Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

As per the title....

I think its a reasonable idea to combat high utilisation at peak time. it is certainly the cheaper way (the alternative to upgrade the network). However as we have noticed recently the V stuff backup is being throttled, and lots of gamers are facing lag and generally bad gaming as the games use p2p hosting systems.

Another point is that people with fast connections, described as 'unlimited' should be able to download what they want, when they want.

Another point is that this could create a 2 teir internet, the reason why BT scrapped its plans to cache catch up TV services. (i dont agree with this, its a load of rubbish)

in my opinion, p2p software, in particular torrents were created as a way to speed up download speeds, and download from multiple sources at once. On faster connections, which is what you pay for from virgin media, you want to utilise this speed.

please vote and leave your opinion! :)

---------- Post added at 16:28 ---------- Previous post was at 16:17 ----------

okay, so if they targeted torrents, then maybe, but have you tried playing call of duty between 5pm and midnight. its up and down like a yoyo

---------- Post added at 16:35 ---------- Previous post was at 16:28 ----------

How about if they kept the current system in place, but allowed a minimum of, say, 5megabits, so you can be throttled to mimimum priority, but you will never get less than 5meg???

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Virgins current P2P throttling software is believed to be crippling xboxlive access from the VM network. I don't care about p2p I do care about xboxlive!!

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

it only cripples is because it gives it minimum priority on the network, so say, outside peak hours, your xbox live and someone elses http downloading would be prioritised the same, so would balance along side each other, whereas during the management period, the http download gets priority, and your xbox loses bandwidth, once it gets below, a certain amount, probably less than 500-700k, it will lag severely, as there is not enough bandwidth for the data to be transferred, if they did it like i said above, a minimum of 5m is reserved, but still low priority, then it should solve the lag

---------- Post added at 16:58 ---------- Previous post was at 16:40 ----------

anyone have any opinion on the matter?

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

That's not how it works, XBL traffic should have the same priority as HTTP at all times, if it doesn't that is a fault.

VM obviously have problems with a lot of traffic being unidentified and falling into the same class as P2P / NNTP meanwhile NNTP over SSL from well known sources continues to enjoy unimpeded access.

Poor configuration and the shaping hardware not working as advertised.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Yes - I don't think games traffic should be throttled (as some people are alleging is happening), but I don't have an issue with torrents being throttled; YMMV.

(I don't notice any problems on COD, but then I play multiplayer on PC).

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

i play on xbox and ps3, which chooses one of the players as host and everyone connects to the host by p2p. on pc its a bit different, they have dedicated servers, but im sure it should still be p2p?

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

If it is, I have not been negatively affected playing COD (except by my age and ineptitude...)

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Yes they work similarly (Consoles and PC), however it would depend between games on consoles or pc if there are dedicated servers or player hosts (Eg. Battlefield has dedicated servers on consoles). Also I am not sure if all traffic has to go through the host or if it is a p2p network although my guess is that would vary from game to game.

As for the topic, If there was some way to have lower quality bandwidth cheaper (maybe routed a odd way?) which would end up having higher latency although not be totally congested and then higher quality bandwidth with lower latency,jitter and then having decent software to identify say a connection using more than a certain amount of bandwidth be routed along the cheaper way and connections using under a certain amount of bandwidth say voip/gaming/web browsing using the more expensive route.

I don't even know if that's possible or commercially viable. Just my 2 pence.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

p2p on consoles is nothing like p2p filesharing.

But this is just a hamfisted attempt by VM to throttle file sharing traffic. White lists on the internet is just an awful idea, so much stuff will be missed in them and new things are popping up all the time that will be degraded until VM get enough complaints to actually do something about it. But its par for the course :/

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I have been assured that Vstuff is not throttled so i reinstalled the software today. Its now 5.30 which is inside the managed period and i can confirm that my vstuff is uploading at 4.2 meg. So if it has been in the management in the past ? then its not now. I will continue to monitor my upload for the next day or two.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Maybe you should look HERE then.

