be aware of download speed reductions

[r.worsdell]

:mad:virgin media have now started there traffic monitoring!

i fell victim to this 2nite when my 10mb connection was reduced to a wimpy 5mb. this is aparently to allow the people with a lower connection speed the same service as those with higher connection speeds!

i phoned up virgin who gave me 3 months half price internet and £10 credit to my account!
can any one explane whether there should have been a letter informing customers of this NEW change to there services and if so what happend to it!
although i may have got the credit and half price i am still trying to see if there is any way of taking this further, if any one knows how please let me no.
i have tried to keep this post as pleasent as possible even though i am absolutly fuming, so if u have the same veiws or have had the same problem please reply!

thanx.

[dcclanuk]

:mad:virgin media have now started there traffic monitoring!

i fell victim to this 2nite when my 10mb connection was reduced to a wimpy 5mb. this is aparently to allow the people with a lower connection speed the same service as those with higher connection speeds!

i phoned up virgin who gave me 3 months half price internet and £10 credit to my account!
can any one explane whether there should have been a letter informing customers of this NEW change to there services and if so what happend to it!
although i may have got the credit and half price i am still trying to see if there is any way of taking this further, if any one knows how please let me no.
i have tried to keep this post as pleasent as possible even though i am absolutly fuming, so if u have the same veiws or have had the same problem please reply!

thanx.

This has been started quite a while back... Welcome to VirginMedia!

Also, incase u dont know... calls to TECH SUPPORT FOR BROADBAND [ONLY] from 1st July will be 25p per minute, with a 10p connection charge!

[JASYMORRI]

Those charges for tech support are a silly move by Virgin, even more so for customers who have their phone service

[ReNZoR]

Hey im pretty new to posting here, but I am on 20meg cable (previously NTL area), and I knew about the speed reduction if you went over yoru limit between 4 and midnight, but I have noticed that my speeds during the afternoon/early evening drops considerably almost instantly at 4pm til midnight...

It's as if by magic at 4pm sharp, every day the connection will drop from a decent 16~18meg to around 4~5meg... I have experienced this from various servers I have attempted to download from (NOT torrents, I dont touch torrents:)) including Giganews using NewsBin Pro, and as if by magic just after midnight speeds go up again... is this normal? I certainly don't download a lot of data very often, and when I do download it's left to download from around 1am

I already know that these are peak times, but, it seems strange how everyone turns their internet on at the same tim bang at 4pm and suddenly for the next 8 hours were capped, or at least appear to be running at 4~5meg :P I don't remember reading about this anywhere, although as I said, I did read that if you go over you limit between the hours of 4pm and midnight you will get capped for 4 hours or so...

I live in Dagenham, Essex and am connected to the Poplar exchange...

anybody else experincing this?

Cheers! :)

[arcamalpha2004]

:mad:virgin media have now started there traffic monitoring!

i fell victim to this 2nite when my 10mb connection was reduced to a wimpy 5mb. this is aparently to allow the people with a lower connection speed the same service as those with higher connection speeds!

i phoned up virgin who gave me 3 months half price internet and £10 credit to my account!
can any one explane whether there should have been a letter informing customers of this NEW change to there services and if so what happend to it!
although i may have got the credit and half price i am still trying to see if there is any way of taking this further, if any one knows how please let me no.
i have tried to keep this post as pleasent as possible even though i am absolutly fuming, so if u have the same veiws or have had the same problem please reply!

thanx.

I can see their logic there :erm:
To allow people on a lower speed the same service as someone on a higher speed, lets all downgrade ! ;)

[matrixjs]

Hey im pretty new to posting here, but I am on 20meg cable (previously NTL area), and I knew about the speed reduction if you went over yoru limit between 4 and midnight, but I have noticed that my speeds during the afternoon/early evening drops considerably almost instantly at 4pm til midnight...

It's as if by magic at 4pm sharp, every day the connection will drop from a decent 16~18meg to around 4~5meg... I have experienced this from various servers I have attempted to download from (NOT torrents, I dont touch torrents:)) including Giganews using NewsBin Pro, and as if by magic just after midnight speeds go up again... is this normal? I certainly don't download a lot of data very often, and when I do download it's left to download from around 1am

I already know that these are peak times, but, it seems strange how everyone turns their internet on at the same tim bang at 4pm and suddenly for the next 8 hours were capped, or at least appear to be running at 4~5meg :P I don't remember reading about this anywhere, although as I said, I did read that if you go over you limit between the hours of 4pm and midnight you will get capped for 4 hours or so...

I live in Dagenham, Essex and am connected to the Poplar exchange...

anybody else experincing this?

Cheers! :)


You are not alone there I am having exactly the same problem not sure if its at 4pm though as I dont get in from work till 530pm but from then till midnight I am getting 2-6mb then after midnight speeds go up to 18 or 19mb again I just thought it was my connection but im not happy with this I was on 4mb for past 2 years and always had a rock solid 4mb connection no matter what time of day I went on so I will be calling up Virgin after my month of changing is up and going back to the 4mb as im not paying £37 for this rubbish connection....

P.s I am not going over dl limit as I hardly dl stuff just use pc with router for pc and PS3 gaming.

[MovedGoalPosts]

I'd suggest there is some discrepancy between the policy as stated on the Virgin Media website (http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html), and the reality as indicated by the above posts.

The way I read it, according to the website, anyone who hasn't downloaded the specified amount AFTER 4:00pm and until 12:00am, should not be traffic shaped (M package = 350MB+, L package = 750MB+, XL = 3GB+). If you are seeing clear evidence you are shaped, as opposed to the network getting slower simply through more users being online at peak periods, you should be complaining to Virgin Media.

[caveman]

Hey im pretty new to posting here, but I am on 20meg cable (previously NTL area), and I knew about the speed reduction if you went over yoru limit between 4 and midnight, but I have noticed that my speeds during the afternoon/early evening drops considerably almost instantly at 4pm til midnight...

It's as if by magic at 4pm sharp, every day the connection will drop from a decent 16~18meg to around 4~5meg... I have experienced this from various servers I have attempted to download from (NOT torrents, I dont touch torrents) including Giganews using NewsBin Pro, and as if by magic just after midnight speeds go up again... is this normal? I certainly don't download a lot of data very often, and when I do download it's left to download from around 1am

I already know that these are peak times, but, it seems strange how everyone turns their internet on at the same tim bang at 4pm and suddenly for the next 8 hours were capped, or at least appear to be running at 4~5meg :P I don't remember reading about this anywhere, although as I said, I did read that if you go over you limit between the hours of 4pm and midnight you will get capped for 4 hours or so...

I live in Dagenham, Essex and am connected to the Poplar exchange...

anybody else experincing this?

Cheers!

Like you I am served by the Poplar exchange, as I live in Romford. You are lucky in that your service reduces only to 5 Meg as me and others in my street go down to 1 - 2 Meg. The time I assume coincides with the kids coming home from school. This pattern is repeated at the weekends as well and I assume will be the case all day when the kids break up for school holidays.
As I write this post, my service is right up there at 20 Meg. Last night it was as low as 600. I don't download music, films or use torrents and newsgroups. Therefor I am not - or shouldn't be - subject to shaping. I assume it is pure congestion.
Like others have mentioned it is not worth the £37 when the offer has expired. I don't like complaining, but I long for the pre-upgrade days when I had a rock solid 4 Meg service from my STB. That was more than adequate, consistent and cheaper.
We shall have to consider alternatives like returning to BT for our lines and subscribing to ASDL with BE BB for example. Trouble is VM will not refund you the £11 line rental as it is included as free in the initial package although you now pay for it.

[Paul K]

First thing you need to do is make sure you are still on the correct config for the speed, also since shaping is triggered by people hosing their connection past the allowed usage then you may need to deal with the underlying problem and download within the period that you are allowed maximum access during.
Do you get close to 20Mb at all on your connection? If not then it's an issue with VM and nothing to do with shaping as stated.
If you do, when do you see these speed drop outs? is it in the time periods as stated on the VM Traffic Shaping page? If so then you are being shaped for a reason.

Broadband Size: XL
During peak times, the top 5% on the Size: XL package download at least 3GB of traffic each.
Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till midnight) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed – their download speed will be set to 5Mb, with their upload speed set to 256Kb. This will last for 4 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.

If it is during the 4pm to 12am period then it's traffic shaping and it's part of the Usage Policy of VM that they have recently started to enforce properly and that they have clearly stated the guidelines for. If you want to stop being shaped then you need to look to download your files outside of this 8 hour window.
So the big questions are.....
When are you being shaped and are you doing anything to cause it ;)

[grubbymitts]

Danger! Danger! Thread becoming dangerously like yet another Traffic Shaping thread. Danger! Danger! Run to the hills!

[ntluser]

I wonder if this traffic balancing is a response to the changing numbers online any one time.

Very early in the morning there are few people on line so service should be good.During the day from 9am onwards a lot of people would be at work so the online service would only be used by those not at work and should be reasonable.

Probably after say, 5pm, there would be a pick-up in numbers as more people come home from work and gradually go online.

After midnight this would drop off as workers head off to bed in preparation for the following day except possibly on Friday nights when people are not necessarily going to work the next day.

In the early hours of the morning you would have a few people online possibly using the quiet time on the system for downloading.

This is a simplistic layman's view. I wonder what other factors affect the volume of traffic?

[Efour]

Hey im pretty new to posting here, but I am on 20meg cable (previously NTL area), and I knew about the speed reduction if you went over yoru limit between 4 and midnight, but I have noticed that my speeds during the afternoon/early evening drops considerably almost instantly at 4pm til midnight...

It's as if by magic at 4pm sharp, every day the connection will drop from a decent 16~18meg to around 4~5meg... I have experienced this from various servers I have attempted to download from (NOT torrents, I dont touch torrents:)) including Giganews using NewsBin Pro, and as if by magic just after midnight speeds go up again... is this normal? I certainly don't download a lot of data very often, and when I do download it's left to download from around 1am

I already know that these are peak times, but, it seems strange how everyone turns their internet on at the same tim bang at 4pm and suddenly for the next 8 hours were capped, or at least appear to be running at 4~5meg :P I don't remember reading about this anywhere, although as I said, I did read that if you go over you limit between the hours of 4pm and midnight you will get capped for 4 hours or so...

I live in Dagenham, Essex and am connected to the Poplar exchange...

anybody else experincing this?

Cheers! :)

Im over in Romford and its exactly the same. the POPL server. What you described it exactly the same here.

I spoke to them about it and they basically told me that POPL was so oversubscribed they had called it a Blackspot on their network, I asked when it was going to see upgraded equipment, they couldn't tell me.

Im paying 15 quid a mnth till its fixed. I might as well be on 2mbit in the evenings.

[mojo]

Also, incase u dont know... calls to TECH SUPPORT FOR BROADBAND [ONLY] from 1st July will be 25p per minute, with a 10p connection charge!

Call faults instead, it is free. Refuse to pay for tech support - insist that it is a fault.

---------- Post added at 08:49 ---------- Previous post was at 08:47 ----------

I'd suggest there is some discrepancy between the policy as stated on the Virgin Media website (http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html), and the reality as indicated by the above posts.

That's right. Basically, in oversubscribed areas they just drop everyone down to 5m from 4pm to midnight, regardless of how much they downloaded. On the other hand, people in undersubscribed areas may never have their connection retarded at all.

[Juan90]

It's as if by magic at 4pm sharp, every day the connection will drop from a decent 16~18meg to around 4~5meg... I have experienced this from various servers I have attempted to download from (NOT torrents, I dont touch torrents:)) including Giganews using NewsBin Pro, and as if by magic just after midnight speeds go up again... is this normal? I certainly don't download a lot of data very often, and when I do download it's left to download from around 1am

I already know that these are peak times, but, it seems strange how everyone turns their internet on at the same tim bang at 4pm and suddenly for the next 8 hours were capped, or at least appear to be running at 4~5meg :P I don't remember reading about this anywhere, although as I said, I did read that if you go over you limit between the hours of 4pm and midnight you will get capped for 4 hours or so...

I live in Dagenham, Essex and am connected to the Poplar exchange...

anybody else experincing this?

Cheers! :)

I'm on a 4MB connection and since the introduction of the 20mb upgrades and traffic shaping this happens most nights - right on time 20 minutes ago my game on the internet became unplayable and will remain so for 5 or 6 hours unless I am lucky. Would'nt mind but that is all I use my connection for so unless things change fairly quickly I will have to fork out for a BT line to my property and change to ADSL.

I didn't bother with tech support, as I found out last year just how good they are....:rolleyes:

[PowerUser]

I got hit as well last night for the 1st time. I have a Netmonitor to show me how much I download and I couldn't believe my eyes, just 1.7mb over the 3Gb and my connection dropped to 560kb/s from 1198Kb/s.

It does make me :mad: . NTL never felt this was necessary, and how right they were. First of all I have to pay a bigger electricity bill to keep my pc on longer. ok that's a cheap shot but true.

I'm the ONLY Virgin Broadband customer in a 230 House area "FACT" according to the engineer who came around last month. So who's service could I possibly affect Downloading!!. Why traffic shape me!..

So then, Assuming you Want to download 3.5Gb for argument sake, You pay £37 Per month for 1 hour MAX of Unlimited Service. Soon 20Mb will Appear, 30Mins MAX Unlimited Service. 50Mbit 7-9 Mins of Full 50Mbit!!!!! :wtf:

The only thing keeping me with XL package is the 4pm til 12am, If this becomes 24Hr, Then it's 4mb Service for me, I'll Give it til Sept. Then I'll leave for Sky, If nothing improves. I would rather do that then let this rotten sinking boat company have my hard earned cash.

i fell victim to this 2nite when my 10mb connection was reduced to a wimpy 5mb. this is aparently to allow the people with a lower connection speed the same service as those with higher connection speeds!

How can they say that! when they also traffic shape the lower services to an even slower speed!!!!.

[melevittfl]

I'm the ONLY Virgin Broadband customer in a 230 House area "FACT" according to the engineer who came around last month. So who's service could I possibly affect Downloading!!. Why traffic shape me!..


Because Virgin Media's motivations for implementing traffic shaping have very little to do with the effect on other users. That's a lie made up by the PR department.

The real motivation for traffic shaping is purely to cut Virgin Media's bandwidth bill. The less data they transfer to/from "the rest of the Internet", the lower their costs are.

[ReNZoR]

I just feel they are being sneaky lol, and as for limiting everyone due to Poplar exchange being oversubscribed... what the hell?

At most in the evenings I have downloaded 1gb of data during 4 and midnight, I have always limited myself throughout the evening anyway, as i dont want to be the person responsible for hogging all the bandwidth, most of the time I will download no more than 350meg in an evening, one episode of a TV show or something. But it is a joke that suddenly you are being penilised for doing _nothing_ wrong.

I thought it would then be down to VM to do something about the overcrowding and invest more in expanding the capacity at the exchanges? I don't profess to know a lot about how Cable networks work etc, just what I believe.

I am annoyed, but not so worried about the fact that I am being capped for not actually breaking any TOS/Fiar Usage Policy, but I am severely annoyed by the fact during this timeslot (4pm and 12midnight) I am unable to play on Xbox live properly, I cannot seem to host more than 3 people without the extra guys getting kicked - with a 768k upload? Where my friend who is happily on Sky 16meg broadband is hosting games of GRAW2 for 12 players without any problems (and no, I have no firewall problems as Xbox 360 is in a DMZ :), and noboyd but myself uses the connection)

Checking now, as of 4pm ish I have been capped from getting 18.2mbps down to 4.8mbps (using Giganews/10 streams via NewsBin Pro), and so far today I have downloading... nothing just spoke to friends on MSN messenger.

