Traffic Shaping Affecting All Tiers

[stormrider]

Hmm been wondering what might be going on. My 10mb service has dropped from a steady 7-8mb down to 4-5mb.
I'll have to do some tests in the morning and see what its like then.

[InsaneNutter]

Originally Posted by stormrider

Hmm been wondering what might be going on. My 10mb service has dropped from a steady 7-8mb down to 4-5mb.
I'll have to do some tests in the morning and see what its like then.

In the moring it works fine! but after 5-6ish my 4mb connection gets limited to anywhere between 30-100kb down and about 10-15kb up

[Sirpingalot]

Ouch.

[jorgehernan]

I'm on the 20mb in the bromley area.

Last night at around 4.50pm I was happily downloading an opensuse iso @ between 1900-2200kbp/s, as soon as it hit 5.01pm it shot down to 650kbp/s and wouldn't budge, no matter what I tried to download.
I phoned India, gave me the old "read off a script" run-around (do you have a router?, do you have any p2p software? and the classic......wait for it..... put your computer into safe mode) she insisted it was a fault, I said no it isn't and hey presto what happens 20mins later it goes back to normal.

Makes you wonder whether they know all along and all they have to do is press a button for it to go back to normal.......mmmmmmmmm

[GreyWolf]

Subscriber traffic management has been implemented across the whole network, there will be defined download limits that when reached will halve the broadband speed for four hours.

The FAQ will be published tomorrow on the virginmedia website.

[jorgehernan]

Originally Posted by GreyWolf

Subscriber traffic management has been implemented across the whole network, there will be defined download limits that when reached will halve the broadband speed for four hours.

The FAQ will be published tomorrow on the virginmedia website.

Doesnt that defeat the object of Virgin Media supposedly being unlimited? We pay one of the highest costs for broadband around only for virgin to not half my speed but cut it by 3/4 of its stated speed.
How can they expect people to carry on paying £37 for 20mb only for it to be capped when they feel like it, when BE broadband are only charging £24 for 24mb down and 1.3 up (and yes I know you only get that if you live next door to the exchange)
Very tempting to go back to them. (Was getting 16mb, dont ask me why I left them!! I guess the temptation for 20mb got me) )
Not on!!!!

[helmutcheese]

Someone on other forum claimed the Virgin FAQ's page will be updated tomorrow (meaning 2nd May but here it is still:

http://www.virginmedia.com/help/faq/#downloadscapped

Q: Is it true that downloads will be capped?
A: Our cable services are not capped and there are no intentions to introduce any usage limits - these are unlimited.

Still the same so not updated as of yet unless you want to look at caps as not same as throttling, either way its still a limiter in either speed or amount so its a bandwidth saver, and its lies about only some areas have the throttling as UBR10 Uddingston is not offically on it but I notice its slow between mid afternoon till midnight every day for the past 6 months without downloading anything so not going over any limit, again thats down to my oversubscribed UBR.

[kar]

I find that internet providers suddenly get very limited when discussing EXACTLY what they mean by 'limits' :-)

Really, if Virgin want to bring in some sort of 'traffic management' or whatever euphemism they want to give it, that's fine. But I just wish they would be upfront about it, don't couch it in BS just tell it as it is.

After all don't virgin try and market themselves as straight shooters?

If other ISPs offer crazy 'true unlimited' that's great. I'll make a value judgement when I get all the info to hand. But the way Virgin have implemented this 'network management' without any sort of customer service / marketing plan in effect has been an example of very poor management.

The problem isn't that they are capping people. It's that they aren't telling customers that they are being capped and why. That much imo is inexcusable.

[jorgehernan]

Originally Posted by kar

I find that internet providers suddenly get very limited when discussing EXACTLY what they mean by 'limits' :-)

Really, if Virgin want to bring in some sort of 'traffic management' or whatever euphemism they want to give it, that's fine. But I just wish they would be upfront about it, don't couch it in BS just tell it as it is.

After all don't virgin try and market themselves as straight shooters?

If other ISPs offer crazy 'true unlimited' that's great. I'll make a value judgement when I get all the info to hand. But the way Virgin have implemented this 'network management' without any sort of customer service / marketing plan in effect has been an example of very poor management.

The problem isn't that they are capping people. It's that they aren't telling customers that they are being capped and why. That much imo is inexcusable.

Here, here well said and absolutely true!!

[Toto]

Originally Posted by kar

I find that internet providers suddenly get very limited when discussing EXACTLY what they mean by 'limits' :-)

Really, if Virgin want to bring in some sort of 'traffic management' or whatever euphemism they want to give it, that's fine. But I just wish they would be upfront about it, don't couch it in BS just tell it as it is.

After all don't virgin try and market themselves as straight shooters?

