Warned over usage on 50meg service?!

[Dave9946]

Seems virgin have introduced a capping of sorts on the 50 meg net. As we have today had a letter saying we are using to much bandwidth during the day during a 2 week monitoring period or something. While they say they dont give an actual figure they did refer to a section of the terms saying there is still a fair use policy. They also suggest that the bandwidth we are apparently using thats excessive that we should move that to night time to free up bandwidth during the day!.

So I dont get it, either it's unlimited or not, they wont state on what level of bandwidth they consider fair and neither state the threshold on which they used as the basis for sending a warning letter out. But when moving from 20mb to 50mb users will of cause be using more bandwidth as thats what they would be upgrading and paying for. Has anyone else had these letters because I dont think we have used much compared to the 9pm to 9am like they suggest?. Or is this the start for capping on the 50meg service now the 100meg is becoming more available?.

[TJS]

From what i've read on here this happens if your area is over-utilised and you downloading during peak times will cause degrading service for others unill the capacity is increased

[Welshchris]

first of all it doesnt only happen on over utilised areas it happens throughout the network.

If your causing a problem on the network by thrashing it and continue to do so they will warn to u to keep ur heavy downloading to outside of peak hours.

Virgin at the moment state peak hours as being 9am-9pm.

[Dave9946]

From what i've read on here this happens if your area is over-utilised and you downloading during peak times will cause degrading service for others unill the capacity is increased

So they are sending paying customers letters saying dont use your 50meg service to much because they cant be bothered to up ther capacity yet?. Why not cap the number of 50meg customers untill they deal with capacity insted of telling people after they upgrade not to use the service as being sold?.

[Welshchris]

So they are sending paying customers letters saying dont use your 50meg service to much because they cant be bothered to up ther capacity yet?. Why not cap the number of 50meg customers untill they deal with capacity insted of telling people after they upgrade not to use the service as being sold?.

no what they are saying is try to keep heavy downloading to a minimum during peak times. BT and a lot of other ISPs operate in the same way.

[boroboi]

So they are sending paying customers letters saying dont use your 50meg service to much because they cant be bothered to up ther capacity yet?. Why not cap the number of 50meg customers untill they deal with capacity insted of telling people after they upgrade not to use the service as being sold?.

Well how much are you using?

50Mb isn't capped, but if your hammering the network to the extent that it interferes with the reliability of other peoples connections in your local area, then you will be notified.

You're obviously hammering the life out of it.

[Kymmy]

Remember that you're not paying for an uncontended service so the finite amount of bandwidth has to be shared fairly

[Dave9946]

Well how much are you using?

50Mb isn't capped, but if your hammering the network to the extent that it interferes with the reliability of other peoples connections in your local area, then you will be notified.

You're obviously hammering the life out of it.

To be honest they dont state or link to what section on there website I can find that out?. Does anyone know where on the virgin site I can see what we have supposed to have been using?. I know on some days we will certainly have used several gigs during the day. But that can be done at full speed in 40odd mins so not excessive from my view. I guess it depends on what people think excessive is in relation to the package speed they are on?

[kwikbreaks]

40mins at full speed (~ 6MBps) will be 14.4GB. That's quite a lot if repeated every day.

[Sephiroth]

I think one of the issues here is that VM provide no quantification for the OP. That's akin to getting a speeding ticket but not being told what speed you were doing.

It can't be right and complaint to one of the regulating bodies would be in order after asking VM to provide the targets the OP should be aiming for but failing to get an answer.

[Sirius]

Remember that you're not paying for an uncontented service so the finite amount of bandwidth has to be shared fairly

:LOL:

---------- Post added at 14:55 ---------- Previous post was at 14:54 ----------

I think one of the issues here is that VM provide no quantification for the OP. That's akin to getting a speeding ticket but not being told what speed you were doing.

It can't be right and complaint to one of the regulating bodies would be in order after asking VM to provide the targets the OP should be aiming for but failing to get an answer.

Thats my argument as well

[kwikbreaks]

You know they won't give any numbers. IMO they should also provide reliable usage stats either on their website or on the CPE but neither of those will be forthcoming either.

The danger is that the process can end in a disconnection - somebody can correct me if I'm wrong but don't they operate a three strikes policy on this?

[Ignitionnet]

The closest they've come is to say that about 350GB/month or equivalent is the average level that's getting their attention however it's not a fixed figure.

[_wtf_]

Let's not forget post 71 of this thread

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33677053-mystery-traffic-page-5.html

[Dave9946]

I'd say that about 90% of any\all downloading is done at night already including assumingly a period of 14 days for which those 14 days are not even dated at all in the letter. And To be honest I do sometimes leave the downloading running at night while i'm sleeping. So that alone could easily run into a several hundred gigs a month (all fair and legal as far as I know\can tell) during the 9pm to 9am hours on some months only. But then I'd dealing with anything downloaded during the day than downloading then anyways. But evening downloading is'nt the issue here.

So they wont or fail to say what we used bandwidth wise, they wont mention the 14 days in question. So in turn I dont know what it is they want or by how much to reduce?.

Also if we take about 10gig a day as a random figure. Would using this in a 1 hour period cause an issue?. As even 10gig on 50meg is not much if thats spread out between the 12 hour period. More so in that a lot of vod & streaming was and is 1 of the the main purpose of our connection.

[Welshchris]

The closest they've come is to say that about 350GB/month or equivalent is the average level that's getting their attention however it's not a fixed figure.

during peak times you mean

[Dave9946]

The closest they've come is to say that about 350GB/month or equivalent is the average level that's getting their attention however it's not a fixed figure.

Assuming that is based on daytime then that means little as they could be flagging users on even just 200gig a month in my area. And even if I halfed it I can still be going over what they want. Or if what bandwidth they are claiming has been used does not meet an un-mentioned threshold for my area then how do I know it's a fair and warrented letter or 1 that should not have been sent out to the point where there is no genuine issue with daytime bandwidth.

[broadbandking]

I understand your annoyed by getting a letter, but just move you downloading of linux ISO's to non peak time, if I download which is rare its normally after 9pm.

[Dave9946]

I understand your annoyed by getting a letter, but just move you downloading of linux ISO's to non peak time, if I download which is rare its normally after 9pm.

But it's possably not about downloading at all as there is a clear lack of information. As said there is a larger amount of streaming as much as anything else during the day.

If they cant provide the details what do they want me to do as I already do over 90% of downloading at night anyway. So I really do fail to see what virgin are asking as are they trying to impose a dont download or stream during the day policy and prefer everyone to just stick to instant messaging or facebook or something?. If so I can do that on my phone without the need for internet but virgin are charging for a 24 hour service they would sooner we use at night when in bed?.

In any case I'm effectivly going to ignore there first letter but install the tbbmeter software they suggest and carry on as I have been to see if we get a second letter and check against the software to see what that comes up with.

[kwikbreaks]

Unless your streaming is through a machine with a usage monitor on it then it won't show up.

[_wtf_]

If you have a DIR 615 you can install DD-WRT that has a bandwidth monitor, how reliable/accurate it is I don't know.

[Dave9946]

Unless your streaming is through a machine with a usage monitor on it then it won't show up.

So useage monitors are pointless if a lot of bandwidth can be coming from streaming like the iplayer for example?. In which case what is the point in being refered to a useage monitor if that might not inclue half the daytime useage yet virgin assumingly are?.

[kwikbreaks]

It depends. If you stream to a PC and run the suggested software on that PC then the usage will (or at least should be) logged. If (like me) you use iPlayer through a FoxSat hdr box (or similar) then it won't be logged, Nor would gaming consoles, IP cameras, i.e. anything that doesn't use the PC for its connection.

The Superhub and some routers and maybe even the modem (I don't know about that) record usage but I reported the inaccurate data from the Superhub as a bug some time ago and it will be lost on a reboot anyway.

If you are doing a lot of daytime / evening streaming then my bet is it's that which they are moaning about.

[Dave9946]

Again the letter does not even detail what type of badnwidth is the issue either streaming or downloading so still nothing to go on.

But as I'm unsure of how much bandwidth say an hour of watching on say the bbc\itv player uses then it's difficult to get a grasp of what virgin are asking. As if it's mainly the streaming they are refering to then how much of that a day do they suggest using as a timed useage than bandwidth useage?. Could be why they wont give the figures as it will cause issues with lots of customers if some are being told to effectivly not to use the iplayers for more than 90 mins per day if doing every day?.

[roughbeast]

So they are sending paying customers letters saying dont use your 50meg service to much because they cant be bothered to up ther capacity yet?. Why not cap the number of 50meg customers untill they deal with capacity insted of telling people after they upgrade not to use the service as being sold?.

