Can I just take a moment to **** off Virgin Media?

[Inazuma]

Alright so I joined Blueyonder many moons ago when today's 4mb/10mb was still 512kb. They'd always been good to me - great service and free upgrades every so often.

But since they've been absorbed by Virgin Media, they've become utter monkey balls! They haven't kept with the times at all - upload speeds are pathetic (35kb/s?); the prices their new customers pay is about £10 less than what I pay now and to make things worse, they throttle our speed right down during the evening! My ping in games goes sky high, my speed goes right down, so even google sometimes takes a few seconds to load, downloads go down to about 80kb/s, torrents about 5kb/s and uploads - what uploads?

Pathetic!

 

[willd58]

You sure your settings are right? I don't seem to be having a problem. Have you tried calling them? I'm getting 400kB/s downloading a torrent now, and whilst something goes wrong with my net pages not wanting to load up every so often, a quick reset of the router fixes it so I assume that that is where that problem lies.

 

[helmutcheese]

I agree, VM (NTL) are crap, loved TW-BY from 512 days till death.

 

[PhillyDee]

If your speed is being throttled, then maybe you are downloading too much, have you checked to see if you are exceeding their FUP?

 

[Inazuma]

willd58, yep I've tried the reset a few times already and it's the same.

But yes I do download quite a lot. FUP should only apply to the new customers though.

 

[Immsy]

But yes I do download quite a lot. FUP should only apply to the new customers though.

It applies to everyone, not just new customers.

 

[Inazuma]

Well since they've suddenly brought this new policy out, why don't they reduce our prices too? They want us to be 'fair' to fellow users? So why aren't they fair to their own customers? They throttle my speed down far more than they are supposed to as well. Their threshold is unacceptable too. I basically pass it just by streaming internet radio for an hour.

 

[BloodyL]

Traffic Management is tier b(i)ased, so if you are on the lower packages you will feel the effects more (how stupid is that?)

Broadband Size: M
During peak times, the top 3% of downloaders on the Size: M package download at least 300MB of traffic each, with the top 3% of uploaders uploading at least 150MB of traffic each.
Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till 9pm) 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 5 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.
Even if a Broadband Size: M user has their speed temporarily traffic managed, they can still download over 2,500 music files per day.

Broadband Size: L
During peak times, the top 3% of downloaders on the Size: L package download at least 800MB of traffic each, with the top 3% of uploaders uploading at least 325MB of traffic each.
Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till 9pm) 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 5 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.
Even if a Broadband: Size L user has their speed temporarily traffic managed, they can still download over 5,500 music files per day.

Broadband Size: XL
During peak times, the top 3% of downloaders on the Size: XL package download at least 3GB of traffic each, with the top 3% of uploaders uploading at least 1250MB of traffic each.
Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till 9pm) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed - their download speed will be set to 5Mb, with their upload speed set to 192Kb. This will last for 5 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.
Even if a Broadband Size: XL user has their speed temporarily traffic managed, they can still download over 25,000 music files per day.

 

[Rainmaker]

Broadband Size: XL
During peak times, the top 3% of downloaders on the Size: XL package download at least 3GB of traffic each, with the top 3% of uploaders uploading at least 1250MB of traffic each.

I really don't get that part. I mean come on! Do we actually believe that of all the people paying VM for a 20 meg connection only 3% of them download as "much" as a mere 3GB in a whole evening? LOL

If you're the type of person (like me) who thinks they'll find use in having a download as fast as ~20 Mbps I'm pretty sure you're likely to actually use that download capacity. I pull up to around 500GB a month down from my ISP (UK Online) which works out around 5GB per evening (not counting the rest of the day).

UKO have never throttled me, or considered me in the "top 3%", and I really can't see how 97% of VM 20 meg customers would download less than 3GB a day or even just the evening. At around 20 megs you can pull 3GB down in about half an hour never mind between 4pm and 9pm!!

Any web/email/MSN customers would surely not bother paying for much over 2 Mbps to begin with?

