Traffic Shaping Affecting All Tiers

[Agent Smith]

How do you check your modem configuration ????

I am new to all this tech stuff

[deckmonkey]

Cheers dav. No point in flying off the handle with these things and I figured I try and get answers from VM themselves before deciding where to go next.

This evening, I have yet to see better than 14.Mbit (according to the zdnet speed tester) but just now on speedtest.net I hit 3.6Mbit, which isn't bad in the normal run of things. Mind you, I did download a bag load of stuff earlier but stopped at 700mb just in case. I may well try and run some empirical tests later in the week, do 5 tests on speedtest and average the results then download some sort of large files off bit torrent (entirely legal ones, of course) and then run the speed tests again to see if the shaping has been switched on yet.

If lots of folks do this with a range of packages (i.e. 4Mbit 10/20 etc) and post their results and locations we might get a better picture of where it is and isn't happening at the minute as even VM themselves seem a bit hazy on that question.

[Gareth]

Originally Posted by Agent Smith

How do you check your modem configuration ????

I am new to all this tech stuff

Browse to http://192.168.100.1/ and sign-in using username/password of root/root.

[Agent Smith]

Originally Posted by Gareth

Browse to http://192.168.100.1/ and sign-in using username/password of root/root.

Cheers mate

Couple of things not sure about here :

Cable Modem Operation Configuration
Network Access : Allowed
Maximum Downstream Data Rate : 20480000
Maximum Upstream Data Rate : 768000
Maximum Upstream Channel Burst : 1600
Maximum Number of CPEs : 1
Modem Capability : Concatenation Enabled, Fragametation Enabled, PHS Disabled


That all seems kosher, I have 20mb enabled but what do these bits mean ?


Downstream Lock : Locked
Downstream Channel Id : 2
Downstream Frequency : 586750000 Hz

Upstream Lock : Locked
Upstream Channel ID : 4
Upstream Frequency : 28784000 Hz


Does that mean they have locked my modem to 5.8mb and 287kb upload?

And any idea what this means ? just wondering if they have traffic shaped me

Tue May 08 20:22:29 2007 Tue May 08 20:22:29 2007 15 Critical(3) 82000500 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received

[Druchii]

Nope that's simply the frequency of the signals.

[Agent Smith]

Originally Posted by Druchii

Nope that's simply the frequency of the signals.

Cheers yeah I get confused easily with this tech stuff :o

Hopefully it is just a case of traffic shaping tonight and not a screw up in my area

[Asha'man Jay]

Getting this on a 4mb connection in Glasgow




A few weeks ago it was this



I'm not a heavy downloader, I'm mainly a gamer, but ever since VM lost sky One I've been downloading Lost and a couple of other TV shows for the girlfriend.

They should rebrand to 'Virgin(you get less)Media(but shhh, keep it quiet)'

[Paul H]

I think we can safely say that all these problems have arisen since the 20Mb rollout. and the start of the throttling.

[2||Para]

It's early days yet.There are bound to be hitches with service during the rollout.Much like the 10MB rollout.

[Paul H]

We will be saying that months down the line. give them a chance there's bound to be teething problems from changing the name from NTL to Virgin

[rtpHarry]

1. If its only the top 5% of the customers that are causing trouble regularly then why punish all customers every time they occasionally step over the line.
2. If its only the top 5% that is causing trouble then it doesnt sound like they are very far off upgrading their network to be able to handle this kind of traffic.
3. Is this dropped upload rate even enough to run one of these current gen 640x480 web cams?
4. What about people that have subscribed to online film services (VoD).
5. Isn't this going to stifle any kind of high bandwidth creative company, be it tv shows, movies for your ipod, etc.
6. This wide time span seems to be set up to hit every single customer, from teens after school, to adults in the evening.
7. Its not even enough to download one dvd quality film (see AOLs recent launch of VoD service, with more on the way)

The most annoying thing is that most of the time I dont get more than 3gb in a peak hour, but now I am going to have to always be on my toes (and there are three computers on my network) just to make try and make sure i dont get a seriously degraded service for transferring files between friends over msn.

It might be worse for people in bigger cities but to be perfectly honest I have never noticed a degraded speed that I have attributed to other local users maxing out my resources. Most web servers will only burst super fast speeds and then level off. In the past year my 10mb service has only been kept because of the enhanced upstream.

When I heard about the 20mb service I was kind of psyched, not particularly because of the speed, 10mb is fast enough for general browsing, but because i thought this year would see the launch of a whole range of new services that i could access such as high quality streaming video services (that fuzzy youtube drives me crazy), decent fps/resolution on web-cam conversations, online dvd rental / VoD (even 720p quality rentals)...

it seems such a strange move to control 5% of their net-population, and while it limits piracy it also limits the legitimate alternatives to it.

