Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Innocent until proven guilty - they cannot simply say "we think you downloaded music, have a fine" unless they can prove your connection was used, by you, with one of your machines. This is why Police sieze the machines when they have suspicion of fraud, child porn, etc... they cannot convict without proof that the material is on the machine.

So far, the BPI dont have that power, and the Police have better things to do than waste resources on such matters. The RIAA have been spitting out subpoenas for peoples hard disks for just this reason - but that is the US, not here.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Your point does not lessen the fact that the owners of home wifi networks have an obligation under VM's AUP to at least to attempt to secure their links - if there had been a "brute force" attempt to hack the router, this would show up on the firewall logs, surely, which would mitigate any possible proceedings. If the subscriber could provide this evidence, there would be no case. The plaintiff would have provided evidence (IP logs and time), and the defendant would have to counter that (besides saying "it wasn't me, guv").

In a civil case, the BPI would provide evidence to show that a machine/network had been used to download copyrighted music without permission - it would then be up to the owner of that network/machine to show otherwise (by use of network logs, etc); and remember, the difference between a criminal case and a civil case is that in a civil case, the plaintiff must simply convince the court or tribunal that their claim is valid, and that on balance of probability it is likely that the defendant is guilty. There is a big difference between criminal proceedings (fraud and child porn) and civil (copyright violation).

STM / Traffic management rip off
 

Two day ago I started logging in great detail my usage as VM had decided to start capping me a few days previously.

I note with great interest that I'm being capped this evening at 500Kb/sec even though I've downloaded nowhere near their limits. Check http://www.dagley.co.uk/virgin for the table showing what I've downloaded and when today.

So, I complained:
I suspect nothing will happen. At which point Virgin Media can take a hike, and it'll be back to Be* for me.

---------- Post added at 23:18 ---------- Previous post was at 21:48 ----------

Anyone else being capped when they shouldn't be? Or no one taken the time to find out?

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Did you hit the upstream limit? Asking as you only mention downloads, but uploads count between 3pm and 8pm.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Nope - under 30% of my "allowance" during these times. Woke up this morning - downloads still running, only now at my usual (20mpbs) speed. And will continue to do so until 10am, when my limiter will kick in.

In case anyone else wants to throttle their bandwidth in this way, check out Softpedia's Bandwidth Manager as thats what I'm using - allows time/date etc throttling. Exactly what's needed when you're on an uncapped (but capped) service...

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

But my point was that if this capping was because my 2 meg service is *harming* - for lack of a better term - the network. Then throttling back the 20'ers to only 5 is still doing over twice the *damage* that I was causing in the first place.

And that is where VM come unstuck. If I can only ever put 40% of the load of even a capped 20'er onto the network....then the capping is ONLY about the capability to OVERSELL the service.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

O well another STM limit that I am gonna have to live with :-(

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

You're not limited. VM keep telling us so ;)

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

hey guys, sorry didnt read the entire thread, but i understand there is now a daytime stm from 10am-3pm, Im on a new 12 month contract consisting of 20mb bb. before I signed up, i read on virgin medias site that the daytime stm will only be in places where there is over subscription and the ubrs cannot handle it, so basically only a few areas.

My question is, does this daytime stm now include the entire country? Because if it does, this is not a good service in my opinion, in terms of Be bb as they have no stm and have a higher upload. Also seeing as this stm policy was not in place when i signed up, do i have the option of leaving or compensation (discount) as vm have changed the services they are offering me (terms and conditions).

note: i do not want to leave but just want to know for future reference.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

As far as I am aware, it's across the whole of the UK. I am not (again, as far as I am aware) on an over-subscribed UBR and I've fallen foul of the daytime STM previously. Basically you can only get what you paid for between 10pm and 10am (50% reduction in "service") save for one hour between 3pm and 4pm.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Hey,

I've been in love with my Nottingham 4MB VM connection until the last few months - very slow speeds at peak times, and I have been hit by STM on a few occasions which is just disgusting.

I'm thinking of migrating away to ADSL (although that was a horrible experience in the past as well with F2S). Looking here my options aren't that great... which ISP would be best to go with if the VM woes continue?

Cheers,

Suman

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

http://www.ukonline.net would be a good choice if your willing to pay up :)

They are owned by sky, their top package is 16Mbit Download 1Mbit upload.

Distance from the exchange is a factor of course

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

ukonline suck i was with them for a few years but the line kept dropping and they where 100 times worse then ntl

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Yea..suppose thats why they get a 100% rating, because they suck :rolleyes:

I bet your problem was down to line quality, bad wiring, bad faceplate etc, shouldnt be so quick to blame an isp :rolleyes:

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Traxdata: Then why does the website say: Last updated: 09 June 2008?

rossdagley: As far as I am aware, it's across the whole of the UK.

