Virgin limiting download speeds intentionally

[Toto]

Originally Posted by bigtoe

Its nothing to do with how you connect to the modem, its to do with intentional capping without the need to exceed bandwidth limits.

All VM reps on here,

If VM are doing this why don't they charge accordingly..IE 4 while 9 you get billed 70% cheaper than at the other times?
If you did this 90% of the moaning would go away and you would be accurately delivering the service you are advertising.

Coming back to why they are doing this, I think you need to look at those over subscribed areas...such as Manchester etc. Could it be they are rotating bandwidth caps day on day or week on week regardless of bandwidth used to ease strain on the network?

Your post is a tad confusing.

In two sentences you claim they (VM) are intentionally doing this I've marked those in red, and then then you claim "if" VM are doing this, marked in blue.

Perhaps it may help your post of you could provide evidence to support the red highlights, other than a few posters having problems with downloads, and given VM's apparent transparency on when and why they reduce speeds?

In fact, you may have answered your own point in the possibility of the subscribers being in busy traffic areas, rather than deliberate capping of speeds outside of an STM window.

[Impz2002]

Originally Posted by Toto

Perhaps it may help your post of you could provide evidence to support the red highlights, other than a few posters having problems with downloads, and given VM's apparent transparency on when and why they reduce speeds?

In fact, you may have answered your own point in the possibility of the subscribers being in busy traffic areas, rather than deliberate capping of speeds outside of an STM window.

I think you will find im pretty au fait with the way DOCSIS works and the infrastructure in general and i can confirm my issues are not down to over-subscription. My UBR is not in any way overloaded.

There is definatly something going on at a level deeper into the network than the UBR. i have not had the time to investigate this further but when i do i will let you know what i find.

VM are in no way transparent, previous experience should tell you this !

Impz

There is lots of _free_ network monitoring software that you guys can use to show many protocols in action, size of packets, requests etc. I'm sure I could come up with a few links if you need them should the powers of google fail you.
As Toto said we can't help if you give us nothing to work with.

[Impz2002]

i wasnt asking for help merely stating the facts of my experience !

[zer0]

my 2mbit has been capped at 1mbit for 48 hours now using this forums speedtester
tested at 3pm 6pm 9pm and 12am

[broadbandking]

Check your speed from gamefiles.blueyonder.co.uk

---------- Post added at 17:27 ---------- Previous post was at 17:26 ----------

Originally Posted by xocemp

There is lots of _free_ network monitoring software that you guys can use to show many protocols in action, size of packets, requests etc. I'm sure I could come up with a few links if you need them should the powers of google fail you.
As Toto said we can't help if you give us nothing to work with.

Could you provide a few links

Network probe
VisualSniffer
SolarWinds Real-Time NetFlow Analyzer

Even found a free bandwidth monitor.
NetWorx
And simple network scanner.
SoftPerfect Network Scanner

[aMac]

Originally Posted by graf_von_anonym

Things other than traffic management can affect your speed. How are you connecting? Ethernet? USB? Wireless?

I'm certainly not one to cry wolf out of the blue, but something certainly seems to be up.

My default connection is indeed wireless, but even wired I do not get more than 250k.

Internal wireless transfers (computer to computer) work flawlessly and at normal speed. It is only when attempting to download or upload a file then I have issues.

Again, tonight, I am only able to download files at a precise (+/-2k)250k/sec.
That's including files from the virgin/blueyonder game sites. The last few days I have noticed uploads to FTP have been drastically slower than normal too. 25k/sec instead of a healthy 60/70+k/sec.

I really can't explain this with something on my end. The modem seems to have the right configuration and the signal levels look in the norm. If it's like this tomorrow, I might have to call up.

EDIT:
I'll also point out I'm not posting in this thread to directly accuse Virgin of doing this, but it was the most relevant topic at the time and I didn't want to post a nee thread just to say something.

[Rik]

Just for the record absolutely no problems in Hertfordshire, nothing out the ordinary happening here.

2.35MB/s - Torrents
2.35MB/s - FTP
2.35MB/s - HTTP
2.35MB/s - NNTP
2.35MB/s - HTTPS

[Martyn]

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:49:46 UTC

Test 1: 1024K took 4259 ms = 240.4 KB/sec, approx 1981 Kbps, 1.93 Mbps
Test 2: 1024K took 2884 ms = 355.1 KB/sec, approx 2926 Kbps, 2.86 Mbps
Test 3: 1024K took 3624 ms = 282.6 KB/sec, approx 2329 Kbps, 2.27 Mbps
Test 4: 2048K took 6137 ms = 333.7 KB/sec, approx 2750 Kbps, 2.69 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 2497 Kbps, 2.44 Mbps


oh and im on 20mb...