This debate was had very recently. It was concluded, not to everybody's liking, that if you want a genuinely unlimited service with no congestion issues at peak times you would need to be paying business rates so that VM can spend the amount it needs to upgrade your connection. For VM to upgrade the whole network would require it to charge everybody that rate.

A debate was also had about the meaning of unlimited. I think it refers to the amount you can download. However if you download stonking amounts during peak times then you could be penalised for unfair use of bandwidth. My solution? Schedule you torrents etc for the 9.00 pm to 9.00 am slot. That is what I do and I download sh** loads.

[Dave9946]

Has there ever been any kind of research on what I'd class as a mythical peak period of 9am to 9pm with reguards to user numbers compared to the late evening\night time made available?.

It's just that the so called peak period has grown to double what it was a few years ago with the ever present capping and reason being to ensure all can have decent speed access during "peak" hours?. Surely with the majority of customers being in employment during to so called peak hours then that should mean the domestic customer use during the daytime is far less than it would be during the evening\night?. So there would surely for a lot of the peak hours be far less demand on the infastructure by the domestic user?. With only the business sectors using the hugh amounts of bandwidth the likes of virgin seem to be blaiming the domestic user of?.

I may well have all this wrong but starting to wander whilst the speeds are getting faster the peak hours are growing longer. And with more people working more mornings or late evening hours (retail for example) is there possably another reason why the peak hours now stretch for 50% of the day all now typical working and business hours while having a seemingly free for all grab as much bandwidth as you like attitude for a period where there would be far more people at home to use the internet during the evening and night?.

Sorry if thats slightly ot but they do now seem to have a capping policy without saying how much that policy is.

[Sephiroth]

VM know at all times exactly how much downstream/upstream traffic there is right down to an individual locality (optical node). They tell us nothing, of course and play all cards very close to their chest.

The peak hours stretch for 50% of the day because that is the peak of awakedness time. Stupid, isn't it? Because people are told to download at night, the other 12 hours can be quite busy too. It's all putting the blame on YOU for wanting to use capacity that VM haven't been able to provide within the limited price the puiblic are willing to pay for broadband.

Simples.

[Skie]

One one hand, the way virgin do this is far better than the other methods they use for throttling and traffic shaping which is just blanket caps (with the mythical "it only effects 5% of users" tosh). If your area has plenty of spare bandwidth, then you would be hard pressed to download enough to cause issues to other users. Of course if you are in a heavily utilized area, then your threshold for that is much lower.

The downside to this is that its not easy to give out specific figures on what constitutes fair use. VM seem incapable of building websites that work well and contain useful info. Its all marketing babble and the bare minimum technical info, so its unlikely they will ever show an areas utilisation as that would not please the marketing monkies. Ideally you would be able to look at your account and see a figure that you should keep below, but as they wont even show your current usage its hardly likely.

The recent rumblings with Ofcom wanting more transparency may help things, but it may just make Virgin decide to ditch this method and slap on a static cap over everyone. Which would suck.

[Dave9946]

But did'nt virgin show bandwidth on accounts a few years ago?. I'm sure there was something when you logged into you virgin account a long time ago that did show a members bandwidth useage?.

[Dave9946]

Having behaved as before I note that in fact more than 99% of bandwidth is done during the 9pm to 9am period dring the last 48 hours. Meaning that the trigger from my point seems to have been a 5gb upload during a 14 day period against a 1 gb upload in the last 6 months alone. That is a fact but as said no figures from Virgin to say either way!.

[qasdfdsaq]

I think one of the issues here is that VM provide no quantification for the OP. That's akin to getting a speeding ticket but not being told what speed you were doing.

It can't be right and complaint to one of the regulating bodies would be in order after asking VM to provide the targets the OP should be aiming for but failing to get an answer.


Thats my argument as well
Worse, they're also not telling you what the speed limit is.

---------- Post added at 13:08 ---------- Previous post was at 13:05 ----------


The peak hours stretch for 50% of the day because that is the peak of awakedness time. Stupid, isn't it? Because people are told to download at night, the other 12 hours can be quite busy too. It's all putting the blame on YOU for wanting to use capacity that VM haven't been able to provide within the limited price the puiblic are willing to pay for broadband.

Simples.
More stupid is the fact that in reality, peak times for home broadband is rarely even close to their stated peak times (9-9). Most areas I've seen it's more like 4pm-1am. And people starting off their heavy downloads after 9pm and before bed (e.g. 10pm-midnight) just make the actual peak-time congestion worse for those of us still using it interactively at that time.

[Dave9946]

I've been thinking about this again as I'm quite puzzled on the letter, lack of information yet I know there is very little chance we are an excessive daytime user. So I started to think about things a little further and ANY change in activity in the last month as I'd assume (in the lack of any information from virgin) that the 14 days are covered in the last month.

And the ONLY change that comes to mind is 2 things. And thats 2.5gb download of private video and about 5gb upload of private video via p2p. And watching 2 live streaming football matches, for which cant be to much bandwidth because it was'nt even hi-def. And all that would have certainly been in a 2 week period. So from what I can see that alone cant be more than 15gb of extra bandwidth over a 2 week period. And on a 50meg connection and again with no information from virgin I cant see anything upto 15gb per day during those hours being an issue. So I went back to the letter and there are a couple of interesting points.

States they are looking at small isolated areas on the network where traffic levels are abnormally high.

States they looked at our useage and it was having a detrimental effect of the speeds of other customers in our local area.

States they do not have a defined acceptable useage figure as it depends on weather an individuals use affects the service of othet customers in the local area.

States useage during 9am-9pm needs to be reduced sufficiently & significantly or we risk permanent disconnection.

None of the points in the letter makes any real sence as it seems just because we have a very slight increase and a very limited use of p2p software is what possably caused issues for virgin of a real issue at all?.

We do regular speed tests at various times since january and I alwaysd get the full 47-50.5 meg results. When doing server\newgroup downloads I have always got the full 50meg speed. That to me does not sound like there is an issue of useage thats affecting users in our area as how or why could we be getting 95-102% of the max speed at any given time?.

Is it possable our area is reaching peak network capacity satuartion and they are trying to free up capacity for new customers by sending ANYONE who does any form of downloading\uploading, streaming, online gaming or such thing where they might not be any heavy user in the slightest but want to detract them from using more and would be more than happy to see a drop in useage.

[roughbeast]

I've been thinking about this again as I'm quite puzzled on the letter, lack of information yet I know there is very little chance we are an excessive daytime user. .............

Sound to me like you would be quite justified in writing back and asking for the information to be supplied. State that you need guidance regarding when and how the excessive usage arose so that you can make adjustments.

I have downloaded and uploaded far more than you have stated in similar periods of time. eg In February, when I lost my network drive, I downloaded, from my Livedrive, my complete music collection of 200Gb+. This was carried out night and day until complete. I have not heard a thing about usage. Meanwhile, only at night time, I have use torrents downloading Blu Ray box sets etc of up to 40Gb. Not a word have I heard.

[Sephiroth]

I've been thinking about this again as I'm quite puzzled on the letter, lack of information yet I know there is very little chance we are an excessive daytime user. So I started to think about things a little further and ANY change in activity in the last month as I'd assume (in the lack of any information from virgin) that the 14 days are covered in the last month.

And the ONLY change that comes to mind is 2 things. And thats 2.5gb download of private video and about 5gb upload of private video via p2p. And watching 2 live streaming football matches, for which cant be to much bandwidth because it was'nt even hi-def. And all that would have certainly been in a 2 week period. So from what I can see that alone cant be more than 15gb of extra bandwidth over a 2 week period. And on a 50meg connection and again with no information from virgin I cant see anything upto 15gb per day during those hours being an issue. So I went back to the letter and there are a couple of interesting points.
States they are looking at small isolated areas on the network where traffic levels are abnormally high.

States they looked at our useage and it was having a detrimental effect of the speeds of other customers in our local area.

States they do not have a defined acceptable useage figure as it depends on weather an individuals use affects the service of othet customers in the local area.

States useage during 9am-9pm needs to be reduced sufficiently & significantly or we risk permanent disconnection.

None of the points in the letter makes any real sence as it seems just because we have a very slight increase and a very limited use of p2p software is what possably caused issues for virgin of a real issue at all?.

We do regular speed tests at various times since january and I alwaysd get the full 47-50.5 meg results. When doing server\newgroup downloads I have always got the full 50meg speed. That to me does not sound like there is an issue of useage thats affecting users in our area as how or why could we be getting 95-102% of the max speed at any given time?.

Is it possable our area is reaching peak network capacity satuartion and they are trying to free up capacity for new customers by sending ANYONE who does any form of downloading\uploading, streaming, online gaming or such thing where they might not be any heavy user in the slightest but want to detract them from using more and would be more than happy to see a drop in useage.