I hope in time this turns out to be the same as indian call centers, where big businesses lower the bar significantly and when everyone complains they start to scrap the rubbish and act like they are really great for providing a level of service that was the standard previously. that wasn't very eloquent but i think you get me.

ok well i better stop typing now before i hit my limit and get my traffic shaped for four hours!

[billax]

Well i have had enough .. am paying £35 a month for 10 mb Broadband . and every evening i get only 1-2mb download per sec.. I dont download anything and i am being penalised for others.
I have had technicians round 7 times now and not being there faults .. they come in the daytime or afternoon when there is no traffic shapping. and they dont find nothing wrong wth the connection.. Its been happening to me for about 2 months now..

I can get 24mb Cable from bethere.co.uk for only £24 a month and i can get sky broadband for only a extra £5 instead of paying Virgin media £35 a 2mb line in the evening when i pay for a 10mb!!

BYE BYE VIRGIN MEDIA AND I ALSO KNOW 5 OTHER PEOPLE ALSO TELL VIRGIN TO STICK THERE SERVICE TOMORROW...

Its a real shame as i didnt expect this ... And also the false advertising about unlimited downloads and 10mb lines should be scarapped from your marketing campign ...

Cya all
Billa

[J0NO]

Also had slow speeds this evening when usually my line is pretty 10meg-ish all day lol. (ok now after 00.00)

I'm i'm a light user but love my high speed so i dont really expect to be throttled, i'll give it a few days while the upgrades take place

[rtpHarry]

its such a stupid statistic man i cant get my head around it!

During peak times, the top 5% on the Size: XL package download at least 3GB of traffic each.

So they aren't actually stating what the real figure is at all, they are just setting a random figure. The same could theoretically also be true:

During peak times, the top 5% on the Size: XL package download on average 15GB of traffic each.

After 5% it has dropped to a maximum use of 3gb in peak times. This is not a lot of traffic.


Besides isnt this what contention ratios are all about, you pay for an equal share of the pie, which means that at any one moment in time you have an equal right between say 50 other users to fight for a piece of the stream.


They are doing my head in with this limit, not because i am a regular breacher of their limits but because I simply cant be doing with worrying about using my internet. Just give me a price for unlimited broadband and I will pay it. The internet is my prime source of entertainment and I will gladly pay for it but they dont even give the option for this.



Whats next, if I watch two episodes of simpsons in a row then I have to watch the next four hours of telly in black and white??


All I can do is mouth off in this forum, I dont have the skills to mount any kind of legal response, or grass roots protest. And if somebody else did I still probably wouldn't be bothered to join them, but can somebody sort it out for me anyway?

Its like catching a bus and if you sit down for more then four blocks then you have to get out walk the rest of the way.

Its like if you turn the tap on and get a big drink of water then you get dirty water after that so all the drinkers can get their fair share.

Its like breaking your arm and then only getting half a cast because you used your doctor allowance up in too much of a burst, and you have to come back another day to get it finished up or let one of the interns finish you off.


And if I send my mate a string of emails with 3gb worth of attachments then he gets hit without doing anything?


I like the way they pull random quotes out of their **** like

Even if a Broadband Size: XL user has their speed temporarily traffic managed, they can still download over 4,000 music files per day.

Because to me that sounds like blatent support of piracy - it doesnt sound too likely that I could go on a legal music download service and select 4000 tracks to be downloaded and maintain a job to support it with the bills, and time taken to select and queue the tracks. The only way I know to queue up that kind of traffic to flow continuosly throughout the day would be through some more dodgy methods of aquiring music.

[Virgin Media]

Originally Posted by Paul H

I think we can safely say that all these problems have arisen since the 20Mb rollout. and the start of the throttling.

Upgrading speeds to a correctly working cable infrustructure would not create this farce. Before the upgrade the issues were the same. Bad areas resulting in people asking why is their ocnnection is slow and not how it should be.

I cant belive people would think that somehow upgrading speed in cable infrustructures would somehow cause problems. ...In a bad infrustructure it most certainly would! And thats the problems we have.

Originally Posted by rtpHarry

If its only the top 5% of the customers that are causing trouble regularly then why punish all customers every time they occasionally step over the line.

That's very important to point out because alot of people have totally gone mad due to not epmhasizing that in the first place. They've simply been ignorant of cable technicalities and fallen for an excuse that contradcits what cable can indeed handle. i.e traffic. Alot of it.

Originally Posted by rtpHarry

its such a stupid statistic man i cant get my head around it!

So they aren't actually stating what the real figure is at all, they are just setting a random figure. The same could theoretically also be true:

After 5% it has dropped to a maximum use of 3gb in peak times.

Again So many people fall for it simply not kowing the technicalities of cable. Teir treating it like ADSL!

Originally Posted by rtpHarry

This is not a lot of traffic

Too true. ...But the technically uninformed crew will try and poisen your mind.