Virgin limiting download speeds intentionally

[The PIT]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

What are you using to do the downloading (which browser or downloader program)?

It could just be the speed indicator being a little inaccurate (as it can be on Internet Explorer for instance).

Wouldn't the timings be then varied if that was the case???

I wonder if anythings been scheduled to run on that pc at those times though??

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Milambar

I merely said it was my belief, which stems from my experiences. Not that it was the truth.

Belief and truth can exist independantly of each other. If you are offended by that, then I apologise.

As Mags said if you call up and we answer then you get the truth, probably why we actually post on here.

If we lied to a customer and they thought we had, then they could call back and report us and then our notes would be checked and then we would be asked to verify what we told you and what means we used to find out what we told you, the are always procedures you can invoke if you feel wronged no matter what company you speak to.

As for the issue of downloading I subscribe to Demonoid and use Zuze on Linux Mint and can download a movie in less than 30 minutes if I want to, so no restrictions on my Virgin connection.

[Milambar]

Unfortunatly, from experience, whenever I've phoned up in the past, Ive ended up speaking to your Indian collegues, which is why, I'll be honest with you, I've stopped bothering to report any problems I have.

They aren't the easiest of people to speak to, and they seem to go out of their way to blame your PC, rather than fix the issue. Meaning I have to constantly call back and back and back, until I get someone in England. Usually once you get through to England, things are plain-sailing.

For example, roughly 2 years ago, I was having really bad problems with a low upload rate, and I mean, single figure upload rates. This had a knock-on effect on my downloads. India constantly blamed my PC, or a "national problem". After about 3 weeks of this, I discovered the newsgroups. One posting on the news groups, and their reply is "You need an engineer visit. When are you going to be in?", it was fixed 2 days later.

Apparently it needed my forward path adjusting or something. So, India had constantly lied to me.

Bad experiences like this, are sadly remembered, while the good ones, aren't. I have several bad experiences with calling VM, and being... lets just say "fobbed off".

I do apologise to the people here, the people on here are generally good and honest people, but as I say, I can only build beliefs based on the experiences I have had in the past.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Milambar

Unfortunatly, from experience, whenever I've phoned up in the past, Ive ended up speaking to your Indian collegues, which is why, I'll be honest with you, I've stopped bothering to report any problems I have.

They aren't the easiest of people to speak to, and they seem to go out of their way to blame your PC, rather than fix the issue. Meaning I have to constantly call back and back and back, until I get someone in England. Usually once you get through to England, things are plain-sailing.

For example, roughly 2 years ago, I was having really bad problems with a low upload rate, and I mean, single figure upload rates. This had a knock-on effect on my downloads. India constantly blamed my PC, or a "national problem". After about 3 weeks of this, I discovered the newsgroups. One posting on the news groups, and their reply is "You need an engineer visit. When are you going to be in?", it was fixed 2 days later.

Apparently it needed my forward path adjusting or something. So, India had constantly lied to me.

Bad experiences like this, are sadly remembered, while the good ones, aren't. I have several bad experiences with calling VM, and being... lets just say "fobbed off".

I do apologise to the people here, the people on here are generally good and honest people, but as I say, I can only build beliefs based on the experiences I have had in the past.

Your frustration is understandable and we who post here obviously take peoples feelings into consideration or we would stop after a few wrong words were posted.

[maxim1]

Virgin have introduced traffic management from 4pm to 9pm, if your a heavy user.

I noticed my speed was drastically reduced and rang support, they explained my account was capped, and all the details i needed to know are on the website.

I explained i am a heavy user that's why i use virgin, as the 20mb package was unlimited.

if I wanted a 4mb service i would pay for a 4mb service, they put me on to tech support who explained that traffic management was in force and it was on from 5pm to 11pm and was advised to read the FAQ on the website

As usual the web site mentioned a trial and the times were from 4pm to 9pm, as a heavy user I can not accept this limitation and will be voting with my feet.

My location is north London, there is no mention of the trial running in London, from the posts on the forum I guess they are rolling this service out across the network.

