Legal action taken against Virgin Media throttling practices

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Mike_A

for which refer to the difficulties faced by Comcast in the states and US statute on the subject.

Which once again was/is due to DPI/Application/Protocol based STM - which Virgin DO NOT USE!

EDIT: There is very in depth article explaining what Comcast were doing (p2p stuff) and what they are now doing (protocol agnostic) here http://telephonyonline.com/residenti...ngestion-0123/

[Mike_A]

Originally Posted by jamiefrost

Are you saying that Virign should no intercept data at all? If so how do you propose they route your traffic to the correct address. This goes for all the other points along route where internet traffic is routed.

lol, no.

[jamiefrost]

So why is it ok to intercept data for routing but not for STM? As far as I know STM looks at the same data as used for routing. No personal data is used for STM unless you include your modems IP address or MAC address.

JJ

[Stouffer]

I thought the capping was legal, as long as they tell you and stopped the unlimited advertising slogans? Although I have just recieved an emai telling me I have unlimited downloads, and near unlimited speeds. Ironic to have those 2 in the same sentence.

Is nobody but me suspecting that the op is a fantasist? Not only is he taking VM to court over their stm policy he also has an answer to it that has engineers smiling in awe. He wont tell us what it is but he has told VM and they are not interested in spite of the fact that it will solve all their problems and make them millions? Also he sorted out a major problem on the Telewest network for which they gave him £30? I've had bigger rebates than that for minor issues with my service.
I apologise to the op in advance if I am wrong but the whole thing seems unbelievable to me.

[Mike_A]

Originally Posted by ahardie

Is nobody but me suspecting that the op is a fantasist? Not only is he taking VM to court over their stm policy he also has an answer to it that has engineers smiling in awe. He wont tell us what it is but he has told VM and they are not interested in spite of the fact that it will solve all their problems and make them millions? Also he sorted out a major problem on the Telewest network for which they gave him £30? I've had bigger rebates than that for minor issues with my service.
I apologise to the op in advance if I am wrong but the whole thing seems unbelievable to me.

With that, I shall stop posting. We can await the results.

Originally Posted by Mike_A

With that, I shall stop posting. We can await the results.

Awww. Please don't go away. Fantasist or not, you are entertaining

[Mike_A]

Originally Posted by ahardie

Awww. Please don't go away. Fantasist or not, you are entertaining

You're right, I shouldn't go away before thanking all those helpful people who have contributed. You, though, whether because of character or agenda, sought to damage the thread with misguided, false and innocuous remarks.

People are welcome to contact me off list if they need feedback, assistance or simply wish to remain in contact.

Originally Posted by Mike_A

You're right, I shouldn't go away before thanking all those helpful people who have contributed. You, though, whether because of character or agenda, sought to damage the thread with misguided, false and innocuous remarks.

People are welcome to contact me off list if they need feedback, assistance or simply wish to remain in contact.

Ouch!

Actually I dont think it is charachter or agenda. If I started chatting to a stranger on a bus and they made some of the claims you have done I would be immediately sceptical. I dont see anything wrong with that and I don't see any reason to treat you any differently.
I have already apologised if I am wrong. Only you know if you are being truthful and only you can prove whether you are.

[graf_von_anonym]

I think this thread is now sufficiently circular that it can be consigned to a file of a similar shape.

However, I'll pop in to say clarify the distinction between "intercept" and Subscriber Traffic Management; one is opening the envelope and then deciding what to do with it, the other is delivering only 100 kilograms of post a day. That's it. Is the latter fair? Different question.

Everything I have read indicates that STM is applied at the link layer; it treats packets as nothing more than collections of bits, agnostic of their content, their port, their routing, the application that produced them. If you have a look at this precis of a training course for lawful intercept you'll see that while it does mention Cisco protocols, it doesn't mention the STM architecture at all. This is because intercept and traffic management are two different things. As an ISP Virgin Media will have various processes for complying with requests from legal authorities, and if my understanding is correct they operate at the Head-End rather than at the UBR/CMTS. Standard practise is literal mirroring, splitting the optical stream and discarding packets not routed to the subject of the inquiry. The reason that this mechanism is used is that it is effectively lossless, and creates no perceptible delay. Use of this sort of technology is pretty firmly governed already, by RIPA and parts of law like it. I delve into intercept technology only to illustrate that it's not the same as traffic management. It takes place at a different layer of the network; it uses different equipment; it interacts with packets for their content rather than for their weight; it is qualitatively different.

That doesn't speak to the fairness of implementing it to alleviate network load caused in part by a lack of foresight and a mixture of avarice, haplessness, and gormlessness, nor to the legality of variation in Terms & Conditions that form part of a contract, but to suggest that STM is illegal because it constitutes 'intercept' is to find oneself barking, if you will, up the wrong tree.

