Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Ok I feel this is a terrible level of service I am getting recently from Virgin Media on the broadband

Now 98% of the time I have no issues,
Mainly because I am at work during the day, come home and use Facebook and MSN so nothing really that demands high bandwidth

Might occasionally play on the PS2 online or watch some videos of youtube (13MB of data for a 15 min video for instance as its FLV format)

However getting to the point, they have stated the 3 strikes on illegal downloads and yoru off the system, they also claim to have suitable speeds for live streaming

Some say,
Well if I cannot download movies etc illegally why have a broadband service

Well you can still watch live streaming legally
Paid video downloads of websites
Live TV Streaming (www.wwitv.com for instance)
Live radio (www.di.fm for instance) so forth

So you can still get a legal version of live streaming without copyright infringement.

However they once advertised it as being suitable for video streaming
I tried watching Pushing Daisies which I missed the first 2 episodes but people have been talking about it at work so I thought id watch it online direct from the ITV website

http://www.itv.com/CatchUp/Video/def...5&Filter=17732

5 Mins of streaming took 20 mins to watch because my modem keept cutting off and loosing connection, not just with the ITV website but as a whole with this site it took 3 attempts to get this page to show

So not being able to watch it LEGALLY makes me more tempted to go to piratebay (no link supplied) or other illegal download sites and download the content to watch without it being spoiled

As I feel the first part of it was spoiled by me having to watch 3 mins, pause for connection for 3-5 mins, another 2 mins then pause for another 5 mins so on

It made it pointless and a poor experiance at live streaming, not only this but tedious and flustrating

You cannot technically report it as a fault because there is connection there, its just not enough for all their customers.

So I called customer services and reported it
So at the end of the month when they pull their stats off to see what customers have complained about there will be 1 more to the list of SLOW CONNECTION

And I suggest you call in on this and do the same

DONT YELL at the advisor

Working in call centres and having worked for them once, it causes the agent to be more put off helping you than wanting to help, never the less they will still log it as its their job plus lets face it, the agents at the other end of the phone cannot correct the slow connection for people, they can send a refresh signal and temporary boost signal but its not a permanent fix.

So talk calmly, report the issue and the guys above will pick up on it and will have to act and prioritise the problem when they have X amount of complaints coming thought about that


I also mentioned there trying to get publicity with the 3 stikes and yoru out
What they spent probably the best half of 2 months thinking up the system
and yet I can go to www.VDownloader.es download that programme and I can then download music videos, and any other video directly from YOUTUBE
a website they will not monitoring and not capable of detecting it as high bandwidth use as the files always tend to be at about 1.5MB to 3MB at a time

Thats 20 seconds max download time

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Which service are you on? 2meg? 4meg? 10meg? 20meg?

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

4 Meg

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

might wanna try squeezing a better connection out of them. if youve been a customer more than 12 months see if you can get your broadband speed increased. the 2 lower tier broadband packages pretty much do suck, but the speed is awsome when you get on the 10-20meg services. Streaming really isnt a problem with it.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

You are due an automatic upgrade to 10 meg sometime this year.:)

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Cant see the point in upgrading etc when they cannot seem to deliver a good service on the speeds they got in existance

I think there eyes are bigger than their bellys

Yes they can say mm 10meg but if you get that 10meg for 1hr a day id rather stay at the 4 lol

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

I know what your saying but it will be an automatic upgrade and for free;)

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

well the good thing about having 10meg, when they cap you the limit is half useable.

4meg generally gets you about 2meg down and 256kps up which is neglegable (especially with their servers dropping your packets) when streaming, but with 10meg you get 5mbit/386kbps so its not quite a big loss and its still very usable for streaming.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Still should be able to watch a streaming without interruption on a 512Kps stream on 2meg, specially when only using MSN as my only other internet access.

Its not just slow connection but loss of connection every 3-4 minutes

This is not as bad when its just general browsing

tends to happen mostly about 9-11pm

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

connection loss should be a non-existant or rare thing on cable. What stats are being churned out from your modem?

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

I suspect the reason that info4u had problems streaming from ITV's CatchUp had more to do with itv's service than VM's -- maybe it would be watchable during the day?
Perhaps info4u's connection is less than optimal?

I get fairly high-quality streamed video (around 100kB/s) on my 4Mb connection at pretty much all times of the day with hardly any problems.

@refraction -- you might want to check those STM figures?

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

they pretty much back up what i say about people on the lower packages getting screwed over :p as i said, i was on 2mbit before and it was like being on dialup, since getting 20mbit its been lovely, even when capped.

Not looking forward to their trial ones kicking in down this neck of the woods though.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

I would normally agree with you on the fact it may be issues with ITVs servers delivering the data, however when the data light stops and other pages that i then load such as Google, CableForum, Youtube or Facebook to name but a few don;t load and I get Page cannot be displayed, that then becomes a clean indication nothing is coming down the lines to me.

about 5 mins later the service comes back on.

I do agree it is rare in the whole of the 5yrs of service Ive had with Telewest/Virgin Media its only recently this is happening, more and more frequently

---------- Post added at 17:25 ---------- Previous post was at 17:23 ----------

could i also ask what you mean by SMT?

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

I doubt Virgin Media will be implementing any three strikes policy any time soon, the European Parliament already rejected the very principle of three strikes and your internet access is suspended. Not that Virgin Media has a problem interfering in customers civil liberties, but hey.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/...s-vm-listening

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

If it happens again, it would be very useful if you could do a netstat -a (here's how) and a tracert (a what?) to whichever website you can't reach, then copy both reports and post them back to this thread.

Subscriber Traffic Management: Basically VM's network can't cope with everyone accessing the internet at the same time.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Personally I don't care whether VM implement this policy or not. It's the same as identity cards; if you're not doing anything illegal then there's nothing to worry about.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Yeah, it's not as though the copyright lobby ever get anything wrong...
"Anti-Piracy Blunder Shuts Down BitTorrent Tracker"

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

That seems the fault of an individual web hosting company for failing to investigate. Anyway, if you've got 3 strikes then the chances of being falsely accused 3 times would be infinitesimally small.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

With VM's management history, I would have said it was more than likely..You'll be telling me phorm is ok next!:shocked:

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Surely with the European Parliment Voting against this, then there is every chance you would get it overturned in the European court of human rights. In which case the whole deal would fall flat as the government is also bound by that court too.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Simple and to the point. :tu:

---------- Post added at 21:40 ---------- Previous post was at 21:37 ----------

For the sake of balance there would have to be a lot of re-writing of user policies by many ISP's throughout Europe, and who's to say this is not already being implemented. What the hell has the EU got to do with this.

BACK OFF BRUSSELLS!!

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Its not the same as Identity cards, and i am not worried, "why should i be" ?

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

"Will Virgin Media listen"

Fat chance, VM and listen do not belong in the same sentence!

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

What model of modem do you have? Could be failing if it's an old model.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Apparently 'Labour Always listens' as the headline in this news story states. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7369360.stm

I am aware that the story in the link has NOTHING to do with the internet but if Labour always listens then they should listen to the decison made by the MEP's.

I bet they don't though.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Indeed, and its Brown's government that listened to President Sarcozy and offered to share information and ideas on how his (Sarkozy) plans to tackle copyright abuse could be realized by implementing an independant body with the authority to disconnect French subscribers who repeatedly abused copyright laws through their Internet connection.

The writing is on the wall, and the EU response to try and cover that writing with cheap whitewash and threats isn't going to change the fact that copyright abusers are on borrowed time.

For crying out load, how can disconnection of broadband for illegal activity be a breach of that persons civil liberties?

I wonder how much money the MEP's have taken under the table,....oops sorry I meant through legitimate expense claims to pass this particular faux pas!

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

If there's evidence that an individual has committed an illegal act then the case should be decided in court.
Which the copyright lobby are seeking to avoid.
It's easy to see why. Just one excerpt (paraphrasing the defence lawyer in a US copyright case):
The proposed three-strikes schemes are plainly arbitrary and offer no realistic means of defence.
*That's* were our civil liberties would be compromised.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Well, having seen how some of this evidence is collected, I am not sure the above quote is factually accurate. I appreciate that an innocent person may have a cause to complain, and there are catalogued instances where computers are compromised for that sole purpose. However if such an issue is brought to an Internet user in the first instance and they do not knowingly share rights protected material, it is in their interests to check the security of their PC/Network, and report back to the ISP anything they have found that could have caused this breach in the first place.

