Virgin Media - New STM hours being trialled

I'm with HEADRAT on this one... regulation is long overdue.

Oh, and as for Virgin Media publicly announcing to their customers the fact that they limit your services for 5 hours after you've downloaded 300MB or uploaded 150MB (if you're on the Medium package).... what do you people think they are - some sort of communications company?!? :p

One other aspect that hasn't been mentioned yet is that they have imposed this limit yet they don't provide any means for you to measure how much bandwidth you've consumed and how close you are to being shafted by their bandwidth throttling. How difficult is it to implement a system whereby you can query what they think you've used? After all, they must have the figures because they're using them to implement the limit.

Can you imagine this being the case elsewhere? Imagine driving in a 30mph zone in a car without a speedo. Or imagine taking a 3 hour exam for your university finals without access to a clock and without knowing how long you've got left.
 
GarethDW said:
One other aspect that hasn't been mentioned yet is that they have imposed this limit yet they don't provide any means for you to measure how much bandwidth you've consumed and how close you are to being shafted by their bandwidth throttling. How difficult is it to implement a system whereby you can query what they think you've used? After all, they must have the figures because they're using them to implement the limit.
Click to expand...

on one of their many pages of their website, they do link you to a bandwidth monitoring tool that measures the amount of data passing through your network card. this doesn't however take into account other people on your network or if you are sending files over your LAN and not through the internet, therefore the tool is pretty redundant

ive just been upgraded to 20MB Virgin media, but the 3GB limit is insanely low for such a massive connection, you can pretty much cap yourself within 20 minutes if your downloading constantly. if i am paying for such a high speed connection, i think that i should be allowed access to a higher cap, something like 15-20GB reasonable.
 
Last edited:
GarethDW said:
Can you imagine this being the case elsewhere? Imagine driving in a 30mph zone in a car without a speedo. Or imagine taking a 3 hour exam for your university finals without access to a clock and without knowing how long you've got left.
Click to expand...
To be fair it's not the local council or whoever sets the speed limit that provides you with a speedo, you buy one with a car and actually pay for it, it's up to you to take the correct measures to ensure you don't break the speed limit. For bandwidth use/downloads there are plenty of utilities you can download that will tell you what you're using.

David91 said:
on one of their many pages of their website, they do link you to a bandwidth monitoring tool that measures the amount of data passing through your network card.
Click to expand...
Which is at least a start unless you live in a house with multiple machines all doing big downloads at the same time I suppose...
 
Last edited:
Picked this up from another forum so cant vouch for its authenticity:

STM Statement:

As part of our continued efforts to improve our customer's broadband
experience we are continuing to trial measures which will more efficiently
and pro-actively manage network traffic.

As part of our continued efforts to improve our customer's broadband
experience, we are making changes to the current Traffic Management Policy
within certain trial regions.

This updated policy will be trialed within the following regions
Preston, Wigan, Blackpool, Camden, Dalston, Enfield and Haringey.

These measures are based on policies that detect traffic patterns
that are deemed potentially abnormal and apply traffic management rules to
ensure that other customers are not adversely affected by this traffic.

The trial aims to prevent or reduce the effects of a minority of
users abusing the network and preventing the majority of subscribers from
having the network performance they desire.

For the vast majority of customers, upwards of 95% of the base,
their experience will be a more consistent speed (both upload and download).

Those who have the policies applied to their connection will
experience their download / upload speed being constrained (less than 5%
affected). Breach of acceptable use policy may lead to these policies being
applied.

These optimisation policies are being trialed during the following
times where the potential for abnormal traffic has been identified as having
the greatest adverse impact on our customers' experience.

10am - 3pm Download only
4pm - 9pm Download
3pm - 8pm Upload


During these times the following thresholds will be applied for upstream and
downstream.

10am - 3pm Download
Size M: 900Mb
Size L: 2400Mb
Size XL: 6000Mb

4pm - 9pm Download
Size M: 450Mb
Size L:1200Mb
Size XL: 3000Mb

3pm - 8pm Upload
Size M: 200Mb
Size L: 700Mb
Size XL: 1400Mb
 
Visage said:
But as i've pointed out elsewhere - VM would be happy for you to go elsewhere, as you're being subsidised by people who use less bandwidth. Your threat is pointless, as VM are making a loss on your service.
Click to expand...

for a start you have absolutely no idea how i use my connection so i'd take that crystal ball back to argos if i were you - even though i'm on the 20mb i don't consume anywhere near the bandwidth heavy users do.

if enough ppl are annoyed by this newly implemented STM then combined our threats aren't pointless if we all take our business elsewhere - telewest used to be a great service whereas now i'm paying for a tier i don't even get to use when i really need it. the previous cap was workable between 4pm-10pm but this new change is just taking the mickey, it's pretty obvious they don't have the infrastructure to support 20mbit let alone 50mbit when that's introduced so i'd expect STM to be introduced 24/7 in the near future.

how can scandinavian countries give 100mbit connections that are true 'unlimited' for less than what we pay, because broadband is just another example of the overpriced/overtaxed under serviced country that is the UK.
 
Last edited:
So as an XL customer the only time I'm ever going to be able to use my 20Mbps connection to it's full potential is between 21:00 to 10:00!
 
Hmmmm, its all a bit stupid this STM malarky. Glad i dont pay full whack for 20mb though or id be pee'd off. £18 a month is good enough, that offer is due to end in September though, so they can either offer me a good deal on 20/50mb, or i'll just wait to see what the 21CN service is like in my area when it gets enabled the back end of this year.
 
well today i sort of run up Virgin Media's Bandwidth bill a bit, downloaded 44GB off Usenet overnight... completely legit "game demo's" of course :)

getting my own back on them for the ridiculous STM hours.
 
fast1.jpg
;)
 
Anybody else having the same problems as me?

For the last week, anywhere between 8pm and 10pm I'm getting speeds way below 56k.
In fact its becomes unuseable even when browsing.
 
gnr26 said:
The STM will never be removed, especially when the CEO same out and blasted Net Neutrality, now we know their attitude and stance on the matter you can bet STM will be here for a long long time.


http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/a93556/virgin-media-ceo-attacks-net-neutrality.html
Click to expand...

Is it just me or does this read as ' soon we will only let our customers access (at full speed) sites that pay us money'!

So what ever time of day you can have BBC iplayer @ 20gig but other sites only at a masively capped speed.
 
Last edited:
Confirmed by a source to be going live to all regions as expected

"These New STM Rules Are Now *Confirmed* To Go Live (All Regions) After The Trials End."

Roll on 24/7 STM, should be in a couple of months when they have had chance to oversubscribe some more.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom