mattford63
24-03-2009, 01:23
Hi all,
I've just joined up with Virgin broadband and have crunched some numbers so that I can use my favourite Bit-torrent client all day whilst working online and playing games in the evening. Some broad assumptions are made in the calculations but they seem to work out pretty well. Follow the calculations and change the safety limits to what you think you need.
10MB 10:00 until 15:00 with 2400MB download limit
You hit the throttle limit if you download at 137KB/s for the full five hours (2400MB/5hrs/60mins/60secs)*1024KB. This equation can be simplified to
Virgin Quota * 0.06 = Max Rate Before Throttling
I want to keep 1000GB of the quota for my own (non-torrent) use during this time. This is my safety net and is quite generous. So, I need to limit my download to
(Virgin Quota - Safety Net) * 0.06 = Max Rate Before Throttling with Safety Net.
(2400 - 1000) * 0.06 = 84KB/s
10MB 16:00 until 21:00 with 1200MB download limit
The quota of 1200MB in a five hour period is pretty tight. Especially as this is a peak time for me. I want again to reserve 1000MB for non-torrent activity so substituting in the numbers for the equation above I get.
(1200MB - 1000MB ) * 0.06 = 12KB/s
Pretty low.
10MB 15:00 until 20:00 with 700MB upload limit
The same formula works for upload to, however the quota is even meaner at just 700MB. For a solid gaming session over 5 hours I want at least 300MB, and I'll up it to 500MB if i'm chatting on Skype also.
(700MB - 500MB ) * 0.06 = 12 KB/s
Note: the torrent protocol costs you approx 5% of your download in upload. e.g., if you download at 100KB the amount of admin your bit torrent client will do to maintain that connection will be about 5KB upload (that's before it even thinks about uploading data to another user). So at 12KB/s upload you can expect a download of no more than 240KB/s (12KBs/0.05). Now some of that upload will actually be used to share the data with other users: say 50% user sharing and 50% torrent protocol. So with an effective protocol upload of 6KB/s you can expect a download of no more than 120KB/s.
Note: Some torrent clients when rate limiting do not rate limit the protocol (only the sharing) so if you are downloading at 1000KB/s you'll actually be using around 50KB/s of your upstream. Not cool when the Virgin upload quota is so small (I use the deluge client which does rate limit the protocol).
The numbers for the 20MB package for me are considerably better as I keep the same safety net and have larger quotas. Crunching the numbers gives:
20MB 10:00 until 15:00 with 6000MB download limit
(6000MB-1000MB) * 0.06 = 300KB/s
20MB 16:00 until 21:00 with 3000MB download limit
(3000MB-1000MB) * 0.06 = 120KB/s
15:00 until 20:00 with 1400MB upload limit
(1400MB - 500MB ) * 0.06 = 53 KB/s
That's x3.5 improvement in daytime download, a x10 improvement in the afternoon download, and x5 improvement in the evening upload. Compared like this an upgrade is probably worth it for me.
Some thoughts:
The throttling that does occur (hopefully won't if you set your schedules appropriately) happens on both the upload and download irrespective of which quota tripped it. The web-site IMHO is misleading in this regard.
Also given the massive difference in the ratio of download to upload it doesn't seem appropriate to throttle upload by 75%. If Virgin reduced the upload throttling to a sensible amount the above scheduling becomes unnecessary.
On non-quota time periods don't forget to open up your torrent client but take care not to saturate your upload as this will actually slow your download (experiment with values around 95%).
Hope this helps some people stop being throttled and having no excuse when I frag them online! :-)
I've just joined up with Virgin broadband and have crunched some numbers so that I can use my favourite Bit-torrent client all day whilst working online and playing games in the evening. Some broad assumptions are made in the calculations but they seem to work out pretty well. Follow the calculations and change the safety limits to what you think you need.
10MB 10:00 until 15:00 with 2400MB download limit
You hit the throttle limit if you download at 137KB/s for the full five hours (2400MB/5hrs/60mins/60secs)*1024KB. This equation can be simplified to
Virgin Quota * 0.06 = Max Rate Before Throttling
I want to keep 1000GB of the quota for my own (non-torrent) use during this time. This is my safety net and is quite generous. So, I need to limit my download to
(Virgin Quota - Safety Net) * 0.06 = Max Rate Before Throttling with Safety Net.
(2400 - 1000) * 0.06 = 84KB/s
10MB 16:00 until 21:00 with 1200MB download limit
The quota of 1200MB in a five hour period is pretty tight. Especially as this is a peak time for me. I want again to reserve 1000MB for non-torrent activity so substituting in the numbers for the equation above I get.
(1200MB - 1000MB ) * 0.06 = 12KB/s
Pretty low.
10MB 15:00 until 20:00 with 700MB upload limit
The same formula works for upload to, however the quota is even meaner at just 700MB. For a solid gaming session over 5 hours I want at least 300MB, and I'll up it to 500MB if i'm chatting on Skype also.
(700MB - 500MB ) * 0.06 = 12 KB/s
Note: the torrent protocol costs you approx 5% of your download in upload. e.g., if you download at 100KB the amount of admin your bit torrent client will do to maintain that connection will be about 5KB upload (that's before it even thinks about uploading data to another user). So at 12KB/s upload you can expect a download of no more than 240KB/s (12KBs/0.05). Now some of that upload will actually be used to share the data with other users: say 50% user sharing and 50% torrent protocol. So with an effective protocol upload of 6KB/s you can expect a download of no more than 120KB/s.
Note: Some torrent clients when rate limiting do not rate limit the protocol (only the sharing) so if you are downloading at 1000KB/s you'll actually be using around 50KB/s of your upstream. Not cool when the Virgin upload quota is so small (I use the deluge client which does rate limit the protocol).
The numbers for the 20MB package for me are considerably better as I keep the same safety net and have larger quotas. Crunching the numbers gives:
20MB 10:00 until 15:00 with 6000MB download limit
(6000MB-1000MB) * 0.06 = 300KB/s
20MB 16:00 until 21:00 with 3000MB download limit
(3000MB-1000MB) * 0.06 = 120KB/s
15:00 until 20:00 with 1400MB upload limit
(1400MB - 500MB ) * 0.06 = 53 KB/s
That's x3.5 improvement in daytime download, a x10 improvement in the afternoon download, and x5 improvement in the evening upload. Compared like this an upgrade is probably worth it for me.
Some thoughts:
The throttling that does occur (hopefully won't if you set your schedules appropriately) happens on both the upload and download irrespective of which quota tripped it. The web-site IMHO is misleading in this regard.
Also given the massive difference in the ratio of download to upload it doesn't seem appropriate to throttle upload by 75%. If Virgin reduced the upload throttling to a sensible amount the above scheduling becomes unnecessary.
On non-quota time periods don't forget to open up your torrent client but take care not to saturate your upload as this will actually slow your download (experiment with values around 95%).
Hope this helps some people stop being throttled and having no excuse when I frag them online! :-)