Virgin Media Traffic Management

[The-Ironflame]

While 20mb is about to be brought in Virgin have brought in some Traffic Management to try and moderate the speeds during peak times (4pm to midnight).

If you're caught within the top 5% downloaders then they will lower your speeds till midnight.

 

Broadband Size: M

During peak times, the top 5% on the Size: M package download at least 350MB of traffic each.

 

Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till midnight) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed – their download speed will be set to 1Mb, with their upload speed set to 128Kb. This will last for 4 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.

 

Broadband Size: L

During peak times, the top 5% on the Size: L package download at least 750MB of traffic each.

 

Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till midnight) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed – their download speed will be set to 2Mb, with their upload speed set to 192Kb. This will last for 4 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.

 

Broadband Size: XL

During peak times, the top 5% on the Size: XL package download at least 3GB of traffic each.

 

Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till midnight) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed – their download speed will be set to 5Mb, with their upload speed set to 256Kb. This will last for 4 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.

 

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

[Guest Jordan]

I'm sorry but what?

Thats a fucking JOKE.

 

This is gunna be on watchdog tomorrow, theres gunna be another lot of customers leaving VM i feel...

[The-Ironflame]

Yup the latest news is that they've lost customers:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6638013.stm

[Mikey]

I'm on VM. They better stop screwing us over, or I may leave.

[Tom]

this is awfull. The reason why I am with VM is that it is unlimited download. I have no use for an ISP wth limits on downloads.

[Caris]

this is awfull. The reason why I am with VM is that it is unlimited download. I have no use for an ISP wth limits on downloads.

 

Where does it say limited Downloads.

[Tom]

Where does it say limited Downloads.

 

sorry, i mean limited speed, which is essentially limiting downloads.

[Calza]

No offence, but you must be an idiot to sign up to an ISP with restrictions on speed.

[Guest Jordan]

No offence, but you must be an idiot to sign up to an ISP with restrictions on speed.

 

God Like

 

Annoyingly, we had no caps or speed restictions till the bull shit merger between the two companies. I was happy with just Telewest, great speed, customer service and reliablity.

 

Now its shite.

[rokhed00]

What pisses me off more is that customers with the smaller packages still get restrictions when they don't get a speed increase.

[Colin]

What pisses me off more is that customers with the smaller packages still get restrictions when they don't get a speed increase.

Yep. This is the only thing that I feel they are doing bad with.

 

This recent announcement about limiting people between certain times is totally fine I feel...............surely those warez addicts who live at their computers all day can just leave their downloads on at night now instead.

[Slaggis]

sign up with BT.

 

we threatened to leave them and they gave us a 1/3 off the advertised rate, upgraded package, no limits, free weekend and evening calls.

[Caris]

BT are shit...

[Shift]

This is complete and utter bull.

 

The reason why people choose these fast connection speeds (such as the 10MB service, soon to rise to 20MB) is to download larger files more quickly, which lets not forget, you (we) are paying for.

 

So if im paying £40 a month for a 20MB connection, its because i want that connection. I dont think ill hit this 'cap' but if i ever do (an xbox360 demo or two plus some trailers and streaming and such should more or less reach the cap) i will demand 95% of my money back from the hours that theyve capped my download speed for.

 

Has anyone who was with telewest experienced any major slowdown issues before the merger? This just seems like complete made up bull.

 

I'm so angry at this decision, we're paying for a service they dont want us to use, and so theyre going to penalise people that do.

 

I probably wont make the top 5%, but i dont want these restrictions (which they are), so im actively looking for another ISP.

[Ice9]

I was literally just about to sign up with Virgin, so I'm glad I saw this becuase now I definately wont!

 

Anyone have any good suggestions? I need no download cap and good speed, I'm going to be torrenting and gaming, so I want a pretty good service.

[The-Ironflame]

I've found I have to pay £2 more for the XL package with it going to 20mb. I may have to consider my options now and that + the phone line sets us back about £48 a month.

[theguyfromspark]

Whatever you do, don't sign up with BT! My d/l speed at weekday nights is less than 0.5Mbps, then it shoots up to around 7Mbps during the day time and weekends! Customer service keep saying it's something to do with contention and my computer setup, but the speed is the same on Xbox Live (meaning i can't play multiplayer games on weekdays.. too laggy) and the whole thing is fine at weekends so it can't be hardware related.

I'd leave but i'm moving house in a couple of months so don't want to pay twice to swap broadband around.

[Shift]

Just a quick question to those of you that are now with Virgin.

 

Has youre connection speed dropped?

 

Its taking me ages to stream video's and such.

 

---EDIT---

 

Ive just done a speed test on my 10MB connection and my download speed is at 164kbps, which is lower then my upload speed (which is 326kbps).

 

Has it got something to do with them "upgrading" the service?

[flameboy]

Yeah BT have been awful with their download speeds, was meant to 7MB or so they told me when I signed up...but it never hits close to that...

 

Can't wait to get home, Virgin Media is so much faster!

[Stewilo2005]

This isn't even on, i'm not having it, i mean sure my internet might get limited to 5Mb, but i download quite a bit. I'm phoning them soon to threaten to leave see if they offer me anything if not, goodbye virgin media. Was well better before virgin took over, bring back telewest.

[Tellyn]

I wasn't happy when they switched to 10MB. The router broke, wouldn't let me run the Internet through it and I couldn't connect the Wii to it. I had to buy a new one.

[The-Ironflame]

I noticed earlier when trying to download a demo off the Virgin FTP, it started off at full speed then dropped to round 500kb/s instead of the 1000kbs I should normally have.

[AeroScap]

That's why I am looking at BT atm. A technichian is coming around in a few weeks to check our line.

 

NTL/ aka Virgin have been nothing but trouble with me : overcharging bills, cutting my internet, claiming unpaid bills when they charged me for the month and not traffic shaping..

[KKOB]

To bring back an old topic.

 

What broadband peeps don't impose any download limits or "traffic management"?

[AeroScap]

OMG they rang me up again! Saying whether or not I have got a virus on my PC and "insisting" i more or less install their shitty software to scan my comp.

 

This is the 2nd time they rang me about such things. Ironically my package is "Unlimited bandwidth".

 

I am not pleased.

 

(For those who wants to know, from casual 1 person *my dad surfing the web* to 2 members of the family coming back from uni/ school and downloading anime, wow, vent)