When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I was just wondering, once VM have the 50M rollout done and upstream capacity upgraded, it would be nice (imho) to see a few changes to the service tiers, I would welcome some feedback on these ideas:

Option 1:

XXL: 50/1.5Mbit -> 50/5Mbit, remains STM free and cap free but subject to AUP/FUP - if usage affecting area VM reserve the right to discuss usage.
XL: 20/0.768Mbit -> 25/2.5Mbit, STM removed, replaced with 250GB/month cap after which service reduced to 5Mbit/0.5Mbit.
L: 10/0.512Mbit -> 10/1Mbit, STM removed, replaced with 150GB/month cap after which service reduced to 2.5/0.256Mbit
M: 10/0.512Mbit -> 10/1Mbit, STM removed, replaced with 100GB/month cap after which service reduced to 2.5/0.256Mbit
S: 2Mbit/0.256Mbit speed remains, STM removed, replaced with 10GB/month cap after which service reduced to 512k/128k.

Virgin will supply, for all tiers, view my usage pages, and Virgin are to inform via a walled garden, browser popup and/or email when customers reach 50%, 80% and 100% of monthly limit where appropriate.

Option 2:

All speed increases as above.
XXL: STM introduced Peak time limit 7.5GB downstream between 4 and 9PM and 4GB upstream. Daytime downstream limit 15GB, no upstream limit.
XL: STM changes: Peak time limit 3GB -> 3.5GB downstream. 1.4GB -> 2GB upstream. Daytime 6GB -> 7GB.
L: STM changes: Peak upstream limit 1.2GB -> 1.5GB.
M: STM changes: Peak upstream limit 750MB -> 1GB.
S: Remains as previous.

All throttle percentages remain as previous with XXL being 75%.

Option 3:

STM removed.

Speeds increased as per Option 1.

Shaping introduced on following protocols:

**Note** Traffic to be deprioritised - if the network is nearing congestion those protocols will be deprioritised in the following steps: 25% throttle, 50% throttle, 75% throttle in 5 minute intervals.

When congestion alleviated for 15 minutes system will then reverse process at 5 minute intervals, IE if that CMTS went to 50% throttle after 10 minutes of congestion after 15 minutes of all being ok it will drop to 25% throttle then if still no congestion will remove shaping entirely after a further 5 minutes.

Upstream and downstream both work independently.

SSL, NNTP, P2P, Streaming: All traffic policed as required to reduce congestion.
HTTP: From known download sites, Rapidshare, etc, policed.
FTP: From non-VM FTP policed.
Unknown traffic: Policed (to suck up the encrypted P2P, etc).

All gaming traffic will not be policed.

Option 4:

Speed increases as above.
All broadband prices to increase 10-25%
All STM removed, no fair use policy.
Acceptable performance ranges for all services clearly stated and as follows:

XXL: 30 - 50Mbit downstream, 3 - 5Mbit upstream.
XL: 15 - 25Mbit downstream, 1.5 - 2.5Mbit upstream.
M and L: 6 - 10Mbit downstream, 0.6 - 1Mbit upstream.
S: 1.5 - 2Mbit downstream, 200 - 256kbit upstream.

Choose your poison!

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I hope 50 Meg will be STM free but have a usage cap 500GB per month. EG:

50Mb - 500Gb per month no STM £40 a month
20Mb - 200Gb per month no STM £25 a month
10Mb - 100Gb per month no STM £15 a month
2Mb - 20Gb per month no STM £10 a month

All upload will be uncapped

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Option 1 is the fairest, doesn't punish the odd large download but keeps people in check from downloading a large amount.

Option 2 from what i gather is what we have now just higher limits which isn't as good as Option 1 due to punishing the odd large download

Option 3 is the worst option, ISPs shouldn't shape traffic imo.

Option 4 will never work imo and people will never accept not getting the advertised speed as being fast enough.

I've said for a while, in the future we'll be paying for traffic levels and not speed. A small fee of say £5/month to cover modem/line rental/maintenance. Add on a cost of say £1 per 20GB of traffic either monthly or allow it to be used like pre-pay mobiles are done so you can spend say £50 and get 1TB of data and use it whenever and in what time frame you wish.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I don't want a download limit at all

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

This is my opinion on it........
50mb should remain at £52 with a monthly limit of 700GB
20mb should be dropped to £30 a month with a montly limit of 375GB
10mb should be £15 a month with a monthly limit of 150 GB

Once the download limits have been reached then you are subject to STM for the remainder of the month. All uploads are uncapped and not subject to STM.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

People accept it all the time on DSL though dev, the majority of DSL subscribers on ADSL Max or 2+ do not receive the full speed as sold. In any case it's a speed range and an assured performance, if performance drops below that range it would be considered a fault to be corrected rather than 'normal contention'. It actually improves things for customers and is more transparent. Broadband is sold elsewhere in this manner though they are perhaps a more savvy audience.

I should just mention the service upgrades I did. Target was a ratio of 10:1 between downstream and upstream, which is perfectly achievable. Upgrading XL to 25/2.5 puts it outside of ADSL2+ performance range both for downstream and upstream. Upgrading of XXL upstream and M/L upstream preserves the 10:1 ratio. S is largely ignored as a non-entity.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I want the STM in place how it was or is being trialed

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I'd prefer Option 1 but with higher caps. Why? I'm on 10Mbps (L) and I use 300GB/month on average already. A lower cap than that would make it hard for me even if the speed is 1/4.

50Mbps - 1000GB
20Mbps - 750GB
10Mbps - 500GB
10Mbps (M) - 150GB
2Mbps - 30GB

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I would not agree that it's reasonable to expect 500GB for 25 quid a month. The discrepancy between M and L is also massive given the small price difference. Appreciate it's a matter of personal choice but think the expectation of 500GB is unrealistic and the jump from M to L is also unrealistic.

If you want 300GB I'd be wanting more of your cash ;)

Part of the reason I went into more depth on other things is that I think STM as it is is unfair and doesn't work. After 9PM my area hits a serious go slow due to STM clicking off and people starting their leechery, and it punishes people who may have a brief spike of heavy utilisation while allowing people, perhaps like yourself, nothing personal ;), whose bandwidth requirements run into hundreds of GB a month to go untouched as your usage is all non-interactive and you can schedule outside of STM hours.

Thanks for the feedback though Zing I can imagine it being a very common thought among people whose requirements are for a lot of bandwidth.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Perhaps, but for XXL I'd expect at least 1TB a month and at least half that on XL. Maybe 250GB on L would be better? I could last 50GB at 1/4 of the speed OK I guess :)

Not doing too bad this month, I'm under average.

A very over average month then... I rarely do that much though.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I suggested XXL being uncapped but subject to AUP/FUP as an upsell tactic. The XL cap will not go higher than 250GB simply because there's no point. Less than 1% of customers would be affected by a 250GB limit, less than concurrently hit STM, and I want that 1% paying for XXL ;)

As per with me when I ask these things I've some commercial plotting in mind as well as merely geeky curiousity :)

EDIT: Also note that all of these schemes still allow 'Unlimited downloads' advertising according to ASA regulations.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Hm, i would have called that fair use of the service.

I just abused mine over the past 3 days. Uploaded around 18Gb. (Ubuntu torrent seeding).

There are no fair usage caps here in Norway by the way.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Yeah I guess XXL being premium should be uncapped but subject to AUP/FUP.

I'd be all for the upload speed upgrade as well, being a web designer I often need it, yet can't get it since ADSL offers <3Mbps to my house. Cable is my only option.

Generally I'm against caps all together but if we can get rid of STM and the cap is decent (200GB minimum on tier L for sure), I'd be all for it. STM annoys the hell out of me. I couldn't work with anything less than that though cap wise. Or, if they allowed upgrading of the cap for say, £1 per 25GB I'd probably be happy with that.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I went for STM as it presently exists. I don't like having a monthly limit.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I'm totally against monthly limits, it doesn't solve the problem at all. The problem is available bandwidth at peak times, caps do nothing to curb usage during peak times.

It really is a toss up between options 2 and 3; both allow users to use their connection at full speed at peak time (providing sufficient network capacity) for at least a while. The benefit of option 3 is that it would only apply if the network was busy, otherwise everything is max speed :)

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Thing about capacity issues at peak time is I thought that would be "solved" when 20Mbps is moved to the new DOCSIS3 backend?

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I very much doubt all of the problem of capcity will be solved with the 20Mb users been moved to DOCSIS 3.0

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Well its bound to make a big difference at least, right? That was part of the idea of the move...

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

When 20Mb users are moved to DOCSIS 3.0 is this not just going to cause problems to existing 50 meg customers as these two tiers have the most traffic on them

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

The idea was to try and use the extra bandwidth so some improvment will be there but with the some area too many customers sharing the same cable it won;t make that much difference to them.

Virgin want there customers to think ooo wow new network that will solve all the slow down problems it won't it will fix it for a short term but in the long more money and work needs to be done on the network

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Which they can't currently afford to do after the 50Mbps upgrade... So its going to be the same problems as before. I don't know why they didn't just bring in 30Mbps instead of 50Mbps, and reduce the impact on performance its going to have while they get money to upgrade enough to properly introduce 50Mbps... I'm blabbing again :)

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I'd like Option 1 out of those, but we all know Virgin Media won't implement what's best for their customers. :)


If they flicked the switch on DOCSIS 1.1 for *every* modem / STB, it'd flag up who uses the service illegally, who's using out of date equipment (STB broadband is SO 2001), and pave the way for a move to DOCSIS 2 so the network can finally be reasonably up to date!!

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

According to VM Where I live the the DOCSIS 3.0 network is running at only 1% utalisation on the 50 meg tier and the service is awful,god knows how bad it will be when the 20 meg customers come onboard.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

20Mb users will be using DOCSIS 2.0 and 50Mb will be using DOCSIS 3.0 plus will have 4 channel to use, plus the channels will be increased due to the analogue signal been turned off best ask broadbandings or popper if I am correct I am still learning

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Eventually, which is what I was thinking of with the poll, both 10 and 20Mbit will be on the DOCSIS 3 network in backwards compatible mode, running as DOCSIS 2.

There may be, again eventually, multiple groups of 4 downstreams however this is unlikely in the shorter term due to upstream restrictions. My own area had to have a 3.2MHz slice of spectrum taken away from the legacy network for use on the DOCSIS 3 platform because there was no room for a 5th DOCSIS upstream here and that's not uncommon.

---------- Post added at 19:34 ---------- Previous post was at 19:30 ----------

Monthly limits reduce average usage during all times, as the people who are most likely to cane the network will go elsewhere, or will pay extra for a wideband service.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Or they'll download at other times, spreading the load over a wider time thus the average being lower :)

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

No, that's what STM is supposed to do in theory, however it doesn't do much to slow people down who are collecting Blu Ray and not that bothered about their browsing. A monthly cap reduces network load across the whole spectrum, promotes the XXL tier, and in addition removes 4% of the user base from throttling all together. :)

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

That may be true but when you think about it if there is no STM, people won't wait to do their downloads until after 9pm and then hit the network with a load it can't handle. If there was no STM, people would download as and when they needed, meaning the network wouldn't have such a high peak time at 9pm when STM is no longer a threat. That in turn would reduce the actual need for STM as the peak load wouldn't be so high. :) I do understand what you mean though, for someone who downloads a lot lot more than average and downloads virtually constantly anyway, its not going to affect them in the slightest.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Caps would reduce the overall usage and cause people to spread usage throughout the peak period rather than the present issue where there's a bloody great spike in usage after 9PM as STM is switched off :)

STM is there so that people on 20Mbit can't eat over 50% of the single downstream all the time over the course of an evening - a non-issue with migration to 51Mbps 256QAM EuroDOCSIS.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I have to agree with this or to use another example when we used to have last orders 10.30pm most people would get as many drinks as possible now the licencing laws are different most people spread out the drinking through out the night, I think if there was not stm the average user would spread downloads though out a longer period and so the network would have a lower average load. I think the stm is a smokescreen for the fact that VM have totally oversold on there network and the only way to keep things under control is to penalise people already on the network sorry for my grammer etc I have dyslexia.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Virgin Media and their horrible policies, we pay a premium compared to other countries, yet there are limits, etc.

If anything, I'd rather pay more (knowing I'm always going to get ripped off anyway, unless someone else can come up with faster speeds), then have ANY TYPE of limits.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Pretty Much hit the nail on the head there. Maybe VM should try that for a month or so, then decide which is the best case of usage for thier customers & network performance. After all once people have download what they want when they want they are either going to run out of hd space, or get fed up of downloading random Junk for the hell of it.

Even when STM knocks off at 9pm, and people unrestrict thier torrent clients, the network is still alot faster than it is during the day.

As for the options id sooner they stay as they are even with STM, but with a little more uplaod speed ;) & a little xtra cost to go with it :D

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Mmmm that doesn't seem to be the case for me, last time I checked, just for the hell of it it gave this, note the drop after 9pm. STM pushes peak time, 6.4Mbit on XL at 11:30PM?

Date 15/04/09 18:16:42
Speed Down 11305.46 Kbps ( 11 Mbps )
Speed Up 709.69 Kbps ( 0.7 Mbps )

Date 15/04/09 20:58:12
Speed Down 9625.04 Kbps ( 9.4 Mbps )
Speed Up 710.78 Kbps ( 0.7 Mbps )

Date 15/04/09 21:06:40
Speed Down 6314.83 Kbps ( 6.2 Mbps )
Speed Up 712.49 Kbps ( 0.7 Mbps )

Date 15/04/09 22:11:21
Speed Down 8812.84 Kbps ( 8.6 Mbps )
Speed Up 700.10 Kbps ( 0.7 Mbps )

Date 15/04/09 23:34:55
Speed Down 6438.88 Kbps ( 6.3 Mbps )
Speed Up 678.11 Kbps ( 0.7 Mbps )

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Increased price but no caps or STM and performance range.

here.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Ouch lol, that is bad. even at an hour apart roughly, your speed seems to get worse lol with the odd minor improvement. Maybe you have some heavy users on ur ubr.

Im / family are mainly effected by network more than anything, as the estate im in, the ubr wont be used hardly during the day, it only slows down mainly after 6pm once kids and parents are in from school &work, but come 9pm im peaking @ 1.7mb from the gamefiles site. Hitting 10 meg conection is ok, due to network allowances thoe.

Saying that thoe, I do notice a slow down in web page browsing during the night after 9pm. @ 00:30 hrs, i hit 1.2 meg steady download, yet web browsing is crap, i.e takes approx 5- 10 seconds to get a web page up.

personally, with current speeds available, id like to see something along the lines of...

2mb down - 1Mb up, no cap,but stm from 10.30 pm- 7 am. This would suit people who dont use the net alot but want a fast conection during the day wud suit familys, old people, Mobile i.t tech's

10Mb & down - 0.5Mb up. no cap, stm from 3pm - 4am. this would suit people working on a night shift allowing them to have a fast conection during the day. no 20 mb option due to timings on daytime bandwidth

10MB down - 4 Mb up - No cap, usal Stm, this would be for gamers, who want to game when and if they want. @ a slight price increase
20Meg down - 4Mb up 400GB cap, usal Stm times. @ £45 Pm
50Mb down - 10Mb up, 500Gb cap, stm also @ approx £65Pm
50Mb Down - 10Mb up No cap, Stm from 9am - 4pm , @ £100pm

All uploads would be uneffected by caps and Stm.

I personally think that this way all different walks of life people get what they want, if they want a faster line then they must pay.

It will also ease the congestion of the network also imo. With the huge amount of debt and lack of network upgrades going on VM need to rethink thier price war, and grow some balls and start acting and stop going soft on customers. In the end with a fast and reliable network they will come back :D probably with cheaper prices and higher bandwidth available

People want to abuse the network, download stupid amounts of data, then they need to pay, if they feel thats wrong, they need to change thier surffin habbits. :D

Waits for the angry but educational comments .... :D:p:

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

They all ready pay to surf the net they dont need to change thier surfin habits at all.Its not the customers fault VM have totally oversold on thier network and the only way to keep things under control is to penalise people using it. There should be no stm on any of the tiers customers should be able to surf the net any time they want with out being hit with the stm vm like taking your money but dont dont like you using the product how would they feel if everyone said we will only pay you upto a certain amount because we only getting a upto certain speeds because the stm has kicked in.They brag about it being mother of all broadbands but what they dont tell you is you can only use it in the middle of the night when most people are sleeping ready for work the next morning. VM said the stm would only affect about 5% of users (lol) vm would stm everyone 23 hrs a day if they could and still charge top price.If they introduce anymore stm hours i wil say cya vm take your broadband and phone and shove it where the sun dont shine

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Not really load is generally pretty uniform, there's just over 420 of us sharing 38Mbit and more than 50 of us are on 20Mbit with another more than 100 on 10 so it doesn't take much to overload it.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

i pay for 50MB i want 50MB with NO STM if i was closer to the phone exchange id be paying 42pound for 2 lines for a 48MB download and 5MB upload
quote(Download as much as you like with no caps or limits* and take advantage of increased upload speed )

unlimited means unlimited VM take note

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Fork out the cash and get yourself a dedicated non-contended service then and be prepared to pay at least £100 for it!

With a monthly cap people still download during the traditional peak time, as for a lot of people that's the only time they can keep an eye on the progress.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

100GBP a day perhaps :)

Yep but those people who care about the progress tend to be downloading low amounts anyway, you don't sit there watching 40GB of Blu Ray coming down, a game patch or service pack you might. That pattern of usage should be expected peak time traffic.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

i agree with what ur saying that u should be getting near to 50mb most of the time if thats what ur paying for and thats why STM is in place to ensure that u do and stop overloading of the network.

Im a 20mb user and thanks to my problems being sorted touch wood im now getting between 17 - 19mb all the time. My problems wernt down to over utilization tho they were SNR Problems which meant i was lucky to get between 4 - 9mb which was totally unacceptable. But what im trying to say i know of people who are on over utilized networks getting the same problem as i was, a friend rang me a few days ago asking me for links to things VM suggested to me to tweek his connection as he is on a 10mb connection and is getting around 1.9mb during the day time. Virgin say that signal is ok and the network isnt over utilized yet when he tries to use the net after midnight he gets about 9.7mb.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Option 1 would be my prefeence.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I know where yor coming from but i wouldnt say they have over sold the network,, Maybe they have in some area's, But the main factor here is to upgrade the network as best as possible imo. I agree there shouldnt be no stm, but if that were the case, everyone would jump on then band wagon and cripple the network more so than now.

Increase the price i say but then have no stm, but with a higher upload.

As you and many we would probably like to know who this 5% of people are, or where virgin get thier stat's from, probably fresh air, as even a family of say 3- 5 would hit thier stm pretty easy considering how many devices use the net today from home.

Virgin have to start realising that there are more and more failmys / people / students, using the net for all sorts of things now, i.e HDTV, bluray downlaods, bbc Iplayer, flciker,twitter, etc etc, upload is becoming more and more popular now a days, So in a way, STM does play a vital part, but in other ways it annoys the hell out of people.


Virgin need to stop having these crap trial areas with new STM times and start trials where there is no stm and no monthly usage cap and then see how that part of the network copes.

Personally i think virgin need to increase their prices, but with current network state they have no choice but to give better prices than most.

all good for competition thoe :)

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I prefer traffic shaping personally. You can do some very nice things with shaping, and keep the great unwashed happy with their casual browsing, but also keep the serial downloaders happy with consistent service.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I've voted for option one, on my 20mb connection I'd be assured to get "20mb" on the 250gb monthly allowance, not just 30 mins of burst speeds then stm.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I don't think Virgin Media wouldn't listen to all of us talking about STM or download cap as we know what they are really like, I think they will make it worse soon once the 50Meg roll out is completed and then STM will be updated on the site, could be lots worse or could be better. I think STM is staying forever, even if you like it or not, tough life.

---------- Post added at 12:29 ---------- Previous post was at 12:28 ----------

I don't want £100 per month for 100Gb per day (it silly idea) I rather £40 for 50Mb but a 500Gb per month is more than enough. (except upload is unlimited)

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Very true STM is never going and the more load placed on the network from new interweb app's the tighter STM will become.

Caps won't ever be used by VM as that sounds like its not unlimited they prefer to manage your speed just sounds better.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I be very surprise if 50Mb STM will be a limit of 10Gb from 9am to 3pm then 4Gb from 4pm till 9pm. I think they will. Because I think Virgin Media would say if you want to complaint about download cap isn't enough - then use it outside the hours between 9pm and 9am appear to be fair.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Then Virgin would be idiots and will end up with 50%+ of customers triggering STM as sustained usage increases. This is not going to happen.

We'll see. Depends how much money they think they stand to gain or lose really.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Despite all this argument, I'd still prefer a cap with STM when the cap is reached over heavier STM as it currently stands...

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

VM will never agree to monthly caps. They have STM because their network can't cope with the load in the evening. Monthly caps would just mean everything is crap for the first three weeks of the month and then almost passable for the final week.

It would be worse for customer's too. You can get STM'ed even if you don't go over the limits, due to things like incorrect configs, incorrect clocks and cloned modems. I have been hit with STM after 9pm on a number of occasions, as well as being hit with it the moment I turn my PC on when I get home from work having downloaded zero bytes.

It would also cause problems for people trying to use services like iPlayer or subscription downloads. Say you hit the limit half way through the month, that means you will miss programs on iPlayer because your connection has been throttled to pathetic speeds and they only stay on for a week. At least at the moment you can just wait for the next day and hope whoever cloned your modem isn't on too.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

BEunlimited is unlimited!!!!! no caps no stm

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Check this out:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/C...or-9995-102133

That's what real competition does, the thing sadly absent from here.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I read that article and thought the exact same thing. I came here to see if anybody had posted it!

When BT get their FTTC going, it'll be some sort of viable competition, but until then Virgin are basically going to do what they want. Customers can walk, but they'll not find anything faster. They know that all too well.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

2010 to start rollout and 40Mbit downstream (the number that people really care about).

Bleh :(

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Sadly being british, the number people seem to really care about is the one after the £ symbol.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

The downstream doesn't bother me, the upstream does. If that's not above 4Mbit, I won't consider it.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I say they should invest money in methods to kick off all the people using hacked/cloned modems. This would save them a considerable amount of money and bandwidth, perhaps even enough to not have STM/limits at all for paying customers.

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Agreed.

About the cloners, isn't DOCSIS3 supposed to stop them?

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Monthly limits are FAR worse. At least with daily caps you get your speed back the next day. Having it capped for the rest of the month would be ridiculous. Protocol specific shaping is also a bad idea - SSL would be 'unknown traffic' or if it was identified by port number, what's to stop p2p using port 80 for example?
Just leave things the way they are. Or better still, scrap the caps altogether. I mean where's the proof they actually make any difference? Rather than rolling out faster broadband, spend the money on letting people download whenever they like!

Re: When The 50M Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

The problem with STM is that its created another problem, at 9pm people turn on their downloads and then the network gets hit anyway. It would benefit from more intelligent detection rules. Specifically, 9am to 12pm monitor with -reasonable- limits, i.e. 15GB on XL. STM will be rarer but people will still download massive amounts out of hours. This would effectively spread the load over a longer period of the day. Best bit? this can be done on their current kit.

On a wider scale, they could employ 'smart' limiting, for example: every 15 minutes check if in the last 15 minute window the connection was being used over 90% - if so, monitor the next 3 15 minute intervals until the hour is up. If the load is sustained at over 75%, then artificially limit the connection to 60%, effectively reducing that nodes impact on the network. After say, an hour and a half, release the connection back to 100%. If load is still present at 75% or more during the hour and a half wait, then check every 15 minutes until the load drops below this threshhold (as an average), and then for the next 15 minutes check again. if the load is set below 75% for two 15 minute intervals, then release the connection.

They will still punish the massive hoggers (such as myself), but will allow reasonable network usage from us. 25% is too low a value to be considered fair, but I can clearly see the reasoning behind it.

as a note, take the above with a pinch of salt. it was a very brief idea.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

how often does virgin media updated STM on their site ?

a) every month
b) every 3 months
c) every 6 months
d) every 12 months

I think they will updated next one is June 2009 on the XXL 50Mb

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Stabhappy,

I like that idea. Didn't comcast or some other US provider decide on this methodology and found it worked well for the majority of people? Although I do remember one part I didn't like, when it was slowed down their bandwidth was put into low priority, which meant online gaming became a problem as the packets were delayed. I guess you could overcome that by not downloading while you play online games though!

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I agree, that looks like it's worth a try. I can't believe how many people have voted for monthly caps? Don't they understand what that would mean? I suppose it wouldn't be too bad if there were massive caps but being throttled for the rest of the month? I mean come on you might as well get unlimited ADSL for the speed you would end up with - why pay for 20 when you get 5 most of the time? Totally unreasonable...

