Capping

[Shane]

Hello

I have a Virgin 1MB connection.

During the evening my speeds drop so much that surfing the net / using second life / running eMule etc becomes impossible.

I keep reading about Virgin capping speeds, but how come I see this on the main Virgin site-

No download limits

Why are virgin allowed to get away with lying to us?

Anyway my main question is:-
Is upgrading to 2MB's or more going to be pointless if my bandwidth will be capped to unusable speeds in the evenings?.... or is this capping relative to what bandwidth I have?

Thanks for reading

[Richy99]

are you on adsl or cable?

[Shane]

Hi Richy

Cable

[nicke261192]

From what i know Virgin do not offer a 1MB service over cable. Unless you have a 2MB service coming in through a STB?

[MovedGoalPosts]

It's not capping, it's throttliing. Capping would stop you dead in the water. Throttling just reduces the speed, thus Virgin Media can still claim it's "Unlimited Use" (the legalities of that have been disussed in numerous threads on this board - lets not recover old ground).

With a lesser speed connection you are only allowed to download a limited amount of data between the hours of 4pm and 12pm (Virgin class those as peak hours). Exceed that and your speed automatically gets halved for 4 hours. See these details here: http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

If you are torrenting and stuff, try that outside the peak hours.

Of course your local area can be congested for other reasons whcih will also limit the maximum speeds you can achieve.

[Shane]

So at peek times they slow us down.

Ok thanks.

If I double my speed to 2MB, will it be twice as fast for me in peek times or will I be throttled down to what I would if I stayed on 1MB

From what i know Virgin do not offer a 1MB service over cable. Unless you have a 2MB service coming in through a STB?

I used to have 250, then 500, now 1MB.... Maybe iv been sped up to 2MB during the NTL/virgin changeover without me realising.

[Richy99]

they only slow it if you download a certain amount during peak times, they dont automatically slow you down because it is 6pm for instance, your copnenction would be throttled down to 1meg if you download more than i think 350megs of data

[Shane]

Ok thanks.

I don’t always download that much data during peek times, unless I am punished for it even if i.............. Oh god I can see this getting frustrating, lets forget I asked.

I will upgrade to 4MB's and see how it performs.

Cheers

[ultimate]

I am on 4mb, and evening speed is below 1mb !!! and I do not do download, some of the guys here who has 20mb, their download speed is <1mb, see this thread:

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33622112-slow-bb-speed-from-6-11pm.html

and this

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33623168-how-bad-can-it-get-20mb.html

[Shane]

Oh that sucks badly.

So there is no point in upgrading my bandwidth then?

Virgin is not for today’s average internet user, its for those that go online when the rest of us are at work.

So the 9 to 5'ers suffer

[xpod]

We have the 20Mb sacm and the old 1Mb stb connection and while the 20Mb is relatively s**t most of the time the 1Mb stb is always bang on as far as speed goes.

I have in fact seen the 1Mb stb running faster then the 20Mb sacm at times.:erm:
It`s sad days that we have to use the stb at all as the whole point of 20Mb is so there is enough to go round.It`s just not been the case though.

The saga continues......

[LooieENG]

I have 4mbit, and that's exactly what it's running at.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2007/10/2.png

---------- Post added at 20:27 ---------- Previous post was at 20:26 ----------

Oh, and my friend is on 20mbit and his is working fine too. We're both in Keighley, West Yorkshire

[Shane]

Ok thanks for the info.

Anyone having this throttling problem in Surrey?

350megs of data and you get throttled!!!... What a joke.

350meg in a few hours is nothing these days.
Why do Virgin think we want all this speed, cos it sure isn’t just to browse the net lol

This really has got me angry.
I cant even phone Virgin and ask them what they are playing at because the operators don’t speak English.

:mad:

[ultimate]

I do not know whether they will do any good, but I have just made a complaint to Consumer Direct:

http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/contact

[LooieENG]

Ok thanks for the info.

Anyone having this throttling problem in Surrey?

350megs of data and you get throttled!!!... What a joke.

350meg in a few hours is nothing these days.
Why do Virgin think we want all this speed, cos it sure isn’t just to browse the net lol

This really has got me angry.
I cant even phone Virgin and ask them what they are playing at because the operators don’t speak English.

:mad:

Ha. You should check Sky Broadband. 2mbit has a 2GB monthly download limit :td: