ISP send global email to request lowering usage at peak times

juno_first · 30 Nov 2009 at 18:10

My ADSL ISP has sent a global email to all its customers (well I hope not just me) which directs to their website with an updated ‘fair usage policy’ to request download/upload usage is reduced during peak times after 5pm weekdays.
This is due to their contention changing from 20:1 to 33:1 / 50:1. Does this mean they’re signing up new customers but not getting a hub for them at the exchange?
LINK

Am I correct in thinking as I pay for 8mbits but only connect at 3.4mbits then Im already reducing my usage at all times & therefore wont be affected by this?
Its just I have 3 PC’s + a media extender in my household which sometimes require most of my available bandwidth:
There is a HTPC + 360 which use SKY player online, a PC always playing WOW (yeah he needs go rehab) & another PC which sometimes watches videos over iTunes.

I’ve never been warned about downloading too much or had my speed capped (to my knowledge).
Im worried about this affecting my burgeoning 21st century living standard.
Its also crazy as you can now get 50mbits over optical & my friend who has this can download in megabytes/sec without a hitch. Is it just phone lines which are the cause of contention (pun intended lol).

ta

Duke · 30 Nov 2009 at 18:20

The speed you are connected at doesn't really matter, its how much you actually download that they will monitor. The faster speed would just mean you reach that limit (whatever it is for them) quicker.

juno_first · 30 Nov 2009 at 18:31

Ahh they should just say if you download eg >10gb month then we'll slow you down at peak times.
I seam to be ok atm so I'll see how it goes.
Need join the 20th century & go optical lol.

Duke · 30 Nov 2009 at 18:58

VM Cable is good

wij · 30 Nov 2009 at 19:03

Duke said:
VM Cable is good

But its not fibre as VM are so proud of stating in their bs marketing campaign (at least not to your house).

Deleted member 77746 · 30 Nov 2009 at 19:04

Just don't download shed loads of un needed digital downloads.

juno_first · 30 Nov 2009 at 19:14

un needed digital downloads

elitetrick · 30 Nov 2009 at 23:41

Dont go cable. I crave the day i can go back to adsl. will be at home for a couple weeks over xmas, literally cannot wait to get back to my copper wire. VM are the worst company on earth. Please if you can avoid them at all costs. i have 20mb o2 at home, sync at 17, never get below that at any time of the day and there are no caps. its fantastic. i have virgin 50mb at uni, i barely every get above 10mb, pretty much stays a solid 1mb, and the WoW player wouldnt have a chance, constant packet loss make any online game completely unplayable.

If youre exchange is LLU enabled go with o2, cheap, solid fast connection, good customer service. Or Be is essentially the same company but a bit more expensive but as i understand they have lower contention ratios than o2.

and on topic: yeh the email will probably just mean dont download during peak times, wow and iplayer etc wont send it over the 10gb limit, but movies etc would so save the real downloading for overnight.

ennogs · 30 Nov 2009 at 23:59

Duke said:
VM Cable is good

VM also does bandwidth throtlling at peak times. Also isn't VM about to introduce peer to peer and torrent monitoring? I can see VM losing a lot of customers over the coming months.

HangTime · 1 Dec 2009 at 01:00

VM is highly dependent on what area you live in. When I had them in Southampton I had absolutely horrendous packetloss (40-80%!) and latency spikes during peak times, but equally I knew people in other areas who had very good pings.

That's not to say you don't get excessive contention on some BT exchanges but overall I've found ADSL to be less hit and miss.

Duke · 1 Dec 2009 at 08:37

elitetrick said:
Dont go cable. I crave the day i can go back to adsl. will be at home for a couple weeks over xmas, literally cannot wait to get back to my copper wire. VM are the worst company on earth. Please if you can avoid them at all costs. i have 20mb o2 at home, sync at 17, never get below that at any time of the day and there are no caps. its fantastic. i have virgin 50mb at uni, i barely every get above 10mb, pretty much stays a solid 1mb, and the WoW player wouldnt have a chance, constant packet loss make any online game completely unplayable.