I think with the release of 50mb and 100mb the network is like a sinking boat that keeps springing holes. They just run round banging bungs in the holes instead of doing a full repair/upgrade.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Indeed

Cod 4 BFBC2 and Black ops all run fine for me as well and all via the pc. :tu:

---------- Post added at 17:47 ---------- Previous post was at 17:45 ----------

Looks like most of those problems are for Xbox or ps3

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Well I guess VM know they have a good 18 months till Infinity really takes of and rolls out to good whack of the country.

But I think they will lose a lot customers once its available to a lot of people.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

It's been throttled to death for some time now wont matter which isp at the end of the day, more of the internet protocols/services are getting fenced off/throttled every few months now.
End of net neutrality in uk will mean it goes bad for everyone unless you pay said isp for more bandwith then you will have isp wars where exclusive premium website/services access means pay more and get a better experience ;s.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Erm, all of those (except two posters) in the first two pages were on Xbox, not PCs...

btw, what you think and what is reality may differ - you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.....;)

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Facts don't always fit in with a persons agenda all of the time ;)

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I think that if virgin targetted torrents and newsgroups only, it would make the service a LOT better for gaming, in terms of ping, as the network load would be reduced

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

That is what they target, doesn't mean it's all that gets hit of course as they also shape unidentified traffic which is a common configuration.

---------- Post added at 20:53 ---------- Previous post was at 20:50 ----------

Perish the thought of paying more for a higher quality service.

At the moment operators are only shaping on the customer side, no reason to think this will change any time soon due to how cheap external bandwidth is in the UK, we've a well developed internet exchange with LINX and other alternate ones along with relatively low cost links to AmsIX, DecIX, ParIX, etc.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

i understand they are working on sorting out xbox live at the moment, but why dont they just allow unidentified traffic as normal? they are blocking gaming, vpn, and even their own online backup until the update the other day

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Because so much P2P hides. Leaving unidentified stuff alone makes it even more worthless than it is now as every arsewipe and their dog can tick a couple of boxes on the P2P client.

Blame P2P developers who insist on obfuscating their protocols to try and get around ISP shaping. You end up with what we have now, positively identified protocols being white listed rather than P2P being black listed.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

GOD DAM!! THEM People who pay for 100Mb and actually expect to have access to 100Mb for more than 4 hours a day!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

When you are actually paying for 100Mb instead of less than the price of a decent meal for 1 with wine per month for a best effort service that supplies up to 100Mb subject to FUP, AUP, etc, please do get back to me on complaints of the supplier shaping a few protocols for a few hours per day.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

A lot less.....:D

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

What the hell you on about?

By the way our last meal was this weekend at a place called Da vincis in Ironbridge and the wine was £57 on its own, But the wine was worth it so was the service and meal.

VM doesnt give what the say. Da vincis does.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I would have expected some glasses for that price....:D

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

You getting fed up of them plastic beaker eh?

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Those, dear boy, those ("them" is so non-u).

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I am glad that ftp and sftp has been left alone out of the application shaping. I find I can ftp to my server fine at full speed all the time at any time of the day. This is very good for people with websites and servers. Direct links to my ovh server have always been good. Application shaping might not be perfect but it isn't all bad.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

ALSO-
Do you really think its fair the consumer pays because you under price your products? (you being VM which you obviously arent but you get my drift)

Or are you saying Virginmedia is a budget brand at a budget price? I DOUBT THEY WOULD AGREE.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Voted no for following reasons.

1 - protocol shaping sucks in general, false positives. plus inspecting traffic resource intensive which itself can cause performance issues.
2 - no differential on light or heavy user, this system treats a heavy http user better than a light p2p user.
3 - useless if an area is congested and no or little p2p usage to throttle.

That doesnt mean I think there should be no congestion management just that I think there is better ways of doing it than protocol shaping.

---------- Post added at 21:55 ---------- Previous post was at 21:52 ----------

ofcom have told me they have told VM to do this. Apparently if VM dont comply they will be ordered to change their website.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Well thats progression...OFCOM told me to contact VM and that they are aware of the issuse or something along them lines but massively over complicated for a reply email.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

why dont VM just use a proper system like that one we discussed that comcast use. I warned everyone here protocol shaping will be problematic and is a poor way of managing traffic.

