Permanent Limitation?
 

Hey,

I'm wondering if we have a permanent limitation on our account.

This is a shared student house, ten people, we download quite a bit through iplayer, itunes, 4od etc.

I use ddwrt on a wrt54g router to limit people from downloading during the day, so its rare for us to go over the limit but at night between 12am and 9am its free for all.

Where as previously I could get a solid 20+mb on usenet now during the day or night i can't get over about 12mb.

Have we been limited permanently, or is this possible?

Attached is my router log.

Cheers,

Matt

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

It might be worth contacting Virgin.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Yeh probably, I'm not the account holder though so its a bit annoying.

Any ideas on if they do this though?

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

It could be over subscription on your UBR. You will need to contact Virgin.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

You do not have to be the account holder to report a fault or get an engineer booked if required.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tech Support is open 24/7 on the numbers below.

For help with your TV or Phone and for Broadband Technical Support:

Call Product Support/Faults on 151 option 3 from your Virgin Media Phone. It's absolutely free.

Or call 0845 454 1111 from any other phone line.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

When grabbing stuff from the usenet server use more than one thread at a time, ideally you can use 3 consecutive threads (aka downloads), they will add up to your bandwith ;)

I have noticed single thread speeds, they take the michael by limiting the speed.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

What has that got to do with 10 people sharing one 20Mb connection:confused::confused::confused:

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

If you have the time / money available (unlikely it being student digs), invest in a router / proxy PC that can restrict each connected person to 2Mbit or something.

Come to think of it, does such a router exist?

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

@Moldova - Because the OP said before using usenet servers it was a constant 20mb now 12mb. Please do read thanks :)

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

I read it at 3pm and advised him to call Tech Support because of his issue, so read it a long time ago.:D

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Well to be honest again.. the service is horendous..

An example

Downloading The Biggest Loser Australia Finale.

1GB size, im not Throttled.

1 seed, 115 peers... 25KB/s

*golf clap*

Because the connection sucks donkey thingies, and no regular UBR checking and upkeeping.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

I knew you were complaining in general by the way over speeds as the above post better shows.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

With 1 single seed and 115 peers, the health of the torrent is quite low, which explains the slow speed.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Im sure 115 peers are able to send me collectively faster than 25KB/s.

Seeds are great, but peers are just as good for torrents.. Thats the beauty of torrents :)

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

The 1 seed suggests that superseeding is not available from the main seed, hence there are limited parts so you're pulling it in slowly.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

The seed is capable I know of, of 256KB/s upload, and had no problems in the past with previous episodes as soon as he uploaded the torrent.

One problem of course is the greedy punters who get and immediately decide they wont share.

But as said the seed is more than capable of fast seeding :)

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

fast seeding yes, but again, hes probably not superseeding.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Quick seeding > Peers receive fast > Peers send out quicker to other peers

Again thats the beauty of torrents, that they are able to complete if parts are available when no seed is online.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

So do you know every peer and what there upload is don't forget they are uploading to other people than you, leave it running and it should pick up speed and how can this be a Virgin issue.

If your speeds are that bad you could try paying for your downloads from say itunes

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

115 peer's is more than capable of sending faster than a collective 25KB/s.

As another example, just to test speeds, I noticed GTA4 (I dont agree with warez users but in this case a 1hr test was needed and this had a nice amount of seeds to peer ration) so grabbed for a 1hr test.

400 seeds, 2000 peers...

Connected to 80 seeds and 40 peers... speed = 50KB/s

(and before people say blah blah open ports etc... Yes I have)

That is a disgrace somethings are not right here you see :P

And bbk, you said leave it running it should pick up speed it was downloading already for 8 hrs (the tv show not GTA4 - which was deleted after 1 hr test well the little data that was downloaded)..

As a further test... I also have got in recently A Be line, as I was planning to goto them originally for the 2nd time, so I have both 20mb VM and Be line at the moment, on Be the GTA4 re-1hr test was going at 450KB/s to start with after a couple of minutes.

With the same settings etc as before. (again deleted after 1hr testing)

So yes VM need their asses kicked :)

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Virgin can't control your torrents, with torrents its pot luck who you connect to

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Agreed that is true. But...

The collective should have been faster than it was on the 20mb line.

I am sure that peers are more than capable of sending around at least 5KB/s to other peers yes?

Unless each and every single one of them only set a poor 1KB/s upload speed globally, which I seriously doubt :)

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Get over it! I don't bitch and moan about the fact I have one particular torrent with 100-odd connections to me (8 seeds, 105 peers) as I speak on a 10Mbit connection, and I'm getting less than 100KB/sec - it averages about 50-60KB/sec. Some torrents you get quick, others you don't. Understand the tech before you go bashing VM for something they officially don't do *at this stage* (throttle BitTorrent).

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

I do understand the workings of a bittorrent client. I also understand how the swarms work, how peers work in a bittorrent environment, how the overall networking works.

You obviously need to read up on it, before suggesting I dont understand it. Which you haven't and at no time did I say VM throttled it, I am talking about the poor service which is not upto scratch that is capable enough to deal with the many connections at the one time.

If people cant see the fact that VM are not giving customers a good service they promised to give then so be it. But when people come into threads and start throwing the "Understand the workings" excuse when they clearly dont, then imho you deserve to have the poor service your getting.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Sorry Rob, im just trying to point out inadequencies on VM side, but if you dont agree with the masses... I guess you become a target :)

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Sorry, at what point did I say I was getting a poor service? I thrash this 10Mbit connection day and night (it's shared between 5 or 6 people in a flat), torrents, downloads, gaming etc, and most of the time I get 10Mbit apart from when it's throttled. You (obviously) are unhappy with the service you're getting, and unfortunately I can't exactly help you apart from tell you to, say, move to another ISP! Be* for instance.

