VM admit that STM hours vary without notice

I have not noticed any different behaviour, stm_wise from my connection, lately, but people still seeming to have cloned modems must be a worry???

[Druchii]

Originally Posted by deed02392

Sorry, I don't quite follow. You mean to say create between me and my neighbours our own WAN? Where would be the Internet entry point :?

Thanks

He means Wide Area Netowkr, however, everyone should have their own internet connection, and in effect, you could use everyones available bandwidth.

So, if 5 people have 16Mb from Be, and 2 have 10Mb from VM, you get to use (5 * 16) + (10 * 2) of bandwidth for your internet connection. Which is... 100Mbps.

Originally Posted by homealone

I have not noticed any different behaviour, stm_wise from my connection, lately

Cheers.
To continue on topic, I found I was STM'd only minutes after 4pm suggesting the STM had kicked in earlier than it should have.
In the NG's this is being acknowledged by TS but there's nothing come to light just yet other than the possibility of 'secret' trials.

[deed02392]

Originally Posted by Druchii

He means Wide Area Netowkr, however, everyone should have their own internet connection, and in effect, you could use everyones available bandwidth.

So, if 5 people have 16Mb from Be, and 2 have 10Mb from VM, you get to use (5 * 16) + (10 * 2) of bandwidth for your internet connection. Which is... 100Mbps.

Sorry, I understood that much, but I thought he meant to simply forget the internet and just have a big LAN, which I now understand is a WAN, which is not the same as the internet. Sorry about that.

Y'know, I've dreamed many times of such a condition, yet the sad fact is no one near me would ever do something of the sort, as they are not technically minded enough to understand what this would incur.

One day ;'(

---------- Post added at 23:35 ---------- Previous post was at 23:02 ----------

To follow up, does anyone know exactly how one would simeltaneously take advantage of multiple internet connections. I.e. how would I download from more than one internet connection? I cannot seem to find a download manager which could do this, for exmaple if i had two wireless connections within my PC, how would I download with both my home internet and my neighbours internet connection?

[Berealwith]

Not a quiet man ......... but I try to be...but STM is done at all hours now and no matter what we do its virgins right to do it. I have had a ticket for 6 months waiting for an answer, I am on 20mb the good times I have had and now the bad. I have done more phone calls than I care to mention (I am not a pest just going through what anybody who gets frustrated that they are being sold a product and not getting what it said when you bought it) I have done test after test till I was blue in the face. I have learnt the system tried every which way you can and I have still not got anyway near back to how the 20mb connection was in the early few months I bought it. I have listened to the people who want caps on high bandwidth users...I have to ask them would you pay for 4 4mb connections for all the people in your house or just one 20mb on a router for the of the household then get capped at prime hours i.e., 2mb shared for internet browsing for 4 people....It stinks!!!!!!!!!!!! I now pay very little for it (due to the constant complaining I do) all I want is my 20mb back.........and as I know the ubr updating which is what I am waiting for........................and the big clue was what was ADSL Virgin like .....crap I didn’t know anyone who had it when cable was an option, so what did virgin bring to the table when it took over cable ? nothing it was crap before and it is now......now I hear its due to launch its own 7 day rewind TV...and still no updates on my UBR........Rubbish and yet more Rubbish........time to go fast it does not give two hoot about you just a 12 month contract firm........that is all Virgin is, work it out I speak the truth !!! Banter over and out

[christopherw]

Originally Posted by deed02392

Sorry, I understood that much, but I thought he meant to simply forget the internet and just have a big LAN, which I now understand is a WAN, which is not the same as the internet. Sorry about that.

Y'know, I've dreamed many times of such a condition, yet the sad fact is no one near me would ever do something of the sort, as they are not technically minded enough to understand what this would incur.

One day ;'(

---------- Post added at 23:35 ---------- Previous post was at 23:02 ----------

To follow up, does anyone know exactly how one would simeltaneously take advantage of multiple internet connections. I.e. how would I download from more than one internet connection? I cannot seem to find a download manager which could do this, for exmaple if i had two wireless connections within my PC, how would I download with both my home internet and my neighbours internet connection?

Bonding connections together (or load-balancing) is a technically complex and potentially expensive process.

You can do it the low-budget way, by running a Smoothwall router which takes inputs from all the various connections to effectively act as a proxy server, but it's still a bit of a 'faux' connection bonding technique - what the router will most likely do is assign one particular path for each connection made from your machine (and keep it assigned for the return path) - so if you were using P2P, all your traffic would go over one connection, if you were gaming, it would choose another connection etc... Otherwise it can cause real problems. Example: if you're seeding on a private tracker, and the tracker is seeing information updates for your user ID hash coming from two distinct IP addresses... You'd most likely get banned for trying to cheat the tracker, even though you're seeding legitimately.

Likewise, many games rely on UDP streams, which need one contiguous connection to run over - you can't split the packets over several connections and just expect it to work, because it horribly breaks networking specs.


It is doable, but just not in the true sense of 'bonding' - the only *real* bonding solutions are done over DSL, aren't even officially supported by BT because they're too problematic, and are prohibitively expensive to implement and run. Example: Andrews & Arnold offer a bonding service, it costs a shitload, you need (EXPENSIVE) Cisco kit installed on both your end and the exchange end, and it turns each DSL line into, effectively, a channel - the dedicated hardware at either end multiplex the data. The lines have to be running perfectly, at the same speeds, and if one line has a problem, everything falls over.


Oh, and thinking more low-scale, you can't have more than one residential cable connection installed at any one premises due to limitations with the billing system (apparently)... So if you wanted to install a line for you and a line for the kids, you'd have to get an ntl:telewest business cable installation for your second line (£40 a month but no STM and a 20Mb uplift coming in the next few months).

[deed02392]

Nothing similar to what Druchii said then, whereby one effectively gains access to the internet at 100Mbps speeds?

[|Kippa|]

Just realised that I am getting STM at 11am this morning (monday). It is definetly STM. What exactly is the formal STM policy now?

[Hugh]

If you are getting STM'ed, your upload speeds will also be affected (as opposed to being on an oversubscribed UB).

Post a speedtest.

[|Kippa|]

It was a solid 20mbit a few hours ago, now it has gone to the above speed. If it were an oversubscribed UB I would expect fluctuations in the download rate, there are no real deviations from the mean average of 4815 kb/s.

[ceedee]

That certainly looks like STM to me.
Have you reported it via the TS newsgroup to confirm?
(I'd recommend not bothering to do it via the phone lines as you'll just be fed mis-truths that contradict the VM website.)

What part of the country are you in? (Just the first part of your postcode?)
I'm trying to build-up a picture of which areas are currently being trialled with 'irregular' STM hours and limits.

[Wossi]

I don't think Virgin have changed their clocks yet I'm now down to 1mb download, started a download at just gone 9pm and about 5 minutes ago went to check how it is doing and noticed the speed drop.



Not happy at all considering I wait till gone 9pm before I download anything.

Which is the best newsgroup to post in about this?

[deed02392]

Coding now...
Coolyou scripteur accessing the internal database...
Please wait...

[TheBottomLiner]

Virgin media stole from me on Sunday afternoon.

[ceedee]

Originally Posted by Wossi

Which is the best newsgroup to post in about this?

VM's Tech Support group is 'virginmedia.support.broadband.cable' on news.virginmedia.com or text.news.virginmedia.com but they're only around from 8am until 10pm.