Virgin Media Broadband 20MB

[jake000]

Traffic shaping and caps are both just as bad.

If I download for ~10-20min on my 20Mbit connection I'm cut down to 4Mbit for hours, I might as well be paying for 4Mbit rather than putting up with this utter tosh. Don't you agree?

They definitely don't just appear after 4pm either, I know from experience.

I totally agree with you as well

 

[Robert]

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

 

[Robert]

Just limit your download speed to 15mb/s or something between peak hours. Although - yes it is a pain.

 

[Darkwave]

Sigh, looks like I'll be switching to the 4Mbit package when I move out.

 

[Hurley]

I have a question.

If i download say 30gig of data out of peak hours. Will my counter be reset during the hours of 4-12?

So even though ive downloaded 30gig during the day I will still be able to download another 3gig during these peak hours.

Lets face it, 3gig isnt a fat lot of bandwidth these days.

 

[Wingz]

why do they have to limit the upload to 256kb as well

 

[Uhtred]

As i understand it the restrictions will only happen if you download/upload 3gigs during peak hours ie between 4pm-12am. and even then it will only be for 4 hours so if you download 3 gigs at 4pm you will have full speed again at 8pm.

I really don't see the problem in this, i'm a very heavy user, in the last 24 hours i've transferred 4gigs and that's fairly light usage for me. However i generally only download offpeak because i'm conscious that it's unfair on the 95% of people who are light users.

I don't understand why people have a problem with this, it's fair enough, why should virgin massively increase their available bandwidth, which would only be utilised for a few hours a day, thus increasing the costs to everyone not just the heavy users, just because of 5% of users?

 

[Nick1881]

OMG, i will be downgrading my speed right away, I think ADSL sucks in my area but I can get free orange and free sky, might be worth it rather than this rubbish.

3Gb isnt even a full dvd, if they limit me down to just 5mb it will be slower than what im on now.

VM = Stupid, this is why I was worried after the switch from NTL.

 

[allllec]

As said above you are being a bit unfair to Virgin Media, they have millions of braodband customers and they are just trying to make sure they all get a nice equal serivce.

whats more unfair

a) not being able to download files >3gb @ 20mbps (in many cases this is illegal stuff aswell)
b) not being able to load web pages in <1 second (this could be you, me, your mum, or just joe blogs who has done nothing "wrong")

i know which i would prefer (okay i've just made up those figures but you get the idea)

bearing in mind your only paying £37 aswell which isnt bad for 20mbps with unlimited traffic off-peak.

give the guys some credit

 

[Robert]

As said above you are being a bit unfair to Virgin Media, they have millions of braodband customers and they are just trying to make sure they all get a nice equal serivce.

whats more unfair

a) not being able to download files >3gb @ 20mbps (in many cases this is illegal stuff aswell)
b) not being able to load web pages in <1 second (this could be you, me, your mum, or just joe blogs who has done nothing "wrong")

i know which i would prefer (okay i've just made up those figures but you get the idea)

bearing in mind your only paying £37 aswell which isnt bad for 20mbps with unlimited traffic off-peak.

give the guys some credit

Sorry but sod off with this fair malarky. I pay for 20mb I WANT 20 MEG. Who gives a flying **** if I'm being childish. Will they offer variable pricing? Will they heck.

Reducing you to a quarter of the speed - yeah 5mb...but that isn't what is paid for.

Oh and it doesn't have to be illegal (download content)

BBC TV streams
ITV Web streams
Direct2Drive games
Steam
Xbox live content
Patches

When I leave (if I graduate) I won't be leaving my PC on - i'll want to download when I get home at 5:30/6 - but now...oh no.

 

[Darkwave]

bearing in mind your only paying £37 aswell which isnt bad for 20mbps with unlimited traffic off-peak

£37 for a 20Mbit connection that can easily be chopped to 5Mbit within 10-30min depending on traffic.

How is that fair? Might as well pay much less for a 4Mbit line instead.

