majestic100
18-09-2008, 17:03
I have used Broadbandchoices.co.uk Speedtester for some considerable time to give me hourly updates on download speed. It's always given what I thought was fairly accurate results
From January thru' mid June 2008, I was on Virgin's 4Mbps service and monthly download averages were always in the region or 3 - 3.5Mbps.
From mid June came the free upgrade to 10Mbps and apart from the first week or two where the downloads speed was being shown in the 7 -8Mbps range, the speedtester is now registering in the 2 -3Mbps range with the odd occasion, and I mean odd occasion in the 3 - 4Mbps range.
Now I assume pre mid June the 4Mbps service was not traffic managed but with the free upgrade to 10Mbps came the use of traffic management. However, having read, and I think understood the terms of traffic management, I don't think they are being applied correctly.
For example, between the hours of 9am and 3pm (GMT), the download limit is 2.4GB. (I hope I've remembered that correctly). If this is exceeded within the timeframe, download speed is throttled to 75% of service rate i.e 2.5Mbps on 10Mbps service for the remainder of the time.
I monitor my downloads and note tha during the hours of throttling (9am - 3pm and 4pm - 9pm), I haven't exceeded the limits. So why the bad download speeds ?
Having rang Virgin Customer Service the comment was made that my "area" was experiencing high downloads and therefore reason for low download speed. It appears that my area is permanately in a state of high download!
I couldn't get any response from Service representative as to direct questions of:
1) what is my contention ratio ?
2) was it normal practice to throttle on an area basis and not a per user basis as would be expected.
The service representative said she had "adjusted" the network and to wait for a couple of hours and I should see an improvement - I haven't.
Just wondering if others experiencing similar issues.
From January thru' mid June 2008, I was on Virgin's 4Mbps service and monthly download averages were always in the region or 3 - 3.5Mbps.
From mid June came the free upgrade to 10Mbps and apart from the first week or two where the downloads speed was being shown in the 7 -8Mbps range, the speedtester is now registering in the 2 -3Mbps range with the odd occasion, and I mean odd occasion in the 3 - 4Mbps range.
Now I assume pre mid June the 4Mbps service was not traffic managed but with the free upgrade to 10Mbps came the use of traffic management. However, having read, and I think understood the terms of traffic management, I don't think they are being applied correctly.
For example, between the hours of 9am and 3pm (GMT), the download limit is 2.4GB. (I hope I've remembered that correctly). If this is exceeded within the timeframe, download speed is throttled to 75% of service rate i.e 2.5Mbps on 10Mbps service for the remainder of the time.
I monitor my downloads and note tha during the hours of throttling (9am - 3pm and 4pm - 9pm), I haven't exceeded the limits. So why the bad download speeds ?
Having rang Virgin Customer Service the comment was made that my "area" was experiencing high downloads and therefore reason for low download speed. It appears that my area is permanately in a state of high download!
I couldn't get any response from Service representative as to direct questions of:
1) what is my contention ratio ?
2) was it normal practice to throttle on an area basis and not a per user basis as would be expected.
The service representative said she had "adjusted" the network and to wait for a couple of hours and I should see an improvement - I haven't.
Just wondering if others experiencing similar issues.