---------- Post added at 22:02 ---------- Previous post was at 22:00 ----------

I got told that at first, but after about 2 weeks of daily phone calls they had logged all my calls and decided to take me a bit more serious, now I am at the stage they are consulting with VM about accuracy of their website in regards to traffic management. Bear in mind ofcom have just passed some new code of practice on this, its worth mentioning that as ofcom will look poor if they just let this drop, when I said that to them it kickstarted them into doing something.

Bear in mind VM are not been told to stop the shaping but rather to make the shaping match what is put on the website, so in affect either change the website to say what they whitelist and that rest is shaped, or to make shaping blacklist instead of whitelist.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Voted no for the same reasons.

BTW Chrys, You should've received an email from Neil at samknows today. Did you get it?

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I did, he wants me to register fresh again, will do it tommorow.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

what's this about? Sounds interesting

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

The consumer doesn't pay. They have made it quite clear since they launched the 100Mb product that it came with shaping of certain traffic. No-one put a gun to your head and forced you to purchase it and if it's not suitable for your needs you should have chosen another product.

Oh wait, there's about 3,000 private customers in total in the UK on 100Mbps products apart from VM. In other words you can't get those levels of performance from anyone else, even with the peak shaping in mind.

---------- Post added at 22:42 ---------- Previous post was at 22:38 ----------

The current iteration is management version 1. It will progress no doubt but at the moment is based on a quite centralised system which is incapable of the granularity that the Comcast system has.

VM would need to do some quite heavy duty upgrades to facilitate a Comcast-like system. Their current systems just aren't capable of dynamic service flow changes or such timely traffic monitoring while the Comcast systems were thanks to their running IPDR to police their 250GB/month cap and their more advanced QoS management from their PacketCable system to supply VoIP over the cable network.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

so given the lack of competition why they price it so low, who put the gun to VM's head?

---------- Post added at 22:43 ---------- Previous post was at 22:42 ----------

in short its been done on the cheap?

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

If vm add any more things into the network they're just going to make it worse. The more things they put our traffic through the higher pings will be

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

In answer to part 1 the price of the rest of the market did - note BT's pricing of their Infinity service and its increment over their standard broadband price - zero.

In answer to the other point yes, absolutely, done on the quick and cheap. They are doing it quite cleverly and in the cheapest feasible way however you misunderstand why it was done. It was done to relieve pressure from transit and peering not local networks.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I think that even with application shaping on the 50mbit and 100mbit connections, that Virgin Media are offering are excellent products for the price that they ask for. It wasn't that long in the past when 0.5mbit cost around £50 when it was first introduced. Comming from using 56k modems that was lucky to have a 3k download rate I think that users today are exteremly spoilt and want quite a lot for relativley nothing.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

even more baffling, we both know now days transit and peering costs are very low historically. For an isp to employ management to control transit utilisation is rather unusual in 2011?

Also worrying in that VM obviously consider their port utilisation issues to not be a problem if the management wasnt even put in place to control that.

BT are selling a up to 40mbit product, VM's is superior on paper so there is no need to copy what BT are doing. They just need a better marketing team who can take advantage of BT's weaknesses. Consumers do have the cash, they spend horrific amounts on mobiles phones. gas, electric etc.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Perhaps Igni can tell us whether VM's current system is the same as Plusnet DSL's implementation? Using both services I know VOIP on Plusnet is absolutely faultless, the downside is p2p on their network is virtually dial-up at peak times.
I can't actually get Asterisk to get along with the Super Hub properly to test call quality on VM these days. From past experience there were lots of packet loss, jitter and other unpleasant stuff to make it unusable. If their new system is DPI I'd expect it to be perfect now when it comes across VOIP packets.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

plusnet shape but they also do priority class's for different types of traffic. gold silver bronze etc.

so they will throttle specific things down such as p2p and as you say very severely. Then on top of that if their pipes are hitting saturation point then stuff in their bronze class will be further throttled by deliberatly dropping packets to maintain the higher class's. Things like VOIP are in their platinum class I think. Web browsing is in gold class, and if you on their PAYG product everything is gold. So plusnet's is more advanced.

