Traffic Shaping Affecting All Tiers

[Magilla]

Originally Posted by dontpannic

Any why should all the other paying customers pay for a permanently reduced service when Joe Bloggs is maxing out his connection day and night, reducing the amount of bandwidth left for other people?

But then, why should *any* paying customer face a reduced service at all on an unlimited service? They either have the bandwidth to sell or they don't. If they can't support the customers they already have, why take on more at incresed speeds with increased penalties? It makes no sense in any other terms than "Pay More Get Less" (as someone pointed out earlier in this thread).

Originally Posted by dontpannic

VM are providing a reasonable service for a reasonable price

Though not 'quite' the product as is advertised.

Originally Posted by dontpannic

so far, me, like thousands of other broadband users in the UK, are not facing any problems with Traffic shaping.

Quite, tho many users are experiencing severe slowdowns at specific times, and no-one (incling VM themselves) appears to know if it is shapeing or not.

Originally Posted by dontpannic

It doesn't matter how innocent you try to play yourself the people who are TRULY not maxing out their connections are the ones not replying to this thread. Other people I think are downloading more than they are letting on, telling us they are downloading too much, or are suffering with slow 10mb before STM is actually coming in, due to bandwidth hoggers, who will be stopped when STM comes in.

I doubt the vast majority of VM users know this forum even exists, like me spending days on hold before searching the web for any other way to express their anger at the abysmal service.

Please see the post earlier in this thread by "fizgog".. As we can see it's not hard to enter the "forbidden zone", I'd imagine the majority of xbox360 would download this (I dunno if it's free or not), but it's clear that the number of people who're going to get throttled very quickly is going to rise very quickly as more media sources become avilable.

Wanna join the upcomming xbox360 movie service... not unless you wanna watch them before 4pm on VM

Originally Posted by dontpannic

Some people really have to wake up and smell the coffee, this is going to help the network and give Virgin a more reliable platform than ADSL.

Or alternatively let VM give you the finger, pay more for less and thank them for doing so!

Originally Posted by dontpannic

Thank your lucky stars Virgin Media are only using STM, rather than hard capping people and making you pay for the excess bandwidth you use.

I'd be quite happy to pay for what I use, currently it should be ~ 70p a month according to the bandwidth I've been getting for the last two weeks Wouldn't be so good for the VM ad deprtment tho... whoops!

Originally Posted by dontpannic

I'm fed up of people complaining, and so I'm going to leave this thread. I know that Traffic Shaping isn't going to affect me, and I know that not all VM BB subscribers are registered on this site, so all these people on here complaining are in the minority of BB users (and more likely, ironically, the 5% figure Virgin keeps saying )

Ironically, you're completely wrong. It's equally as likely the people who don't know about this forum are dissatisfied with the service I doubt the 5% figure is even remotely accurate. In this day and age I'm surprised it's not more like 40-60% based on the figures they've set for the cap (though I guess that figure might get eye's popping at ofcom).

Bye

[Locky]

ok i will try this again, TRAFFIC SHAPEING WILL NOT BE IN FULL EFFECT IN ALL AREAS UNTIL 20 MEG ROLLOUT HAS FINISHED HOWEVER IN AREAS WHERE TRAFFIC SHAPEING WAS PREVIOUSLY WILL GET SHAPED AT CERTAIN TIME, I FORGET WERE I SAW THIS BUT IT WAS ON THE VIRGIN MEDIA PAGE SOMEWHERE

[Andrex]

Locky, I don't think that's factually correct.

[pedrohizzo]

traffic shaping wasn't previously anywhere, they trialled it presumably at the same time they were trialling 20mb, although i could be wrong.

[Locky]

Originally Posted by pedrohizzo

traffic shaping wasn't previously anywhere, they trialled it presumably at the same time they were trialling 20mb, although i could be wrong.

well i had traffic shapeing not so long ago they throttled me to 5 meg, maybe because i was running upwards of a terabyte..

---------- Post added at 00:06 ---------- Previous post was at 00:05 ----------

Originally Posted by Kevin.Beaumont

Locky, I don't think that's factually correct.

i will find the link on the virgin media site tomorow i cba now my eyes r not workin proper

[deckmonkey]

Originally Posted by Gavin

Originally Posted by PC_Arcade
I don't see why as a "XL" customer I should be hit harder than the "S" & "M" customers.

Quite!

But you get 4 times as much download allowance before you are throttled compared to the next package down (and yes, I am on a 4Mb package). I regularly download CTP versions of MS products as I am a developer who uses MS technologies and needs to keep abreast of what is happening with their products. These are often large packages (SQL Server 2005 demo version is over 800MB). None of this is illegal file sharing over P2P (almost as popular a scapegoat as 4x4's when it comes to congestion/pollution/the state of house prices/any other ill you care to mention), but nonetheless VM see fit to not provide the service I signed up for because I have the temerity to actually use the internet for the use for which it was originally conceived - the sharing of information.

I'll bet I'm not in the top 5% of downloaders (although I do download a goodly amount) but thanks to their abitrary limits, I don't have to be in the top 5% of downloaders, I just have to stray over the limit once and I get caned.

VM are desperate to add BB customers as they see it as their one potential area of revenue growth. The majority of lost business in Q1 this year was from the fixed phone line business and in Q2 they are expecting heavy losses (both financially and in terms of customers for TV) from the Sky debacle. BB was their only unsullied potential growth area (Virgin mobile being something of a joke player as they are nowhere near the big boys in mobile terms) and the only way to get more people on the network without stumping up the cash or waiting for upgrade work to be done is to cripple existing customers. The problem with that is that it is short sighted and generates a considerable amount of negative goodwill (and this is something that can and is quantified in accounts, not only between businesses but in a company like this, between the business and the consumer).

I honestly do not see how VM can come out of this undamaged. Instead of trying for stupid speeds, they should have stuck to the existing speeds and made the prices more attractive to draw in business and increase reveneue and then (hopefully) increase investment in the infrastructure so that they could then provide the higher speeds without screwing over their existing customer base.

[pedrohizzo]

^^ he was making a joke

think if you read it again you'll find it quite funny :P

[popper]

the FT did a good writeup on the losses/gains etc
Branson magic fails to rub off on Virgin Media
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b04f6a2c-fe9...b5df10621.html
"Mr Burch agreed that he wanted to regain customers in telephony ("it's our meat and potatoes"), " ?

[2||Para]

Originally Posted by deckmonkey

But you get 4 times as much download allowance before you are throttled compared to the next package down (and yes, I am on a 4Mb package). I regularly download CTP versions of MS products as I am a developer who uses MS technologies and needs to keep abreast of what is happening with their products. These are often large packages (SQL Server 2005 demo version is over 800MB). None of this is illegal file sharing over P2P (almost as popular a scapegoat as 4x4's when it comes to congestion/pollution/the state of house prices/any other ill you care to mention), but nonetheless VM see fit to not provide the service I signed up for because I have the temerity to actually use the internet for the use for which it was originally conceived - the sharing of information.

I'll bet I'm not in the top 5% of downloaders (although I do download a goodly amount) but thanks to their abitrary limits, I don't have to be in the top 5% of downloaders, I just have to stray over the limit once and I get caned.

VM are desperate to add BB customers as they see it as their one potential area of revenue growth. The majority of lost business in Q1 this year was from the fixed phone line business and in Q2 they are expecting heavy losses (both financially and in terms of customers for TV) from the Sky debacle. BB was their only unsullied potential growth area (Virgin mobile being something of a joke player as they are nowhere near the big boys in mobile terms) and the only way to get more people on the network without stumping up the cash or waiting for upgrade work to be done is to cripple existing customers. The problem with that is that it is short sighted and generates a considerable amount of negative goodwill (and this is something that can and is quantified in accounts, not only between businesses but in a company like this, between the business and the consumer).

I honestly do not see how VM can come out of this undamaged. Instead of trying for stupid speeds, they should have stuck to the existing speeds and made the prices more attractive to draw in business and increase reveneue and then (hopefully) increase investment in the infrastructure so that they could then provide the higher speeds without screwing over their existing customer base.

So you use a residential service for business use?Not really grounds to complain!

[GraphiX2004]

why is everyone so blind to see what i can?

they need to shape traffic from 4pm - 12am ok so there is a problem on their networks
that they need to do this as its causing problems right?

so if thats the case just explain please someone explain why they can give
you full 1mb/2mb/4mb/10mb speeds from 12am - 4pm ?

if everyone is now going to be scheduling everything they download from
12am - 4pm that then is going to be a hell of alot more traffic than even
so called peak time.

what im trying to get at is now everyone is going to change their downloading times
to 12am - 4pm that is going to introduce even bigger problems.

if they cannot handle the masses downloading from 4pm - 12am how the hell are they
going to handle the same + 10x more people hammering the service now from 12am - 4pm?
its alot longer hours from 12am - 4pm than from 4pm - 12am

so if they can handle everyone downloading from 12am - 4pm and not
throttle traffic then it's just a bunch of lies about needing to throttle from 4pm - 12am

am i the only one who can see this or what?

[Sirpingalot]

Originally Posted by GraphiX2004

why is everyone so blind to see what i can?

they need to shape traffic from 4pm - 12am ok so there is a problem on their networks
that they need to do this as its causing problems right?

so if thats the case just explain please someone explain why they can give
you full 1mb/2mb/4mb/10mb speeds from 12am - 4pm ?

if everyone is now going to be scheduling everything they download from
12am - 4pm that then is going to be a hell of alot more traffic than even
so called peak time.

what im trying to get at is now everyone is going to change their downloading times
to 12am - 4pm that is going to introduce even bigger problems.

if they cannot handle the masses downloading from 4pm - 12am how the hell are they
going to handle the same + 10x more people hammering the service now from 12am - 4pm?
its alot longer hours from 12am - 4pm than from 4pm - 12am

so if they can handle everyone downloading from 12am - 4pm and not
throttle traffic then it's just a bunch of lies about needing to throttle from 4pm - 12am

am i the only one who can see this or what?

No, I can sympathise with parts of that statement, however; the reason they can't handle the hammering during peak periods is simply because the network infrastructure isn't built to the standard it should be. Many uBRs are oversubscribed, unfortunately. And given the fact that most people are online between 4pm & 12am throttling must be imposed on heavy users so that the network isn't congested. The reason most of us don't experience problems during the day is because the network isn't crowded.

[GraphiX2004]

lol so any brainless moron (the managers over at VM)
should realise the following.

what do they think is going to happen when everyone starts turning 12am-4pm
into peaktime hours for usage? or dont their brains think that far in front?

Manager1: oh i know we will stop people downloading at full speeds at peak time
this way we will keep our network bandwidth down.

Manager2: yes great idea this way we can then force everyone to change their dl habits
now were forcing every single customer to hammer their connection from 12am-4pm
this is and will force customers into a bottleneck so turning peak time usage into mayhem
between 12am - 4pm

Manager1: oh that wont happen customers are stupid they dont have the brains to do that

-------

do they think were from a different planet and we dont have comonsense or a brain?
what do they expect everyone being throttled to do ? just stop downloading lol

people are not stupid they will just start mass downloading from 12am -4pm lol
and this is going to be EVERYONE not just a few here and there as were all being forced
into this timezone of 12am - 4pm

watch and wait soon you won't even be-able to conect once people start changing their times

For instance lets take 8 thausand people without caps or throttling they would of been
downloading at different times all split up into different hours of the day say 2k at night,
4k early morning and the other 2k at dinner, etc...

now everyone of that 8k is going to all be downloading at the same time not spread out.
how they going to handle everyone downloading at the same time lol if they couldn't handle
people downloading in stagerd stages of the day?

[ecksmen]

Originally Posted by GraphiX2004

why is everyone so blind to see what i can?

they need to shape traffic from 4pm - 12am ok so there is a problem on their networks
that they need to do this as its causing problems right?

so if thats the case just explain please someone explain why they can give
you full 1mb/2mb/4mb/10mb speeds from 12am - 4pm ?

if everyone is now going to be scheduling everything they download from
12am - 4pm that then is going to be a hell of alot more traffic than even
so called peak time.

what im trying to get at is now everyone is going to change their downloading times
to 12am - 4pm that is going to introduce even bigger problems.

if they cannot handle the masses downloading from 4pm - 12am how the hell are they
going to handle the same + 10x more people hammering the service now from 12am - 4pm?
its alot longer hours from 12am - 4pm than from 4pm - 12am

so if they can handle everyone downloading from 12am - 4pm and not
throttle traffic then it's just a bunch of lies about needing to throttle from 4pm - 12am

am i the only one who can see this or what?

No - you are not alone. VM really shouldn't be release 20Mbp as it's obvious they can't seriously offer it, unless 99% of their customer base is asleep and not using their connections.

If bandwidth was such a problem, they should have kept with 10, 4 and 2 but imposed monthly caps, albiet generous ones. I don't see the logic in one hand giving speed (IMO complete bluff) yet the other hand is their to take away the speed should you be silly enough to use it.

I'm currently in talks with Be to be moved over, but TBH any dsl company would do. I just want my connection to be a constant, none of this dynamic crap depending on what the ISP choices.

I can cope with contention to a degree, but not flat out right 3gb and your capped theory.

[GraphiX2004]

well im glad thats 2 people in this community who has comonsense and can
actually agree and see the point im making here.

what is getting me is people are leaving VM in droves they are a business
once they see something not working any business with a business plan
should instantly look into the situation and change it for instance i phoned today to ask about this problem
of being throttled when i done nothing wrong.

for instance here is my arguement.

i work 9am - 5pm so between 9am - upto 4pm i get 20mbit but i cant use it
so when i get home at 5pm im instantly on 2-3mb if that till 12am great.
but i go to bed at 12am or early to get a good night sleep ready for morning.

so at any point in time im getting to use 2,3mb not the 20mbit im paying for.
so i ask if this is the case why can't i get a reduction in cost or price?

i basically got told i will get no reduction if i dont like it cancel it
then i asked why can't you just effect the 5% he said that is the 5%
anyone downloading more than 3gb is the so called 5% lol

well i got news for you mate i said thats alot more than 5% doing that
so where this 5% you keep saying exists i have no clue its fabricated.

then i said you pulled sky1 from us so only way to see the shows is download
so not only are you forcing us into piracy and breaking copyright were still
being charged for sky with no reductions there or an alternative.

then he give the usual but but.. you can download 1,400 mp3's lol
where this come from i have no idea must be their script to make people
feel good about oh, mp3's great awesome!!! lol

so i said i dont care about mp3's i download tv shows because you pulling
sky 1 he then said well then stop downloading TV shows.

he then said listen sir what do you want ? i said some kind of reduction
well your not going to get it he said either except it or cancel it.

WOW... i don't think they understand we are their income without our custom
they wouldn't have a job a business so they are just acting like if you dont like it cancel we dont care,
(hello your a business your losing customers)

lol i pay over 139 quid a month for the top premium packages and i get
treated like this ? do they want customers or what? seriously

are they trying to become the worst business around because their fast
achieving this status.

Originally Posted by GraphiX2004

well im glad thats 2 people in this community who has comonsense and can
actually agree and see the point im making here.

what is getting me is people are leaving VM in droves they are a business
once they see something not working any business with a business plan
should instantly look into the situation and change it for instance i phoned today to ask about this problem
of being throttled when i done nothing wrong.

for instance here is my arguement.

i work 9am - 5pm so between 9am - upto 4pm i get 20mbit but i cant use it
so when i get home at 5pm im instantly on 2-3mb if that till 12am great.
but i go to bed at 12am or early to get a good night sleep ready for morning.

so at any point in time im getting to use 2,3mb not the 20mbit im paying for.
so i ask if this is the case why can't i get a reduction in cost or price?

i basically got told i will get no reduction if i dont like it cancel it
then i asked why can't you just effect the 5% he said that is the 5%
anyone downloading more than 3gb is the so called 5% lol

well i got news for you mate i said thats alot more than 5% doing that
so where this 5% you keep saying exists i have no clue its fabricated.

then i said you pulled sky1 from us so only way to see the shows is download
so not only are you forcing us into piracy and breaking copyright were still
being charged for sky with no reductions there or an alternative.

then he give the usual but but.. you can download 1,400 mp3's lol
where this come from i have no idea must be their script to make people
feel good about oh, mp3's great awesome!!! lol

so i said i dont care about mp3's i download tv shows because you pulling
sky 1 he then said well then stop downloading TV shows.

he then said listen sir what do you want ? i said some kind of reduction
well your not going to get it he said either except it or cancel it.

WOW... i don't think they understand we are their income without our custom
they wouldn't have a job a business so they are just acting like if you dont like it cancel we dont care,
(hello your a business your losing customers)

lol i pay over 139 quid a month for the top premium packages and i get
treated like this ? do they want customers or what? seriously

are they trying to become the worst business around because their fast
achieving this status.

So did you cancel ?