I suggest you write to Alex Brown, their Customer Experience Manager/Director. Copy the Chief Executive, Neil Berkett.

Dear Alex Brown,

I note from the letter I received that you are looking at small isolated areas on the network on which you state that my usage is having a detrimental effect on other customers in my local area.

You do not quantify my usage and neither do you quantify the difference between my locality and other localities where presumably similar usage has no detrimental effect on other customers.

I point out that I'm paying the same as customers in other localities. Your request is thus unreasonable and cannot be implemented without quantification which I formally request from you.

I'm not sure what recourse I have over such unfair treatment from a company that really ought to understand the importance of providing facts to customers who are being threatended with disconnection. Particularly so because of inequalities inn the Virgin Media network that are not set out to a customer enquiring from a particular locality.

If my area is so bad that I can't do what someone in another area can do, then you should be informing me in a different manner, apologising for making the request, offering me some compensation and a fix date. Anything short of that is somewhat dishonourable.

Yours sincerely,

Somnething like that. Don't take it lying down. And there's always "The Register" where you could publish an open letter if your private letter gets you nowhere. It's quote disgraceful, even if you might have been overdoing it - not to have any quantification or any clue as to by how much you should reduce your usage.

[Dave9946]

Thanks for that letter but experience suggests I'll have to use that as an idea than copy it work for word.

I also notice this as part of there stated acceptable use policy "unlawful or illegal purposes". As they dont state the amount of figures it could be, without clarification of figures on bandwidth directly that they may even be stating we are using the connection for unlawfull or illigal purposes even if they dont actually say that seeing as they dont directly state the bandwidth level itself either seeing as there is a lack of information and may just be stating a section of there policy.

The reason why they might be suggesting this without saying so or using a strange amount of bandwidth is because the letter does not have a return address or any address at the top of the page like most do. But the small print on the bottom has an address for virgin media internet security based in cardiff. Bandwidth is not a security issue is it?. If not why is a security department contacting us over an non existand bandwidth issue?.

Think I may have to word the letter (and yes we will be sending 1) carefully as I'm starting to wander whats really going on if a security department is getting involved over what is I'm 90% certain not a genuine bandwidth issue.

And as for it being our responsability to secure our wirless equipment correctly again as per VM policy it's worth pointing out that virgin own, supply and install the superhub equipment. So who is liable when we have never done anything with the superhub settings wise?.

[Sephiroth]

Stick to the bandwidth theory rather than loosely interpreting the illegal use inference. It'll just give VM an out when they start procrastinating and prevaricating in their replies.

[Gary L]

Everyone should move their downloading to around 3am in the morning.
they'll have nothing to maon about then and you can use the service you're paying for.
it would be funny though if everyone did move to the 3am slot and had letters saying that they're being a right pain to their other paying customers who are also sitting up at 3am in the morning.

[Ignitionnet]

Or people leeching Blu Rays could just try actually paying for them rather than obtaining them illegitimately ;)

People getting pulled up for streaming though is silly. I have myself streamed HD at peak time, 10GB worth on one occasion, I do not expect any complaints from VM as I don't do it every day and it's hardly unexpected use.

Tons of newsgroup usage or P2P I do get them not being overly keen on, that stuff is almost certainly illegal and can total way more than 10GB on a streamed movie here and there.

Would be good to know what the limitations around the service are though, and to have them clearly stated.

If I've a bit cap of 300GB, which I consider by the way to be more than enough, so be it, please just tell me.

[Dave9946]

Or people leeching Blu Rays could just try actually paying for them rather than obtaining them illegitimately ;)

People getting pulled up for streaming though is silly. I have myself streamed HD at peak time, 10GB worth on one occasion, I do not expect any complaints from VM as I don't do it every day and it's hardly unexpected use.

Tons of newsgroup usage or P2P I do get them not being overly keen on, that stuff is almost certainly illegal and can total way more than 10GB on a streamed movie here and there.

Would be good to know what the limitations around the service are though, and to have them clearly stated.

If I've a bit cap of 300GB, which I consider by the way to be more than enough, so be it, please just tell me.

Most of that is the whole point of cause. But you can legally download bluray\hi-def films and series (not to sure on series) box sets etc from more legit online rental\streaming stores than ever before so the size of a single file against if it's over a certain size to assume it illigal is wrong. Plus the buy instead of downloading is an outdated concept these days seeing as more of us prefer to rent legit online instead of buying so we can view several films for what it would cost to buy 1. How much demand will the new sky anytime on demand service have on virgin for there service if that works via a virgin connection for to?.

Plus newsgroup access is a grey area as virgin does offer free access to newsgroups for customers anyway so slightly unfair to bring that into it when they promote and allow newsgroups for free even if only 7 day access. Ok, I can see p2p being an issue but for me that was the quickest way I could share some private video files the other week in private without needing to upload anywere first. Just a shame like the newsgroups it's got the illigal tag when the technology is of cause perfectly legal. Besides I thought they could block p2p use if they wanted to?

But what gets me is that even today virgin are still promoting heavy bandwidth useage by stating you can download as much music and films as you like without restriction. Assuming they are only refering to legal downloading of music and films and not aiming at the non sky subscribers to goto them and then grab anything sky screen for free and subscribe to virgin instead off the net because of superior net service they are clearly promoting heavy bandwidth useage.

There will come a time when there peak hours will stretch for the near the entire day and will have to state a bandwidth limit for given aeras unless they can do something to vastly improve capacity. But the minute they do that they loose the unlimited tag and possable face getting a legal challenge from regulators promoting speeds customers can enjoy all the time if they get cut or capped to say 25% of that speed after they stream something hi def or say an hours downloading for the other 11 hours.

Lets face it if we are talking about an assumed 10-15gb per day during peak period where does that leave customers for the other 11 hours seeing as even the best estimate of fair useage can be done inside an hour or even less if someone is streaming hi def, the kids playing online gaming and doing some downloading. Where would that leave virgins advertising when they do introduce capping for 50 & 100mb service in the near future seeing as it's clearly going to happen. Is'nt this what the likes of the Iplayer services are complaining about (capping) and others suggesting a preferential service if the big corperations that stream media get excluded from bandwidth capping etc?. Are virgin already in a bit of a corperate panic so to speak and sending out letters in every area to every customer where the capacity levels are saturated to accuse everyone seeing as the letters are generic with nothing unique about it?. Would love to know if others have been getting these letters recently.

Anyways letter near ready and going off tomorrow, anyone know the correct address to send it to by any chance?.

[Sephiroth]

......

But what gets me is that even today virgin are still promoting heavy bandwidth useage by stating you can download as much music and films as you like without restriction. .....

Anyways letter near ready and going off tomorrow, anyone know the correct address to send it to by any chance?.

That's exactly it. How duplicitous is it to entice you with no limits on downloads and then hit you with an unquantified letter threatening to disconnect you for downloading to much. It's dishonourable if not dishonest. Headline enticement, small print restrictions.

Just so you know, I support the restrictions, but they shouldn't be in small print. For the cheap price of broadband, made necessary by competition, you can't expect more than a slice of your expected bandwidth in heavily populated areas.

As for the cirrect address, it's Googleable - send it to their head office.

[pip08456]

This (http://www.118.com/biz/120827.mvc/hook-phone-companies-virgin-media-head-office) or post 18 here (http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?67659-Telewest-NTL-VirginMedia-Have-Been-Naughty).

[Chrysalis]

That's exactly it. How duplicitous is it to entice you with no limits on downloads and then hit you with an unquantified letter threatening to disconnect you for downloading to much. It's dishonourable if not dishonest. Headline enticement, small print restrictions.

Just so you know, I support the restrictions, but they shouldn't be in small print. For the cheap price of broadband, made necessary by competition, you can't expect more than a slice of your expected bandwidth in heavily populated areas.

As for the cirrect address, it's Googleable - send it to their head office.

and the dishonesty of the shaping which shapes unidentified traffic but not put on the website. Not even in the smallprint.

[Dave9946]

Letter sent to head office with slight edits, so thanks for that.

I to would not have a problem with a capping\restrictions for the same reasons as stated. And I cant see how it would be to difficult to state a figure based on capacity and conjestion for any given area and publish them for current and perspective new customers once per month. At least if known in advance customers can take steps to prevent that capping or restriction of if they feel that restriction if fair for whats paid.

Of cause we know they wont as it would be to sensative for them. Plus if they ever did get requests for the information it will still be to sensative to risk because there is noting to stop customers making public what virgin says is a fair limit all over the net. But if they dont and still send us a second letter out I can still state on the net (say this site for example) within what useage they are still asking us to reduce from as it's above the restriction for our area that virgin have as we have bandwidth measuring software now.