I can feel the internet is slower, websites are taking far too long to load - at least they arent as responsive as they are during the daytime/after midnight)

I'll stay for the same reason that PowerUser has stated, and that is the fact that they are only monitoring/shaping between the hours of 4 and midnight, if it extends then I think I will have to maybe consider going back to ADSL - a scary thought but, we will see.

I do not want to sound like I am whining, as I am not, I am just getting aggrivated that this is happenning. I would like to get to the bottom of this.

Cheers guys!

[Mr Angry]

Stunning 10mb service in Belfast this evening (exactly one week after an engineer vist). The engineer confirmed that since the 20mb upgrade most of Belfast is f***ed.

Cheers VM.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2007/06/42.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[harmonyinfo]

Stunning 10mb service in Belfast this evening (exactly one week after an engineer vist). The engineer confirmed that since the 20mb upgrade most of Belfast is f***ed.

Cheers VM.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2007/06/42.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

I'm wondering though if sometimes it is speedtest.net that is a problem. I just ran a test to my two closest servers, and it gave me 480Kbs and 1500Kbps (I'm on 10Mb). But then I checked my own speed test program (Broadband Wizard) that downloads a test file from sod.ms, and it is showing consistently about 10000Kbps.

[lespaul]

8Mb bonded ADSL

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2007/06/41.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[Mr Angry]

I'm wondering though if sometimes it is speedtest.net that is a problem. I just ran a test to my two closest servers, and it gave me 480Kbs and 1500Kbps (I'm on 10Mb). But then I checked my own speed test program (Broadband Wizard) that downloads a test file from sod.ms, and it is showing consistently about 10000Kbps.

Nope, apparently not. One restart later and a swift speedtest courtesy of CF and hey presto!!

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:31:35 GMT

1st 512K took 2750 ms = 186.2 KB/sec, approx 1534 Kbps, 1.5 Mbps
2nd 512K took 4063 ms = 126 KB/sec, approx 1038 Kbps, 1.01 Mbps
3rd 512K took 3187 ms = 160.7 KB/sec, approx 1324 Kbps, 1.29 Mbps
4th 512K took 1860 ms = 275.3 KB/sec, approx 2268 Kbps, 2.21 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 1541 Kbps, 1.5 Mbps



To repeat this test from the source server click here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.marsden/newspeedtest.html?1182367908781).

[caveman]

I don't need a speedtest to tell me when web pages download a lot slower during the evening. As many have said, the Poplar server / exchange must be one of the most oversubscribed as speeds like:

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:32:38 UTC
1st 128K took 938 ms = 139736 Bytes/sec = approx 1163 kbits/sec
2nd 128K took 843 ms = 155483 Bytes/sec = approx 1294 kbits/sec
3rd 128K took 1172 ms = 111836 Bytes/sec = approx 930 kbits/sec
4th 128K took 1156 ms = 113384 Bytes/sec = approx 943 kbits/sec

are typical now at weekends and evenings. But at 6 this morning rock solid at 20 Meg.

[harmonyinfo]

Nope, apparently not. One restart later and a swift speedtest courtesy of CF and hey presto!!


Just tried that and it is giving me as a much slower speed (see below). Also tried the adslguide.org.uk one (400Kbps!) and the www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk one the VM engineer used when he swapped out my modem last week form terajet to new 255 one (1500Kbps). So must be something odd about my Broadband Wizard speed test program. Rats.


Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:34:16 UTC

1st 512K took 1032 ms = 496.1 KB/sec, approx 4088 Kbps, 3.99 Mbps
2nd 512K took 1115 ms = 459.2 KB/sec, approx 3784 Kbps, 3.7 Mbps
3rd 512K took 873 ms = 586.5 KB/sec, approx 4833 Kbps, 4.72 Mbps
4th 512K took 2091 ms = 244.9 KB/sec, approx 2018 Kbps, 1.97 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 3681 Kbps, 3.6 Mbps

(tried it a few times and this was the best - for a 10Mbps and VM latest modem!)