VM appear to have no system's in place that react to saturation and is a simple protocol shaping mechanism. My thoughts based on what I read here and elsewhere and what I know of plusnet's system (as they quite open about it). Plusnet even admit they shape unidentified traffic.

They even do things like throttle gaming traffic to 2mbit but put it in a high priority class. This I guess means if they accidently mark traffic as gaming or someone fakes it, they will still be throttled but gamers wont find their packets been dropped as they in a high priority class.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Yep I've been through the ups and downs of Plusnet's network history over the years, a lot of it unpleasant but seems to be ironed out now thankfully.

I know from only basic internet use on my PN connection, there is a lot of 'unidentified' traffic picked up even though I use no special apps on that connection, so if you replicate this on VM with a more heavy user I can see where the problems are cropping up with unidentified.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

plusnet at least appear to know what they doing, they have support procedures in place where people can report unidentified traffic and even tell the users how to sniff the traffic etc. Plus the fact they allow people to pay extra for a unshaped connection.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Something I would add, is VM's management CMTS-specific load based or network global (total volume of p2p across every CMTS) based?

The reason I ask, at 1930-2030hrs last night I was happily able to upload with uTorrent at the full ~9.5mbps without issue, surely at this time I should have been pulled down?

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

what I read is it allows 25% of the available capacity to be used, so if you are the only p2p user on your port is quite possible it wont appear to be affected, also I am not convinced upload shaping is enabled network wide yet, as my areas had no affect at all on jitter etc. from when it got enabled yet other areas claim a large improvement. No announcement yet it has gone live, just trials.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

NOTHING should EVER be throttled in a discriminatory manner like this. This is a slippery slope to the loss of net neutrality. I implore you to look into what that would imply for the internet as a medium for humanity.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Net neutrality has always been a fallacy. Even without shaping hardware it's trivial to prioritise traffic from different sources.

The Internet isn't a 'medium for humanity' that belongs to all of us, it's owned and run mostly by private corporations and we lease access to it.

Sorry to be so dull, boring and realistic.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

The traffic shaping for Xbox Live is ridiculous. A few months ago, it was fine. Really noticing problems with it now.

Needs to be sorted asap.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I brought a game from "on demand" on live about a week ago, 6 gig download, xbox360 was on at time so it automatically started downloading. I dont know when it finished but I dont think it took that long as I remember checking my download a queue an hour or 2 later and it was done.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

certainly!! especially at peak times :)

i would call myself a fairly heavy downloader... i don't like being told "when" to watch a show or enjoy advertising in any form. But does that mean i should be excluded from enjoying a show?

In my opinion... until VOD comes along in a form whereby it is easy to access across platforms (ie linux/windows + xbmc plex etc... and even internet TV's) and this absurd notion of airing it in the states first (superiority complexes or what!?) then i feel that i am totally legitimate in my need to download.

However.... I schedule my stuff for overnight, lets face it most things in the states are aired at like 4am, plenty of time before "throttling" time for someone to record and upload it to usenet.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

that, i would agree with, but they are also shaping 'unidentified' traffic which is crippling xbox live, and call of duty at the moment

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I was not making a point on the actual difficulty of traffic shaping.

No need to apologise, if that is really all you see in the Internet, I can't help but feel sorry for you. The Internet has done a lot more than permit private corporations to extend their claw grip over the throat of the general consumer as what, just another advertising medium?!

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

It has been my source of employment and many other things for quite some time. Oh to see things in such black and white terms, it being either for the people, of the people and by the people, inviolate and open or an evil advertising medium for corporations to extend their claw grip over the throat of the general consumer.

The reality is of course somewhere in between and my statement was absolutely correct but let's not discuss reality, it tends to suck.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Ahhh! The old "I want the entire internet and I want it NOW"! argument arises in yet another thread.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I see no reason it should be anywhere in the middle. I don't know how you can allow yourself to believe and even still accept that either. Perhaps you are just being pessimistic and I hope if the opportunity ever arose you wouldn't give up the chance to fight for the peoples' control over its operation.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

"The people's control"???