If youre exchange is LLU enabled go with o2, cheap, solid fast connection, good customer service. Or Be is essentially the same company but a bit more expensive but as i understand they have lower contention ratios than o2.

and on topic: yeh the email will probably just mean dont download during peak times, wow and iplayer etc wont send it over the 10gb limit, but movies etc would so save the real downloading for overnight.

Had them for 10 years this month and not had speed issues. I take it you've tried to resolve them? Speak to the people on the newsgroup, they are very good.

ennogs said:
VM also does bandwidth throtlling at peak times. Also isn't VM about to introduce peer to peer and torrent monitoring? I can see VM losing a lot of customers over the coming months.

Don't think I've been throttled in speed. Going by my router I download about 20-30GB a month. If you download a lot, just set it to overnight.

bigredshark · 1 Dec 2009 at 10:03

ennogs said:
VM also does bandwidth throtlling at peak times. Also isn't VM about to introduce peer to peer and torrent monitoring? I can see VM losing a lot of customers over the coming months.

Won't happen, nobody actually cares about the monitoring. About 1% of their customer base are technical enough to know about it and understand it even in layman's terms. It'll make no difference to their customer base I suspect... particularly while DSL can't offer better than 24Mbit even if you live in the exchange.

That said, VMs network is appalling, by far the worst of any major UK ISP or carrier. I feel for them slightly as it's extensive network which can't be easy to maintain but they do themselves no favours along the way...

juno_first · 1 Dec 2009 at 12:14

thanks 4 the replies. At least replying on my mobile in my lunch is free up2 500mb lol.
Hmm yes i think if i need download something big then i do it overnight.
Maybe use ffl so they cant see what im doing. Darn invasion of privacy

bigredshark · 1 Dec 2009 at 12:21

As I've pointed out many times SSL isn't as much of a shield as people think, the amount of traffic, source and destination are still just as visible and ISPs don't need to prove you're downloading films to take action. And it is technically feasible to proxy SSL and inspect the contents if they chose to (and if they legally able to, which is a big if).

Just saying...

ennogs · 6 Dec 2009 at 00:48

bigredshark said:
Won't happen, nobody actually cares about the monitoring. About 1% of their customer base are technical enough to know about it and understand it even in layman's terms. It'll make no difference to their customer base I suspect... particularly while DSL can't offer better than 24Mbit even if you live in the exchange.

That said, VMs network is appalling, by far the worst of any major UK ISP or carrier. I feel for them slightly as it's extensive network which can't be easy to maintain but they do themselves no favours along the way...

I used to work for Virgin Media (also when it was Telewest and then Telewest and NTL) doing broadband cable tech support.

From speaking to former colleagues a lot of customers are up in arms about the propossed torrent and peer to peer monitoring. My friends have told me it is not the usual suspects who are up in arms it is across the board. I think we sometimes underestimate how many people download using torrents and peer to peer.

NathanE · 6 Dec 2009 at 10:47

bigredshark said:
As I've pointed out many times SSL isn't as much of a shield as people think, the amount of traffic, source and destination are still just as visible and ISPs don't need to prove you're downloading films to take action. And it is technically feasible to proxy SSL and inspect the contents if they chose to (and if they legally able to, which is a big if).

Just saying...

Currently most Newsreader clients are susceptible to SSL man-in-the-middle attacks. That's true. Though there is nothing stopping these clients being improved.

All they need to do is allow you to 'lock down' your server to a specific public key. Then if it connects one day and is offered a different public key by the "server" it knows something is up. It can then ask the user whether to accept or reject the new key.

There is another simpler way which is to just check the domain that the certificate is assigned to. And if it doesn't match the hostname of the server you're connecting to then it, again, knows something is up. Modern web browsers work in this way - at least IE does.

Of course the source and destination IPs are still visible. And of course they can seee how much traffic is flowing, even if they can't see the actual traffic contents itself.

What SSL protects you from is Peter Mandelson. It doesn't protect you, for the most part, from an ISP's usage policy. Having said that, on my ISP (Nildram), I get much better download rate via Astraweb SSL than non-SSL.