So you do have to wander how they are going to deal with this issue because we wont be the first or last to get the letters and there is nothing to stop us posting the information if given by virgin as long as I dont state the postcode it's connected to.

I cant wait to see what there responce will therefor be? lol

[Lee]

I thought STM was supposed to protect the network during peak times?

[pip08456]

With 2 layers of control, STM and Traffic shaping, there should be no need for these letters.

[Sirius]

With 2 layers of control, STM and Traffic shaping, there should be no need for these letters.


:clap:

[Dave9946]

I'm curious, is there still such a feature (because I'm certain there was at some point at least) to check your bandwidth useage on the other 30 meg and below packages when logging into my virgin?.

As they state a useage limit on all the other packages should it be reasonable to assume that any useage limit on a 50 meg would be equal on proportion to that on the 30 meg speed?.

If the current figure is correct then the limit for the 30 meg is what, 16.750gb per day with still seemingly a 1 hour grace hour between 3-4pm?. If that 1 hour break is used then say 20gb per day limit during peak hours on 30 meg?.

So if you take that as a starting figure then about 35gb per day during peak hours is roughly in proportion for a a 50 meg connection right?. So why cant virgin state that as 35gb per day peak period is fair for the 50 meg connection and then reduce the speed by the what, 75% like they do witht he other package meaning you still get a 10 meg after hitting your first 35gb per day?.

Does that make any sence because any less than 35gb per day is not in proportion with what they state for the 30meg speed.

[pip08456]

a) No- never has been AFAIK

b) Assume nothing!

[Skie]

They should do something like British Gas do: You can look at your gas + electricity usage and compare it against other people in your area (or any other area. You can also narrow it down by property types). If a bunch of shysters like British Gas can do that then surely virgin could.

Then you could at least see how much of a greedy guts you are being compared the the saints in the area.

[pip08456]

They should do something like British Gas do: You can look at your gas + electricity usage and compare it against other people in your area (or any other area. You can also narrow it down by property types). If a bunch of shysters like British Gas can do that then surely virgin could.

Then you could at least see how much of a greedy guts you are being compared the the saints in the area.

What a load of rubbish!

I live on my own. Do I use the samer amount of gas or electricity than a married couple in my area-No

Do I use more than a family in my area-No

Do I use more of my internet service than the above 2-Yes.

I have 2 servers to run and back-up on a regular basis so mine will be more than theirs.

Most families use their connection for browsing, email and gaming, all low usage. Streaming is on the increase and is slowly overtaking torrent traffic and other P2P protocols.

ISP's will soon have to either introduce per GB charges or invest heavily in their networks.

You pay for whatever gas and electricity you use, why not the internet?

[Dave9946]

Guess they could offer a topup to unlimited for say an extra £10 per month as I'd be happy with that over what we are paying now for unlimited yet it's not in the slightest.

It's possable due to the growing demand for streaming (which I thought is what these faster speeds were a main reason for selling and wanting) that this could all blow up in virgins faces as they expand the speeds offered far quicker than the capacity to cope when people start to use the speeds more and more.

Anything upto 30 meg connection has a stated limit and is it not stated you cant go over that as you will have an affect on the bandwidth of others and there for get your speed cut by 75%?. So someone using a few gigs on the 5 meg during peak hours has an affect on all other users so gets speed cut for several hours. Then the 10 meg user users several gigs but gets that cut because it affects the other users in the area and the 30 meg user once they hit near 20 gig gets cut by 75% because they are effecting all the other users bandwidth and so on. We dont of cause know what the 50 meg limit or even the 100 meg limit is because they wont say and give a somewhat different reason for not saying even.

How can someone on the same line\area be using a few to several gig of bandwidth and have it stated they are goint to get there speed cut because it affets all the other users yet a person on 30 meg would have to hit a stated near 20 gig per day before they are told that makes a difference.

Does anyone see what I'm getting at?. Prehaps it's not so much about the bandwidth availability you use as much as the cost your paying for what you use. Meaning on paper you will never have unlimited even though they say you do. But are selling the speed upgrades as a more unlimited service than it ever will be.

[pip08456]

Guess they could offer a topup to unlimited for say an extra £10 per month as I'd be happy with that over what we are paying now for unlimited yet it's not in the slightest.

It's possable due to the growing demand for streaming (which I thought is what these faster speeds were a main reason for selling and wanting) that this could all blow up in virgins faces as they expand the speeds offered far quicker than the capacity to cope when people start to use the speeds more and more.

Anything upto 30 meg connection has a stated limit and is it not stated you cant go over that as you will have an affect on the bandwidth of others and there for get your speed cut by 75%?. So someone using a few gigs on the 5 meg during peak hours has an affect on all other users so gets speed cut for several hours. Then the 10 meg user users several gigs but gets that cut because it affects the other users in the area and the 30 meg user once they hit near 20 gig gets cut by 75% because they are effecting all the other users bandwidth and so on. We dont of cause know what the 50 meg limit or even the 100 meg limit is because they wont say and give a somewhat different reason for not saying even.

How can someone on the same line\area be using a few to several gig of bandwidth and have it stated they are goint to get there speed cut because it affets all the other users yet a person on 30 meg would have to hit a stated near 20 gig per day before they are told that makes a difference.

Does anyone see what I'm getting at?. Prehaps it's not so much about the bandwidth availability you use as much as the cost your paying for what you use. Meaning on paper you will never have unlimited even though they say you do. But are selling the speed upgrades as a more unlimited service than it ever will be.

I don't think any sensible person would mind being charged for more than a set amount of bandwidth.

Unfortunately VM pride themselves on offering an unlimited product. "Download what you want when you want" They then add STM and Traffic Shaping which in itself negates their selling technique, certainly in the view of many customers.

IIRC P2P traffic is supposed to account for 5% of available bandwidth yet streaming,especially HD, is reported to be accountable for up to 30% and rising!

It would appear all ISP's not just VM have not forecast usage correctly and are in an insiduous position where they cannot supply the bandwidth that consumers do or will expect.

This will not appear free. Either prices for internet will have to increase or users wll have to pay for anything over a set cap. I see no problem with that as long as it is open and honest 2 things VM are consistantly failing with. IMHO

[craigj2k12]

providing they sort out the call of duty issues and issues with other games, i can live with the p2p management, but if they said "right, we are going to throttle streaming in the same way as p2p" i would go elsewhere. i hate any video that stutters and buffers

[pip08456]

providing they sort out the call of duty issues and issues with other games, i can live with the p2p management, but if they said "right, we are going to throttle streaming in the same way as p2p" i would go elsewhere. i hate any video that stutters and buffers

Read paragraphs 4&5 in my post and feel free to come back and haunt me if I'm proved to be wrong in the future!!!!:D:D:D:D:D

[craigj2k12]

Read paragraphs 4&5 in my post and feel free to come back and haunt me if I'm proved to be wrong in the future!!!!:D:D:D:D:D

i dont know any other provider who has as many utilisation problems as virgin

[pip08456]

i dont know any other provider who has as many utilisation problems as virgin

Check out WOW problems with BT for one.

Consider this though. What is the cost of a VPN against the cost of a TV licence for a year?

Besides soaps and mindless big brother et al, the most popular are US progs which can be legally streamed via VPN direct from the US.

As it is not a live UK broadcast then no need for TV licence, how long before Joe Public cottons on to that?

Watch the bandwith required exceeds supply when it happens!

[Skie]

What a load of rubbish!
<blah blah>

Touchy! Like I said though, you can adjust the scope of the comparison. Things like house construction, age, insulation and occupancy figures. It then goes away and compares you against other similar houses in the area.

It would just be nice if VM would give some sort of indication as to what usage is considered 'high' in each area. Something like this would be a start if they dont want to give out exact figures.

[pip08456]

Touchy! Like I said though, you can adjust the scope of the comparison. Things like house construction, age, insulation and occupancy figures. It then goes away and compares you against other similar houses in the area.

It would just be nice if VM would give some sort of indication as to what usage is considered 'high' in each area. Something like this would be a start if they dont want to give out exact figures.

What possible impact would the construction have? Occupancy, are you talking a family dwelling or multiple occupancy dwelling? Insulation?

No I'm not touchy in the least.

[Skie]

Brick walls, concrete walls, cake walls, superhub walls (there must have been enough returned ones by now to build a house....)

[pip08456]

So you must be talking wireless then.

Would you like to quote any ISP (not just UK) that supports a wireless connection?

