View Full Version : VM traffic shaping policy changed?
Because of traffic management, i restrict all my downloads til after 9pm, even tho i am paying for 20mb and thats what i should get ... you've heard all this before, i know
The last two days, i have been doing the same as i always do, but even after 9pm, if i download a couple of gig, BAM! , i get my speed cut to 5meg.
Is there some policy change i dont know about, and if there is , shouldnt VM have to tell us about it ?
One person was told by tech support that they STM people who download too much outside of the official times. it might be that.
so there is no time, where i am free to download?
Turkey Machine
26-10-2008, 23:52
One person was told by tech support that they STM people who download too much outside of the official times. it might be that.
I've not read anything in the T+Cs to suggest that they're allowed to do that. If that's the case, they *may* be breaking their own contract, but can probably get out of it by stating their Fair Usage Policy.
well, as i said, apart from the odd hiccup, i ALWAYS limit my downloading til after 9pm, i dont see how i can be one of these ppl who they could justify doing that to
whydoIneedatech
26-10-2008, 23:55
Not aware of any such policy and I work for them, if you feel that you are being STMed outside of the specified times then call in and ask whats going on.
i dont have virgin phone, and the last few times ive called them i was put on hold for over 45 mins...
thats a lot of £ for em to just bs me some more
There's also a bug with STM where some/a lot of people get STMd when they shouldn't be. Virgin know about it and are supposed to be fixing it. nobody knows when but they've known about it for sometime now.
If what support said was true about STM outside official hours, then that's probably because the UBR you're on is overloaded so they have to.
probably so they can get some more new customers onto it.
ubr?
they have to? if i'm paying for 20meg and not breaching their traffic policy, why do they have to?
whydoIneedatech
27-10-2008, 00:02
i dont have virgin phone, and the last few times ive called them i was put on hold for over 45 mins...
thats a lot of £ for em to just bs me some more
I am amazed that you could be left on hold for so long, you should have called Customer Relations to complain.
I know you say you do not have the phone, but just having the phoneline connected can in some cases lower your bill and gives you access to a free phone line for complaints, and you need only ever to use it for that reason, check it out you could change your package to with phone and save money.
the 'tech' could not install it.
He was here for 4 hours and tried to install the phone but never ever got it to work. As i have a vonage line, after that time he was here, i just got fed up (probably less than he did) and told him to just forget it.
It amazes me that the net worked and the phone didnt
whydoIneedatech
27-10-2008, 00:11
the 'tech' could not install it.
He was here for 4 hours and tried to install the phone but never ever got it to work. As i have a vonage line, after that time he was here, i just got fed up (probably less than he did) and told him to just forget it.
It amazes me that the net worked and the phone didnt
They are on 2 separate lines as the incoming cable from outside is a siamese side by side cable, one for your phone line the other for Broadband and Digital TV.
is there any hidden 01 02 number i can reach them on as i refuse to pay 10p/min * whenever they decide to take my call
whydoIneedatech
27-10-2008, 00:15
is there any hidden 01 02 number i can reach them on as i refuse to pay 10p/min * whenever they decide to take my call
Try this website (http://www.saynoto0870.com/)
thanx, useful resource.
I thought BB tech support was 24hr tho, cant seem to get through
ubr?
It is the Network Device that yours and others in your area are connected to. where you all share the internet.
there's only supposed to be so many of you conected so there's enough bandwidth to go round, but support have confirmed that many are overloaded.
whydoIneedatech
27-10-2008, 00:49
thanx, useful resource.
I thought BB tech support was 24hr tho, cant seem to get through
They are probably daytime numbers and this time of night only answering 0845 454 1111
i dont have virgin phone, and the last few times ive called them i was put on hold for over 45 mins...
thats a lot of £ for em to just bs me some more
I really don't know why an agent would put you on hold for 45 mins, without him/her offering you a call back.
me either, my wife couldn't believe it but, dont you always get that nagging feeling that if you hang up now, you're sure they were just about to pick up. i had that for 40 mins!
But surely he had a good reason to leave you on hold for that long... when i worked in a call centre we were always told to say how long we would be roughly before we put them on hold and if it was taking longer to sort out than that take them off and tell them.