[aMac]

Just an update on my story of speed woes.

After a long call to technical support and customer service, it turns out that since Virgin took over NTL, I have not paid for broadband on my package.
How odd! Someone must have noticed this week and knocked me down to a 2 meg package (but not disconnected me?) and now all is resolved after agreeing to pay for it again. At least they aren't back-dating me.

I wonder why I never noticed how cheap these bills have been before.

[keyholder]

Originally Posted by aMac

Just an update on my story of speed woes.

After a long call to technical support and customer service, it turns out that since Virgin took over NTL, I have not paid for broadband on my package.
How odd! Someone must have noticed this week and knocked me down to a 2 meg package (but not disconnected me?) and now all is resolved after agreeing to pay for it again. At least they aren't back-dating me.

I wonder why I never noticed how cheap these bills have been before.

What more could be said. Hahahah. I hope u kept your 2 meg so u get ur free upgrade ??

[UnReaL]

Originally Posted by Welshchris

if a file is downloading it will stop for about 8 - 10 seconds THEN the download speed jumps from what it was when it stopped around 800k to over 7mb/s and then it will settle at the full 2.2mb/s i should be getting and its done this for a few days in a row and the downloads im downloading are from different websites.

Exact same problems here.

Seems to be happening when using RapidShare.com, Megashares.com and Netload.in, coupled with Internet Download Manager.

Also, I keep getting timeouts on Firefox 3.0.6 and Internet Exploder over the past 2 days, especially when browsing eBay.co.uk and Amazon.co.uk and Channel 4 Football Italia website, did it for the past 2 days, but it appears to be fine for the time being, although Amazon.co.uk and eBay and still being a pain.

I have not bothered calling Virgin Media, as they will always say the same things over and over again, eventually it will lead to an engineer coming out, nothing happening and then we start off where we left off, with me complaining about several issues, being told to unplug modem as they read off what to say off the computer screen.

Then I'll say nothing has worked, they'll prioritise the problem and escalate it, I'll get a phone call from a manager to say that Virgin Media are looking into the problem and nothing will happen again...

I've had this problem with Virgin Webmail and it took them 4 months to sort out access to my account, because they couldn't be bothered sorting it out and offered apologies, which did not seem genuine, to which I disconnected the phone.

It may well be they are upgrading the exchange or whatever to make way for 50Mb, I don't know for sure, what I do know is something has been happening over the past 2 days which has resulted in a bad service being provided by Virgin Media for whatever reasons.

Although I usually have high praise for Virgin Media, this is just one of those times I'm not sure what to think.

[leexgx]

been haveing some issues with my 50mb connection sometimes going to 2mb (250KB/s) when i max me download out for about an 1hr but norm dead on 9pm some times

other times i am getting 35mb (4MB/s) when going from giga news but the Virgin download test is showing full download but that test is inside the network so does not count other tests seem to give full download (6MB/s) (going to use an dif news server (Astraweb)due to only been 3-4 hops from my connection+ it looks like its pluged directy into virgins network (no man in the middle gateway), giga news is more like 8-11 hops + looks like it has to go tho london gateway)

need to test more as it has done it to me 2 times droping speed to 2mb , change the IP on me virgin modem seems to fix it, need to play more

[graf_von_anonym]

@aMac There are so many packages out there and the billing systems are so complex (the joke used to be that NTL simplified from two billing systems to three) that these kinds of oversights are almost bound to occur. They shouldn't, mind, but they do.

@UnReal, leexgx

How many network connections are open on your systems when your speeds drop? You can find that from the command prompt, netstat -a. The other possibility is that the reporting feature is being delayed by something, while the download continues. So you might be downloading at a constant rate, but the monitoring is breaking; it sees X come down in time Y, that's rate A, then something breaks and it doesn't see X come down in time Y so it reports rate B, then it catches up and sees 2X come down in time Y again and reports rate C. What's the average transfer rate after it finishes?

The other possibility is that news servers are limiting the heavier downloads from their side. Depending on their management software they could be using an initial burst type deal, where your first X Gb are at one rate, and then thereafter slower. That would be efficient for them in the same way that STM is efficient for Virgin.