[PowerUser]

Well take a look at this then, And i've downloaded 189Mb on my 10mbit service tonight!,
:Yikes::Yikes::Yikes::Yikes::Yikes::Yikes:
Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:14:54 UTC
1st 128K took 375 ms = 349525 Bytes/sec = approx 2908 kbits/sec
2nd 128K took 656 ms = 199805 Bytes/sec = approx 1662 kbits/sec
3rd 128K took 406 ms = 322837 Bytes/sec = approx 2686 kbits/sec
4th 128K took 375 ms = 349525 Bytes/sec = approx 2908 kbits/sec

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:16:16 UTC
:fit::fit::fit::fit::fit::fit:
1st 512K took 1547 ms = 331 KB/sec, approx 2727 Kbps, 2.66 Mbps
2nd 512K took 2312 ms = 221.5 KB/sec, approx 1825 Kbps, 1.78 Mbps
3rd 512K took 2063 ms = 248.2 KB/sec, approx 2045 Kbps, 2 Mbps
4th 512K took 1891 ms = 270.8 KB/sec, approx 2231 Kbps, 2.18 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 2207 Kbps, 2.16 Mbps

Good Cause for ringing Retensions????

[grabbi]

That would explain my slow speeds also.

Im definitly not downloading the limit, but only seeing speeds of and around 1Mb.

Its not on, but what can actually be done about it?

They cant just tick a box stating "exempt from Traffic Shaping" and can only credit your bill? Thats not very good is it?

If we all complained about it, then they would probably do something about it...

Id like to see a survey done, of somesort, of about 1000 VM Customers...

"How Much do you download?"
"Do you feel you are being 'Traffic Shaped'?"
"Can you prove this?"
"What service are you on?" etc

And a speed test:

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2007/06/40.png

[jcardiff]

If we all complained about it, then they would probably do something about it...


yes ignore it

[grabbi]

lol very true!

[lakeybloke]

I live in Upminster in the RM14 area and I have just made the mistake of upgrading from a perfectly respectable 4 meg through the set-top box, to a modem on 20 meg.

Guess what happens?. Evening speeds are, at worst, less than 512k and morning speeds 20meg.

Spent last night on the phone to Tech Support who were very sympathetic, but assured me that I was NOT being targeted for traffic shaping. (Hmmm....)

I explained exactly what was happening (ok in the morning, crap at night) and he said all he could do was to send an engineer round!. So, I have an engineer coming round next Wednesday evening (so that at least he can actually SEE my speeds!) to probably just agree with me and say that he can do nothing...

I'm wondering if I get the bloke to put it back through the set-top box whether the same thing will happen....never had the problem before on 4 meg!

I'm thinking the only way to resolve this is to phone retentions and cancel. It's simple mathematics - If I am paying for a 20 meg service, I don't expect to get a slower speed than I was getting on 4 meg through the set-top box!.

If we all walk guys, maybe they will take the hint..

[Paul K]

The speed isn't the result of the change in equipment so going back to the STB will not do a thing for the connection speeds.

[ntluser]

The speed isn't the result of the change in equipment so going back to the STB will not do a thing for the connection speeds.

I suspect the network cannot cope with the traffic, which is something that Virgin Media already know hence the traffic shaping/balancing etc.

Essentially, Virgin Media are attempting to sell a product that they cannot supply.

This puts them in breach of contract, after all if I as a dissatisfied customer cancel my Direct Debit Virgin Media would sue me for payment. Wonder what would happen if Virgin Media was sued for breach of contract for failing to provide the agreed service? All it would take would be one test case to go against Virgin Media and it would open the door to an avalanche of similar cases.

Virgin Media need our money but are struggling to provide the service which they advertised and promoted.

If many of the new subscribers to the 10Mb service or to the VIP package realised beforehand how unreliable it was they would either have stayed at their existing level or gone elsewhere.