Of course, what I say doesn't matter. It's an "open secret" that Richard Branson is looking at your naked photos, and that there's a dial in every former NTL and Telewest cabinet that can be adjusted between "upset" and "satisfy". Wilson actually won election by lining the pockets of the BT engineers who used to adjust similar components in telephone exchanges. Thatcher's knife-fight cable market free for all was reward for their treason.

Originally Posted by Mike_A

Okay, okay. I shall have to roll with the blows and not succumb to journo bait. Underlying what I responded is the need to protect my position in court and the ever-present possibility when taking on a corporate that they will use the services of PR agents whose role is to destroy credibility.

Really, you are now seriously moving into straw-clutching area - I am not now, nor have ever been, attached to any media publishing organisations; nor do I have any formal or informal (besides being a VM customer) links to VM.

I hope your court propositions and rebuttals are stronger and more informed than any discussions we have had. Mind out for those evil corporate minions, though - they are out to get you......

Originally Posted by Mike_A

Then they must remain suboptimal and silent on expansion. If you reached as far as Pendley Manor you will know why.

Pendley Manor? I only ever trained/worked at North Luffenham, Bletchley Park, Cheltenham, Digby, Teufelsberg/Gatow (Berlin), Little Sai Wan (HK), Troodos, etc, etc - but what would I know, eh? (I would like to point out my information regarding this is first-hand, not Wikipedia-based ). But thank you for not answering my point about the fact that they intercept data with express permission of the owners, eh?

[Kursk]

Hmm, the Phorm thread sort of went along the same lines as this. Starts off interesting, plenty of views thrown in (even by a member of the House of Lords) and then somehow the whole thing imploded.

This is a good thread and it's a bit disappointing to see it stall. Probing and inquisitiveness are a feature of a good forum but if we're going to sustain discussions on topics that draw in a crowd we might need a bit more 'netiquette' and mutual respect.

Differing views and opinions are what it's all about and I hope Mike keeps us updated on things; I for one am interested in the way it goes.

[Jayceef1]

Originally Posted by nfs6600

Which is why STM is in place!!?? Ok, lets say you win and VM are for instance forced to remove STM, the network goes t**s up and everyone then gets slow speeds during the peak times as a result of the heavy users hogging all the bandwidth. The network gets unstable and more people have problems as a result of your actions. Thank you very much indeed kind sir. You may have won your court case but you fluffed the network up for the vast majority of users who have no problems at all.

Hear Hear. I can't understand what the OP wants to achieve by his action other than to line his pockets. Why are some people so selfish that they want everything for themselves at the expense of the majority.

---------- Post added at 18:56 ---------- Previous post was at 18:27 ----------

Originally Posted by Mike_A

Wrong Jamie. All these issues kick in at precisely the times STM does. In tests, access to these services goes back to normal when STM goes off. The only conclusion one can draw from tests is that STM has a wide effect on a contracted person's ability to use the Internet as intended.

Absolute rubbish. STM does not affect anything else. otherwise users on the 2Mb service would not be able to do anything even if STM did not exist (or even those who started their broadband life on a 512k connection). Far more likely that something else is causing the problem. On the rare times I have been affected by STM it has not stopped me from doing anything on the internet at all.

---------- Post added at 19:06 ---------- Previous post was at 18:56 ----------

Originally Posted by Mr_SEO

I don't think he meant user. I think he meant virgin media.

I think he meant the user.

[Mike_A]

Originally Posted by Kursk

Hmm, the Phorm thread sort of went along the same lines as this. Starts off interesting, plenty of views thrown in (even by a member of the House of Lords) and then somehow the whole thing imploded.

This is a good thread and it's a bit disappointing to see it stall. Probing and inquisitiveness are a feature of a good forum but if we're going to sustain discussions on topics that draw in a crowd we might need a bit more 'netiquette' and mutual respect.

Differing views and opinions are what it's all about and I hope Mike keeps us updated on things; I for one am interested in the way it goes.

Of course. I don't want to get involved in particular points any more though.* To explore matters I put things both in the positive and negative sense to draw points and conclusions from differing angles and attempt to identify the techniques used to stall more general discussion, for this is an important subject poorly understood by the general public and confused by some that are more knowledgeable. Now at the stage of writing a dissertation to set out what I have discovered, I intend to deliver it to the forum once complete. The overall intention here is to help the majority, and in court, to get a formal judgement upon what seems to be a disgraceful approach to me as a customer.

* The tone contained in delivery of some posts has the appearance of something more than legitimate forum debate. I have noticed it in the later stages of other important threads on this forum, then they fade.

Ah, the old "ad hominem" argument rears it's ugly head once more......

Anyhoo, good luck - please keep us up to date with progress.