Virgin Media re-thinks throttling policy

[LordSplodge]

Good on VM I say, the sooner the illegal P2P stuff is clamped down on the better. Of course I appreciate everyone here actualy only downloads 2 or 3 different linux distros every night to hit the cap on a regular basis, what else could it be... Honest...

Wow, you have issues. I pay Virgin Media x amount per month and if I want to bittorrent my connection to death then that's my choice.

VM's policy of reducing your connection during peak hours is fairer and better than limiting the connection to www only!

I bet you support the Cable Companies that want to charge for third party packets and turn the Internet into another version of cable tv?

 

[Macro]

Wow, you have issues. I pay Virgin Media x amount per month and if I want to bittorrent my connection to death then that's my choice.

VM's policy of reducing your connection during peak hours is fairer and better than limiting the connection to www only!

I bet you support the Cable Companies that want to charge for third party packets and turn the Internet into another version of cable tv?

It's not me with issues, I'm very happy with the service thanks

Sure, you can choose to bittorrent your connection to death and that's fine by me until it impacts on my experience. It's then VM and pretty much all the other ISPs choice to throttle your bandwidth or raise your charges.

Suits me just fine,

 

[LordSplodge]

Sure, you can choose to bittorrent your connection to death and that's fine by me until it impacts on my experience. It's then VM and pretty much all the other ISPs choice to throttle your bandwidth or raise your charges.

I don't care about your connection, my neighbors connection or the Prime Ministers connection . All I care about is having an unrestricted connection to my house. If this is a problem for VM at peak times then I prefer them to lower my connection speed rather than impose restrictions on what part of the Internet I can access.

Capping makes sense as it keeps the casual browsers, gamers et al happy when they use there connection (as they get a fair share) during peak hours and the rest of the time the big downloaders can hoover as much porn or 0 Day warez as they can manage to get down their connection.

Works for me. However the lazy Government should get its act in gear. The Japanese can get 100Mb fiber to their houses why can't we?

 

[Macro]

I don't care about your connection, my neighbors connection or the Prime Ministers connection .

No suprise around your attitude there then. Still, good point...

I suppose I could take the same line and say I don't care about your connection or your need to bittorrent half the internet a day totally unrestricted. As long as I can download, surf and game at good speeds for a fair price any time of day I don't care if the ISPs cap or start filtering out certain traffic types like torrents

Using your arguemnt we could even say let's introduce per GB charging for say over something like 25GB per month of torrents. Making up the vast majority of the traffic on the networks It'd make people a little bit more discriminate as to what they torrent and give them a way to access extra capacity if they really need it. You could then pay per GB over the flat rate at a price that can be reinvested to make sure the infrastructure can provide the additional bandwidth without being detrimental to other peoples web/download and ping times (and get you that fibre infrastructure you want, someone has to pay for it after all it may as well be the people who will benefit the most). It wouldn't effect me or the vast majority of internet users beyond us actually getting a faster service so it's a win all round.

Looks like the "I don't care about anyone else" argument works really well - ta.

 

[Skeeter]

Well, Im screwed then

In a uni house with 4 other people, totaling 7 machines (2 of us have laptops and PCs). 2 others in the house refuse to turn there machines off and limit downloads (atleast i limit mine during the day). so, with 5 ppl on the net, 3 of us downloading TV etc a lot, and 2 of them using the max bandwidth they can get, im going to be hitting the threashold within an hour! I mean an episode of a certain super human tv series from america will download in about 30 mins easy, and thats 350megs gone, and our line limited to 1mbit. Cable is carp! ADSL is the way forward!

 

[dbmzk1]

I don't care about your connection, my neighbors connection or the Prime Ministers connection . All I care about is having an unrestricted connection to my house...

If you want a dedicated line that guarantees you a certain level of service then go pay for it. That will be £3000 a month please. Don't want to pay? Thought not. At the end of the day you get what you pay for. So then be happy with how VM is trying to handle the situation as it is a LOT better than the monthly caps most other ISPs are introducing.

 

[Dolph]

Why should the customer make allowances for VM's current network not being able to cope with the services they offer?

"Peak hours" is a lame and backwards concept when it comes to the internet. Don't know why you're so eager to accept it.

Because most people understand that you get the infrastructure you pay for. There are unlimited bandwidth packages available, they just cost more.

 

[Matteysan]

As i said earlier on in the thread, the only thing that annoys me is that when 4mb gets capped we get capped to the same speed as the 2mb package which i find pathetic when we are actually paying more than them.

Yeah fair enough i can download 400mb or so more than that package, but i'd rather have the caps as they are now least my connection is fairly useable at 2mb.

 

[Camalot]

I think that's pretty fair, 3GB between 4-9.



I use NetMeter - very similar, but it's free.

I've installed this on my laptop to monitor, and set it to put me 20gb a month limit, see what readings i get because i'm going over to the free base sky BB package when i get sky+ in the new year.

I have a PC upstairs, and a 360 which downloads demos. Will this measure everything or just the laptop only? I did notice the option to set it to measure from the wireless card only or all interfaces.

 

[LordSplodge]

If you want a dedicated line that guarantees you a certain level of service then go pay for it. That will be £3000 a month please. Don't want to pay? Thought not. At the end of the day you get what you pay for. So then be happy with how VM is trying to handle the situation as it is a LOT better than the monthly caps most other ISPs are introducing.

You missed the point. I agree with the way VM are handling things. Reducing the connection speed of heavy users during peak hours is the best solution to this problem outside of heavy investment in infrastructure and cost increases to the end user.