If other ISPs offer crazy 'true unlimited' that's great. I'll make a value judgement when I get all the info to hand. But the way Virgin have implemented this 'network management' without any sort of customer service / marketing plan in effect has been an example of very poor management.

The problem isn't that they are capping people. It's that they aren't telling customers that they are being capped and why. That much imo is inexcusable.

A very fair comment indeed.

[DieDieMyDarling]

Originally Posted by kar

I find that internet providers suddenly get very limited when discussing EXACTLY what they mean by 'limits' :-)

Really, if Virgin want to bring in some sort of 'traffic management' or whatever euphemism they want to give it, that's fine. But I just wish they would be upfront about it, don't couch it in BS just tell it as it is.

After all don't virgin try and market themselves as straight shooters?

If other ISPs offer crazy 'true unlimited' that's great. I'll make a value judgement when I get all the info to hand. But the way Virgin have implemented this 'network management' without any sort of customer service / marketing plan in effect has been an example of very poor management.

The problem isn't that they are capping people. It's that they aren't telling customers that they are being capped and why. That much imo is inexcusable.

Preach it brother (or sister. ).
A lot of people will agree with you on this, VM have used the 20mb speeds to sell their product, steal off other ISPs and entice customers to stay. It sounds great, 20mb is a very high speed for the UK, it wouldn't sound so good if they were honest about the traffic shaping though, and could be used against them when comparing with ADSL and distance from the exchange. It's great being told your service is 'up to' 20mb or 16mb, but if at the end of the day all you can get in the hours you actually use the service is 5mb, it's not all that enticing!

As i'm sure most people on here would agree, there does have to be some sort of traffic shaping, but it has to be sensible and up front.
I personally am on 10mb, and i download quite a bit, sometimes 200gb a month, i do most of my downloading overnight, so it doesn't really affect me, but surely it's unfair for someone who works all day, maybe downloads 3gb a month, and only really gets the chance to do his downloading in the evening, to get his speed and latency reduced, just because he's downloading a one off movie or game update.

I think the best solution would be to have the traffic shaping only kick in for people who have a history of downloading a lot, ie 100gb a month, let mass downloaders do their damage in the early hours of the morning and be limited through the day. Let it affect all downloads for those concerned, thus not affecting the latency for gaming, where it's checking for certain packets.
Meanwhile normal users can continue to enjoy the service as normal, day and night, without suffering for other peoples useage.

VM should also have this information on the website, and share it with the CS staff too, so that if someone phones up wondering why they're on half speed through the day, they can be informed exactly why that is. They can then change their habits to downloading over night, and time and money isn't wasted on engineer visits, man hours for CS staff trying to fix the problem, etc.

[Sirpingalot]

Originally Posted by DieDieMyDarling

Preach it brother (or sister. ).
A lot of people will agree with you on this, VM have used the 20mb speeds to sell their product, steal off other ISPs and entice customers to stay. It sounds great, 20mb is a very high speed for the UK, it wouldn't sound so good if they were honest about the traffic shaping though, and could be used against them when comparing with ADSL and distance from the exchange. It's great being told your service is 'up to' 20mb or 16mb, but if at the end of the day all you can get in the hours you actually use the service is 5mb, it's not all that enticing!

As i'm sure most people on here would agree, there does have to be some sort of traffic shaping, but it has to be sensible and up front.
I personally am on 10mb, and i download quite a bit, sometimes 200gb a month, i do most of my downloading overnight, so it doesn't really affect me, but surely it's unfair for someone who works all day, maybe downloads 3gb a month, and only really gets the chance to do his downloading in the evening, to get his speed and latency reduced, just because he's downloading a one off movie or game update.

I think the best solution would be to have the traffic shaping only kick in for people who have a history of downloading a lot, ie 100gb a month, let mass downloaders do their damage in the early hours of the morning and be limited through the day. Let it affect all downloads for those concerned, thus not affecting the latency for gaming, where it's checking for certain packets.
Meanwhile normal users can continue to enjoy the service as normal, day and night, without suffering for other peoples useage.

VM should also have this information on the website, and share it with the CS staff too, so that if someone phones up wondering why they're on half speed through the day, they can be informed exactly why that is. They can then change their habits to downloading over night, and time and money isn't wasted on engineer visits, man hours for CS staff trying to fix the problem, etc.

A very valid point indeed, however; I do think the current management system is ideal. I prefer that the restrictions only apply for the evening that you're downloading content, and that you're not restricted for a lenthly period before they have to put you back to normal service when the amount downloaded decreases.

[shawty]

Well here it is.

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

[Hex]

OK, just read through that, and all I can say is Typical...

While I was in agreement over some of that shaping being needed, I do not agree with the shaping on the upstream bandwidth.

Not that it really matters, but they've lost my support/backing for the traffic management now, and I wont keep trying to defend them on here any more.

[arcamalpha2004]

Originally Posted by shawty

Well here it is.

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

So much for their unlimited service