Are "the people" going to own the Network Control Centres, and the transatlantic cables?

What next - shall we storm the Winter Palace, and sieze control of the means of production?;)

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

You are being pedantic. We have control in the sense that no one is or can be silenced on the internet at present. I think you need to look at the situation in Egypt. Why do you think their government found the need to take away their internet connectivity? It's a powerful tool for the people and not something which should have ANY restrictions imposed on it.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

You say "pedantic", I say "factual"....;)

You state that no one "is or can be silenced on the internet at present" - does that apply to newspapers' web sites, or forums like this, as I think you may find that we can be "silenced" if we break the law, or libel (or allow our members to libel) someone.

You also state that that it is "not something which should have ANY restrictions imposed upon it" - how about bandwidth restrictions due to geographic/technology limitations, how about legal restrictions such a copyright/libel/criminal acts, and how about the basic economic restriction that it all has to be built and paid for, as the IntraWeeb Faeries can't actually hedge their Magic Faerie Gold™ in the Futures Markets to pay for the technology stack and fibre that is the backbone of the internet?

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Oh you're talking about censorship. Not the same as protocol shaping to be honest.

Sections of the Internet are censored for legal reasons, shaping is network management, nothing more. No-one is mooting wholesale censorship however it should be noted that many people demanding their 'rights' do so on media belonging to others.

There is nothing stopping 'the people' from publishing content however sooner or later you have to use a company's network, perhaps their servers too.

Shaping is not censorship anymore than an engaged tone on a telephone line is violating your right to converse. Blocking the protocols outright is censorship, this isn't happening.

The Internet is a collection of privately owned networks, alongside some state ones, linked together again mostly via privately owned interconnects.

You see where I'm going with this. It's a network run mostly to make money, unless every country in the world nationalises all their assets it will remain as such.

Working in the field for a decade has perhaps jaded me a touch as to the more spiritual nature of the interwebs ;)

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

well 32 people say no and only 26 say yes, so virgin should stop all p2p management with immediate effect



LOL

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Oh well back to dial up speeds :LOL:

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Or even, perish the thought, higher end connections that cost a quid or more per Mbps.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

it would only cost a quid a month if you only used the net at peak times :D

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I actually see them as the same thing over the long term. I see traffic shaping as a step towards traffic prioritisation, hence corporations buying traffic, ISP's selling exclusivity to the highest bidder, the segmentation of the web and eventually the end of the global, 'free' internet as we know it. ISP's can own all the hardware and fibre they want, but they have no right over the traffic that goes through it as the responsibility they so wish to distance themselves from (i.e. copyright infringement).

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Traffic has been shaped on public networks for over a decade and that hasn't happened yet. That's just considering hardware appliances, it's of course perfectly feasible to deprioritise by having certain destinations you don't like very much crammed together on cheap congested transit and give uncongested connectivity to others.

ISPs are perfectly allowed to inspect traffic in an automated fashion for network management purposes without losing common carrier protection or violating privacy - see RIPA for more details.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

If you have a message to get out, you can do so now to the whole world, anonymously; which for some people is equivalent to safely. Individual websites can be 'silenced', obviously, but because of the nature of the web at present, that would not be of any effect in censoring what people might need to say.

Are you unable to address why you think Egypt felt the need to take it down completely?

If they have oversubscribed their hardware, they better be ready to compensate those who aren't receiving the advertised service. I'm happy to accept contention ratios and 95th percentiles, as long as I'm told about them up front.

---------- Post added at 11:39 ---------- Previous post was at 11:34 ----------

I know it has happened for a long time already, but I think you'll agree it is a much hotter topic now, hence this thread. It's this "you don't like very much" aspect of the traffic management which is wrong. Why should any one person be allowed to make that decision? How can they claim to represent the wishes of all the owners of the traffic?

