Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Hi all,

Months back, I had a couple of the letters about the detrimental usage. I'm running on a 10mb connection.......mostly off at night but downloading early morning through till afternoon. The first letter took about 3weeks from the date on the letter to arrive conveniently, so meant I was already tagged for the 2nd one most likely.....and I'd set my downloads to only download within outside STM hours (which I thought was a more than fair compromise - but they dont see it that way it seems)

Since then, I begrudingly switched to overnight downloading for the most part (much to the other halfs annoyance as the pc is in the bedroom). I certainly can't see the reason to justify 'upgrading' just to have faster downloads when the 10mb is more than enough for what I need.....it would just mean the pc would be sat idle for longer, rather than slow and steady.

Anyways, now that its been a few months on, I'm curious...........has anyone actually ignored these letters, persisted, and then actually been cut off or gone to a restricted speed? I've done a few searches and of course a lot of people complaining about them and still battling to get real target amounts and controlling of speed etc....but haven't yet read if anyone has been cut off as a result?

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...p/69958/page/2

2 minutes to find. I don't doubt that there are plenty more.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I thought the 10, 20 & 30mb speed are speed managed over a certain useage cap according to the fair use tables?. So how can anyone on the 10,20&30mb bb get these letters?.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

not sure about others, but I certainly got them.

checking my dates now on old emails, and it was mid October that I received my first letter.

Like many others, I understand that fair enough, performance can be affected during daytime......and would not object to more stringent capping when their limits were reached...which should be auto managed....but stupid that they will not even give a limit for your area, or a target and you're expected to keep within it.

One of my friends who works in retentions at VM knows nothing about the whole thing either.

the thing that peeved me off about the whole thing was the saying "move a large proportion of your downloads to outside the 9am-9pm times.

So, with STM being, from memory, 10am-3pm 4pm-9pm, I set my downloads to stop at 10am, then to go between 3pm and 4pm, and resume as normal at 9pm.......so that was 2hours of the 12hour period daytime downloading which was NOT in their peak times as per STM.....definately moving "the majority".....but no that wasn't good enough and got the follow up letter (but like I said, it took a good 2/3weeks for the first letter to come through anyway).

What was odd though, the first letter was only sent in the post. The 2nd one I got by email to the ntlworld address. I got a letter, as per the email, about 2 weeks later.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Yeah, its odd. He would have to be downloading enough in the 2 hour period between 9am and 9pm that is not STM'd to trigger this.

Or uploading a significant amount in the 7 hour window.

Either way it sounds dodgy.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

yeah for the 2nd letter, it was only downloading in the 2hour non-stm period (plus the fact that the first letter took so long to reach prob meant I was already triggered a 2nd letter before even started).

I don't upload anything, well not counting the other half occasionally messing with daytime use on facebook and the likes with photos etc but that would be marginal

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

It makes me laugh that people could get cut off for downloading on a connection they pay for. Isn't Virgin just risking throwing money away by cutting people off? Makes no sense...

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Not if servicing those people costs them more than the money they're getting.

Simple business math.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I've seen a quote from a virgin employee on there own board who says they contact users who on average download 350GB in 28 day periods. I dont know how if this has changed as that information was posted late december.

That works out at about 12.5GB per day on average. Ok so in some cases that will be more bandwidth, but also less in others. If thats true and is still Vrigins official unofficial figure before sending out these letters thats HALF of the bandwidth that a 30MB user can do before they are speed managed (with no probably threat of these letters).

12.5GB per day, that can be 30 mins downloading or under 2 hours of HD streaming. Are Virgin seriously expecting thats a FUP that should be accepted by all (on average) 50MB customers who like to do some downloading and streaming?.

And Virgin staff and employees say thats covered in there terms and policy as fair use for 50MB customers?. To me thats certainly a detremental restriction of a customers connection on 50MB.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I was wondering if you want to get out of the contract then you could continuously rape the connection untill they cut you off. No service no payment. Wether they actually cut you off I wouldn't know as no one has said they do.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

To be honest thats not something most would prefer to put to the test :) . Simply because it may well leave a person not being able to get virgin services in that address again in the same account holders name.