 

[StevenG]

well i think that if they were going to hand out 20mbit speeds they should be able to provide 20mbit to ALL customers at ALL times or i may aswell just be put back on 10mbit and get that speed 24/7.

its one of the better throtteling policies i think, only being limited between certain times. i know peopl that have monthly limits and get STUPIDLY slow speeds for the rest of the month if they hit these limits.

i have a server pc running 24/7 downloading and uploading and then i have 3 laptops and a pc using the connection, so if all people are on the net at the same time between 4-12 or whatever it is it doesnt take long to be throttled back.

but as i said its one of the beter ones, but i still dont know why they couldnt just give us 15mbit 24/7 and not limit...

StevenG

 

[tolien]

Will this measure everything or just the laptop only? I did notice the option to set it to measure from the wireless card only or all interfaces.

Only the laptop. "All interfaces" means all the network interfaces on the machine: wireless card, wired network, firewire network, bluetooth network.
If you want to monitor the total throughput, you need some sort of monitoring on a central point (e.g. your router).

 

[Swordfish]

Just hit the throttle at 21:38. Is anyone else being knobbled in the 9-midnight slot?

Me.

I am on the 20Meg package, and cant complain. Get full speed for aobut 17 hours a day and find I'm throttled from about 4:55 to midnight. Can complaint tho. I am a heavy user and doint mind getting throttled to 5 meg for a few hours.

 

[mrk]

Me.

I am on the 20Meg package, and cant complain. Get full speed for aobut 17 hours a day and find I'm throttled from about 4:55 to midnight. Can complaint tho. I am a heavy user and doint mind getting throttled to 5 meg for a few hours.

I discovered the other day I was throttled to 5MB too one night for the first time, I did DL a few GB in the space of /not very long at all actually/ though so I don't mind. Still, 5MB = ~500k/s which is still fast enough considering my LAN users are also online during this throttle period so I'd get anywhere from 500 to 1mb/sec anyway. I can't complain!

In fact I'm 100% happy with this considering the stability of the line since going back to VM 98days ago has been this:

Uptime : 98 days, 08:16:26
System Load : 0.23 / 0.07 / 0.02

 

[Camalot]

Only the laptop. "All interfaces" means all the network interfaces on the machine: wireless card, wired network, firewire network, bluetooth network.
If you want to monitor the total throughput, you need some sort of monitoring on a central point (e.g. your router).

ok, cheers mate.

 

[ALLI]

they need to sort this out. they need to sort their network in general. just gone to speed test and from and "up to" 20meg service im getting 3. it's 2.30am!!! hardly peak time.

i dont think ive ever had anything more than 10 meg either.

so i have sloppy internet, and sloppy tv.

i tried to ring tech support, but it's a premium number. every time i have to ring them, they tell me there's a premium bar. so they remove it. i get through, and have to repeat the whole process again next time i need support. having been a telewest customer since i was 18 (had a phone line installed in my bedroom when i was living with my folks) and was one of the first 10 people in my town to get broadband, it's got worse, and worse and worse. they reward new customers with better deals then sh!t on the existing customers.

i think im gonna cancel tomorrow. ive had enough.

 

[McManicMan]

been with them ever since Nymex days, i'm a heavy user also and often find myself in the now 5meg restricted range during peak hours. Doesn't bother me in the slightest because i actually do get 5meg and 20meg most of the time

 

[Biohazard]

I have ordered Sky.

Internet was off for three days, when I phone 150 I now have to pay for their failing infrastructure in the Gyle. They took legal proceedings against me for £24.99 that was completely ficticious and took months to get them to desist after counter threats. Their staff are also incapable of recording customer notes correctly.

I don't expect Sky to be a bed of roses, however it can only be better than the failed VM. Not that TW/BY were perfect.

 

[Caged]

If this is a problem for VM at peak times then I prefer them to lower my connection speed rather than impose restrictions on what part of the Internet I can access.

Then you'd be complaining that you're paying the same and only getting a 2 megabit service. Unrestricted 20 meg for the tiny price VM customers pay each month is not ever going to achieve anything other than losing the company money.

For an idea of what a connection that's designed to be run at capacity costs, a leased line between two sites running at around 30Mbit costs over £10k a month. I honestly can't see what people running servers 24x7 downloading stuff are doing that's actually legal - the cost per week on new hard drives must be insane.

Edit: Maybe VM are a total joke, I wouldn't know as my area isn't cabled. I pay O2 £7.50 for their up to 8Mbit ADSL2+ service, and sync at 6.5. I'm happy with this arrangement, because at the moment I can't see what I'd use any extra bandwidth for, and by the time I need to go faster the technology will exist to allow me to do that.

 

[Rainmaker]

Sounds like a load of FUD and nonsense to me. I'm with Easynet (via UK Online). I SYNC at 22.5mbps on ADSL2+ and download at 2.4MB/sec (i.e. 2400 KB/sec) on average. Monthly, I hit about 200-300GB downstream, and guess what? I still get 2.4MB/sec! No throttling, no slow downs, zilch. For some reason, Easynet hasn't gone bust yet

My brother is with VM for their XL "20 meg" broadband. Between 4pm and 7pm his connection is nearly dead. The reason? VM say the town he lives in use the net too much, so EVERYBODY in his town on VM get throttled no matter what, between those times. The "usual" VM throttling also applies outside those hours.

And he's paying how much a month again?! A lot more than my £24.99 to UK Online, that's for sure. I can't see how VM's position is defendable - they own the network, the infrastructure, everything. The fact they can't even run that is a poor show imho. They're on about bringing in 50mbps iirc... they can't even manage 10mbps at present as this blanket throttling policy clearly demonstrates!