BBC TV streams
ITV Web streams
Direct2Drive games
Steam
Xbox live content
Patches

Yup. Not forgetting Linux distros, game demos, game betas, MMO updates, and usage of things like Teamspeak and Skype. Plenty of things use a lot of bandwidth these days.

 

[Hurley]

What about XBOX Live users?

I play my xbox a lot at night on FPS i.e Gears Of War, CoD2 / CoD3.

I dont actually know how much bandwidth they use but i dont want my connection to get cripple while im in the middle of a deathmatch.

Im at work all day, asleep all night, i might aswell just get the 4meg package if i cant enjoy the full potential of 20meg.

 

[DreXeL]

OK, not as bad as I was expecting. I'm a very heavy user, but the vast majority of my very large downloads are done between 9am and 1pm, before I go to work (I work 2pm till 10pm).

I very rarely download anything large between the hours of 4pm and 12am, maybe occasionally on a Friday or at the weekend.

Quite relieved TBH, It shouldn't really affect me atall

 

[Robert]

Yep sadly *if* I graduate I'll probably working 9-5 and I don't leave my PC on when I'm out.

What about XBOX Live users?

I play my xbox a lot at night on FPS i.e Gears Of War, CoD2 / CoD3.

I dont actually know how much bandwidth they use but i dont want my connection to get cripple while im in the middle of a deathmatch.

Im at work all day, asleep all night, i might aswell just get the 4meg package if i cant enjoy the full potential of 20meg.

Yep of course it'll take hold. It still uses the same internet connection.

 

[roakes]

I'm happy to keep my downloads til after midnight, on the evening im usually just browsing and stuff, but to be honest on a 20mb connection or on a 4mb connection if it's downloading over night it will be finished by the time I wake up either way!

So maybe a downgrade is in order.

 

[Uhtred]

xbox live users will most likely see a benefit in this. as will most online gamers. Try playing a game during peak hours and you might have problems with high pings, packet loss etc. Why does this happen?

Because there is more traffic at peak hours. By reducing this traffic, things like voip, live streaming, gaming will be improved and if your connection goes from 20meg to 5meg? None of these services use anywhere near to 20meg, 5 meg is loads more than enough, you won’t even notice. These services rely on a good quality, low latency connection, not high bandwidth

 

[Darkwave]

Quite a few responses so far have already been "I'm downgrading my connection."

Virgin Media just single-handedly cut their revenue from subscriptions.

xbox live users will most likely see a benefit in this. as will most online gamers. Try playing a game during peak hours and you might have problems with high pings, packet loss etc. Why does this happen?

Because there is more traffic at peak hours. By reducing this traffic, things like voip, live streaming, gaming will be improved and if your connection goes from 20meg to 5meg? None of these services use anywhere near to 20meg, 5 meg is loads more than enough, you won’t even notice. These services rely on a good quality, low latency connection, not high bandwidth

Xbox Live users use bandwidth too when they play, especially with their headsets, and especially when they download content. Why should they get priority over other people?

It's all a big joke. Ping isn't even a problem, ever, at least in my area as long as you connect to a decent server.

The network is more than capable of handling the traffic and Virgin knows it, they're just cutting costs.

 

[Robert]

xbox live users will most likely see a benefit in this. as will most online gamers. Try playing a game during peak hours and you might have problems with high pings, packet loss etc. Why does this happen?

Because there is more traffic at peak hours. By reducing this traffic, things like voip, live streaming, gaming will be improved and if your connection goes from 20meg to 5meg? None of these services use anywhere near to 20meg, 5 meg is loads more than enough, you won’t even notice. These services rely on a good quality, low latency connection, not high bandwidth

Sorry but I never have issues at peak times with downloads or uploads/skype/TS/ventrilo/pings...

 

[Uhtred]

It's a shame people don't actually understand why this is needed and just resort to omgomg vm SUCK!! i'm going to sky bb!!11

From my experience traffic shaping and adsl in general is pretty **** poor

 

[Darkwave]

Sorry but I never have issues at peak times with downloads or uploads/skype/TS/ventrilo/pings...

Bingo, it's all bullcrap.

Just cost-cutting, no reason for it.