New Acceptable Usage Policy from VM (discussion)

[jagsman]

Originally Posted by Hugh

If you want that sort of uncontended service, you should be willing to pay for it (that's what businesses do).

If that was aimed at me, I do pay for it. It is what i have at the moment. But what they are moving towards is making the service worse than it is at the moment, so they would still be getting the same payments for a poorer service. And there was me thinking that technology, service and value for money were supposed to improve over time, not get worse.

I have no problem with Virgin "managing" their network. I just believe that it should be done properly.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by jagsman

I have no problem with Virgin "managing" their network. I just believe that it should be done properly.

So why not enlighten us with how you think it should be done. ?

[jagsman]

Originally Posted by Sirius

So why not enlighten us with how you think it should be done. ?

How to fix it? Well I would start by telling them they cannot sell any more new or upgraded broadband packages, until there current system can cope with their existing customer base.
If one person downloading large amounts of data can slow down their network, then they really have to have a serious look at their infrastructure, and upgrade it accordingly.

[watzizname]

Originally Posted by jagsman

How to fix it? Well I would start by telling them they cannot sell any more new or upgraded broadband packages, until there current system can cope with their existing customer base.
If one person downloading large amounts of data can slow down their network, then they really have to have a serious look at their infrastructure, and upgrade it accordingly.

Originally Posted by jagsman

If that was aimed at me, I do pay for it. It is what i have at the moment. But what they are moving towards is making the service worse than it is at the moment, so they would still be getting the same payments for a poorer service. And there was me thinking that technology, service and value for money were supposed to improve over time, not get worse.

I have no problem with Virgin "managing" their network. I just believe that it should be done properly.

My apologies - I did not realise you paid for an uncontended Business Service; I was confused by your Services stating you had "L" Broadband.

[jagsman]

Originally Posted by Hugh

My apologies - I did not realise you paid for an uncontended Business Service; I was confused by your Services stating you had "L" Broadband.

I do have the "L" package. I am not wanting a totally uncontended service, i am wanting a service that is no worse than i have at the moment. But according to some, Virgin are moving towards Monthly caps as part of their acceptable use policy. And if you read the posts on this thread, some of the suggestions beggar belief. By all means, have a capped monthly amount, but make it realistic and also take into account what time of day the downloads happen.

At the moment, and for the last few years, I can download, say, 10gb a night between midnight and 8am and not be penalised, but if they bring in a monthly cap, there is a good chance that i will be. Is that progress? I think not. Also, if the network struggles to cope if i download at full speed on a 10Mb service, then how can they justify adding or upgrading more connections on the network, especially if these new connections are 30Mb or even 50Mb.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by jagsman

I do have the "L" package. I am not wanting a totally uncontended service, i am wanting a service that is no worse than i have at the moment. But according to some, Virgin are moving towards Monthly caps as part of their acceptable use policy. And if you read the posts on this thread, some of the suggestions beggar belief. By all means, have a capped monthly amount, but make it realistic and also take into account what time of day the downloads happen.

At the moment, and for the last few years, I can download, say, 10gb a night between midnight and 8am and not be penalised, but if they bring in a monthly cap, there is a good chance that i will be. Is that progress? I think not. Also, if the network struggles to cope if i download at full speed on a 10Mb service, then how can they justify adding or upgrading more connections on the network, especially if these new connections are 30Mb or even 50Mb.

Some how i don't think it will be a monthly cap. It will be something far worse that means you will not be able to use the present workarounds to defeat it. If it is what i think it will be then forget your linux iso's in prime time as it will see how much you as a individual have downloaded of a set amount of a certain protocol and slow that protocol down just on your connection if you exceed that amount.

So if you are tonking the newsgroups at 7.00pm as soon as you exceed a set amount it will slow just the news group traffic ???

This is not official so don't quote me on any of this but all you need to do is use google to see what other major isp's are doing or implementing and work out if UK isp's will go the same way.

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by Sirius

So if you are tonking the newsgroups at 7.00pm as soon as you exceed a set amount it will slow just the news group traffic ???

I imagine it will be based on a simple byte count and completely protocol agnostic. Congestion is dependent on bytes only not protocol so why involve protocols in a solution to congestion when VM have already amply demonstrated that they can't identify P2P or NNTP with any certainty at all.

[Ignitionnet]

http://networkmanagement.comcast.net/ is probably a good guide. In some ways it's a best practice.

[jagsman]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

http://networkmanagement.comcast.net/ is probably a good guide. In some ways it's a best practice.

I read some of that. Typical corporate lawyer speak for "rather than spending our time and resources on building the best possible system for our customers, we will restrict their use of our existing network, whilst spending what little amount of revenue we want, on an advertising campaign that is about as truthful and upfront as a politician"

The wording on that document implies that one person, on the lowest broadband speed package, can cripple their network. How bad must the worlds broadband networks be, if none of them can cope with several heavy downloaders, on their lowest packages.

[Chrysalis]

I cant see it working as well for VM as it does comcast.

There are various differences other than the traffic management between comcast and VM.

comcast have a usage cap
comcast have lower burst speeds
comcast have fatter shared pipes, especially on the upstream

Also its an embarrasing defense to suggest that someone who wants less contention should buy an uncontended service as if to suggest either it has to be a completely oversubbed service or a leased line.

There is eg. no excuse for an isp to have a congested service at 4 in the morning.

Since VM seem unwilling to police their own utilisation it would be great to see ofcom enforce a "no sales" when service is considered unfit for purpose, however that will never happen unfortenatly. For the same reason vM will always be unlimited as anything that damages "sales" will not be a viable solution for them.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by kwikbreaks

I imagine it will be based on a simple byte count and completely protocol agnostic. Congestion is dependent on bytes only not protocol so why involve protocols in a solution to congestion when VM have already amply demonstrated that they can't identify P2P or NNTP with any certainty at all.

Thinking about it your right and looking at this if the same process is followed the gamers will not like it

f a certain area of the network nears a state of congestion, the technique will ensure that all customers have a fair share of access to the network. It will identify which customer accounts are using the greatest amounts of bandwidth and their Internet traffic will be temporarily managed until the period of congestion passes. Customers will still be able to do anything they want to online, and many activities will be unaffected, but they could experience things like: longer times to download or upload files, surfing the Web may seem somewhat slower, or playing games online may seem somewhat sluggish.

That is from the link above and if followed will create a bit of a storm

However VM may be doing something totally different ?

[jb66]

Gaming priority shoud be first, before http, 150ms ping for a web page is unnoticeable but 150ms ping on a shooting game is

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Sirius

Thinking about it your right and looking at this if the same process is followed the gamers will not like it



That is from the link above and if followed will create a bit of a storm

However VM may be doing something totally different ?

It's produced very, very few complaints from Comcast customers.

It should also be noted that if you're merrily downloading / uploading enough to trigger the controls your gaming will be pants anyway, and it is pretty granular in that it restores things to normal after 15 minutes of being a good boy.

[Chrysalis]

Ignition do you have a comment on if you think its not relevant that comcast have fatter shared pipes and lower burst speeds and lower usage caps?

Whilst I agree their management system is superior, I also think its valid that its probably not as stressed as it will be on VMs network.

---------- Post added at 10:31 ---------- Previous post was at 10:28 ----------

Originally Posted by Sirius

Thinking about it your right and looking at this if the same process is followed the gamers will not like it



That is from the link above and if followed will create a bit of a storm

However VM may be doing something totally different ?

Gamers should prefer it as they wont have a protocol system mismarking their game packets and throttling them.

The issue will be if VM get utilisation low enough so that what isnt throttled isnt affected by congestion.