Do Virgin punish you for *mild* p2p usage?

Whappers

Whappers

Whappers

Soldato
Joined
4 Nov 2003
Posts
4,496
Location
Belfast, Northern Ireland
I have been a Virgin Media customer now for a number of years, but recently the service has been nothing short of appalling. My speeds in the evenings are terrible. Yes, I do download game trailers, music and tv shows. I am not excessive in doing so compared to some people I know yet I seem to get butt shafted and disconnected at the most infuriating times. For example, when watching a live football broadcast via p2p (completely legal AFAIK) it is not uncommon for me to be cut off (modem reboot itself) 10 times in 20 minutes. It's almost like they don't allow me to use p2p whatsoever. I have never been contacted about my p2p usage and have recently emailed them to complain at the shocking speeds (D/L roughly 10kb/s U/L roughly 5kb/s :eek:). I'm supposedly on 10MB for goodness sake! - not 10 millibyte! :p

Anyway, I just missed a phone call from them about 20 minutes ago and was wondering if any of you have experienced similar problems of the modem rebooting itself and extremely slow speeds in th evenings due to p2p usage on the Virgin network?

Thanks.

Whappers.
 
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On BT here, and they did a little... have cut back now, only download if I really need to :p
 
i experience slower speeds at weekends mostly and sometimes weekday evenings between about 6pm -12am. nothing too major though. i also watch live football with p2p every now an then and game online a lot, but i don't download that often. i'm guessing it's just an issue in your area mate, maybe you have a lot of high usage people with virgin where you live. do you know anyone else with virgin you can ask if they've had the same probs? if you have a router make sure it's secured aswell. speak to virgin , if it carries on keep complaining, don't carry on paying for 10mb if you're rarely getting it. it's quite well known for virgin to give you deals if you go on at em.
 
Dist said:
The low speeds could be due to you downloading too much and hitting the traffic management cap, at which point your connection speed is reduced. You can see more details about that on the VM site: http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html
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Thanks for that. I already knew about throttling but rebooting my modem repeatedly to annoy me is a whole different kettle of fish. I didn't know that the throttling policy had changed so much since I last saw it. It takes 1.2GB downloading for me (between 4pm - 9pm) for me to get throttled for 5 hours. Sorry, but that is just ****** ****. How on earth are other people (even the big downloaders on Virgin) putting up with this:confused:
 
Whappers said:
How on earth are other people (even the big downloaders on Virgin) putting up with this:confused:
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3.5Gb limit for me on 20Mb

I put up with it because I don't even download during the hours of the cap, and if I do download it's certainly not going to be over 3.5Gb.

I download masses while asleep and at college though, so I'm happy as long as it doesn't get capped during that.

I use Usenet with SSL connections though, P2P is too risky for me.
 
My VM service was doing exactly what you describe all the time with p2p, however after the free 10Mbit upgrade it no longer has any issues so I wonder if it's something to do with the modems internal software version causing the issue.
 
Dano said:
My VM service was doing exactly what you describe all the time with p2p, however after the free 10Mbit upgrade it no longer has any issues so I wonder if it's something to do with the modems internal software version causing the issue.
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I have the old style NTL box you see... Do you have one of the fancy new Virgin style modems?

Also, would you mind running a speed test on www.speedtest.net and post what you get here so as I can see how your 10MB Virgin speeds compare to my supposed "10MB" speeds?

Thanks.
 
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Got one of the old silver NTL modems, can't remember the model off hand but I can take a look later if needed. Speedtest hit about 8500kbps tonight which is slow, normally I am very close to the max.
 
i have no problems at all with speeds, i often reach my 2.4MB limit via numerous trackers, mostly private as there the best for seeder/leech ratios.

maybe its the quality of the torrent which is your problem.
 
Dano said:
Got one of the old silver NTL modems, can't remember the model off hand but I can take a look later if needed. Speedtest hit about 8500kbps tonight which is slow, normally I am very close to the max.
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Ok, now I'm furious! :mad: I am supposed to be on 10MB! I just ran two speed tests off different sites and found the following...

ThinkBroadband.com
Speed Down 4020.88 Kbps ( 3.9 Mbps )
Speed Up 481.69 Kbps ( 0.5 Mbps )

Speedtest.net
Speed Down 5573 Kbps
Speed Up 483 Kbps

The results of these tests suggest to me that I am not on 10MB and probably still on 4MB even though the "upgrade status" for Northern Ireland was completed according to the VM website.

edit: Just ran another speed test

MyBroadbandSpeed.co.uk
Speed Down 3947 Kbps
Speed Up 490 Kbps
 
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Dano said:
Call them and see if you need a modem upgrade.
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Just gave them a call and got through to an indian lady. She was quite pleasant and helpful. She did think I took offence when she asked me how I knew there was something wrong with the modem and not my linksys wireless router and I replied with "I know what I am talking about." :p I think it came out far worse than ever possibly intended.

Anyway, quite funny in the end. But, she did detect a problem with the return of data packets and has ordered an engineer out to me for Friday between 8a.m. - 12p.m. to have a look at the router. Hopefully this will fix the relieability and speed issues both! Fingers crossed, although I'm not overly hopeful.

Now... time to deal with that spider in my bathroom! AAARRRGGGHHH!!
 
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