Virgin Media Traffic control avoidance, Any good software out there?

[bazza999]

Hi All,

Just wanted to know if anyone had internet activity monitoring programs which allow you to e.g. slow down internet
downloads once you have reached a certain limit. E.g. currently Virgin Media (UK) policy is that:

Between 10am-4pm: Max download 2.5gb (for me anyway with a 10meg connection)
Between 4pm-9pm 1.5gb
9pm onwards - unlimited

I know Virgin don't strictly stop you downloading more, but they limit my 10meg to 3meg for 5 freaking hours (which I think is abit much), so I'd rather not hit those levels.

Currently I'm using BWMeter which is great in that it will tell me how much has been downloaded / uploaded per hour, but it won't let me put in the above parameters (i.e. between xam-xpm xgb before stopping downloads),
though it does let me put in parameters per day i.e. in 24hr period, max download xgig before slowing down / stopping connection. Incidentally it can also separately report LAN traffic from Internet, so thats handy.


Any ideas? I'm sure there are several of us in the same boat, and i'm sure someone has already sorted a way of doing it so please share!

I also use a router and as someone else mentioned, I know routers do send their own packets back, but really I'm sure they don't come to more than 50meg, so you could always account for that when putting limits in.

Thanks in advance

Baz

[Mick Fisher]

Net Limiter?

[bazza999]

Tried NetLimiter, again doesn't let you set time slots, i.e. 2gig between 10am-4pm, otherwise its quite good at limiting traffic.

[books]

Is it better to just reach the limit and then put up with the speed limit for 5 hours, or is it better to slow your connection down for certain times? Which one works out best for us? I am terrible at maths so I'm not even sure where I would begin to calculate that.

I've thought about this before and I came to the conclusion that either way I'm being ****ing shafted so I stopped thinking about it.. But I think it would be a good calculation to make seeing as I'm stuck with them for the time being.

[darren.b]

I find on the 10mbit package that you get more by hitting the cap if you are downloading, you can get 1.2GB an hour (6GB for 5 hours) while throttled compared to 1.2GB for 5 hours if trying to avoid STM. Upload is different...700MB for 5 hours (to avoid STM) or 60MB an hour when throttled (300MB for 5 hours)

If I'm uploading a lot, I ease off. If I'm downloading a lot, I don't care about STM as I'll still get 6GB for those 5 throttled hours as opposed to 1.2GB if I try to avoid STM.

I use DUMeter and I break the hourly limits as thus if I wish to avoid STM.
Daytime - 480MB per hour max.
Evening upload - 140MB per hour max.
Evening download - 240MB per hour.

[hokkers999]

Originally Posted by bazza999

Hi All,

Just wanted to know if anyone had internet activity monitoring programs which allow you to e.g. slow down internet
downloads once you have reached a certain limit. E.g. currently Virgin Media

Baz

Depending on the router you are using, you could replace the firmware. If you have a Linksys then you could use the Tomato firmware, this lets you set bandwidth limits on either a type of software or individual packages or per user.

[Andrewcrawford23]

freebsd with dummynet and ipfirewall kernel configured, also can set it to monitor your yoru bandwidth periodcally with crontab and reset your limits if you have not used the bandwidth for a set period say 15minutes and 200mb so it will increase teh bandwidth availible for next 15 minutes by says 10kb/s

ps you need a serpate machine for it and it can run easily on old p2/p3 machine

it also unix os so you need ot know unix a bit

[Magilla]

Originally Posted by books

Is it better to just reach the limit and then put up with the speed limit for 5 hours, or is it better to slow your connection down for certain times? Which one works out best for us? I am terrible at maths so I'm not even sure where I would begin to calculate that.

I find that you end up over a barrel. When inside STM times speeds are good and I could download what I want when I want if STM weren't in place.

I tend to wait until STM has finished at 9pm, by which time everyone else has jumped on and speeds are down to near dialup.

So either way I find you can't win. I'm considering going down to the 2Mb package, using the savings to pay for leaving a machine on 24/7 and just ignoring STM times. Might be better in the end.


Free Download Manager has 3 profiles (Light, Medium & Heavy) which limits the number of simultaneous connections, but that's all, nothing like as good as you want

[rossdagley]

Softperfect Bandwidth manager. Allows quotas and speed limits during specified time periods.

---------- Post added at 19:52 ---------- Previous post was at 19:42 ----------

Originally Posted by solcuerda

Evening upload - 140MB per hour max.
Evening download - 240MB per hour.

I had to go double check your maths, but you're right. Those numbers are accurate. Was thinking about this example:

Battlefield 2 uploads in the region of 40-60Mb/hour, combine that with TeamSpeak or Ventrillo with a good codec (6-8Kb/sec), and you've easily doubled that.

Thats aweful close to your upload limit, and thats just one user, doing one thing - playing. Hopefully kid brother isn't on the webcam at the same time, otherwise this normal family will be flagged by VM as an abuser of their network, and capped.

[cook1984]

Originally Posted by Magilla

So either way I find you can't win. I'm considering going down to the 2Mb package, using the savings to pay for leaving a machine on 24/7 and just ignoring STM times. Might be better in the end.

I am currently trying out Be with a view to ditching VM, being in a similar situation to you. I already dropped to 10meg on VM because 20meg is pointless thanks to STM and the very limited upload speeds.

You would certainly be better off changing to ADSL. Even if you live a long way from the exchange and only get say 10 meg down and 1 meg up, that's still faster than VM, costs the same as VM's 2 meg package and is truly unlimited with no STM or caps on Be. Better ping times than VM too.