Just because they have sent the letters out it does'nt actually mean they have or will of cause. Whats to say that entire process is nothing more than a bandwidth limitation excercise?. But like I said we dont want to put that thought to the test to see :) .

But I'm pretty sure if a person argues detremental restrictions against them (as admitted to me) then you could always argue for either a contract termination or a re-contracting of services to a better managed and stated limits package.

But I've been reading even the 30MB or even 20MB users have been threatened with the action too!.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

With the state of the service at the moment maybe immediate termination of contract would not be a problem please see http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12...t-page-39.html for mine. To be honest I didn't think they would cut you off only restrict you as they still need your money rolling in. Contract, terms and conditions and all this legal sh*t in the most part is not to protect yourself or VM it is to deceive and swindle you into carrying on paying for a service that is nothing short of useless.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I had a couple of letters back in October 2010 and i think its disgusting that they still advertise 50mb as unlimited. I often get stopped in town by VM reps and they still insist that if i signed up and went with 50mb i could download as much as i like 24/7. I wasn't going to take the risk so took notice of the letters, i'm glad i did because i have read threads from 2 people so far that claim to have been cut off.

What annoyed me the most about the situation was that my 2nd letter was actually dated BEFORE i received my first and after speaking to the rude idiots on the phone i was advised that i should consider myself lucky i got away with it for 12 months :shocked:
I argued that i signed up to an unlimited package and was able to download as much as i liked for 12 months so why is it my problem that they have started to sign up too many customers and the service can no longer handle what i was promised when i signed up? Once again i was told there's no need to download so much and i should think myself lucky i haven't been disconnected :shocked:
Disgusting attitude IMO but they have me by the balls so ive had to change my download habbits. It hasn't been a problem to change when i download but to have a service that only allows me to download for 30 mins while i'm usually awake is pretty pathetic.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Can literally all of you who have had warning letters tell me, you have not ever downloaded anything illegal? If not, i think it is truly disgusting the way VM are treating you, although i do find 350GB a month a scary amount!!

If you are downloading a little bit illegally, well then, tough :D

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Well I have never seen anyone get cut off because of detrimental usage, what I will say to everyone complaining that its wrong is, you should have read the FUP before you signed up, the unlimited arguement can go on for days but unless OFCOM or ASA demand ISP's to state any limits then its tuff, all companies will use it unless it has a bandwidth limit.

I still find it hard how someone can download so much in a month, there can't be that much legal stuff to download, and before any one says I use it for business then you will need a business connection.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Is it possible to download 350GB of legal material a month ?

Unless you use it for business then I would suggest not ..

I agree totally that unlimited should mean unlimited, but the network is never going to be able to handle everyone at full speed all the time, to do that you would need to have stupid monthly costs, which you're not willing to pay ..

Unlimited is also controlled by the FUP ..I download a lot and am in the same boat as every other user, if I do it too much I will get the letters and risk being cut off, only difference for me is, it could cost me my job .. I use the service for VPN.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I'd be willing to pay a bit more for lower jitter. Fastpath style. That and to not have the network eat packets either due to congestion or horrible DPI when things get busy.

Streaming HD content from iPlayer can use quite a bit or simply downloading them. 800K/sec to stream or 1.1gb to download a 59 minute show. (I should note the streaming value is a bit of a guesstimate as the iPlayer tends to pulse from 2MB/sec to 100K/sec rather than being a continual stream of data). One person hitting 350GB in that way would be possible if only they spent their life watching online TV, but a household would do it much easier (especially with teens watching their own shows in their own rooms).

Toss in Steam (one 9GB game recently had two patches of 9GB each), dropbox and general youtube viewing and you could reasonably get close each month.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I don't understand the obsession with legal v. illegal downloads. Does anybody think it costs less for VM to provide capacity for legal downloads than illegal ones? Bandwidth is bandwidth. Legal v illegal is a pointless argument. Few will put up their hands to hookey downloads on a board anyway.

350GB during peak times if that is the supposed trigger for snotty letters is one hell of a lot..
if movies it's about 14 full bluray
or
40 mkv @ 1080p
or
80 mkv @ 720p
or
more divx quality than anybody could watch in the month.

If it's linux ISOs then you'd need multiple folks installing to keep up.

If it's porn you'd need half a hundredweight of viagra and a container load of tissues.

If it's streaming video then you'll soon be needing SpecSavers.

No idea how many games it might be but I suspect games couldn't match video for GB/hour consumption anyway.

I can't think of any other regular need consumer style high download material - perhaps one of the high downloaders can add to that list.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I think part of the problem is nobody at virgin has to my knowledge ever stated how they impliment the fair use policy\detrimental letter trigger.

If could be that they might have a set 12.5GB per day cap, is could be your fine if you do 300GB in side a week and dont even do half of the remaining 50GB for the rest of the month.

If we use 300GB over 7 days I could get the letter. If we use 15GB per day for 14 days we could still get the letter even though we may only have used 210GB and bearly use the net for the next 2 weeks.

When they are keeping so much from us thats needed to comply with there precious policy it makes keeping within that policy impossable. Which you'd think is against there own policy in not detailing how to keep inside there policy.

An no matter what you use that bandwidth for I'd still like to know how on average if you downloaded for 45 mins per day your classed as a heavy user?. It was claimed that we were downloading at a rate of GB per hour at a time when the pc was sitting idle and nobodt was using the internet. If they are accusing you of breaking there policy how can that stand when they refuse to detail by providing the figures?.

Also as mentioned what about excluded traffic sites?.

Also is the issue of excluded traffic sites?. As we to be expected to say downloading as little as 12GB per day average causes severe problems on the network in that area and send the letter out. Yet a family who might use 15GB per day average with excluded sites is ok and are not having a severe affect on users in your area?.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I think with VM's network they can't really have excluded traffic sites.

The bandwidth/utilization issues are down to the local network and how cable upstream works, not with the actual cost of external bandwidth.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I agree with kwikbreaks, the legal vs illegal argument is put forward to try and justify isp's throttling and FUP's as if they only affecting illegal activity and its ok because they doing the law a favour. That to me doesnt wash.

However the isp's are digging themselves a hole, if a content provider goes after the isp, the defense normally is they are simply a carrier of traffic and not responsible for what the user does, however by shaping torrents etc. the isp is proving they can identify traffic that has a high likelyhoood of been copyrighted material and as such by not blocking it they could be found liable.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

The illegal vs legal is irrelevant from an ISP's point of view, data is data to them, but I'm asking how can someone complain about not being allowed to download illegal material ?

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Probably as easily as an ISP can advertise an unlimited service but apply limitations to it which it won't disclose to those being limited.

I know of at least one perfectly legitimate way to max out any speed line you can get 24x7. Perfectly legal yet VM would soon boot anybody off who persisted with it. As you can see from the daily stats some (non-UK) ISPs deliver what they advertise...

http://www.majestic12.co.uk/

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

How?

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Visit the majestic12 link. Sign up. Download the crawler. Run it 24x7 set to utilise maximum bandwidth. If one crawler machine can't max out the line run more than one. Wait for the letter.

Nothing illegal. No need for a container load of terrabyte disks.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I'd still like a single virgin employee on this board to say (without refering to the AUP or any policy or that the advertising section is seperate etc) what they feel the message in virgins advertising for the 50MB is trying to get accross to customers & new customers?.

Surely virgin have to apply 1 or the other and simply cant have 1 message for advertising and something completly different once you sign. For the record I'm all for a limit just as long as that limit is stated and explained how it is enforced. But seeing as they already have 1 they seem to enforce I refute there is a compliable policy that any customer can follow because virgin refuse to detail it.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

also could queue up a large file in a ftp client again and again and set it to auto overwrite when it repeats. :)

nice link you posted, you got one for upload also?

