Legal action taken against Virgin Media throttling practices

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Ok then, what about be broadband. They advertise an 'up to 24Mbit unlimited connection' for £17.50 - I get between 10 and 15Mbit for that price.

So my service is not 24Mbit nor according to everyone on here is it unlimited - because I cannot download at the speed advertised.

Same goes for Sky and every other ADSL provider out there

No. we've done this argument many times before.
ADSL has always been "up to" the maximum they provide. depending on many factors which they state. such as line length.

With cable you are sent a config file for whatever speed you are paying for. it is then artificially restricted by Virgin. it wan't restricted by natural means such as line length, but means administered by Virgin themselves.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Gary L

No. we've done this argument many times before.
ADSL has always been "up to" the maximum they provide. depending on many factors which they state. such as line length.

In that case no ADSL provider should advertise as unlimited - because they are limited by line length

With cable you are sent a config file for whatever speed you are paying for. it is then artificially restricted by Virgin. it wan't restricted by natural means such as line length, but means administered by Virgin themselves.

One rule for the goose, one for the gander then?

If the industry/OFCOM allows limited ADSL providers to advertise as Unlimited - even thought you cannot download as much as they say you can - why should a different rule apply for cable?

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

In that case no ADSL provider should advertise as unlimited - because they are limited by line length


One rule for the goose, one for the gander then?

If the industry/OFCOM allows limited ADSL providers to advertise as Unlimited - even thought you cannot download as much as they say you can - why should a different rule apply for cable?

You are just talking nonsense now.
Be is Unlimited. you can download as much as you want at the speed your line supports. without any restrictions put in place made by BE in altering your speed and such after a certain amount is downloaded.

If you now want to move on to the next route of downloading as much as you want. and you still can with Virgin but at a reduced speed from the original speed. then don't bother

[broadbandking]

As the data is unlimited as there no set limit thats why ISP's get away with it but if they said unmetred speed then they would be in trouble not saying I like STM just purely pointing out why OFCOM let ISP's use unlimited

[Bonglet]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Ok then, what about be broadband. They advertise an 'up to 24Mbit unlimited connection' for £17.50 - I get between 10 and 15Mbit for that price.

So my service is not 24Mbit nor according to everyone on here is it unlimited - because I cannot download at the speed advertised.

Same goes for Sky and every other ADSL provider out there

When you first sign up though they give you an average of what speed you will be getting 10-15mb is really really good especially when you can use it during normal hours and all weekend without stm and not wait untill some ungodly hour to get some sort of resembeling speed.

Bit ironic your stance with vm when you dont have there service generally so you cant see it from the average users side.

[broadbandking]

Originally Posted by Bonglet

When you first sign up though they give you an average of what speed you will be getting 10-15mb is really really good especially when you can use it during normal hours and all weekend without stm and not wait untill some ungodly hour to get some sort of resembeling speed.

Bit ironic your stance with vm when you dont have there service generally so you cant see it from the average users side.

Ben has always looked at it from a company side tho not a user

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Bonglet

When you first sign up though they give you an average of what speed you will be getting 10-15mb is really really good especially when you can use it during normal hours and all weekend without stm and not wait untill some ungodly hour to get some sort of resembeling speed.

When I log in to my Be members page. it states my expected speed will be about 10MB. I actually get 18MB.

Bit ironic your stance with vm when you dont have there service generally so you cant see it from the average users side.

I know

[Mike_A]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Ok then, what about be broadband. They advertise an 'up to 24Mbit unlimited connection' for £17.50 - I get between 10 and 15Mbit for that price.

So my service is not 24Mbit nor according to everyone on here is it unlimited - because I cannot download at the speed advertised.

Same goes for Sky and every other ADSL provider out there

I've waited patiently for this one to come up Ben. Look at the terms and conditions of Be and compare it with VM's. Be are far more up front. And that ratio of 10/25 to 15/25 is explained by Be's clear statement as to distance from exchange, amongst other things. They have a clear TM policy statement and the conditions under which they will impose it. Most of all, though, they do not reduce everyone to "up to" 25% at the times when most ordinary home users would want to use the Internet.

I have pointed this out in a further debating probe of your commendable attempts to defend VM's contract. You, though, and although subject to VM discounts as an employee, have subscribed with Be, a firm who have more favourable terms and delivered overall service according to contract. You have not stated that you use Be because there is no VM connection in your area, nor that you would switch to VM if you could. Whilst your justification of the VM contract and communications is commendable it seems to fail on the grounds of complaints by vast numbers of VM clients of unfair selling, restriction of delivery and what appears to be your own vote to use another provider.

Not criticising you for doing what you are entitled to do, just that in the circumstances it is extremely difficult to side with your point of view on this subject.

As an aside, I would have difficulty going with Be because their call centre is in Bulgaria. I find it difficult to believe that a company could efficiently service from so far away and with such a widely differing cultural landscape. As with all things relating to service delivery (I've been stung), I would need convincing.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Mike_A

As an aside, I would not go to Be because their call centre is in Bulgaria. I find it difficult to believe that a company could efficiently service from so far away and with such a widely differing cultural landscape.

They speak velly gud englash, it's just their names that are gibberish.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by broadbandking

As the data is unlimited as there no set limit thats why ISP's get away with it but if they said unmetred speed then they would be in trouble not saying I like STM just purely pointing out why OFCOM let ISP's use unlimited

I think that is crucial bit on this

For the industry Unlimited = no set usage cap/limit in a month

For Customers (and the OP) Unlimited = Unmetered

hi... sorry to hear that as a virgin media customer you had to go to the court... this is disgusting act from Virgin Media...

Over the past few day I myself have had the nastiest experiences from Virgin Media. I have been with them for over 8 months but as you know over the past month my 10Mbps service went too slow, so I called Virgin Media and asked for advice. The agent advised me to upgrade my broadband to 20Mbps.

3 days later I called virgin media again to upgrade my 10mbps to 20mbps for another £4 a month. But a week later I received a letter saying that my contractual terms has been renewed, this meant since I upgraded the service to 20mbps, my contract with virgin media restarted for another 12 months. But Virgin Media did not inform me or clarify that my contract would restart if I upgrade my broadband. And even this amendment was stated at the back of the letter. Contractual amendements regarding the length are extremely to customers and these should have good visibility. And my new payments were badly explained with final price stated at all.

I know this may not help you but we together can stop this injustice by Virgin Media. Virgin Media can not treat it's customers like slaves and this will be tolerated in our society. I have already started to print out distribute some printing in my area advising people of my experience. I also have had quite a few replies and phone calls. Please let me know if there's any way we can help you.

[BenMcr]

Oh and although again it is on no relevence - my use of be is purley because I can't get VM cable.

Currently I am considering switching to VM ADSL - now that the LLU has been done and they don't have to rely on the BT network

[Bonglet]

Originally Posted by Mike_A

[snip]
As an aside, I would have difficulty going with Be because their call centre is in Bulgaria. I find it difficult to believe that a company could efficiently service from so far away and with such a widely differing cultural landscape. As with all things relating to service delivery (I've been stung), I would need convincing.

At least its closer than india mike .

---------- Post added at 13:59 ---------- Previous post was at 13:55 ----------

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Oh and although again it is on no relevence - my use of be is purley because I can't get VM cable.

Currently I am considering switching to VM ADSL - now that the LLU has been done and they don't have to rely on the BT network

That would be a suprise saying as how vm adsl has harsher unlimited limits on adsl than cable .

[Fatec]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

I think that is crucial bit on this

For the industry Unlimited = no set usage cap/limit in a month

For Customers (and the OP) Unlimited = Unmetered

Just to be annoying

As VM force an artificial limit on the users, this in turn will restrict the throughput to which a user can use, thus limited the amount of data in said times, thus a set usage cap/limit a mount.

**You could say 20Mbit has a set limit anyway by the nature of the connection, but again, artificial!**

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Virgin comply with the OFCOM guidance

33. ISPs must use their best endeavours to set out clearly, and in a prominent place on their websites (e.g. within help or FAQs sections), information relating to their respective policies on fair usage; traffic management and traffic shaping to cover, at a minimum, the matters set out below.

Traffic management and traffic shaping
39. Where ISPs apply traffic management and shaping policies, they should publish on their website, in a clear and easily accessible form, information on the restrictions applied. This should include the types of applications, services and protocols that are affected and specific information on peak traffic periods.

Ben,

You forgot these ones:

36. Where it is reasonably possible to do so, ISPs should provide a means by which users can measure their usage over the relevant billing period.

37. ISPs in possession of a user’s email address should provide users with email notification when users exceed a usage limit or breach a fair usage policy which informs users about the precise consequences of doing so, e.g. additional costs, information on speed restrictions imposed etc.

36 - Virgin have a massive data store and the facility to measure usage via IOS robustly has been present for years as demonstrated elsewhere. Virgin could certainly supply this data to customers it would be a trivial amount of additional storage if they don't have it already, and could be linked to the existing self-care system.

37 - Ditto, Virgin have both an initial non-Virgin email address and supply one of their own upon connection, no reason they can't do this either.

Those debating the advertising of 'unlimited' the ASA permit it so long as a certain % of customers do not fall foul of the FUP.