[Dave9946]

By the way how long can we expect to wait to hear from virgin after sending the letter in a similar styles as suggested previously to there head office?. Tomorrow will have been 6 days since I sent it and while I may have to wait a little longer I'm just wandering considdering that we have had not heard off them (as they have a contact phone number and account number) as way of a responce that we might have expected a receipt of letter and investigating the issue call or letter?.

Would we be better sending the same copy of the letter by email to the CEO as it seems emailing to the CEO's email seems to get a quick responce?.

[Sephiroth]

Sending anything to VM by way of complaint other than by e-mail to the CEO is a waste of time. You'll be fobbed off if they ever bother to reply, playing for time and wearing you down.

Now that they haven't bothered replying, your e-mail to the CEO's office is now an escalation. You'll get a swift reply (make sure a telephone number is available for them to call). Your step after that is to go to one of the professional bodies to which VM subscribe (like IPSA) quoteing which reule has been broken. Several people have gone this route. I forget the details of the body - you can Google all that.

[Charliedontsurf]

Won't be long before using your full 50Mb for a speedtest either

A-Activates traffic managment.
B-Gets you a warning letter.

[Dave9946]

Sending anything to VM by way of complaint other than by e-mail to the CEO is a waste of time. You'll be fobbed off if they ever bother to reply, playing for time and wearing you down.

Now that they haven't bothered replying, your e-mail to the CEO's office is now an escalation. You'll get a swift reply (make sure a telephone number is available for them to call). Your step after that is to go to one of the professional bodies to which VM subscribe (like IPSA) quoteing which reule has been broken. Several people have gone this route. I forget the details of the body - you can Google all that.

Thanks, will send the original letter slightly modified to reflect the escalation tomorrow morning as an email. The annoying thing was we were ment to be cancelling our virgin services alltogether for a while this last week due to other issues. But because my partner (the account holder) had to go and stay with family due to personal issues we were unable to do so. Now I'm of the thinking to wait and see what happens with this issue first seeing as it may be harder to resolve an issue if we are no longer a customer of give the notice of termination.

At least with the 30meg you know where you stand as the figures are there and you could effectivly in theory leave your pc downloading 24\7 without the threat as those customers are speed managed so they will never really have to deal with the threat of dissconnection letters as such.

I've been doing some downloading during the day on a few days. But I'm watching to keep in the stated limits of the 30meg service (not that we should have to) to see if we get another letter in the meantime lol.

[Dave9946]

Right near ready to send & scanned in the letter to add to the email so they can see word for word. Now is this the correct email for the ceo or has it changed to include the ceo in the address? neil.berkett@virginmedia.co.uk

[Chrysalis]

looks correct.

[kwikbreaks]

Good job you aren't on the VM board - the mods there get arsey about any reference to that email. They even pulled a post of mine pointing to a site that gave ceo emails.

[AbyssUnderground]

I reckon all the 50 and 100 Meg customers should get together and rape the network for a few weeks ;) See what they do about it then.

I'm with BE and I've done 800GB in a month and never heard a peep. I know people also on BE who did 2TB in a month a few months running and not a peep. Even when I was on Virgin I did 600-800GB every month and never heard a peep either (10Mbps).

You pay for unlimited with an unspecified "limit" before you get a letter and threatened with your service being cut off. It's time to stand up for what you BELIEVE you are paying for. I'm still arguing that it's not "unlimited", its "unmetered"...

[Dave9946]

I reckon all the 50 and 100 Meg customers should get together and rape the network for a few weeks ;) See what they do about it then.

I'm with BE and I've done 800GB in a month and never heard a peep. I know people also on BE who did 2TB in a month a few months running and not a peep. Even when I was on Virgin I did 600-800GB every month and never heard a peep either (10Mbps).

You pay for unlimited with an unspecified "limit" before you get a letter and threatened with your service being cut off. It's time to stand up for what you BELIEVE you are paying for. I'm still arguing that it's not "unlimited", its "unmetered"...

Interesting points, and I'd love to know what really would happen if a load of 50 & 100mb customers used the full stated capacity of just the 30mb service for a week or 2 lol.

An issue I'd like to see them explain is that they say a person is having an effect on the service for other customers because of the bandwidth they are using that they will not state. But if they were using only 20gig per day over an unmentioned limit thats seemingly having a notable difference of the service for other users then thats only 20gig a day peak period thats making a difference. But if 2 customers in our street signed up to VM for the first time on the same 50mb service and each regulary downloaded 30gb per day thats 60gb per day. But that 60gb per day extra bandwidth in our street is not a problem or causing issues in our street\area for other users but the 20gb per day over what I'm supposed to be using is?. Would love an explanation on that line of thinking as thats just the line of thinking that virgin seem to be having over bandwidth.

Of cause thats not to say thats the situation or figures relating to us because it's not. But if I read the situation correctly then thats pretty much just what does go on.

Another example is the 30mb policy. I could have that in theory running from 9am-9pm every day. That would not be a problem as they speed manage that. But the 30mb service could easily cover many times bandwidth or max out the time without the threat using many times the bandwidth that would get a 50mb user the letters over or be told they are exceeding the bandwidth or affecting other customers.

[kwikbreaks]

I'm still arguing that it's not "unlimited", its "unmetered"...It can't be unmetered or they wouldn't know who to send the snotty letters to.

As has already been said the problem is that they don't provide the user with any usage metering or limits. I seriously doubt that the network would stand up to all users running at the 30Mbps limits throughout peak periods - they rely on most folks using very little for most of the time (as do all ISPs). In fact I suspect that running at 30Mbps limits all the time would still generate a letter.

Has anybody on the lower tiers ever received a letter? If not then the answer seems clear to me for heavy downloaders - downgrade.

[Dave9946]

It can't be unmetered or they wouldn't know who to send the snotty letters to.

As has already been said the problem is that they don't provide the user with any usage metering or limits. I seriously doubt that the network would stand up to all users running at the 30Mbps limits throughout peak periods - they rely on most folks using very little for most of the time (as do all ISPs). In fact I suspect that running at 30Mbps limits all the time would still generate a letter.

Has anybody on the lower tiers ever received a letter? If not then the answer seems clear to me for heavy downloaders - downgrade.

Buy thats the point and my argument!. The 30mb users can by the policy for that, bandwidth max out to the theoretical limits in peak time without that threat because of the speed managing and such customers can point to that useage and management policy.

So I can run the 30mb limit and get a letter yet a 30mb user could do twice the bandwidth and get no letter?!.

We are, if (and thats a very very big if) we stay and dont cancell giving serious thoughts to downgrading to 30mb as it looks like users on that get whatever bandwidth they can use without the threat of that letter.

Anyway, email sent will post back on what if anything they have to say on the subject, probably an anti climax of a non explanation barring an apology I feel lol.

[Chrysalis]

my sister told me on the phone only yesterday how when she complained about her congested laggy service that cant even load websites without timeouts she was made to feel small about her kids using 10gig in a day, I then told my sister although 10gig seems like a large amount its only a fraction of what the service could do if used to its max 24/7 and in that respect is a small amount. End of the day its sold as a unlimited service so what she or anyone else is using should be of no concern to VM.

It looks clear to me and has looked clear for many months that VM are simply bad at capacity management, they misjudge again and again how far they can push their network with the packages they sell at the price they sold at. In some fronts they look completely clueless. We have the extremely generous upload STM, we have the tripling of end user upload speeds whilst only doubling up of capacity, we have a lack of upstream channel load balancing on docsis3 (I will post some info on this some time within next month), we have VM sending out letters in regards to downloading when the bulk of congestion is on upstream, we have VM telling people its fine to download 9pm to 9am when there is still congestion in those hours in fact peak doesnt seem to end until 2-4am, we have protocol shaping which appears to have too many false positives and too many loopholes to evade it. So 2 forms of traffic management and yet they still need to send out letters and have excessive congestion.

I will soon find out if the FUP even applies to uploading because if I get told this week my port is not under enough load to warrant an upgrade I will be uploading 24/7 to make it high enough.

[ianp2009]

i too had a letter, earlier this year, at the time my total bandwidth was >1TB ... so now i do as asked and have changed upload, only, to off peak hours. I'm still using quite a bit, less than 1TB monthly, just at different times now :)

has anyone on 100mb received any letters yet I'd be interested to know if it differs from 50mb ??

:)

ian

[Dave9946]

i too had a letter, earlier this year, at the time my total bandwidth was >1TB ... so now i do as asked and have changed upload, only, to off peak hours. I'm still using quite a bit, less than 1TB monthly, just at different times now :)

has anyone on 100mb received any letters yet I'd be interested to know if it differs from 50mb ??

:)

ian

But without the figures you and I are not even placed to dispute the figures at all let alone know if you have done what they say untill they say what it is they say you have done.