I was going to saturate my upload to boost my UBR's utilisation to escalate an upgrade but it seems I may not need to now as VM seem to be doing some work on it.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Well if the VM backup actually worked I imagine a few terrabytes of backup would keep everything busy but as anybody who's tried it already knows it crawls and it would probably be quicker viewing your data in a hex viewer and transcribing it to parchment using a quill pen.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

By the way, does anyone know or actually been told by virgin why they cant\dont provide the figures on peak useage upon request after asking for them?.

I've been told it's because by the time the letters get sent out the data is already over 2 weeks old and probably more like 3 weeks or more by the time the receipient gets it to even think about enquiring. But it seems they dont actually keep the data that long as by the time you enquire about useage that old the only figures they can give you is the useage per 24 hours. So in other words they then cant tell you what you used during peak hours to dispute it or investigate useage accusations.

Wander if this is way they cant\wont also provide the average fair use for any previous month?.

Does'nt explain why they cant provide it at the time though does it?. Also it seems they choose this system of dertimental use because it is what works best for virgin even though they can easily impliment speed capping to 2MB for users after reaching a certain level.

So you do have to wander why they dont speed cap for the rest of peak hours on any given day\week month and prefer to send these letters out instead?.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Not really a useful reason is it ..

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I have a 10mb connection and I received the 2nd letter a couple of weeks ago. I do the majority of my downloading between 9pm and 9am, but i have been caught out on quite a few occasions during the day due to my kids downloading stuff for their Xbox, so a lot of times I've seen my connection "managed" during the day. What I would like to know is, how can my 10mb connections over-use, cause the network to grind to a halt for other users? What would happen if several new customers in my area took a 50mb connection? Would the network just implode? I dont think so.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I never suggested it was although the people running that project would disagree with you. All I said was it was a completely legal way to consume vast amounts of bandwidth and doing so would still earn you a snotty letter.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

lol, to true
It's a shame, I would use the service if it actually worked as advertised.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Well having speed tested at several times per day over the last week apart from 1 occasion which I think was just a glitch we never once get less that 46MB out of our 50MB connection. I've even questioned virgin on this today and even they have said they cant explain those results if the letter is claiming we are causing a total loss of servive to other customers and major disruptions for others!.

In fact we are currently getting 64MB now and thats we 2 pc's on the net. If I were to download and getting full speed then how can that be as we would be causing the capacity to drop that much several others will loose connection all together, what, they all on 2MB connection or something?. Then again just scanned the area and there are 4 superhubs in range right now.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

OK if you're going down that route, you could download from download.com all day ..

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

They must be better hubs than mine - that drops out above about 10m away.

The fact that you can still download at pretty much full tilt proves to me at least that you can't be having much impact on others. I'm pretty much convinced that this is all about VM weeding out uneconomic customers which, apart from their misleading advertising, they are perfectly entitled to do.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Possably why the guy I spoke to today did'nt want to go into that lol. Currently tested 47.2MB down and 4.4MB up. I'm in all day tomorrow so going to try testing on a more regular basis to see how slow I can test as much as how fast as I may be in a position to refute there claims if I can generate enough tests to suggest otherwise. By the way when is the utmost bussiest peak period hours. I'm guessing 4-9pm?.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I could easily run up 200GB/day or more with my offsite backup if I felt like it. Not business use, not illegal, not useless, and something I would usefully like to do but can't because of VM's Unlimited* service.

* Subject to arbitrary limits we won't tell you about.

Actually the fact that I can pay £20 for 6TB of bandwidth a month at 100meg vs. VM's £35 for ~350GB/month at 50 meg is pretty shameful.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

You aren't comparing like with like though. Providing bandwidth to a sever in a datacentre is vastly cheaper than the same amount of bandwidth over a fibre/coax network to individual homes.

This policy is simply because one high usage customer can require the same resources to support as dozens of users who do not serially download anything.