 

[HAz]

Well since they've suddenly brought this new policy out, why don't they reduce our prices too? They want us to be 'fair' to fellow users? So why aren't they fair to their own customers? They throttle my speed down far more than they are supposed to as well. Their threshold is unacceptable too. I basically pass it just by streaming internet radio for an hour.

Ring them up, explain your situation and you (just like i did) will get the same rate as new cutomers.

 

[Dist]

Not all people want 20mb to download mass ammounts of data. Some people get it to download the data they normaly do, faster. Like myself, im on 4mb connection, upgrading to 20mb. Just because im going to 20mb doesnt mean i plan on maxing out my connection, i wont be downloading anything more then i currently do on 4mb, the point is, what i do download will be done faster.

Instead of whining about their fair use policy, do something about it, either leave VM, or simply download during the off peak times. That way the only thing that will slow your speed during peak time is if you are in an over-subscribed area, which cant be helped, and if you dont like it, like i said, leave VM.

Personaly i like the VM trafic management, there are lots of ISPs out there that would charge more money for downloading so much that you slow down other peoples connection in your area, or even take it as far as warning you, and then kicking you off their service.

 

[Rainmaker]

Thing is though, Dist, some of us DO like downloading That's why I use UK Online instead, who let me download at 2.2 MB/sec 24/7 and haven't once complained even when I hit 1 TB a month in throughput! Plus they're a whole lot cheaper than VM.

 

[Inazuma]

Yes I've already tried them to get them to bring my price down, but they wouldn't so I'm moving to BeThere. I even told them that I'd be moving I agree that the policy is better than others like Tiscali though - who just cut you off.

 

[lolwtfbbq]

God, you're right. Got throttled down to 1.9 kB/sec once. :/

 

[platinum87]

free upgrades are stupid. my friends example

internet connection.. 4meg, real download =50-200kbps?
now free upgrade to 10 meg.. real download = 100-250kbps?

if im told im downloading too much i would tell them where to stick it and cut off, i mean "unlimited"

btw im on O2, looking good so far.

 

[Dist]

are you sure your friend has been upgraded? very few area have actully been upgraded from 4mb to 10mb so far.

Also, if hes only getting 50-200KB/s, he is either downloading from rubish sources, or in an oversubcribed area.

 

[box]

Can't say I have an issue with them myself.

I understand dodgy net connections can be frustrating sometimes; but I'd possibly be a little more sympathetic if I felt you were giving us the whole story.

they throttle our speed right down during the evening!

even google sometimes takes a few seconds to load

torrents about 5kb/s

I basically pass it just by streaming internet radio for an hour.

During peak times, the top 3% of downloaders on the Size: L package download at least 800MB of traffic each, with the top 3% of uploaders uploading at least 325MB of traffic each.

Something's not right there. Are you trying to tell us you download 800Mb by simply listening to internet radio?

At the end of the day, the top 3% is the top 3%. As I have said before, I'm willing to put a fair bet on the fact that the research done by VM in order to gain this figure is incomparable to that done by those who whine day in day out about getting capped. It's there for a reason, and a good one at that. If you don't like it, lump it!

The fact is, I download over 10GB a day on my VM connection, and guess what?...I've never been capped once!

 

[chimaera]

Personaly i like the VM trafic management, there are lots of ISPs out there that would charge more money for downloading so much that you slow down other peoples connection in your area, or even take it as far as warning you, and then kicking you off their service.

Agree with you on this one, if you're a hardcore 24/7 downloader then you'll just have to accept that the old days of leeching a connection just doesn't apply anymore, things have changed and if you want that same service it now costs upwards of £75 a month.

I download things when i feel like it and don't have any problems, i've been throttled back a few times due to large demo downloads (i'm only on 2mb) and even though the download speed halves, i can still browse the internet with no noticable drop in performance.

Just have to put up with it or leave, unfortunately times change.

 

[lmfy2k]

im on 20mband during the day i max out all the time

in the evening, its a different story, after 3gb i go down to 5mb speeds

i cant really complain tbh

i have set up LOGMEIN on my home pc, so i just remote in from work and do all my downloads in the day.

 

[NicNac]

I don't have any problems with VM I Download a lot of stuff (mainly linux distros for friends) and have never been capped. You could always use another company.