When do virgin start getting peeved aboud DL usage?

Craterloads · 6 Nov 2012 at 10:00

Just getting a little worried as i downloaded a **** load last night and was wondering if that will annoy virgin enough to cut me off/send out a letter etc?

Im using Virgin scheduling time table thing,

12am - 12pm - Full speed
12pm - 5pm - Limited
5pm - 12am - Off

Downloaded 260GB last night at pretty much max speed!! Am i in the clear as am not downloading at peak hours? or should i cut it back a bit?

Werewolf · 6 Nov 2012 at 11:01

I would imagine as long as you're not doing it every night you'll be ok.
IIRC it's fairly unusual for VM to contact people about how much they are downloading, unless they are really taking the mickey and are in areas where it's affecting other customers.

Shad · 6 Nov 2012 at 11:34

I downloaded around 500Gb one time so they sent me a letter advising the best times to use the service to avoid getting throttled

Antowns · 6 Nov 2012 at 16:28

I was sure they only contacted you if you were affecting the performance of users around you. If someone was to complain, they'd look at the area and see what's causing the problem.

Craterloads · 6 Nov 2012 at 19:38

Shad said:
I downloaded around 500Gb one time so they sent me a letter advising the best times to use the service to avoid getting throttled

Must have felt good

Ive got it switched off now, scheduled to come back on at midnight.

Ive downloaded 1.5TB, so far in two weeks!! Looks like ill need some more 3TB drives or get a Nas box.

Shad · 6 Nov 2012 at 22:23

Scheduling for off-peak is your best bet. I do that with cloud backup (mainly so it doesn't affect normal net usage) and any big downloads I have to do. They aren't going to mind as long as it isn't affecting other customers.

Liquid_Entity · 6 Nov 2012 at 22:25

Feels like 24hrs a day round here !!!

aln · 6 Nov 2012 at 23:08

Craterloads said:
Must have felt good

Ive got it switched off now, scheduled to come back on at midnight.

Ive downloaded 1.5TB, so far in two weeks!! Looks like ill need some more 3TB drives or get a Nas box.

In theory, virgin aren't allowed to complain, as they're selling you unlimited usage, and thats their justification to throttle download speeds.

For what its worth, I've probably cracked out higher numbers than above, though not consistently, and I didn't hear a peep

a1ex2001 · 7 Nov 2012 at 15:10

Craterloads said:
Ive downloaded 1.5TB, so far in two weeks!! Looks like ill need some more 3TB drives or get a Nas box.

Serious question could you do a break down of what that 1.5TB consists of HD Movies/TV Shows, SD Movies/TV shows, music etc. I'm always amazed by how much data people can consume in such short period of times!

Liquid_Entity · 7 Nov 2012 at 15:12

Erm that would be illegal

edit: but when you look at sites with nzb files, you only have to see that full HD movies are anything between 30 - 50gb files so a few of them a week will soon add up

aln · 7 Nov 2012 at 15:56

a1ex2001 said:
Serious question could you do a break down of what that 1.5TB consists of HD Movies/TV Shows, SD Movies/TV shows, music etc. I'm always amazed by how much data people can consume in such short period of times!

Over the short period, you could download all your steam games, download HD movies / series and you'll hit it fairly easily. Over the long term, you'd probably have to be a hoarder or a trader.

DiCe! · 7 Nov 2012 at 16:03

I have a friend who does a lot of photography and he uploads and downloads to the cloud and racks up an awful lot of data usage, 1.5tb is quite a lot but it can be doen easily nowdays!

dmcg · 7 Nov 2012 at 16:31

I download a lot per month but I always try to leave the downloads after 12 not had any letters .. yet

Sho · 7 Nov 2012 at 16:47

I average about 600-700gb worth of downloads every month. Not heard a word from Virgin yet.

I do all my downloads overnight. The odd occasion through daytime.

IronWarrior · 8 Nov 2012 at 00:24

Don't worry, you never get a letter.

These are my yearly figures, the last 2-3 years look pretty much the same on a 50mb connection.

Month Incoming Outgoing Total
January 2012 137.1 GB 26.6 GB 163.7 GB
February 2012 413.3 GB 109.7 GB 523.0 GB
March 2012 465.0 GB 144.8 GB 609.9 GB
April 2012 682.4 GB 45.4 GB 727.8 GB
May 2012 393.9 GB 20.2 GB 414.1 GB
June 2012 250.3 GB 250.0 GB 500.3 GB
July 2012 561.0 GB 319.8 GB 880.8 GB
August 2012 345.0 GB 526.2 GB 871.3 GB
September 2012 228.1 GB 474.6 GB 702.6 GB
October 2012 544.4 GB 875.0 GB 1.4 TB
November 2012 181.6 GB 243.4 GB 425.0 GB

My goal is to download 1TB in a month.

FerretBoy · 8 Nov 2012 at 15:27

I did get a letter advising the throttling hours, so I can avoid being throttled. After that I set things to work at night.

Craterloads · 15 Nov 2012 at 17:43

a1ex2001 said:
Serious question could you do a break down of what that 1.5TB consists of HD Movies/TV Shows, SD Movies/TV shows, music etc. I'm always amazed by how much data people can consume in such short period of times!

Liquid_Entity said:
Erm that would be illegal

edit: but when you look at sites with nzb files, you only have to see that full HD movies are anything between 30 - 50gb files so a few of them a week will soon add up

As mentioned that would be illegal

But looking online at illegal downloads for LOTR trilogy is over 200GB in 1080p, TV shows even bigger, so TBs vanish quick.

Ive only got 600GB left on a 2.75TB drive (after formatting), so am going to need another very soon.

feriso · 16 Nov 2012 at 14:21

DiCe! said:
I have a friend who does a lot of photography and he uploads and downloads to the cloud and racks up an awful lot of data usage, 1.5tb is quite a lot but it can be doen easily nowdays!

Same here + videos so I back up stuff to the cloud as well.

Boo to my pants 5/1 connection (ADSL)