Dreadful for the agent to leave you on like that if you're paying for the call without offering a call back...
xspeedyx
27-10-2008, 08:20
whydoineedatech - Customer Relations are disconnections it's customer care who deal with complaints or you can write in or fill out the online complaints form
whydoIneedatech
27-10-2008, 08:25
whydoineedatech - Customer Relations are disconnections it's customer care who deal with complaints or you can write in or fill out the online complaints form
Customer Relations will take a bit more notice as its their job to, I know what you are saying but the treatment above was wrong.
xspeedyx
27-10-2008, 08:27
Very wrong but I am ensuring you now they dont have anymore power than customer care, and they are trying to stop misrouting the calls to them only true disconnections should be passed to customer relations also check your pm mate
whydoIneedatech
27-10-2008, 08:29
Very wrong but I am ensuring you now they dont have anymore power than customer care, and they are trying to stop misrouting the calls to them only true disconnections should be passed to customer relations also check your pm mate
Thank you;)
brundles
27-10-2008, 08:30
whydoineedatech - Customer Relations are disconnections it's customer care who deal with complaints or you can write in or fill out the online complaints form
I think the most I've ever had from the online complaints form is an automated "we'll look into it and get back to you e-mail" followed by the square root of nothing months later.
Oh, and customer care weren't much better - saying they'd refund some VOD stuff that didn't work because of an area fault but never quite getting around to actually refunding it.
whydoIneedatech
27-10-2008, 08:32
I think the most I've ever had from the online complaints form is an automated "we'll look into it and get back to you e-mail" followed by the square root of nothing months later.
Oh, and customer care weren't much better - saying they'd refund some VOD stuff that didn't work because of an area fault but never quite getting around to actually refunding it.
When I do email I never send automated responses as that iss just lazy and impersonal and does not send the right signals to the customer.
xspeedyx
27-10-2008, 08:58
I think the most I've ever had from the online complaints form is an automated "we'll look into it and get back to you e-mail" followed by the square root of nothing months later.
Oh, and customer care weren't much better - saying they'd refund some VOD stuff that didn't work because of an area fault but never quite getting around to actually refunding it.
Going back on topic, Virgin Central used to have a reasonably good selection of VOD stuff as an introduction - these days it's general a load of rubbish. Something that could work would be to extend the Virgin Central catalogue using adverts in the programs to fund it. It might then be a simpler upsell to packages that include some VOD (or even individual VOD programs) based on the combination of an extended catalogue and the lack of adverts.
You hvae to remember there are lots of complaint coming through either logged incorrectly or just real complaints, they have to contact the customer but alot of the time customers arent in
Jonathan90
27-10-2008, 10:34
no offence but i have got stm outside of hours 3 times now say if i do call them up will they return me to my normal speed?
if not whats the point.
i dont have virgin phone, and the last few times ive called them i was put on hold for over 45 mins...
thats a lot of £ for em to just bs me some more
Same here, last time I had to call it cost me ~£35 in call charges. Ended up getting a VM phone purely so I can call 150 for free... Last year I ditched it 'cos I hadn't used it for months, then the BB goes tit's up and back it came.
Part of the plan?
Turkey Machine
27-10-2008, 12:03
Surely not, otherwise it'd be worth the extra £2 a month you pay for the phone line? :p:
On a separate note, I think I'll need an engineer round to connect up the phone line. I ain't paying for a service I ain't getting! :D
last night, again after 9pm i was capped, so turned off the pc.
at 1am, i tried again and my speed was as it should be. If i was originally capped around 10:30pm (not before 9 u notice), and the cap lasts for 5 hours, why would i get my speed back at 1am?
brundles
27-10-2008, 17:23
Perhaps my maths is out, but being capped at about 10:30pm for 5 hours would take you until about 3:30am. Being capped at about 8pm would have left you back on full speed by 1am.
Another possibility given the start date on this thread is that VM haven't got around to changing the clocks on the STM nodes - not very likely as it probably changes itself, but worth a thought.
xspeedyx
27-10-2008, 17:58
Perhaps my maths is out, but being capped at about 10:30pm for 5 hours would take you until about 3:30am. Being capped at about 8pm would have left you back on full speed by 1am.