We are slightly concerned about doing any real level of downloading or streaming during the day and that simply should'nt be the case as the service is not as sold and virgin are changing the limits of the service drastically in our case to the point where that alone is probably a right to cancell the service without notice and or sign for a new\different package as a new customer.

Basically if they fail to or even do provide the details I want them to wipe the account of the warning letter, compensate and appologise saying it should'nt have been sent or allow us to reset our account and take up ANY other package of our choosing as a new customer giving us the right to the half price service for 6 months and the £50 or £100 credited to the account as any other new customer can get.

I feel that is all fair options and anything less will mean we will cancell anyway as the reasons within the letter probably give us that right under law and report Virgin to whichever governing body they have to adhere to.

If anyone feels thats unreasonable or not going far enough please tell me because I could have missed something within my rights or what we could push them for over this.

[ianp2009]

I think that no matter who you're with there will always be a limit as to how you can use you're connection I guess thats just how it is. As for changing suppliers I'm sticking with Virgins as they are the best, so far, in the market for me.

Ive been limiting my uploads only, using torrent downloads as normal, and so far my total usage has hardly changed i just did as i was asked ..... which makes a change for me :)

ian

[photodude]

But without the figures you and I are not even placed to dispute the figures at all let alone know if you have done what they say untill they say what it is they say you have done.

We are slightly concerned about doing any real level of downloading or streaming during the day and that simply should'nt be the case as the service is not as sold and virgin are changing the limits of the service drastically in our case to the point where that alone is probably a right to cancell the service without notice and or sign for a new\different package as a new customer.

Basically if they fail to or even do provide the details I want them to wipe the account of the warning letter, compensate and appologise saying it should'nt have been sent or allow us to reset our account and take up ANY other package of our choosing as a new customer giving us the right to the half price service for 6 months and the £50 or £100 credited to the account as any other new customer can get.

I feel that is all fair options and anything less will mean we will cancell anyway as the reasons within the letter probably give us that right under law and report Virgin to whichever governing body they have to adhere to.

If anyone feels thats unreasonable or not going far enough please tell me because I could have missed something within my rights or what we could push them for over this.


I don't get what the big deal is really. So they think you are going a bit OTT with downloading etc at peak times, and they may or may not have got that wrong. What exactly do you want them to "compensate" you for? Other than receiving a letter that may or may not have been sent in error, they haven't really done anything. Nobody knew about it, other than you. It harmed nobody, unless the posty tripped up delivering it. And a single letter of this kind can hardly cause stress or anxiety. As with any unlimited service, there is always some kind of fair use policy. Yes it should be a published figure, and maybe they should have told you where you were in relation to that figure. But all this talk of cancellation, compensation and what ever else, just seems a bit OTT IMHO

I'm sorry you got the letter, but did you post about it here after contacting Virgin/Virgin CS? Or was it a case of, shout about it here, then give Virgin a chance to explain/rectify the problem, by contacting them?

[Dave9946]

I don't get what the big deal is really. So they think you are going a bit OTT with downloading etc at peak times, and they may or may not have got that wrong. What exactly do you want them to "compensate" you for? Other than receiving a letter that may or may not have been sent in error, they haven't really done anything. Nobody knew about it, other than you. It harmed nobody, unless the posty tripped up delivering it. And a single letter of this kind can hardly cause stress or anxiety. As with any unlimited service, there is always some kind of fair use policy. Yes it should be a published figure, and maybe they should have told you where you were in relation to that figure. But all this talk of cancellation, compensation and what ever else, just seems a bit OTT IMHO


I'm sorry you got the letter, but did you post about it here after contacting Virgin/Virgin CS? Or was it a case of, shout about it here, then give Virgin a chance to explain/rectify the problem, by contacting them?

The compensation aspect would be from what we feel is based on a trigger level of about 10gb of bandwidth as an extreme maximum. It that were true there is an etreme capacity issue in this area and to have a drasticallyu reduced availability of service means we should not have to pay for it untill it's sorted. Would anyone pay full price for any virgin service (phone or tv) were they told if you use it during the day your causing problems for others customers?. We are getting the letter based on what cant be by the speed more than 30 mins of downloading or 45 mins or 1hour of HD streaming based the the maximum we possably would have used. From that point of view it is a big deal.



I accept there would be a fair use policy and all that. But we (assuming the letter has not been sent out in error) have that right to question it and not to be ignored as has been the case by virgin upto now. IF the letter in genuine then it would have been sent out on what I estimate to be no more than a 10gb per daybandwidth useage. Thats half of what a person on a 30mb connection can do before they get effected.

If the non mentionbed figures are correct we'd have that right under whatever regulations and policy covers that sort of thing to not have to have to pay for a service thats not as sold. And where they mention no numbers involved then during the stated hours how would we know weather of not we run the risk of a second letter or will automatically be cut off. To be detered for using a service for a 12 hour period is a detremental effect on a sold product in the same way if a person were paying for the VOD perograms and told to watch them at night rather than the day or they will get warning letters for that.

[photodude]

Well here is where I see your claim for compensation going>>>> Nowhere, other than maybe a bit of free services, if you are lucky. When you agreed to the unlimited BB package, you also agreed to these terms:
These Terms and Conditions may be amended by us from time to time. It is your responsibility to be aware of such changes, which will take effect when posted on this Site.
use the Service in any way which, in Virgin Media's opinion, is, or is likely to be, detrimental to the provision of the Service to any other Virgin Media customer. This includes, but is not limited to, running any application or program that places excessive bandwidth demands on the Service for continued periods

Which basically says they need not publish any fixed figures, and that any usage levels THEY feel are affecting others, is a breach of their policy. It also means they can fluctuate what they feel is acceptable, based on area and usage. By agreeing to and accepting they have a policy like this, you accept that Virginmedia can do this. You may not like it, as many others don't. But you agreed to it when signing up/requesting new services;)

Don't get me wrong, I do feel they should publish figures, give people figures when they go OTT on downloads, and generally be more open about these things. But they are not as open as I would like them to be, and that's a price we have to pay;) Or we can move on and find another provider who publishes all their internally set limits and info, and supplies 50 or 100mb broadband;)

[Dave9946]

None of the above is relevent if they are making so drastic a change demanded of a customer where the service being subscribed to can no longer be fully supplied. Remember, just because VM state things in there policy it does not mean even they are right as it's well know many a company try to ingone and circumnavigate trading laws with clever wordings in there policy that they try to make you think is all above law when it;s not. " most obvious examples is where a company might refer you to the manufacturer when a consumer good goes faulty and say thats company policy. Yet the trading laws say the opposite. And when a manufactuer only gives a 12 month warrenty and tell you where to go when claiming after than date. The law says your covered for a lot longer than the company says, I could go on of cause.

If you buy a service thats not supplied as sold or is altered to a point where it cant be used as sold it is not fit for purpose.

When on the 30mb (20mb at the time) service we could use an unlimited amount of bandwidth only after a certain limit the speed was managed as to "protect" the service for all. It would be fair to assume the 50mb service thats IS advertised as unlimited (weather they state there is a fair use policy or not) would be more unlimited than the 30mb service right?. Or at least at the very minimum equal bandwidth wise right?. So when letters get sent out saying your using to much bandwidth and an effective 1 hour of hi-def streaming a day would get us cut off means that there has been a drastic limitation of service forced on us that the next door neighbour is who not paying for an unlimited service on there 30mb has no such limitations bandwidth wise is free to use many times more bandwidth.

Therefor the service IS being far unreasonably restricted on threat of termination if we go above half of what a neightbour may use before being contacted on a lower teer service. Under those circumstance there policy is almost certainly not valid or covers them.

The compensation to clear that up is a refund or reduction of what we are paying based on any restriction they wish to "offer" and not ment in the sence of a nice big cheque of cause. We'd prefer to refresh our package to that of a 30mb service knowing there is a stated limit yet we can use far more bandwidth than a 50mb user seemingly can. And or as part of any refund\compensation we can take up an online priced offer any any such benefit that entails which suits all as we'd not be leaving and still have our custom, therefor benefiting both sides.