ISPs may be allowed under the pretense they wouldn't be able to afford to do it on a big brother scale. I'd like to clearly state just because RIPA allows it, it most definitely does not mean it's right or A Good Idea.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Because they own the infrastructure that traffic is using to get from source to destination or vice-versa. If the owners of that content, or the requesters, don't like the policies of their current carrier they can always find an alternate one or create their own.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

have a look at this data from last 5 minutes downloading of an ftp server.

before the green line is on the port encrypted ftp transfer, after green line is same server but after changed to port 443. This wasnt affected 2 days ago, so VM appear to be getting more agressive in throttling non p2p/nntp stuff yet I see no change of statement on their site.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Try it again, might have been a one-off ID failure.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

still the same, it wasnt one large file so was multiple connections anyway during that graph.

Will test again after midnight to see if it changes behaviour.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

if you look at the virgin forums, they are updaing their throttling policies onto the network quite regularly, the one iv been following is the large 20+ page thread about black ops, in which they keep updaing the traffic management to the network with no difference to black ops, but peeps on here are saying that other things are changing!

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

still slow now, so could be some other reason. Dont think its to do with the london routing issues as is going via manchester.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I agree there should be some sort of throttling from heavy users, but to force it on everyone is pretty bad. The 75% throttling to me is pretty tough, they can easily cope with a less stringent amount if they did lower it to say 33%-50% I think most people wouldn't feel it was bad, except those who rely on grabbing their warez to sell like movies etc as an extra income they would moan about it cause they could lose out to competition in the area by others on another ISP :P

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Its getting silly now , was slow to use messaging , invites for about a month but then it cleared up for a whole 6 days and as of last night its back to being slow again.

VM CSR/Tech arent interested and seem like they couldnt give a monkeys. This attitude is bad even for them. Now obviously all the phone staff arent like that but to be told its just me or xbl thats at faul when it isnt is insulting.

Im beginning to consider leaving especially with the likes of infinity being available here i no longer need a bt compatible phone line fitting.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Even for Infinity you need a BT phone line. - Get it now! - It's free! (the phone line that is.)

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Meant in terms of my phone cabling internally. For adsl they wanted to replace it all. Yeah id need to be a bt phone subscriber to but at least XBL doesnt crawl on that,

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Understood but a bit unclear.:D

I have no problems with infinity, there is a little issue for gamers using Rift and WOW ATM but they are trying to sort it.

That said VM had problems with WOW as well but blizzard are issueing a patch which seems to me it is not an ISP problem although not being an on-line gamer I don't know.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

XBL works like a charm from what my friends that are on it say and as thats the biggest use of my connection thats what matters to me.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Latency, ping and more importantly for gamers jitter will be lower.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Indeed which is something VM are notoriously bad for , in fact the networks been ropey since NTL took over , least round here they have

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

ok I been doing more testing and wanted to repeat the test over a number of days which I have now done.

It seems my slow ssl ftp transfers do indeed speed up but not after midnight instead after 2am. I taken snapshots every 5 minutes which in turn has created a messy document that I had to sort out (it formatted badly no new lines). Here is one day's data between 1.45am and 2.15am.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

My NNTP over SSL to giganews is now being throttled to the same speeds as if over port 119.

*******s :mad:

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

lol

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Goodo. Working as intended now.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

No, of course they shouldn't.
They shouldn't filter or ban anything.

In 'the ideal world' their infrastructure should be suitable to cope with the demands of their subscribers, anticipating that they all might actually use the bandwidth they're paying for (yeah, I know, "up to" etc.... shut up!).

There are already daily traffic quotas in place for the lower tiers.
How any paying customer uses his or her quota should be their own business, besides which, isn't bittorrent usage in decline anyway?

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Supposedly but unfortunately none of us live in "the Ideal World" that is just a pipe dream which will never happen! :D

We tend to live in the "Real World!":D

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Just my ideas about what's going on:

In the US at the moment ISPs are all trying to add hard caps to connections because however much bandwidth they provide for new applications, torrenting (and newsgroup downloading) mops it all up immediately in some areas. They need a solution and pumping up the system isn't working. It won't likely work either, until torrenters can download all they could possibly want for the day in about 30 mins. This is a long way off as normal internet usage is unlikely to drive such speed boosts soon and torrenting alone is not something ISPs want to key their upgrades around. Normal users won't see the benefit.