[books]

Originally Posted by solcuerda

I find on the 10mbit package that you get more by hitting the cap if you are downloading, you can get 1.2GB an hour (6GB for 5 hours) while throttled compared to 1.2GB for 5 hours if trying to avoid STM. Upload is different...700MB for 5 hours (to avoid STM) or 60MB an hour when throttled (300MB for 5 hours)

If I'm uploading a lot, I ease off. If I'm downloading a lot, I don't care about STM as I'll still get 6GB for those 5 throttled hours as opposed to 1.2GB if I try to avoid STM.

I use DUMeter and I break the hourly limits as thus if I wish to avoid STM.
Daytime - 480MB per hour max.
Evening upload - 140MB per hour max.
Evening download - 240MB per hour.

Thank you

Originally Posted by Magilla

I find that you end up over a barrel. When inside STM times speeds are good and I could download what I want when I want if STM weren't in place.

I tend to wait until STM has finished at 9pm, by which time everyone else has jumped on and speeds are down to near dialup.

So either way I find you can't win. I'm considering going down to the 2Mb package, using the savings to pay for leaving a machine on 24/7 and just ignoring STM times. Might be better in the end.


Free Download Manager has 3 profiles (Light, Medium & Heavy) which limits the number of simultaneous connections, but that's all, nothing like as good as you want

Yeah same here. I went from 2mbit to 20mbit and I've done nothing but regret it ever since. I am going to go back to 2mbit as soon as I can, but I want to hear if they offer me any kind of deal on the 50mbit connection first.

I doubt they will though, so I'll switch to 2mbit then. Then I just need to put it up for the remainder of my contract and I can move away from this shower of *******s.

Originally Posted by cook1984

I am currently trying out Be with a view to ditching VM, being in a similar situation to you. I already dropped to 10meg on VM because 20meg is pointless thanks to STM and the very limited upload speeds.

You would certainly be better off changing to ADSL. Even if you live a long way from the exchange and only get say 10 meg down and 1 meg up, that's still faster than VM, costs the same as VM's 2 meg package and is truly unlimited with no STM or caps on Be. Better ping times than VM too.

Be is fantastic. My friend has it. I very nearly went with them, but I only went with Virgin because they offered me a decent deal that included TV etc, and because of the 50mbit thing. Now that I hear the 50mbit connection will be on a new tier and they LIED to me about me being upgraded, it makes me very angry and makes me wish I just went with Be.

I actually called Be and they were great on the phone, and he told me that I was x miles (1.4 I think) away from the exchange, and that on their 24mbit connection, I would get a good solid 17, which I believe. So I would only be a few Mbit short from my crappy Virgin connection (which is no big deal at all), and yet it would be like that 24/7.... 17 mbit 24/7 is so so so much better than 20mbit for about 2 seconds a day... When I then factor in that their upload is MUCH faster, then it makes me kick myself

[zer0]

im using NetMeter which has a separate "Data transferred since..." meter you can reset manualy at the start of stm times or when you log on, doesnt limit traffic but you can just keep an eye on the stats

[Carp3Di3m]

Originally Posted by cook1984

I am currently trying out Be with a view to ditching VM, being in a similar situation to you. I already dropped to 10meg on VM because 20meg is pointless thanks to STM and the very limited upload speeds.

You would certainly be better off changing to ADSL. Even if you live a long way from the exchange and only get say 10 meg down and 1 meg up, that's still faster than VM, costs the same as VM's 2 meg package and is truly unlimited with no STM or caps on Be. Better ping times than VM too.

I was with Be and now i live 4km away from the exchange and would get 0.5 MB -1MB with ADSL.

So now i have to take the only option Virgin which i really dont like

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by bazza999

Hi All,

Just wanted to know if anyone had internet activity monitoring programs which allow you to e.g. slow down internet
downloads once you have reached a certain limit. E.g. currently Virgin Media (UK) policy is that:

Between 10am-4pm: Max download 2.5gb (for me anyway with a 10meg connection)
Between 4pm-9pm 1.5gb
9pm onwards - unlimited

I know Virgin don't strictly stop you downloading more, but they limit my 10meg to 3meg for 5 freaking hours (which I think is abit much), so I'd rather not hit those levels.

Currently I'm using BWMeter which is great in that it will tell me how much has been downloaded / uploaded per hour, but it won't let me put in the above parameters (i.e. between xam-xpm xgb before stopping downloads),
though it does let me put in parameters per day i.e. in 24hr period, max download xgig before slowing down / stopping connection. Incidentally it can also separately report LAN traffic from Internet, so thats handy.


Any ideas? I'm sure there are several of us in the same boat, and i'm sure someone has already sorted a way of doing it so please share!

I also use a router and as someone else mentioned, I know routers do send their own packets back, but really I'm sure they don't come to more than 50meg, so you could always account for that when putting limits in.

Thanks in advance

Baz

I have to admit, I do not really understand why you want to do this.. You don't want to be speed limited by Virgin, so you are doing it your self? What's the point? You are still being limited.

As for your point about routers. They will be sending ACKnowledgement packets when receiving data. They *may* send NTP requests from time to time to synchronise their clocks with an external time server and the *may* check for and download firmware occassionally (although I know of none that do this without user intervention). All of this uses a relatively small amount of data I suspect to get anywhere near 50 meg you would need many routers in the house. Possibly hundreds.

The best way to avoid STM if you want to download is set up your downloads to begin after 9pm, then the is no need for software and you can browse to your hearts content.