VM have a perfect right to choose who they sell their product to. Where they are wrong is in not making clear what that product really is because "unlimited downloads" it isn't.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

so do it ...

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Just because people are paying what in real terms is a small fee for their connection does not give you the right to hoover up the internet and if you dislike what you have agreed to under the Virginmedia Terms and Conditions then you can always vote with your feet and look elsewhere, I doubt in most cases you will get the same speeds as you get from Virginmedia.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I do agree with that in part myself. But it still does remain that virgin dont detail in the letters what the peak time useage was and they dont hold the data to make it available by the time a customer is in a position to ask about useage. So unless they are provided with the detailed information they cant follow the terms because virgin dont detail what they are or even what they have used in a fixed period peak hours.

What's to say there is an unknown reason for any apparent high use of bandwidth that the account holder does not know of or could solve with the information?, whats to say the connection is not being externally used (hacked it you like), Whats to say an error has not occured where heavy bandwidth from offpeak has not slightly overlaped into peak hours and the total has been collected for peak hours etc without the information being provided at the time or seemingly impossable to provide by the time they call Internet Security then what steps can they take apart from being told not to use bandwidth using abilities?.

And for us, which virgin simply seem unable to grasp it's not about the speed as such, it's not really about any AUP, it's more about not detailing it when they can, not providing the only detail when they can and pretty much the way they are implimenting this whole detrimental useage issue.

We would be far happier on even a 10MB service where they detail useage and speed capping after a certain limit and dont have such a draconian threat to cut there customers off.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

The way I see it is if VM can't afford to give you at least 50% of the connection speed 24/7 they shouldn't be selling it. Simple as that. That's like buying 50 litres of fuel and being told you can't use it all. I've said it all along that if they can't supply it they shouldn't be trying but they never seem to understand that.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Well for us it came down to a refusal to say how much equivilent of full speed bandwidth per day\month we could use. And how much we have used after the letters. In theory an estimated 10GB per day total peak time is fairly reasonable (if useable inside half an hours full speed) to use IF it were stated and stated how they impliment it. There is clearly a limit they have and work to for these letters but they wont tell us citing daily fluctuations in capacity demand, which is simply an excuse than a reasonable reason.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

u pay to drive ur car doesnt mean u can be lawfully stopped for breaking the rules.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

you guys have concluded what I been saying, its wrong to sell what they cant provide.

The ASA have took the wrong path on this, the ASA have effectively told the isp's as long as only a minority are victims of the policies they are legal.

Thats how 3G isp's managed to get away with selling unlimited packages which were actually just a few gigs usage limits.

Selling unlimited is meant to be a hard and expensive decision, it should be if you sell it you also prepared to support it, so if someone does go 24/7, then be prepared to lose money on it and make sure they can do that. As it is there is a big get out of jail card where can kick off users going over invisible limits and throttle the rest to drag their usage down.

FUP's are the get out of jail card for unlimited and shaping/STM is the get out of jail card for speeds that are too high.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I would, but I don't want to get cut off for over-use, plus more than one person depends on this internet connection other than me.

---------- Post added at 15:56 ---------- Previous post was at 15:50 ----------

Lol.

As detailed above (which you selectively ignore, as usual), I pay a comparatively high fee for my connection.

I dislike the T&C's, but on the other hand, despite VM failing to uphold several terms on their side of the T&C's they refuse to let me leave.

And again you selectively ignore the fact that Infinity will give you higher speeds and better all-round service quality than all but one of VM's widely available packages while costing a fair bit less.

Trust me, I will be leaving and getting better speed as soon as VM stop breaking their own T&Cs and letting me out of this damned contract.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Except in this case, the anology is that he's not being told what the rules are, what the speed limits are, which side of the road to drive on...

