Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

You do on the private tracker i am on ;)

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

This is an argument that cuts either way, IMO.

First, I agree with Igni that VM should police their network to give everyone a fair chance.

On the other hand, all the mega-downloaders on a segment doing that at the same time sort of police themselves because they are competing with each other for resource. Then they whinge without having read the cautions that VM publish.

In particular peops have purchased an "up to" service and they know what that means. So, Kush, I think you are wrong.

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

I would agree with this up to a point. What is more contentious is when VM is asked to provide bandwidth for customers to download illegal content sometimes at the expense of slowing down other customers on their segment who want to access the internet in a more conventional way ..

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

Poor old VM. They're to blame now for what people decide to download!

As I've said, the broadband is self-policed to the extent of contention that occurs. For what people pay for a contended unmanaged service ("unlimited") their expectations shouldn't be too high.

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

Why are you blaming VM for what people download?

what do you define as "too high"?

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

Why just be sarcastic, what is your opinion?

I think it is for you to define if you make statements like "their expectations shouldn't be too high"

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

You're being obtuse. You know very well what I'm saying.

But one bit I will spell out - You said:

What is more contentious is when VM is asked to provide bandwidth for customers to download illegal content sometimes at the expense of slowing down other customers on their segment who want to access the internet in a more conventional way.

Since VM don't know which people asking for more bandwidth want to download illegal content, to whom does the responsibility for policing it shift so that "conventional" downloaders can have the bandwidth they demand? What you said made no sense in the way you put it.

Of course there's no argument that illegal downloaders could be hogging bandwidth at the expense of conventional downloaders, but how does that become contentious if there's nothing you can do about it?

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

I don't know of many (any?) residential services that aren't an "up to" service. The way I see it, you're going to get heavy downloaders no matter what ISP you're with - be it Sky, Virgin, BT or whatever. I don't see why those on Virgin have to be more courteous than those not on Virgin. It's part of the territory of being a residential ISP. I'm not saying Virgin should reserve enough bandwidth so that everyone can get the full 152Mbit at once, but in reality they don't need to - they should have enough so that when bandwidth peaks in an evening, there's plenty for everyone at that time. There's going to be times when the internet is more in use than others - particularly big events like the world cup and such but again it's not up to the P2Pers to monitor their usage, it's up to Virgin to monitor their network.

It's not like Virgin don't throttle the hell out of P2P and NGS anyway. Poorly, I might add, but they still do it.

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

I am currently on the 60Mb package and noticed new customer in the area can get 100Mb the new packages.

But it says they will not upgrade current customer after Dec 2014.

Is there away I can jump the queue and get upgraded quicker, without it costing me any more money on the month bill?

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

You'll need to call in. There may be some spare capacity to do an early upgrade if the Networks team have released it. Otherwise you'll need to change your package.

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

Honestly, I did not understand the sarcasm. It had been a long day ..

contentious: causing or likely to cause an argument; controversial. "a contentious issue" For example, expecting VM to increase network capacity to accommodate illegal downloads.

Seems straightforward to me ..

How should I know? I am just highlighting an issue. Seems unfair to mandate that when someone highlights an issue they must also provide a solution. Just because there is no solution does not mean there is no problem.

Let me make this clear: people can do what they want on their connection. It is none of my business. I could not care less. However, when you are paying for a high speed internet connection and you are unable to use services like Netflix, NOW TV, etc (which I also pay for) and a contributory factor in this slowdown (if you believe the reports) is the bandwidth used by illegal downloads then this is annoying ..

I am not sure there is much interest debating this subject so lets draw a line under it. It is what it is ..

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

I havent read through any of this at all so I don't know how it all started but I disagree that the bandwidth (especially downstream) used by "illegal downloads" is a contributory, especially as you mentioned Netflix. VoD is becoming increasingly popular and every single tv series I watch is American. Netflix was in the news today for making a tonne of profit and having a tonne of subscribers and what you have got to think of is if people didnt download stuff like Game of Thrones off torrents, then they are going to stream it from somewhere like netflix (I know netflix isn't up to date). So this is the thing to think about: the video is going to be downloaded/ steamed either way so would you rather it be downloaded in 2 mins from torrents and get it done and out of the way or would you like it streamed for 50 mins from Netflix. I think the latter would have more of a detrimental impact on the network and I would personally prefer peeps download the files and get off the network. I understand your frustration in buffering and not being able to sync at HD but that is VMs problem to solve and it is not the customer's fault for wanting to use a service.

---------- Post added at 18:18 ---------- Previous post was at 18:14 ----------

Unless they have pushed it back again I was originally down for something like August - December. Because I actually need the speed I thought I would be cheeky (first time I have ever tried getting anything out of them) and asking to be upgraded early and they were more than happy to do it. They wanted to give me a discount to start off with and I told them I was a loyal customer and price didn't bother me, it was the service I was interesting in and they were more than happy to push the upgrade through. It is definitely worth giving them a ring and see what they say.

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

Just popped on here to catch up with how the roll outs are going... seems there are plenty of people in the same boat, the proposed upgrade dates keep being pushed back and back. We started off at March, then May, now it's June to August. Cheeky Virgin Monkeys!

---------- Post added at 12:20 ---------- Previous post was at 11:37 ----------

Scratch that.... called them up just now and they pushed the codes through. Happy Days!

Re: Virgin Media 150Mb Coming 2014
 

Content provider in pulling figures from their hindmost to overstate piracy shock.

This is out and out untrue:

If you are unhappy at the prospect of having your legitimate traffic slowed down by bandwidth used by unlawful downloads the managed network Plusnet operate should be right up your alley.