^yes it is.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Hmm UKOL look good, but the 12 month contract sucks :(

This is what happened last time I tried DSL. Ultimately culminated in line death, which is why I'm reluctant to go back...

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

yeah ukonline said the quality of my line was bad and i was far from exchange 2.3km or .5 i cant remember but i am sure any adsl isp i was to go with it would be very bad for me, but they had a 24mbit download and now its 16? im guessing because no one recieved higher then 16mbit...

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Yes that would be a good call. there are some great sites out there to check adsl connection speeds heres one http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.htm

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

No, it's because Sky now own them and they only offer upto 16Mbit.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

really sky now own them? kewl well they got higher upload so good on them, and for those who get a good service from ukonline

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Apart from one poor India techie I found them a very good service. While Virgin in all truth sucks from the first week.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

to be honest the pit when i had 2mbit ukonline it was ok then 8mbit was still working fine, it was when i upgraded to 24mbit and had the netgear router sent then it started to work like a yoyo constantly down

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Yup my did that which says it's routers fault. Draytek connected straight away but the model I had wouldn't go above 8 meg anyway. So I contacted ukonline who tried a few things but could only get 8 meg max. So they put me down to the old service however they forgot to drop my upload speed so I'm getting 1 meg up and 8 meg down at 8 meg prices.

I've kept quiet about it of course. :)

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

nice! well if they have not noticed it why say anything ;) u have the speeds ur adsl can handle and the extra upload faster then VMs 20mbit upload lol, if i dident mind about only having 8meg it would of been ok to be on ukonline or another adsl isp but i want faster and vm are the only isp who can give me anything faster then 8mbit, so ill stick with cable.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Naturally. Isn't that what everyone would do ;)

Re: New Virgin traffic managent - so that's why it's slow!
 

Totally agree with you m8!

Hi all!! Newbie here:)

I got hooked up to VB's 20 meg service yesterday around 4pm. Getting 20.4meg downloads constantly, sometimes 21.5!!! Whow!! At 9pm I noticed some serious lag when beating people up on tekken online, when I had no lag minutes before!!

Speed test showed me at 5megs maximum:td: haha. I purposely downloaded huge files from virgin gamefiles to test this STM rubbish, as I heard some people get away with it, not me though, first day, 5meg cap! lol

Anyway, already have Be and get around 14 megs max, who do you think I'm gonna stay with, virgin won't have me past the trial period. The 20meg is a nice upgrade, but not worth the thieving of bandwidth from VB, and £37?? Damn! Prefer the £18 for Be.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Hi all! (newbie to forum alert!)

Well, having been on cable modem since Feb 2000, being one of the first in the country to get one (think I was the 2nd install) and originally beta tester for telewest back in the day, I have seen the network grow and go from 512, 1Mb, 2mb, 10mb, 20mb.... and now after over 8 years this has got to be the worst I have seen the network perform. During the beta testing they lifted the limits a few times and the speed was superb, and over the years I think in total I have had about 4 outages, most lasted 2 days. Of course thats not including the week of nothing straight after install, and 4 senior engineers later who still could not get this new cable modem thingy working (hooked up to the FM connector instead of digital service... I spotted it and wouldnt tell how I fixed it)... but this throttling is the pits... constantly I am being restricted.

I am an IT consultant and either work from home or on clients sites, I pay for 20mb, I expect the service I pay for, and like said before on this thread, you dont get money back for the bandwidth you dont get. Even my upload gets throttled back to 300k... try remote desktop to a server over that!

Had enough, BT line installed today, ordered Be* and confirmed, box on way, and should be activated next week, I know many people on it, and to be able to have up to 24Mb with 2.5 upload, static IP and same phone deal as VM for £18 less a month.... no longer rocket science is it?

Never had ADSL before, so going to be a new experience, but according to BT engineer today the Hawk says I am 700m from exchange... fingers crossed. VM it was nice before you became VM, now its just rubbish, CS dont care, and if you are no longer going to invest and just keep grabbing customers on board, drop the 10Mb and 20Mb service as you will only ever be able to give 4mb....

Might be better if they advertised it as 4mb burstable to 20mb off peak? Might be a bit more honest and more appealing to customers...... but then ....

Good luck all.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Good luck, on VM I get the full 20MBit mostly, on Be I sync at 6.5MBit down, 1.2 MBit up (or 5.5 down, 1.2 up on upload plus).

Of course I didn't get the full 6.5Mbit until a while after the installation (exchange needed upgrading).

It's been a pretty good service, but not as reliable as the VM one.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Downloaded 1.65Gb of data earlier this evening (16th August 2008). Then went and watched a film on TV, come back some 2 hours later, now capped at 600kb/sec.

So - it looks like I've been capped again, way way under the limit VM claim to cap people. This isn't the first time this has happened - in fact, only about 6 weeks ago did I complain I was inappropiately capped to receive an apology and be told that indeed I'd been wrongly restricted.