All they've been told is that they've broken them, and not to do it again, which is extremely hard when you don't know what the rules are.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I think we are going to see even more overselling from VM in the near future as BT have now announced a 110mbit FTTP product, expect something like 150mbit from VM soon which will go congestion crazy. :(

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

150mbps shared between 250 users on a 200mbps channel, that'd be fun to see.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

wouldnt surprise me one bit.

they might even go 200mbit on a 200mbit shared channel.

then to stop it going really bad people will get letters when they download more than a gig a week. :p

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I was one of the people who complained about their use of the word "unlimited". The ASA ruled that there were no limits except for "normal traffic management". That was back before they started sending nasty letters to people though, so it could be worth someone who got one contacting the ASA again.

I'm amazed I don't have one yet. Unfortunately I do get throttled regularly because people living here like to use iPlayer in the evenings, so maybe the loss due to STM kneecapping keeps me under their unpublished and unknowable limit.

So ISPs have now re-defined the meaning of unlimited to the same thing as limited. Kinda like flammable and inflammable. So we need a new word that means what unlimited used to mean, maybe ununlimited or "truly limited". Actually I like the latter because it implies that they lied, which is true.

Virgin Media Truely Limited Fiber Optic as far as the cabinet then Copper again Moderately Rapid just Not All The Time Broadband it should be called.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Actually now that I think about it they did say they were trialling 400mbit with the superhub...

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I'm also one that has such letters, and despite configuring my outer edge firewall to ensure daytime usage never rises over a 1/4 of the maximum speed, I got the second letter. Somewhat annoying as I felt I was complying with the text of the letter. I've essentially switched off all usage during the day because as others have pointed out I'm too scared that I will now be disconnected for breaching the unknown limits. The another slightly annoying thing is there doesn't appear to be any mechanism to "reset" your "bad-boy" count, so that sword is now forever hanging over your neck.

On the other hand, its still quick at night, though now we limit iplayer to later on in the evening which is inconvenient at times. I've also shelved plans to sign up with their TV service - in effect they have lost +£50 per month they could have got and I will consider my options seriously when my renewal comes. I don't know any other business that could be so vague with their rules - imagine if the roads were like that, the speed limit changed daily and there were no signs telling you what the maximum was :)

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Well in the end we had enough of there impossible to comply with AUP and had our Virgin contract terminated on Tuesday afternoon with immidiate effect without having to give the 30 days notice. That's impossible as in we could be well within 1 month and for no reason or change of usage get the letter threatening to cut us off the next. Nobody should have to live with threat of service termination when they have done nothing wrong.

We will happily live with a 10mb connection we can use as and when even if there is restrictions as we know we won't have to live with the threat of service termination in the way Virgin feel is right.

By the way when we called to check the final bill (they actually owe us lol) I don't know which department was spoken to here in the UK but they asked about why we left, we explained why and guess what?, when asked and told our previous speed was 20mb they looked on the system and said peak time useage is no higher on the 50mb than it was on the 20mb!.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

I upgraded my BB with virgin to 50mb 6 months ago with the understanding, that it was unlimited, and never read anything about a FUP but i have been getting these detrimental use letters since march in may i drastically reduced my BB usage, i have alot of people using the connection at the same time, but VM wont tell me what the limits r, i stay below 350gig a month as think that is a reasonable figure for a 50mb connection with 8 people using the connection at the same time.

I can understand VM trying to even things out for everyone and i totally agree with that, but tell us what we should and shouldn't do! we r not mind readers!

Has anyone had any joy from VM about how much is acceptable usage ?

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

350GB for 50Mbps is hardly acceptable. At full 50Mbps you can use that up in 16 hours dead!

Try out this handy calculator I made. http://www.betaarchive.co.uk/download_arrival.php It'll surprise you...

I have 9Mbps (10.4Mbps sync) on my Be* connection and I have already done 500GB this month :)

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Downloading 350 GB at 5 MB/s will take approx. 0 Day(s), 19 Hour(s), 54 Min(s), 40 Sec(s)

:O

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Select 50Mbps (6.25MB/s), it's even less time then!

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Yeah but downloading at full speed for 16 hours a month is pretty much bang on the 30:1 to 50:1 contention ratios that lie on the "good" end of typical.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Why, so you can sue VM like you sued Davenport Lyons and won?