I agree that disconnection may be harsh, but a breach of civil liberty? No way.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

I got a good example of disconnection being against your civil liberties.
How about all the different companies that offer discounts for you to access your accounts & bills online, VM for example. Now imagine you innocently watch a film online or listen to music tracks online, the bands own websites often stream thier own songs. This process often involves the stream being downloaded as you are listening. I can see many people getting accused of downloading & being disconnected over this & thats where the civil liberties part comes in.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

No again, I really don't think this applies.

You are not going to be chased by a rights holder for watching a free-to-air webcast or similar feed.

The issue is one of evidence, in that IP address A offfered by virtue of a connection protocal such as peer-to-peer or DC (Direct Connection - IRC Hub) to upload rights protected material to IP address B without express permission of the righhts holder. That is a breach of copyright, and is covered by nearly every ISP terms and conditions that you care to review.

Civil liberties do not come into this in my opinion. If they did, then why can a judge in the UK order a court injuntion against a convicted peado to ban access to the Internet, and the same applies also to a serial hacker? Isn't that a breach of a persons civil liberties?

I know its extreme, but it is just a matter of scale.

If the prevention of access to the Internet is a breach of civil liberties when it is proved that the activity that lead to the termination of services was illegal, then we have a whole new problem to deal with.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Just repeating my point as you seem to have missed it...

It is a breach of the individual's civil liberties, just as being locked up in prison is. But because they're both ordered by a court, they're permitted.
However, disconnection via the BPI's favoured 3-strikes scheme is not ordered by a court and is therefore an unwarranted infringement of our civil liberties.

Feel free to keep putting up this false assertion and I'll keep knocking it down...

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Stop making this personal ceedee, I am not.

I am expressing my opinion on a matter that I have considerable experience with, and as such I feel qualified to respond as I have.

I welcome, with gusto, personal views on this subject, and in the same vein I respond/debate accordingly.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Personal? Hardly...

Then respond to the point I have made twice instead of repeating your straw man:

In the context of the BPI's 3-strikes proposal/threat, it's not the depriving of an individual's connectivity that is a breach of human rights but that it has been deliberately designed to avoid the legal system, that it's arbitrary and has no route for appeal.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

The only way to know if the material being downloaded is copywrited is for the isp to look at what you are downloading and that is where the infringment of your rights happens.

Someone may have made some nice HD gay male bondage porn and be sharing with like minded friends, completely legal 800MB video file being transferred over P2P but maybe not something you want your isp and their snoopers to know about, and the only way they will know if it is copywrited is by looking at it .
It should be as illegal as tapping your phone or opening your mail.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Actually, the burden of proof lies with the copyright owners, but proof is absolutely essential. ISP's don't need to collect data, that is what FAST, FACT the BPI and other rights owners already provide to ISP's.

Cases where rights owners have taken individuals to court over copyright distribution hinge on evidence, although the burden of proof is a lot less stringent in civil cases. One parent who challenged a £2,500 fine because of his daughters file sharing habbit actually had the fine increased significantly.

It is extremely easy to collect evidence if the file sharer is not carefull, which most casual sharers are, and sadly all too often they are up against very qualified legal firms who simply have more legal clout and money to take illegal file sharers to court. In civil cases you cannot get legal aid if memory serves me correctly, making the adjudication almost a win win for the rights owners.

Just to give ceedee his response......Internet access is not a right in my opinion, its a priviledge, you pay for it you get it (albeit slow in many cases, even on the virgin network), you don't, or your break the ISP rules, you can get your access terminated, simple as that. The EU parliament may have voted to that end, I am not sure it will be ratified in the statute books, unless of course that has happened already.

I am all for customer rights, even civil rights, but its a two way street. My CD collection is full of aspiring artists trying to make their way in this digital freeloading society. I cough up a few quid for a CD/DVD that helps them, it shows my appreciation for their talent, and goes some small way to pay for their efforts in a hope that more people will benefit. What about their liberties?

No, I am sorry, but the provision of a service, payed in full each month is not a guarantee of entitlement. All too often people look for ways to get out of cotracts with their suppliers if they think they are hard done by, and in many cases fair enough. I bet they would complain like hell though if their service provider sought a similar termination of contract with their customer.

Unless ISP's are required by law to make a fundemental change in their terms and conditions that prevents them from disconnecting a customer for breach of its terms and conditions, this will likely not be challenged. At the moment ISP's cannot be prosecuted for allowing the redistribution of rights protected material through their network, it is commonly known as the "Mere conduit" clause. If the EU brings an end to that, ISP's will be disconnecting copyright offenders left, right and centre, with no room for appeal for fear of prosecution. If that happens folks are going to have to be extremely careful.