[photodude]

The key wording in your statement is
It would be fair to assume

No, it's not fair to assume, and to assume anything is a gross mistake. It's your responsibility to read the small print, and make an informed decision based on the terms and conditions of the contract. The terms clearly state that excessive usage is at their sole discretion, and makes no comparison to previously used levels or packages available. Nowhere does it state that faster speed = more bandwidth, or not that I can see.
Believe me, I'm with you on this, and agree with what you are saying. But you need to be realistic about what your complaint may be faced with. At the end of the day, all the venting and examples in the world on here will do, is give people something to read. I hope you do get what you are wanting from VM, but in reality, I wouldn't hold my breath ;-)

[Dave9946]

The key wording in your statement is


No, it's not fair to assume, and to assume anything is a gross mistake. It's your responsibility to read the small print, and make an informed decision based on the terms and conditions of the contract. The terms clearly state that excessive usage is at their sole discretion, and makes no comparison to previously used levels or packages available. Nowhere does it state that faster speed = more bandwidth, or not that I can see.
Believe me, I'm with you on this, and agree with what you are saying. But you need to be realistic about what your complaint may be faced with. At the end of the day, all the venting and examples in the world on here will do, is give people something to read. I hope you do get what you are wanting from VM, but in reality, I wouldn't hold my breath ;-)


We made the decision based on how the product was being sold for use at the time (download as much music and films as you want without restriction jog anyones memory?). Unlimited does not have to been no more downloading as they could have a speed cap instead even within the reason they seem to want for not giving us any figures. If such vast restrictions on what you could do compared to the 30mb where in place and mentioned we would not have taken it and stayed on the more unlimited 30mb service instead.

I may not be correct in all my thinking and would certainly love to hear from any members who have had to deal with such issues to how they see the situation or even any VM employees :) .

As my main issue is we are seemingly being asked to limit the use of or not use some services at all for certain timesthe service to that and less of a lower grade product where that lower grade product has use that seems to far exceed that of a higher grade and priced product?.

And if what I say about the letter is true (could even post the scanned copy if anyone wants clarification) and my extreme guess on bandwidth useage to trigger the letter is true then has the service been restricted to the point where I have that right to fully re-negotiate the package or have a refund on the current cost if they say but wont mention there is a restriction on the 50mb service in place because they may have limited the service far in excess of what they fairly can?.

[Dave9946]

We heard off them today by letter which by chance was sent yesterday after contacting the CEO's email.

The funny thing was that apparently the email would\was forwarded to the CEO to look at. And we then had a second reply from AC at the CEO's department saying they will look into it and contact us tomorrow (today). As of yet they have not called and wandering if they will or have simply now refered the issue to the Customer Complaints department where this letter has come from when we had sent our original letter to the head office?.

In any case the letter says they will do what they can to put it right, a member of the department will investigate the issues and will be in contact, they AIM to be in touch in the next 2 weeks.

If I've contacted the CEO should the situation be took out of there (customer complaints) hands seeing as head office has simply passed the issue onto another department and I've gone higher. Or does it look like the CEO's office has passed the issue to a department that is kind of saying we will take our time and may contact you in the near future if we want to tell you what the letter meant of if it's valid?.

[Dave9946]

Right an update on this issue after playing email tennis with the CEO office today. Some of this may come of no surprise to some while certainly will to others. As I kind of have an official as anyone will ever get responce on the issue from Virgin and the CEO department. And this is happening to a hell of a lot of customers it seems.

Upto yesterday in basics:

Get a letter reguarding detremental use of bandwidth
Letter does not mention the figures or even dates
Reply & get no responce
Contact CEO and told by them late yesterday they will look into it and get back to us.

Today the fun started.

The CEO department was asked for the information relating to the 14 days the letter covers and the bandwidth relating to the peak hours of 9am to 9pm thats not mentioned in the letter becase I cant dispute anything or do anything to resolve the situation as per letter unless they do. The CEO department comes back with the total 24 hour per day bandwidth useage for the last 30 days. And it has been causing a loss of service for other users between 1600-2100, plus they have said our useage has caused a total loss of service for other customers furing those hours. Dont do any form of even moderate downloading during those hours!. This is not what I asked for and may not even relate to the dates in the letter. Along with that the standard fair use table where nothing is mentioned for the 50mb as we all know.

I reply stating none of that is relevent and we certainly do not do any form of even moderate downloading during those hours and could he please provide the information relating to the 14 days in question and to the bandwidth we have apparently used and the time it was used and what the fair useage limits was for the days related to in the letter to we have something to work with and have an idea on how much bandwith based on those figures might be a fair use to get a better idea on how much we "need" to reduce our bandwidth useage by?. I pointed out they must know the figures because it the CEO office and they have just quoted a total for a 30 day period.

He comes back saying whilst yes they do have the figures but not as details as i'm requesting?. What the CEO department has no access to the full useage fighure for customers in the last month or even able to get that information of any relevent department for inspection?. He then suggests I\we speak with the internet security team regarding this information as they will have more information!. It was them who sent the letter but wont provide it.

By now I'm highly suspicious by the responce from highest office I can seemingly contact in refering us back to the department who sent the letter as they either cant or more like wont provide the information. So I do the google thing on this. Whilst pushing the CEO for an answer.

CEO office says yes they DO have the useage information but as I'm asking for intricate details relating to a 14 day period and the useage on thos days and what the limit was on those days I had to contact the internet security department!!!. Basically the CEO office is refusing to give the answers and refering us to the department you would not provide the information in the first place.

Google results show in each case this has happened to customers on the 50\100mb service the fair useage for the dates in question (relating to customers letters), the bandwidth used, how much over it went and by how much is needed to be reduced has never ever been provided to a single customer who has EVER asked for it. Thus the CEO office would know this and thus fobbing us off now.

I've pointed out my findings via google and various sites to the CEO that as we will clearly not be given this information for us to work with to try and solve the issue that we are unwilling to have and pay for a service that has drastically restricted limits that are not and wont be provided upon repeated asking since we took it where we are expected to effectivly not use any form of heavy or moderate bandwith useage on the 50mb bb as we will run the risk of going over an un-mention limit and runk the risk of suspended service or permanent dissconnection without warning.

And we have asked for an immidiate termination of our package for these reasons without any extra charge for monies charged against us and to allow us to re-sign for a new package of our choosing as a new customer that may better suit our current needs and where a limit is stated and there is no threat of service termination.

Based on everything in this thread do we have a real chance if not legal right to have an instant service termination as there is clearly a substantial service restriction that has been placed on us that they wont state to the point where we cannot without fear of termination properly use it for pretty much 12 hours a day.

[Skie]

I dont know how they can expect you to agree to a fair usage policy that has no set terms or that they are unwilling to go into detail over. Of course, you have have problems getting them to admit that it is wrong. Good luck though.

Small claims court them if they do put up a fuss and wont let you cancel without penalty.

[Sephiroth]

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Consumerrights/Situationsthatcanchangeyourconsumerrights/DG_194919

Have a read at the above link and see whether you feel it covers your case. If it were me and I decide t cancel, I'd go for 30 days notice rather than enage them on instant termination unless I'd received proper legal advice to that effect.

[Dave9946]

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Consumerrights/Situationsthatcanchangeyourconsumerrights/DG_194919

Have a read at the above link and see whether you feel it covers your case. If it were me and I decide t cancel, I'd go for 30 days notice rather than enage them on instant termination unless I'd received proper legal advice to that effect.

Thanks for that link, obviously it's a waste of time posting on the issue on VM's own forums as they will either delete negative issues like this, lock or refer you to complaints or CS who dont deal with it and then deleted for flaming if continued after the mods have there say.

I dont see why we are liable to give even the 30 days notice seeing as they are still wanting to charge full price for a service thats had an unreasonable restriction placed on us but not stated and refuse to state that restriction.

[Sephiroth]

The key to this is whether or not the restriction clause is legally unreasonable. If so you can void the contract immediately. They'll take you to the County Court where, under legal advice, you can fight the case.

Me, I'd avoid that by giving 30 days' notice on the basis that they aren't providing the advertised service. They'll still fight you, but your case is much stronger.

But do take legal advice.

[Dave9946]

The key to this is whether or not the restriction clause is legally unreasonable. If so you can void the contract immediately. They'll take you to the County Court where, under legal advice, you can fight the case.

Me, I'd avoid that by giving 30 days' notice on the basis that they aren't providing the advertised service. They'll still fight you, but your case is much stronger.

But do take legal advice.


I dont feel a restriction in itself is unreasonable as such of cause. But when a customer is not being told what that restriction is beyond effectivly being told use the service at your own risk for 12 hours per day because we wont state the current limit or what it was for the period the letter covers and we may cut you off without telling you the restriction you broke etc is unreasonable.

Surely the 30 days notice only applies when under a contract?. I accept under normal circumstances the 30 days notice is the best and only hassle free option for us. But it was at least worth asking the CEO office if they say yes then we are fine if they say no then the 30 days notice gets lodged by the end of today.

Plus the CEO office has the figures detailed enough to have accused us of your usage is causing other customers to lose all their connection during hours of mainly 1600-2100 yet cant state the other details even though he must have been given enough detailed info to have said that. Besides I doubt there is anything special about our connection that it apparently fully works yet stops others using there connection alltogether?.