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Suing Virgin would be a lot harder than DL. DL's mistake was to drop the case when I challenged it, after causing me financial loss. Virgin have not cost me anything so far and the Small Claims Court can only be used to recover money owed or restore losses.

If I get one I will write back explaining their mistake. Have they ever actually cut anyone off? If they did I would sue for loss of income during the period where I had no internet connection. Actually that could be a long time because ADSL doesn't work on my BT line so I'm not sure what option there would be. Pay BT to put in a new line perhaps? FTTC isn't available here yet.

I am going to draft a complain to the ASA this evenings. They can't call it "unlimited" if they limit and eventually boot you off based on some arbitrary limit. If that fails might also write to the OCED and ask them to add "limited" as a synonym for "unlimited" since they apparently mean the same thing now. Kinda like flammable and inflammable.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

according to the first reply to my post, someone did get cut off

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...p/69958/page/2

I'm presuming if they 'suspend it' or 'cancel it' then you'll be out of their contract, and then within rights to cancel their other services etc. Mind, I wouldn't be all that surprised if they'd suspend it while still charging.

Like many (though I'm on 10mb), I wouldnt give a monkeys too much if they throttled it for rest of month at peak times once hit certain point - at least it would be usable in daytime......but its something THEY need to manage, not us, and not to BS us.

Even had to kick my son off his pc yesterday, when he was playing a game on it, to see he'd quit the game and had been watching away CITV programs in full on the pc (typically only half watching then clicking to each one).

It was months back now that had the letters, but no idea if after a few months of 'good behaviour' it gets reset....or if it just takes one more instance of p'ing them off to have them cut me off.

I "foolishly" use my ntlworld email address for work related stuff too....so there'd be a point about 'loss of earnings' I guess . Think I should start getting that work related email changed to something else like gmail methinks, as can't trust VM

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Ah yes, but your claim about suing DL and winning was shot in the foot by the fact that the court you claimed to have filed a small claims in had never dealt with such a claim.

Honestly now, not all of us have short memories, and I would hate to see a thread like this descend into a ****ing contest that could give some people on here false hopes that they have a chance of resolving detrimental usage without actually adjusting their online behavior.

And by the way, you can't sue for loss of income - how can you, the residential service is for that alone, and claiming loss of income would only cement VM's claim of an abuse of its T&C's

You talk up a good argument there's no getting away from that, I'm not sure though how good your talking would be if you ever faced such a letter from VM.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Which would fail at the first hurdle as you are not on a dedicated business service, plus if you were cut off it would because you had breached the Terms and Conditions so again another fail because oddly enough that is the service type that you have signed up for and agreed to just by continuing to pay for said service.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Now that did make me laugh a lot. Come on, lets not be silly now, cos we know that is never going to happen, is it. Well, not unless you want Virgin to counter claim for fraudulent use of a domestic service, and the losses they incurred while you used their domestic service for business purposes LOL
Why do some people give out such bad info, to make it look like they have some overwhelming knowledge about such things.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

Although I prefix this by saying "not a chance of it working", the more interesting angle would be if one stated that access to the internet was now a service that was a fundamental human right, as the UN did recently
http://www.care2.com/causes/human-ri...l-human-right/

If cable your only way of accessing the internet, and perhaps show that other suppliers were not able to provide you said service because of the dominance of VM in that area, then the UN would deploy peacekeeping troops in order to make sure you received your daily dose of iPlayer!

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

You make a very good point regarding this fast developing area. It's interesting how this might pan out in the long run. If it turns out it is illegal to cut people's connection off even if they are breaking the law, one could imagine it would be even more illegal to cut people's connection off because of arbitrary commercial reasons. Yet conversely forcing companies to provide service at a loss to indivuduals who abuse it isn't going to fly either, but I'm not sure where the compromise is going to fall.

Re: Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?
 

That's some damned fine stuff you're smoking there sir. Can you PM me with the info on where you got it. TIA.