not true, even if it is encrypted the pattern of torrent traffic can still be seen. not as easy to do but still possible


You know what im sick of people moaning about STM and acting as if VM owe you something. If you dont like it then leave ! VM are by a long way one of the best providers in the UK. yes STM is an annoyance but when i want to use my connection it always works and i always get decent speeds. If STM didnt exist then im sure it would be alot worse.

[Matth]

Straight out throttling would be bad, prioritising would be better (eg. if capacity is not short at a particular time, then it goes at full speed). After all, if it's busy, everything is throttled by contention, so it makes sense if time critical traffic (Voip, gaming, Live streams etc.) has the most favourable contention, while bulk traffic has the least.

As for Bitorrent, don't shoot the messenger, it's a protocol that can be used to serve Large files by co-operation, and what happens to be on it at any time does not make it inherently good or bad.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Impz2002

P2P traffic is by far the largest single use of bandwith online. i think it counts for about a third of internet traffic IIRC !

and they want to risk losing that many people?
setting up your own p2p network at an extra cost isn't going to bring them back or make you any new customers either.

[Impz2002]

Originally Posted by Gary L

and they want to risk losing that many people?
setting up your own p2p network at an extra cost isn't going to bring them back or make you any new customers either.

Your forgetting the fact that almost all other UK isp's already throttle P2P in some shape or form. I use torrents fairly often and if i have to accept slower speeds during peak times to allow others in my area to use their connection for gaming or skype etc then that is fair. There is a limited bandwith and as long as everyone has their fair share of whats available then that is fine by me.

Nobody knows the basis on which this shaping will happen there are no details of what triggers there will be or for how long it will last so passing judgment now is foolish !

Impz

[highroyds]

I think this is just crazy and its VM shooting their own foot. First they announce the 50MB BB, but then announce going after Torrent users. Thes loads of places that use Torrents - TV Episodes, pc game patches and other web sites for legal stuff. I can see people moving over to Sly if VM do this in the way we think it'll hit.

They'll loose too many customers.