1) Hard caps. Users hate them, even so US ISPs are risking such. In the UK however, BBC iPlayer (and the coming YouView) would be knackered with hard caps and customers will not accept this. No-go for anything other than the most value of ADSL products aimed at the emailer/light browser type of customer.

2) Ban torrents on normal packages and have expensive torrent packages for such users. This is too extreme as many of us want to check out newsgroups and torrent on occasion. Just not 24h a day. The half way house is to have 100meg connections available which tend to attract torrenters and to use the extra income to provide enough capacity on the top tier connection to cope. This means the rest of us on lower tiers won't have to pay to cover torrenters needs. I think 100meg should be more expensive if VM aren't getting enough extra from it to do this.

3) Prioritize. ISPs in the UK have suggested the idea of content providers paying for priority net access but customers have not reacted well. The alternative is to drop the priority of torrent traffic as VM is doing.

VM's current strategy needs a few tweaks as far as I can see:

1) Price 100meg so that it can cover the cost of providing the capacity torrenters need.

2) On lower tiers, drop the priority of torrents (and newsgroup downloads) for a user if that user is affecting the net for nearby users. Do NOT limit everybody else in the area who have not behaved badly just because of the actions of a few chancers who won't pay the extra for the top tier and still want to torrent all day long. This is little different to the problems that congestion caused anyway, a few bad apples ruin it for everyone else. Just limit the offender. I do not see why my torrent speed should be slowed because others are being the digital equivalent of noisy neighbours.

3) Drop speeds when managing them ONLY for torrents and newsgroup downloads. Not for everything you don't recognise. This is not easy, I get it, but some ISPs around the world do manage this I hear on these forums, so find out how and do it. This is absolutely essential or you will constantly be peeving well behaved customers.

It seems simple to me. Am I being unreasonable?

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Yes.

I would surmise that those who torrent or download via newsgroups are the majority of those who go for the higher speed packages, the difference between the two is torrenters use upstream bandwidth as well.

Gamers don't need higher speeds, they need low ping and jitter.- Not good if torrenters are prevalent in their area due to them gobbling up the upstream bandwidth.

IMHO the ISP's have to swallow a lot of the blame for it. They gave the wrong impression to users by selling products as unlimited when there was in fact limits on it! It's all about how you look at it and marketing.

Torrenters and newsgroup downloaders should really be looking at the niche providers like Be, et al, and paying the premium for it. That will upset the newsgroup users who already pay for the quicker download from the newsgroup server.

It's a total can of worms and I cannot see how the ISP's can solve it to the satisfaction of everyone.

I could go on but I don't want to fill a whole page with a post.:D

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Sadly if most of these guys aren't interesting in paying for the content they are torrenting (and please people spare me all the stuff about legal and illegal content we all know that virtually all the data torrents and NNTP shift is copyright theft, I am not for a moment saying it all is and am quite aware that CF has the largest concentration of legal NNTP / P2P users in the world) there is little indication that they are inclined to pay more for their services.

The cost of 100Mb would be... unpleasant if unlimited and unmanaged.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

rofl

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

as p2p people pay they have they same rights as the rest of us.
What the pass across is a different matter.
I use it to download the latest driver-packs.

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Yes, a lot of people seem to do that, approx 60GB of drivers per day.....

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

Well said :)

---------- Post added at 10:09 ---------- Previous post was at 10:08 ----------

Are those drivers updated EVERY day as well :LOL:

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

They are updated frequently but not daily

---------- Post added at 10:20 ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 ----------

If you just download, say xp 32 bit they will only be around 4Gig

Re: Should Virgin Media Throttle p2p traffic?
 

I must admit to not being sure on this one, I only tend to download drivers for hardware I actually own and only update them when I have a reason to.

C:\>dir *.mui /a /s | find "bytes"
9543 File(s) 235,703,368 bytes

C:\>dir *.drv /a /s | find "bytes"
12 File(s) 2,394,112 bytes