Thankfully, my years contract is up in 6 weeks - I'll be serving 6 weeks notice of my cancellation on Monday morning. I've had it up to my eyeballs with this bunch of idiots.

The UK's most expensive consumer grade broadband - it's 00:30 and I'm getting one of the slowest commercially available speeds in the UK. Again.

But remember kids - it's unlimited. Like a dripping tap - it's unlimited water folks. Just don't expect to survive in the desert when those drips come once every 60 minutes or so.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Thats what got me - paying £37 a month for what? 20Mb when you are lucky, and in between getting forced down, sometimes I have had less than a meg, which is rediculous. Got confirmation from Be that my modem is on its way and should be here Monday, get it in, on and sync'd. Then providing thats all ok my cancellation is going in to virgin for both broadband and telephone, so thanks to this they will loose over £55 a month from me, after 8 years STM has killed a good thing.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Don't forget though comparing VMs £37 with Be* at £18 isn't like for like, you'll have to add the price of BTs line rental. Anyway keep us informed, and good luck.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

I moved from Sky+ to V+ and from Be* to VM XL. On ADSL with Be* I "only" got 16mbit, rather than the 20mbit I do get with VM, but VM is twice the price.

With SkyHD I'll be getting a whole swathe of HD channels (including free-to-air channels that VM don't provide) - with VM I get BBC HD. A whole channel!

What a mistake. Combine all the negatives, and I'm yet another rat leaving this ever sinking ship.

Goodbye VM. I'd say it was nice knowing you. But it wasn't.

---------- Post added at 00:54 ---------- Previous post was at 00:50 ----------

Just got my uncapped line back - thanks VM - it's only 1am...

At least I can now catch up on the downloads they were inappropiately throttling an hour ago...

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/9754/speed1ux7.jpg

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Yes, but on VM I pay £18.95 for phone with unlimited calls, on BT I will be paying £15.45 for phone with unlimited calls.

So tallying up -

VM
Broadband £37
Phone £18.95

Total £55.95

BT/Be*
Broadband £18
Phone £15.45

Total £33.45

Saving £22.50 per month and get Static IP and no STM.....To be honest I am 700m from the exchange, and by road its 1.4km, as long as I get a stable connection of 8Mb or faster I will be happy.

Had enough of throttled connection, working from home has become a nightmare lately, and found that sometimes I have to use works 3G modem just to remote desktop to a clients server, never had these issues before STM.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Don't forget though if you take XL-BB and XL-phone together you get it for £28.95pm for the first six months, then £38.95pm after that.
OK its still cheaper with BT and Be* at £33.45 but its about a fiver not £22.50.
Anyway it doesn't matter much now as your moving, don't forget let us know how it works out at Be* and what sort of speed you get, I might follow you in time;)
The one part I am in full agreement with you though is VMs TV service and paltry lack of HD, it truly is appalling, I shall give it to the end of the year and if there is no improvement I'll reluctantly go for Sky.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

I'm surprised if you use a connection primarily for work that you abuse it so much.

(daytime limits are quite high).

Can you really not use RDP with 5Mbit/256Kbit ?
I use tightVNC instead, (which can comfortably handle low rates like this).
RDPs early life was application services a bit like x-windows but 10 years later, so you wouldn't think it would need a lot of bandwidth.

You might be better spent troubleshooting your VPN to find out why there is so much traffic on your home connection.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Problem is I am normally on 5 or 6 different servers at any one time, one customer has 19 global offices and trying to trouble shoot a problem for them when I can only open one connection is painful. Also cannot use tools like VNC for many customers as they do not want none authorised 3rd party applications installed.

Last week trying to connect to a server in Phenoix and a server in London at the same time resulted in multiple disconnects and timeouts, even had it on just a single connection.

Also it was embarrasing trying to support an onsite admin guy, he was shadowing my remote connection and as I am saying "if you follow me clicking here... oh wait, damn connection gone...." which also kicked him off the server.

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Perhaps you might need a business line (with the concomitant SLAs and QoS) for this sort of work, rather than a consumer line?

If you are expected to support customers from your home, shouldn't your business/boss supply you with the appropriate services to do this (mine used to, when I did this sort of thing, as consumer ADSL/Cable couldn't support this - I had both BT and VM lines).

Re: New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!
 

Would be nice, my old job paid for my broadband, new job doesnt as they provide the 3g data card. But never had issues before STM.

Its like I said in another forum, would you be happy going to a shop and buying a 2L bottle of milk only to get home and finding only 500ml in the bottle, ringing the shop to be told "Yes its our FUP, in peak hours we only provide that much but you can buy as many as you want, its unlimited" Or is it just me that thinks broadband providers are taking the mickey?