[mojo]

Because Virgin Media's motivations for implementing traffic shaping have very little to do with the effect on other users. That's a lie made up by the PR department.

The real motivation for traffic shaping is purely to cut Virgin Media's bandwidth bill. The less data they transfer to/from "the rest of the Internet", the lower their costs are.

That's it. Maybe they could get some caches going again. Not like the unavoidable web caches, but maybe set up a download site for things like game patches, and work with Microsoft to cache Windows Updates. Work with YouTube too to have local cache servers. They could basically host a server which would be run by Youtube, but inside their network and thus not costing them nearly as much in external bandwidth.

There was a produuct called PeerCahce that basically cached P2P traffic as well, while again not being obtrusive like the web caches were. Heck, even a better news server would help.

Then again, it is easier just to downgrade the service since probably 90% of their customers won't know what is going on anyway.

[grabbi]

If many of the new subscribers to the 10Mb service or to the VIP package realised beforehand how unreliable it was they would either have stayed at their existing level or gone elsewhere.

Agreed!!

[KillswitchEdge]

I can understand VM's wish to provide smooth Internet services for their customers, and that the bandwidth shaping is the current "trend" for ISPs to deal with the issue without spending any money on simply upgrading their exchanges, but what I want to know is why us small town folks are being lumped in with the same restrictions as the city dwellers.

I live in a town called Brierfield, and unless you're from within 10 miles of the place you've likely never heard of it. For a point of reference its a couple of miles from Burnley, yet another town that can fly under the radar as far as size and worth goes (I apologise to any Burnley dwellers, I mean no disrespect! ;) ), and I regularly have a stable, solid, reliable Internet connection - even in the peak times of 5pm-midnight.

I'm a moderate downloader, maybe 2gb a day if I find something worth checking out. I mostly download TV shows to save myself the hassle of having to jump infront of my TV at exactly the right time to make sure I dont miss a moment. This allows me the luxury of also pausing and replaying parts of the show I'm watching.

A couple of years ago I was in Leeds (LS6 - Woodhouse - dont laugh!) as a Uni student, living in student digs, and there I really did feel the downfall of my net connection at peak times due to the obviously massive Internet dependant community in full swing.

What I'm trying to get at is that I can see the logic behind "culling the herd" in an area where the herd can and will trample everything in its path due to its sheer size, but why enforce the same herd culling measures (or at the very least measures with the same limits used to cull a much larger herd) in a place where there's only three sheep and only one of them can be arsed standing up?

I apologise, my metaphors are god-awful, but I'm sure you can see what I'm getting at.

Anyway, does anybody have any inside information as to whether shaping limits will be affected by locale at any point? I know we all pay the same amount for our Internet fees, regardless of location, but it seems pointless to limit the bandwidth in a place that has no real issues with it.

-KsE

[grabbi]

I view about 500 pages a day, n download about 3Mb a day in music and such, yet the same happens to me...

[RedSkywalker]

I was on the 10mb service here in Perth and it was great for about the first 8 months (that was back in the Telewest/Blueyonder days) but then I noticed a sharp drop and started doing some serious speed checks using the only method that tech support recognises without any argument i.e. closing all traffic and then downloading a file from Vigin's own game demo site (use one greater than 100mb).

Those tests proved that I was getting an average of 2mb which sometimes dropped to as little as just over 1/2mb. Talked to tech support and they monitored me doing the same test and agreed with my figures. They then promised a refund and an inquest to the reason for the drop.

The answer they came up with was that their equipment was overstressed in this area and they couldn't deliver the 10mb service until it was upgraded and they had no date for that being done.

At this point I cancelled my 10mb service (no point paying for what they can't deliver) and dropped to the 2mb service - guess what?

This week the same problem reappeared with chronically slow downloads (averaging about 1.2mb) so I got on to tech support again and yes, my figures were agreed - they now tell me it's still the clapped out equipment/ubr in this area and there is still no date for it to be upgraded!

When I complained about having to pay them 25p a min (come July) to inform them about their equipment problems I was told that they may refund the call costs if it is their equipment that is causing the problem - true?