Another possibility given the start date on this thread is that VM haven't got around to changing the clocks on the STM nodes - not very likely as it probably changes itself, but worth a thought.
When I for STM'd outside of stm hours the rep said it might be due to the clocks going forward and the UBR might not have been updated
---------- Post added at 17:58 ---------- Previous post was at 17:56 ----------
last night, again after 9pm i was capped, so turned off the pc.
at 1am, i tried again and my speed was as it should be. If i was originally capped around 10:30pm (not before 9 u notice), and the cap lasts for 5 hours, why would i get my speed back at 1am?
Are you sure it was STM and not congestion, dont forget there is a stm limit for upload and if you got ur speed back at 1 you might have hit the upload limit just b4 8.00pm
cook1984
27-10-2008, 23:11
I was just randomly STM'ed despite my PC actually having been off since before 7pm when I was not.
Something strange is going on.
homealone
27-10-2008, 23:33
I was just randomly STM'ed despite my PC actually having been off since before 7pm when I was not.
Something strange is going on.
based on your other post, no you were not - assuming STM is the cause of all speed reductions is not valid reasoning, especially when the speed actually achieved is more than the current STM limit would allow :)
based on your other post, no you were not - assuming STM is the cause of all speed reductions is not valid reasoning, especially when the speed actually achieved is more than the current STM limit would allow :)
Here's a theory. they know we suspect something about STM and that you can get hit by it even though you haven't hit any of the limits. so they have a seperate config running that slows your connection down at random speeds. or whatever speed that they have set it at for any particular day?
I doubt it. When people report slow downloads they will probably contact technical support. Correct me if I am wrong, but The first line of tech support might not be able to access the local configs but I think the 2nd line of tech support can. If they changed the configs then the 2ndline of support would be able to see it, and I doubt it would remain a secret for very long.
Here's a theory. they know we suspect something about STM and that you can get hit by it even though you haven't hit any of the limits. so they have a seperate config running that slows your connection down at random speeds. or whatever speed that they have set it at for any particular day?
Nope.
They can cap a user anytime they like though, but that has always been the case, even back on telewest STM hit users that were in a 'naughty' list.
cook1984
29-10-2008, 22:28
I have been hit every single day this week, despite not going over the limit. I have been trying to get an answer from VM but no luck so far. They are sending an engineer out but they don't know anything beyond how to check signal levels.
homealone
29-10-2008, 23:03
I have been hit every single day this week, despite not going over the limit. I have been trying to get an answer from VM but no luck so far. They are sending an engineer out but they don't know anything beyond how to check signal levels.
post in the virginmedia.support.broadband.cable newsgroup, they will be able to tell you if you are actually being 'hit' with stm, or not.
Welshchris
31-10-2008, 07:30
Not aware of any such policy and I work for them, if you feel that you are being STMed outside of the specified times then call in and ask whats going on.
i was told by the chief execs office once that VM do STM people outside the official hrs if they have over subscription issues in the area.
xspeedyx
31-10-2008, 08:42
Most areas of the VM network then
i was told by the chief execs office once that VM do STM people outside the official hrs if they have over subscription issues in the area.
Can't see that myself, as STM is an automated process on each uBR, its more likely to be some fault in the code.
---------- Post added at 12:40 ---------- Previous post was at 12:40 ----------
I have been hit every single day this week, despite not going over the limit. I have been trying to get an answer from VM but no luck so far. They are sending an engineer out but they don't know anything beyond how to check signal levels.
Turn off your p2p software then ;)
Can't see that myself, as STM is an automated process on each uBR, its more likely to be some fault in the code.
---------- Post added at 12:40 ---------- Previous post was at 12:40 ----------
Turn off your p2p software then ;)
:D
Chrysalis
31-10-2008, 19:03
i was told by the chief execs office once that VM do STM people outside the official hrs if they have over subscription issues in the area.
at my old address STM would be needed 24/7 :( congestion was evident over 22 hours a day.
xspeedyx
31-10-2008, 19:05
I am suprised its not always active in my area as of late
cook1984
06-11-2008, 14:15
Turn off your p2p software then ;)
*sigh*
It would be nice if people actually read what was being written and took it seriously. Clearly there is some kind of problem here but when people ask for help all the get is "it must be you causing it". It's as bad as VM tech support.
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