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Because on ADSL the average speed compared to cable is pitiful. You'd still get more on cable. If they had 20Mbps for 300GB then 5Mbps, thats STILL faster than the average ADSL user gets, so overall they'd be able to download more. Remember 5Mbps un-metered is still well capable of over 1000GB a month.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Because it would take 99% of customers out of STM altogether and would function as a stronger upsell to higher tiers as opposed to the current scheme which potentially punishes those on XL who may use 10GB a month if they use it at the wrong time while allowing someone on 10Mbit for example to use a TB a month. Unsure what you do with your service but personally I don't get near 250GB so would never see 5GB let alone 'most of the time'.

The whole smart limiting thing is as done by Comcast and as I said before will require some investment in equipment which VM may potentially be reluctant to do, given that their investment tends to be minimal generally.

Comcast it should be noted also have a 250GB/month cap. The fallout has actually been pretty negligible after they introduced it.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I was unaware of Comcast's cap. I thought it was an unlimited but "intelligently shaped" service. As you say, its expensive kit and VM probably won't put money into it.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Sorry if I seemed to be flaming, especially since I'm new here. Just I wouldn't want the monthly caps to be too low as I do download a fair bit (nothing illegal - I test things like new Linux distros which are ~700MB a piece). I can't see 250GB/month being a problem though. :)

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

I wouldn't want one at all. sounds like a dreadful idea.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

How about a monthly "on-peak" cap, but un-metered off-peak? Say 100GB/month on-peak cap so you can download at any time until you reach that cap, then you're limited via STM to the lower limit until its off-peak times? Would that work better than an overall cap? I think it would some how since then if you really want something, you can have it, or if you're not fussed you can schedule to download it out of the peak time cap :)

Then there is the argument over what time is peak time too.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

The problem with that is that Virgin would still need to invest in kit, and if you're investing in kit you'd just aswell use it to it's full abilities.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

The only solution even worth considering is upgrading the network to cope instead of trying to slow people down. Unfortunately VM only care about the headline numbers.

It will be interesting to see what happens with 50 meg, now that (as predicted) it's become something of an EPIC FAIL. Not only does it fail to deliver the promised speeds to paying customers, but it's given a free speed boost to all the cloners.

Actually, it looks like VM's plan was to release an update to kill all the cloned modems to make way for 50 meg, but a fix already exists. Apparently VM never learn.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

i don't see why download limits should be an issue but if i had to settle i would pay more for none,


allthough the current trial, is relatively good, i generally DL, tv progs from america when i wake up (about 6 am) and i am done by 10 am, it's only 2 gb a day and if i have something biig to DL i do it through the night out of general courtesy to people i share a house with

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

My 50Mb speeds are great 45Mb+ actually.

I agree on the cloners part, I am not defending VM but for VM to upgrade the network for everyone to have a unlimited service and still get full speed all the time it would be impossible as there isn't a pipe fat enough yet and there backbone would need to be a backbone of the future as the current ones that are avaliable dont have enough bandwidth.

People who just say VM should upgrade the network don't understand how the network works, whilst if VM was to split the nodes and make sure the areas are upgraded for the amount customer connected they could lacks the STM limit as the limits are way to restictive.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Loads of very, very interesting posts here.

I am very intrigued to note that at least some people will pay more for a better service. I appreciate that we here don't represent an accurate cross-section of the VM customer base but that some people will pay more for better is interesting.

Thank you all.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

A lot pay Sky and Be* for an unlimited stable ADSL service and quite often pay less than what Virgin charge, so it's possible for an ISP to deliver the goods the customers appreciate. :)

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

It al depends remember ADSL offer lower speeds so can miantain a better stable network

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

ADSL offers lower speeds *some* of the time. Those living close to exchanges can get around 20Mbit quite easily if the ISP they choose offers a 20/24Mbit deal, so that argument doesn't hold true at the moment, and it's been done to death so many times I don't fee like fighting it at the moment. ;)

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

More about the network architecture. With the advent of the overlay network VM should find those issues largely mitigated though.

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Here's an interesting article: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...television/?hp

It's focussed obviously on the US more but I would imagine a lot of what it says applies to cable companies everywhere.

Thoughts?

Re: When The 50MB Rollout Is Done - New Tier Thoughts
 

Virgin will continue to shaft customers in much the same way companies in the US will. :)