50 - no traffic shaping...

[Inkyskin]

Hi all,

On the Virgin Media website, it shows that the 50mb package doesn't get it's traffic shaped at all, unlike the smaller packages.

Does this mean it's using a slightly different system than before (With more capable hardware), or are they just hoping that faster speeds will mean those who download heavily will finish downloading much more quickly, and therefore not provide much of a system clog up?

I'm hoping its on a slightly different system, and this would lead to much better pings, and less slow lines when lot's of people are online at once.

Does anybody know? I get it installed on thursday, but would love to find this info out before hand :D

[Chris]

No, it just means they don't want any bad headlines about people not being able to effectively utilise the 50meg service.

It does also run on different parts of the infrastructure than the slower packages do, but that will not always be the case, and when everyone's connection is eventually running over the same kit, you can expect traffic management to kick in on the 50meg service as well.

[Inkyskin]

Excellent thanks :)

I actually just spoke to virgin, they reckoned the DL limit within the periods was 7.5gb before any potential shaping (for 50mb), so I think I'm safe on that front!

At least I shouldn't have to worry about having the line slow down in the evenings etc when everyone gets online at once. For a while anyhow...

[ro53ben]

All your internet traffic runs from the CMTS in the exchange, through the green cabinet in your street and then over the co-ax cable into your home. Each port in the CMTS counts the volume of data going through it, upload and download, at certain times of day.

On the packages up to and including 20meg, if you break a pre-determined traffic limit, it will slow down your connection for 5 hours and then reset back to the full speed.

For 50meg, new CMTS equipment is being installed that supports DOCSIS3 which allows the fastest speed to be supported better and more securely. For 50meg customers the CMTS has not been configured with any traffic limits at this time.

They are also moving existing 20meg customers over to the new DOCSIS3 kit, this usually happens 2-3weeks after that area is 50meg enabled. As these customers are still on the limited 20meg service, the CMTS will count there data as before and limit as required.

The allowed limits are all documented here:

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

[Inkyskin]

Thanks :) I'm currently on the 20mb. I used to get throttled a lot last year, but I don't seem to be at all this year (despite me downloading quite a bit more than I used to!).