Cable Forum - View Single Post - Legal action taken against Virgin Media throttling practices

Mike_A · 10-03-2009, 18:51

Just spent some time reviewing posts - what an excellent forum!

Just to let people know that I have taken legal action against Virgin Media in the Scottish courts.

A long term customer with Telewest, my troubles began once VM took them over. After careful scrutiny, unilateral restriction of services is not allowed in my contract with VM. They cannot "throttle", "restrict" or "manage" my bandwidth at any time, for any reason, unless they show just cause, i.e. that they have notified me that I have done something wrong and shown why. It is the same for everyone.

As a developer of Internet services, with technically capable professional friends providing feedback about anything I am unsure of (very little), I have no doubt about my claim. Nor do Virgin Media, for they have admitted their practices. In spite of that, and receiving writs during last autumn, and although having internal and external legal professionals working for them, they had failed to lodge defences when the case first called on 4th March. The court gave them three weeks to provide me with defences.

The outcome of this case may have significant impact on reimbursement by Virgin Media for services contracted but not received.

I shall report progress. Meantime, I am interested in hearing from anyone who has taken logs of their service, and the times they experienced throttling.

There's obviously a lot of dissatisfaction about throttling. Curiously, no person has taken action in court before now. Perhaps this case will equalise the contractual relationship between VM and their customers. It's good for VM too, for with BT about to compete on even terms with their own cable network taking the "bully" out of the bullies will gain them a better client base.

10-03-2009, 18:51	#1
Mike_A Inactive Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 53	Legal action taken against Virgin Media throttling practices Just spent some time reviewing posts - what an excellent forum! Just to let people know that I have taken legal action against Virgin Media in the Scottish courts. A long term customer with Telewest, my troubles began once VM took them over. After careful scrutiny, unilateral restriction of services is not allowed in my contract with VM. They cannot "throttle", "restrict" or "manage" my bandwidth at any time, for any reason, unless they show just cause, i.e. that they have notified me that I have done something wrong and shown why. It is the same for everyone. As a developer of Internet services, with technically capable professional friends providing feedback about anything I am unsure of (very little), I have no doubt about my claim. Nor do Virgin Media, for they have admitted their practices. In spite of that, and receiving writs during last autumn, and although having internal and external legal professionals working for them, they had failed to lodge defences when the case first called on 4th March. The court gave them three weeks to provide me with defences. The outcome of this case may have significant impact on reimbursement by Virgin Media for services contracted but not received. I shall report progress. Meantime, I am interested in hearing from anyone who has taken logs of their service, and the times they experienced throttling. There's obviously a lot of dissatisfaction about throttling. Curiously, no person has taken action in court before now. Perhaps this case will equalise the contractual relationship between VM and their customers. It's good for VM too, for with BT about to compete on even terms with their own cable network taking the "bully" out of the bullies will gain them a better client base.