Virgin sort your house out, customer service has taken a serious nose dive in the wrong direction, its not surprising if you have a billing issue you get through to customer service in the UK

I see this as a marketing angle to push the 50mb service

Originally Posted by maxim1

Virgin have introduced traffic management from 4pm to 9pm, if your a heavy user.

I noticed my speed was drastically reduced and rang support, they explained my account was capped, and all the details i needed to know are on the website.

I explained i am a heavy user that's why i use virgin, as the 20mb package was unlimited.

if I wanted a 4mb service i would pay for a 4mb service, they put me on to tech support who explained that traffic management was in force and it was on from 5pm to 11pm and was advised to read the FAQ on the website

As usual the web site mentioned a trial and the times were from 4pm to 9pm, as a heavy user I can not accept this limitation and will be voting with my feet.

My location is north London, there is no mention of the trial running in London, from the posts on the forum I guess they are rolling this service out across the network.

Virgin sort your house out, customer service has taken a serious nose dive in the wrong direction, its not surprising if you have a billing issue you get through to customer service in the UK

I see this as a marketing angle to push the 50mb service

Traffic management has been a reality for ages, now, rollout started in mid 2007 - well before 50mb was in the picture.

[moaningmags]

Originally Posted by homealone

Traffic management has been a reality for ages, now, rollout started in mid 2007 - well before 50mb was in the picture.

Also, there no is no longer a 4Mb service.

[Impz2002]

i am experiencing the same issues here in harrogate. It only seems to affect HTTP downloads. I used to get 2.4mb/s from easynews but now it sits at a steady 800k

[graf_von_anonym]

Originally Posted by maxim1

I noticed my speed was drastically reduced and rang support, they explained my account was capped, and all the details i needed to know are on the website.

I explained i am a heavy user that's why i use virgin, as the 20mb package was unlimited.

if I wanted a 4mb service i would pay for a 4mb service, they put me on to tech support who explained that traffic management was in force and it was on from 5pm to 11pm and was advised to read the FAQ on the website

As usual the web site mentioned a trial and the times were from 4pm to 9pm, as a heavy user I can not accept this limitation and will be voting with my feet.

They may have refered you to the wrong website, or you might have misinterpreted it. The trial areas are pretty clear, otherwise STM is the same nationally.

Just out of curiousity, how much do you download in a day?

[Toto]

Originally Posted by Welshchris

but highter stress on my UBR wouldnt cause the speed to increase hense why it makes no sence.

And yet, three posts made by you on this subject, with a similar number of requests to provide evidence to support your claims, which you seem to have failed to do.....and all this thread has become is another STM bashing one, with the possibility of the tin foil hat brigade bringing up the rear....sheesh.

It's a lot easier to help Chris if you help us, honestly.

[maxim1]

I am a heavey user, I can dl a couple of gb easy in a day, that's why I used virgin or telewest back in the day.

I was not aware of STM until they upgraded my modem, thats why its a bit of shock for me.

£35 a month is a lot to pay, for a 5mb, when I signed up about 5 or 6 years ago it was because it was uncapped.

Im already looking for anlternative supplier

[General Maximus]

I have got the same problem and lots of other people have posted about this as well. It isnt traffic management in the sense that they are capping your speed but something is definitely wrong. I wouldnt say it happens ever night bit it definitely happens frequently regardless or what prog or protocol you use (newsgroups/torrents). I'll start some torrents downloading as I am going to bed (anytime between 2100-midnight) and it will kick off at full speed for about 30 secs and then everything it will drop off (no connections) for about 1 min, then they'll all start to come back and it will start up for another 30 secs before dropping off again and when this happens it can go on for an hour. It has never bothered me because I know the problem resolves itself in the end and by the time I wake up in the morning everything will be downloaded.

[aMac]

For some reason tonight, all my downloads have been capped at a flat, stable 250k/sec maximum.
I'm down to 10% of my 20 meg :/

This is through every mean I can think of. HTTP, usenet, FTP, whatever. Multiple downloads won't make the total bandwidth break 250k/sec.

It's odd. I haven't downloaded anything all day and only started to download something tonight at 2am, well past what I thought the traffic shaping hours were.

Frustrating!

[graf_von_anonym]

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

[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?