To give an example of where you're wrong, I have had a couple of torrents overnight recently which, when run concurrently, garnered 1MB-ish/sec (I have 10Mbit available to me). I had about 80 seeds and 100 peers connected at once on that one torrent (and the other one which I started later on pulled 150 seeds and 140 peers), on top of those which I was already seeding (some 100-odd torrents, of which I think around 20 were uploading at any one time, with 1-3 peers connected to me), and the torrent being downloaded finished in about an hour (big F1 nut is I), the other one finished in a little under 5 minutes. [Separately to that, I have successfully hosted a 19-client gaming server on a 2Mbit M service with an ntl 250 modem, so I know the newer modems are more than capable of handling many connections. I received no complaints about ping, in fact they were pleasantly surprised it was so good!] So don't go blaming VM for everything, because they do give me a reasonably good service, and I can't complain especially when I thrash the connection nearly every night. But do by all means go blaming your client / router / modem / NIC, because any one of those could be a problem, be it incorrectly configured BitTorrent clients, just plain wrong system configuration, broken drivers, broken chipsets, dying hardware / cables, etc...

You cannot lay the blame squarely at VMs door, when by your own admission others work fine. What you can do is reduce the number of connections allowed in your torrent client. Mine is currently set at 500 per torrent, with a maximum of 2000 global BitTorrent connections, and 100 upload slots per torrent. I know it won't hit that (2k), or even remotely get close to that, but if I put what it could get (200), I know it would be substantially less than that.

Not everyone in a swarm is connected to your machine. For an example of a currently running torrent which is about 350KB/sec *average* at this particular moment, there are 9 of 112 seeds connected to me and vice versa, and 95 of 604 peers connected to me and vice versa. People do limit their upload speeds, people cheat with clients connected, which is why I expressly prohibit those using BitLord / BitComet / BitTornado to connect to me as a peer / seed by banning those IPs in ipfilter.dat. Again, you can't lay the blame squarely at VM, even though you'd like to. There are many other factors to consider, and a one-minded view does you no good, and doesn't help others either.

EDIT: Apologies Rob, just trying to clear things up. Spent a while writing that post!!! :D

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

I did not say others work fine on the VM connection, please do read what is said. Which you haven't or you would notice I have both VM and Be.

Yeah im sure your torrents did well, but your not on my UBR are you. Aha. So no im not wrong, Im giving the facts of what is going on with me. And the OP has had problems too.

I never said everyone in a swarm is connected to me at all times, (Why do people come up with these fantasy things I supposedly say) again please do read. I said I understand how Swarms work... jeez louise.

And FYI I have a global 750 conn's connected at one time. Only 2 torrents active at one time, 250 seeds if possible and 125 peears per torrent.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Oh FFS, it's like talking to a brick wall! :D You haven't mentioned your UBR at all, so you could well be on the same one as me! ;)

And if you connect to a torrent with 1 seed and many peers, expect a low download speed, unless the poor sod's using a seedbox.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

If you honestly think VM are artificially limiting your torrent throughput, grab Ubuntu using torrent and watch it hit 2.4MB/s.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Hehe thats a thread killer if ive ever seen one!

Torrents vary... massively! could have 100 peer's and still have a sucky donwload speed, it depends on what all those peers are doing. Crikey it could be 100 peers on Virgin who ar eall STM'd and their upload speed has just vanished!

Virgin dont traffic shape their torrent traffic, its only STM thats in place. Ubuntu with torrents is a good idea though, if your really into torrents then its worthwehile trying new things to see the difference. You would be surprised how much windows nukes your Torrent download speed!

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

i don't tihnk you are being limited i think virgin are just **** atm,


i have dropped from 2Mb/Sec DL through torrents, to 25Kb from a private torrent tracker people on BT have DL'd the same file for me at considerably greater speeds.


i would suggest you wait and see if the problem persists contact VM, repeatedly until they admit the fault in your area is bigger than they initially thought,

according to VM CF11 is having connection issues, which is fine apart from i'm havign them in CF24 a fair few miles away.

it's been bad since tuesday morning after an outage for several hours on monday.

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

Which is, incidentally, when Cardiff rolled it's 20Mb users on to their new DOCSIS3.0 network. It's the same for me in CF10. From what I've read, it should mean better service for us, but for the past couple of day's it's been the complete opposite.

As for the torrents, I don't use them, so can't chime in with my opinion. Which could be seen as a good thing :D

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

well at least you knwo something, i got so fed up of the automated service and being on hold i am just riding it out. Virgin adopted my favourite method for fixing things ignore people for long enough and they like the problem go away :D

Re: Permanent Limitation?
 

@marx, also in the CF24 area, and also on Virgin with abhorrently bad internet at the moment. I'm "supposed" to be on 20mb, but here was a speedtest result from this morning. Looks more like dialup to me.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...009/05/140.png

...and here's another one from just now.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...009/05/141.png

At best, during daytime I've hit 1Mbps down and 0.7 (which is full for 20mb up), but still horrible pings that either stay high, or fluctuate wildly. At night, I believe the highest I've experienced in the last 3 days was 4Mbps down, at approximately 3am. The average though has been about 0.7 down 0.6 up, and as someone who likes to play a fair few online games, this has been more than a little troublesome.

I also made the foolish mistake of phoning up tech support, only to hear an almost entirely unintelligable person on the other end telling me that despite the ticketed problem becoming resolved, it in fact WASN'T resolved and he had no idea how long it would take for it to be resolved. He might've mentioned something more helpful, but I honestly couldn't understand since the line was so garbled. Guess at some point it'll be fixed, God only knows when.