I am a very unhappy bunny right now and I'm seriously thinking about going down the bt/adsl route if they can't give a date for the needed upgrade.

[Impz2002]

I think it is silly to think that VM are purposefully restricting people's download rates in some conspiracy. it is pretty obvious that there are capacity issues and alot of people are not getting the speeds they pay for but this is due to over-subscribed UBR's and not a viscious plot to rob people of thier money. My connection does slow a little at peak times but it only drops to around 16 meg and i get 20 at all other times. Its the same with everything in life, when something is in demand it gets busy. i imagine its not easy task for VM. A business needs to make money and having un-used capacity is alot more expensive than having a dynamically balanced network. in an ideal world things would work 100% all the time but if you go into your local main post office at lunch time you can expect a queue. I am in no way advocating VM's obvious flaws when it comes to some people's connection, i think its fair to say receiving anything less than 12-14 meg at peak times is a rip off of biblical scale.

I am a lucky one (he says currently downloading from easynews @ 2400kb/s :Yikes:)

I hope everything comes good soon!

Keep fighting! just dont get paranoid and think your being victimised because i am sure that isnt the case.

Peace out guys !

Impz

[harmonyinfo]

I think it is silly to think that VM are purposefully restricting people's download rates in some conspiracy. it is pretty obvious that there are capacity issues and alot of people are not getting the speeds they pay for but this is due to over-subscribed UBR's and not a viscious plot to rob people of thier money. My connection does slow a little at peak times but it only drops to around 16 meg and i get 20 at all other times. Its the same with everything in life, when something is in demand it gets busy. i imagine its not easy task for VM. A business needs to make money and having un-used capacity is alot more expensive than having a dynamically balanced network. in an ideal world things would work 100% all the time but if you go into your local main post office at lunch time you can expect a queue. I am in no way advocating VM's obvious flaws when it comes to some people's connection, i think its fair to say receiving anything less than 12-14 meg at peak times is a rip off of biblical scale.

Impz

I agree not a conspiracy just to annoy customers, but it seems (to me) the problems arise because VM have taken the decision to subscribe many more customers (at least in some areas) than their systems are able to cope with. This could either be due to VM not actually knowing how many customers they can support, or VM feeling unable to refuse new connections (PR for that would be devastating I admit!), and willing to take the money and hoping things will work out OK. I would not mind anything between 5-10Mbps on my 10Mbps connection at peak times, but I (and I think others) are often getting less than 1Mbps.

[hanzo]

i got 3 months free service.. its still crap tho..

[grabbi]

:O How can you say that!?

[ReNZoR]

I am a lucky one (he says currently downloading from easynews @ 2400kb/s :Yikes:)

Impz

Off topic I know but... jeeez, you get that speed from Easynews? I been a subscriber since June 2002, and at no time have I ever reached speeds from Easynews above 500~800KBps (during daytime/evening at peak times i get around 80~100KBps) - thats why I have a Giganews acocunt also :/ - whats your secret :P

[DaBuzz]

What times are the traffic shaping during the weekends?

[Impz2002]

well, to max out from easynews use Free download manager.
www.freedownloadmanager.org (http://www.freedownloadmanager.org)

I am assuming you use the web based search, i do. When you have got the Free download manager then set it to run 20 threads for each download. this creates 20 connections to the server and allows you to max out your connection.

PM me if you get stuck !

Impz

[ReNZoR]

well, to max out from easynews use Free download manager.
www.freedownloadmanager.org (http://www.freedownloadmanager.org)

I am assuming you use the web based search, i do. When you have got the Free download manager then set it to run 20 threads for each download. this creates 20 connections to the server and allows you to max out your connection.

PM me if you get stuck !

Impz

Cheers dude, I already do use FDM, but last time I checked the FDM log when I had it set to 10 connections, it was only allowing 8 connections to Easynews' server, refusing the last two - have they increased from 8 connections to 20 now? If so, I never knew that :D

Cheers