Broadband Speed 'Throttling'

shonyb · 26-09-2010, 14:23

Hi Guys

Just wanted to know if anyone else out there has had their broadband speed 'capped' by the sinister 'traffic management' scheme of virgin media. I pay virgin for a 10mb broadband speed and every evening and this morning I have been capped to just 2.4mb. The answer they give me is that I am downloading too much and need to be 'capped'. Is this big brother or what? My argument is its none of their business how much I download as there are supposed to be no restrictions on how much I can download.This is a scandal and I would like to find out if others have experienced this! I have threatened to withold payment and call the Office of Fair Trading and what do they do?....put the phone down on me. If virgin cannot supply a large enough broadband width to accomodate everyone, how are they allowed to keep selling the product especially if it is getting smaller?

Any views or advice would be appreciated

yours peed off
shonyb

Kymmy · 26-09-2010, 14:29

STM has never been kept a secret.. Also it's a lot fairer than invoking an FUP after just 40Gb and threatening to cut you off whilst at the same time throttling you to 1/10th of the speed like some other companies..

All they're trying to do is to keep the downloads limited to off-peak times

jb66 · 26-09-2010, 14:33

If you need more bandwidth, pay for it. Adsl has a natural cap by the length of the line so this is what virgin have to do to keep high bandwidth customers on the cheap package at bay.

Toto · 26-09-2010, 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by shonyb

Hi Guys

Just wanted to know if anyone else out there has had their broadband speed 'capped' by the sinister 'traffic management' scheme of virgin media. I pay virgin for a 10mb broadband speed and every evening and this morning I have been capped to just 2.4mb. The answer they give me is that I am downloading too much and need to be 'capped'. Is this big brother or what? My argument is its none of their business how much I download as there are supposed to be no restrictions on how much I can download.This is a scandal and I would like to find out if others have experienced this! I have threatened to withold payment and call the Office of Fair Trading and what do they do?....put the phone down on me. If virgin cannot supply a large enough broadband width to accomodate everyone, how are they allowed to keep selling the product especially if it is getting smaller?

Any views or advice would be appreciated

yours peed off
shonyb

You'll only shaft yourself if you don't pay, as has already been said VM's traffic management policy is well documented on its site - get used to it.

pip08456 · 26-09-2010, 15:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

You'll only shaft yourself if you don't pay, as has already been said VM's traffic management policy is well documented on its site - get used to it.

Well discussed on this one too.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12...stm-force.html

Ignitionnet · 26-09-2010, 15:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by shonyb

I have threatened to withold payment and call the Office of Fair Trading and what do they do?....put the phone down on me. If virgin cannot supply a large enough broadband width to accomodate everyone, how are they allowed to keep selling the product especially if it is getting smaller?

Any views or advice would be appreciated

Withhold payment and they will cut you off and send debt collectors after you. Calling the OFT is a waste of time the products are clearly marked to indicate that a traffic management policy applies and there is no ambiguity.

The products meet the current descriptions of unlimited products, neither the OFT nor the ASA nor Ofcom will intervene.

No ISP has enough bandwidth to accommodate everyone downloading at full speed all the time, if they did the service would cost hundreds a month for 10Mbit.

If this service isn't to your requirements simply either go to 50Mbps which doesn't have any management at this time or go to another ISP which doesn't manage. That's the only advice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shonyb

. I pay virgin for a 10mb broadband speed and every evening and this morning I have been capped to just 2.4mb. The answer they give me is that I am downloading too much and need to be 'capped'. Is this big brother or what? My argument is its none of their business how much I download as there are supposed to be no restrictions on how much I can download.This is a scandal and I would like to find out if others have experienced this!

It's none of their business yet what you are downloading, must be going some to get throttled 'every' evening though. All perfectly legal I'm sure.

See the above. Nothing Big Brother about it, you rent use of their network under their terms. If you don't like the terms don't use the service. They have been extremely clear for years that the services are managed and are more transparent than most about it.

pip08456 · 26-09-2010, 18:42

Just in case you haven't seen it

shonyb · 27-09-2010, 09:56

Thanks everyone for the replies. Guess I'm one of those ignorant broadband virgins! Seems to me that you don't buy a car and then be told you can only drive it at certain times and at a certain speed. Oh well!

Kymmy · 27-09-2010, 10:00

The arguement has been done to death, especially with the car analogy..

If you lease a car you do have limits on milage..

If you'd bother to read the signup page it has this note from the "Unlimited[1] Downloads" claim

Quote:

[1]Acceptable use policy: Acceptable use policy applies. Traffic Management operates from 4pm to 9pm and 10am to 3pm to ensure a consistent user experience.

With links to the traffic management page..

royaltiger · 27-09-2010, 11:06

You could argue the policy makes no sense on capping because of high demand as the 50mb is unlimited and they could be the users that are jamming the network as their bandwith is twice the size so downloading twice as much as a 20mb user and 5 times as a 10 mb user. If the network is busy then realistically you have to cap everyone if that is your argument to free up the traffic flow, you cannot leave some uncapped as they can be just as much the cause of the bottlenecks, obviously the 50mb are allowed because we pay the premium rate to do so. My theory is if you have a larger upstream bandwith you download twice as fast and are therefore finished twice as quick freeing up the network. There are some very large files about which dont take long to using up your quota, after a fresh install of windows you will reach 700mb of updates and service packs as for illegal stuff is there that much that is downloaded now. Some prefer to backup there legal copies by downloading as its easier than ripping.

Kymmy · 27-09-2010, 11:33

You would be totally right if the 50Mb weren't on a different Docsis so doesn't impact on the 10/20Mb services

mjpartyboy · 27-09-2010, 11:57

What annoys me is the way VM refer to it as affecting the top 5% of users.

You have never gone over the cap during your time with VM and then one night you download the latest 360 demo from the Marketplace and it's 1.9 GB, so you're throttled as advertised, but this is your first infraction so how can you be a top 5% user.

on in an hour! · 27-09-2010, 12:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kymmy

You would be totally right if the 50Mb weren't on a different Docsis so doesn't impact on the 10/20Mb services

the 20 and 50meg services are on the same UBR's,and are both docsis3

AbyssUnderground · 27-09-2010, 12:10

The 10Mbps package is capable of downloading 60GB/DAY even with STM triggered twice, which equates to about 1.7TeraBytes a month. That's a damn sight more than most ISP's.

Peter_ · 27-09-2010, 12:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjpartyboy

What annoys me is the way VM refer to it as affecting the top 5% of users.

You have never gone over the cap during your time with VM and then one night you download the latest 360 demo from the Marketplace and it's 1.9 GB, so you're throttled as advertised, but this is your first infraction so how can you be a top 5% user.

Anyone can be traffic managed but the main targetr is the people who continually download to excess as per this below.

Quote:

In fact, the policies only affect the top 5% of users on a daily basis - those whose usage of the service would affect other users if they weren't managed.

Full details can be found here.http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/tra...anagement.html