Frank linked the original post to his article on the news page. I don't seem to recall any VM subscriber posting here that VM had contacted them over copyright abuse. I do remember a Be Unlimited user posting a copy of a letter he received for copyright abuse.....I think that is warning enough that ISP's are getting twitchy.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

As I understand it, the BPI's 3-strike scheme would not expect or require ISPs to inspect any P2P data. Rather the BPI would obtain "evidence" via third-party "spies" who'd join, for instance, a particular bittorrent swarm and allegedly record the participants' IP addresses which would then be traced back to the ISP with an allegation that the individual had breached copyright.

I can't imagine any court accepting the idea that the IP address had been obtained incorrectly, as participation in the torrent swarm is open to anyone (or any member, in the case of a private tracker).

However (again, to the best of my knowledge) the "evidence" provided by these "spies" have not yet had their methods accepted as accurate or foolproof by a UK court so instead the BPI are seeking the extra-judicial (and much cheaper) route of bullying ISPs into making a disconnection.

---------- Post added at 18:19 ---------- Previous post was at 17:57 ----------

Are you saying that you think it's perfectly okay for an ISP to disconnect a customer purely due to the unsubstantiated allegation of a third-party agent of a copyright holder who is paid a fee per shutdown without a court's approval and with no right of appeal?

How on earth do you imagine the ISP will defend themselves against a counter-action by the customer?

I apologise if I've misinterpreted your response but it otherwise doesn't seem to query or rebut my statement.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Well, not sure about the Courts challenging the evidence, but here is a news report to show that the BPI, in this country, has been rather successful in its data collection methods .;)

ISP's rightly do not want to collect this data, why the hell should they. If rights owners cock it up, it should fall on their heads.

You have to wonder though, if such fines work through the courts, why all this three strike palava.

I can't find the article on the parent who lost his case, but I'll keep looking. I do remember thinking though that if he didn't understand file sharing before the court case, I bet he does now...poor sod. It also got me thinking, if they contacted his ISP first, who then made him aware of the situation, perhaps he could have saved himself a boatload of cash.

---------- Post added at 18:24 ---------- Previous post was at 18:20 ----------

Hell no, no ISP should take the claim at face value, there should be sufficient evidence to back up the claim, and that evidence has to be supplied. Absolutely no way should a customer loose his connection on hear say.

You need not apologise, there is nothing more just and right than a good cause, I just like to bring some perspective to the table. :)

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

Perhaps I should have phrased my earlier comment slightly differently: I don't believe the "evidence" produced in any BPI case has been seriously contested in the UK yet.

As the news item (regarding the shutdown of the MVGroup torrent tracker and website) to which I linked earlier showed, the copyright lobby are notorious for producing error-ridden and unverifiable allegations backed up with threats by their expensive legal friends in the hope that "pirates", web hosts and ISPs will do their bidding without question.

I can't wait for a savvy, internet-literate lawyer to test them in the UK courts!

Purely because it's designed to avoid the courts, admissible evidence and a right of appeal?
And if the BPI can make the ISP the patsy in it's protection racket, then all the better for them.

Of course, it's always been open to the BPI to forward the news of any successful court case to the defendant's ISP with the request that they terminate the account.


BTW, how much of your "few quid" for some aspiring artists' CD do you imagine they'll receive?

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

virgin media are giving a pathetic service at the moment, I am on the 20 meg service I am lucky if I get 1.5 meg between 4.00 and midnight, If they try to put on any restictions I will leave and go on sky, there is no point at all having fast broadband if you are only surfing. I am also on the vodafone laptop broadband service with 3gig download limit it may not be a very big download for a month but it vastly outperfoms my so called fiber optic broadband that no body else is supposed to be able to compete with on speed. come on virgin wake up copper and the mobile airwaves are better.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

One artist called them fuel vouchers, implying they got him to his next gig. :)

Many of them are produced by independant studios, you know, small time outfits, so I would have thought they got a lions share of the costs.

The big time artists get my cash through the online stores, its small pickings for them, but its paid for.

Re: Broadband speeds & Copyright 3 Strikes
 

we all know about it now! but i think ur isp still dont know about ur videos thought