4MB Connection Dropped To 1MB No Warning

DJ_Price · 05-03-2008, 21:45

I was downloading this morning & I downloaded around 250mb, which was duke nukem (good old classic) & went out for the afternoon to do some gardening. Anyway to get back on track, I came home around 6pm & came on the net & websites were taking ages to load up, so I tried a few more & no change. Just did a speed test now after leaving the connection for a while & below is the results:

I don't know why this is, maybe I've been upgraded & the modem needs a reboot? I don't know. It's never happened before. The only time my connection had been lowered when's when I didn't know about the restrictions between 4pm-12am. Would be greatful if someone could shed some light on this, as I'm stumped to why it's been dropped if I've not used the connection for d/l'ing DN3D

05-03-2008, 22:28

was the download via p2p? If you continued to upload after your download was complete, then you may have triggered STM that way?

Sigma · 05-03-2008, 23:40

Quote:

The only time my connection had been lowered when's when I didn't know about the restrictions between 4pm-12am.

It's actually 4PM-9PM, but you're restricted for 5 hours from whenever you hit the limit, so if you're unlucky enough to hit it at 8:59PM, your speed will be reduced until 1:59AM the following morning.

DJ_Price · 06-03-2008, 02:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by homealone

was the download via p2p? If you continued to upload after your download was complete, then you may have triggered STM that way?

No it was from a website. Got the smaller file from 3drealms, then the main from another site. I read (think it was on here) that the upload didn't count towards the STM, just downloading did.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sigma

It's actually 4PM-9PM, but you're restricted for 5 hours from whenever you hit the limit, so if you're unlucky enough to hit it at 8:59PM, your speed will be reduced until 1:59AM the following morning.

Thanks, I'm sure I also read a post somewhere on here that it was 4pm-12am. Good to know now then that it's only 4-9pm.

moaningmags · 06-03-2008, 03:02

Don't forget upload now counts too.

frogstamper · 06-03-2008, 03:05

I had a similar problem the other day, downloaded "Ashes to Ashes" on the BBC i player and it said it was 300mb, as I'm on 4mb I was well inside my allotted 750mb for between 4.00 and 9.00. This was at about 4.30, at 8.00 I logged back on to find my connection slow and done a couple of speed tests to find I was just under 1mb dl and a truly awful 60kbps ul, it was then I assumed I had gone over my limit due to it being a p2p download. I rang the 25p/m "help" line explained what I said above and the woman told me my area was busy [Brighton] and everybody had been stm,d which I found very hard to believe, in the end I gave up trying after saying "can you please repeat that please" for the umpteenth time. My speed went back to normal at midnight, surely it wouldn't be to much trouble for VM to send out an e-mail to notify you when the stm starts and finishes.

moaningmags · 06-03-2008, 03:10

Please be aware that the bbc iplayer by default continues to share even when you've shut the program down.
There is an option in the settings that says
Allow sharing (upload) to continue after program is shut down. This is ticked by default.
This program installs as a service so when you shut it down it disappears from the systray but continues to run.
I had a customer with this issue last week and we ended up having to terminate kservice.exe in the process list of task manager as he couldn't figure out how to get into the settings.
He was quite angry, not at me but at the iplayer for being crafty.

HTH
Mags

P.S. She was talking rubbish, no way does everyone get hit with STM at the same time.

frogstamper · 06-03-2008, 03:34

Thanks for that moaningmags, as a non techie guy is it OK then as long as I uncheck the "allow file sharing" eg if its a 300mb file that's all I will download? As regards the "help" line, of course, your right but at 25p/m I wasn't going to argue a toss with her, I have come to the conclusion that they probably don't know a great deal more than me, except whats written on the card in front of them. Once again thanks for your help.

DJ_Price · 06-03-2008, 05:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by moaningmags

Don't forget upload now counts too.

Ok, a shame tho.

moaningmags · 06-03-2008, 05:44

Yup I'd certainly untick it. For the record, I work on the 25ppm number and we don't have cards :-) the only scripted part is the telling of call charges and we have to do that by law.

Mags

Soundlab · 06-03-2008, 08:40

moaningmags - are you able to confirm for me that there is maintenance work going on in the BN12 area until 11th June ?

I was told this last night by VM support as the reason why my 4mb service is constantly performing at under 1mb (for nearly 3 weeks now). He said he could see the poor performance on pulling in some data for the past x weeks but said there was nothing he could do as it was down to maintenance in the area.

Just wanted to check that this is the reason I'm getting 70KB/S download speed (the previous VM support person I spoke to never mentioned this maintenance at all - so I want to check i've not just been "fobbed off").

Thanks.

moaningmags · 06-03-2008, 14:50

Sorry, I'm not. I come here when I'm home. Rarely do I access from work.
Did he give you a fault or maintenance reference number?
With a fault ref you can check it's status either on the phone
or by asking in the newsgroups
virginmedia.support.broadband.cable

If you haven't set up newsgroups the following link tells you how.

http://www.virginmedia.com/customers...omernewsgroups

HTH
Mags