[Charliedontsurf]

If VIRGINMEDIAS capacity issue's are causing people to lose conection then thats not your fault.

They need to start being honest and stop selling the 100Mb and 50Mb products. Roll back to 30Mb being the top tier and move 10/20mb on to DOCSIS-3.

As for the advice about you going to county court, I suspect VM wouldnt even turn up hence thrown out you win they get costs.

[Chrysalis]

If VIRGINMEDIAS capacity issue's are causing people to lose conection then thats not your fault.

They need to start being honest and stop selling the 100Mb and 50Mb products. Roll back to 30Mb being the top tier and move 10/20mb on to DOCSIS-3.

As for the advice about you going to county court, I suspect VM wouldnt even turn up hence thrown out you win they get costs.

brilliant post and good common sense.

[kwikbreaks]

> your usage is causing other customers to lose all their connection

The obvious question you need to ask on that one is why VM are prioritising your traffic over theirs because yours didn't stop.

If you are able to download at full speed at any given time then the chances are so could anybody else who happened to try. If your download slows down significantly from your standard rate then your usage may be having an impact unless your speed reduction is due to congestion further afield.

The simple truth is they don't want consistently high bandwidth users on their network because that reduces the number of customers they can service before having to upgrade.

I'm no legal eagle but I'll guarantee every clause in that lengthy VM contract has been gone over by corporate lawyers and your chances of beating VM in any challenge to their standard practices (which this is) will IMO have little chance of being successful.

My advice - either reduce your usage or change provider although I doubt you'll find any who will tolerate very high usage at a price you'll be prepared to pay.

[Dave9946]

> your usage is causing other customers to lose all their connection

The obvious question you need to ask on that one is why VM are prioritising your traffic over theirs because yours didn't stop.

If you are able to download at full speed at any given time then the chances are so could anybody else who happened to try. If your download slows down significantly from your standard rate then your usage may be having an impact unless your speed reduction is due to congestion further afield.

The simple truth is they don't want consistently high bandwidth users on their network because that reduces the number of customers they can service before having to upgrade.

I'm no legal eagle but I'll guarantee every clause in that lengthy VM contract has been gone over by corporate lawyers and your chances of beating VM in any challenge to their standard practices (which this is) will IMO have little chance of being successful.

My advice - either reduce your usage or change provider although I doubt you'll find any who will tolerate very high usage at a price you'll be prepared to pay.

Whilst greatfull advice it still remains I or anyone cant reduce the useage when they wont tell us what we have used for a period in question which would be needed and to then allow us a change to dispute that in itself. We could reduce useage of cause but we wont know if thats enough. We then risk being permanantly cut off without ever been giving any detailed information off virgin as to what we have done wrong other that accept what they say and dont use a sold service as sold for 12 hours a day.

A "take our word for it" attitude would possably hold very little weight were we to think of cancelling from today as for a defence of legal action they would have to provide those details under law as they would be needed for a defence and a prosicution. And as virgin has suspiciously never provided the details to a single customer having received 1 of these letters I feel they never will.

[kwikbreaks]

I'm pretty sure they'll never publish any fixed limit either. Some parts of the network are probably creaking so badly a few full whack downloads would cripple the area.

I imagine the contract says in effect "we can cut you off when we like without giving a detailed reason" so they wouldn't have to produce anything in court other than that contract.

All corporates are slippery *******s and can get away with screwing their customers over with impunity. Most do.

Have you any reliable usage figures which you recorded yourselves?

[Chrysalis]

they wont give a figure because its a moving goalpost.

eg. today it may be 100gig, next month after some more overselling it may be 70gig.

[Dave9946]

I'm pretty sure they'll never publish any fixed limit either. Some parts of the network are probably creaking so badly a few full whack downloads would cripple the area.

I imagine the contract says in effect "we can cut you off when we like without giving a detailed reason" so they wouldn't have to produce anything in court other than that contract.

All corporates are slippery *******s and can get away with screwing their customers over with impunity. Most do.

Have you any reliable usage figures which you recorded yourselves?

The "without detailed reason" thing would not help both parties solve the issue though would it?, more so if trying to solve the issue and work with virgin was something a customer gave to virgin as a reason to do what they are asking customers to do. More so in that they are asking a customer to reduce useage but wont say by how much when they know by how much relating to a fixed period to give a customer a rough idea based on past useage. Virgins excuse seems to be they wont know the limit untill you have passed it as it can change on a daily basis. This cant be covered by there long cofusing terms anywere as they are asking customers to reduce useage but suggest they dont know the limit (more like they do but are saying otherwise to avoid telling the public) untill after you have passed it but will cut you off if you pass it. This suggests virgin are putting conditions on useage that they dont know if you can keep within to put them in the terms in the first place. In other words they are trying to say they dont know there policy conditions untill you have broke them?. The top 5% of users issue is of little argument as there is always going to be a top 5% (or whatever figgure) of users. As in those top 5% could reduce useage but will still be the top 5%. Reduce again and unless they know the useage limits they can still be the top 5% of users.

Anyways yes and no to useable bandwidth figure of our own. Simply because with 1 exception on 1 day we have not downloaded more than 1gb in a single day during peak hours for the last 10\11 days. Basically we are not using the service because we have been told we risk dissconnection if we do. Yet a person on the 20mb connection can happily download for those 12 hours solid or at any time and stream hd video that we cant. They could easily impose the 30mg figures to the 50mb connection but wont and the CEO's office has ignored that question as to wht they wont do that.

Come to think of it the CEO office has not got back to me after receiving our request to if we can have an immidiate termination of service without penalty.

[Chrysalis]

I hear you on the CEO office, this past week its been aweful, constantly waiting for a call that doesnt come and when I ring up the person is never there (conveniantly), Seems he finished early today as already gone home.

My old guy there was ok but he left the department.

[Dave9946]

To be honest I've kind of given an ultimatum of either immidiate termination, allow the 30 days notice for termination or to allow us to re-package to any package we want to as a new customer as advertised online or advertising in the post and any benefit that entails.

I've been thinking about the accusation that use of our 50mb connection causes total loss of service for other customers. If this is correct and true are we to correctly assume that virgin are prioratising the 50mb connections and when 50mb customers are using that connection at certain times of the day it's using all the bandwidth capacity thus blocking some access to lower speed packages while the 50mb packages might not be downloading anything of size at all but simply by using it is whats causing a problem than any bandwith limits at all?.

If correct then they should not be selling the 50mb service at all as they would not have the capacity for that or the lower packages at the same time?.

[Dave9946]

We are actually getting somewhere with virgin. We also have an addmision of sorts off virgin reguarding the situation that pretty much sort of clarifies that there IS an unreasonable limitation on our account. Thou I dont wish to repeat word for word the emails because I do feel the person from the CEO office understands the situation but simply cant say to much because they are part of the CEO office and probably wants to protect there position even if I am starting to get the impression that they feel all us that are suffering from this letter issue are being unfairly treated (not that he said that himself) due to system limitations. Basically you dont bad mouth the company you work for if you are in a higher department etc.

I could assume from whats been said that we would be allowed to terminate right away without penalty or at the very worst give the 30 days notice no hassles. But we have also been given the option of being able to pick a new customer deal as if a new customer at that price.

Now here is the issue, do we pick the new customer offer as per website and accept that, can we push for a better offer seeing as strictly speaking we are out of contract (not that I feel we can be bothered doing) that, push for the online offer that gives the £100 of account credit or cancell the lot for a while and just chill lol.

Would be greatfull of any advice on which might be the best option from here?.

[Charliedontsurf]

Some of them 6 month half price deals are very good. Take one and hope over the next 6 months Virgin will have done a fair bit of work/upgrades.

If there is still a issue in 6 months then get back intouch and see what happens?

Personally I have had issue and chose to cancel the tv and phone but kept the broadband.

The worst thing about Virginmedias broadband is at quiet times an when everything is running smoothly its untouchable by any other provider. Unfortunately you probably only get 4 hours of perfect use a week.

[Dave9946]

Think we will try to go for 1 of the online deals with the free hd box & £100 of credit to the account, well we have been inconvenienced over all this and they have admitted it's an unfair restriction of service and you dont get anything without asking. Besides, they say no we excercise our right to cancel instantly and my partner can sign as a new customer right away in there own right for what we are asking for anyway ;) . As the £100 credit will be what, an effective near 3 month free service anyways.

Will certainly be a result if they say yes.

By the way, were a contract is closed can another person in the household effectivly sign up as a new customer right away or does the 3 month rule thing before new customer status apply to the address?.

[Dave9946]

Seems like I may have spoke a little to soon. The person at the CEO office is apparently away untill the 20th & seemed to leave me in the middle of trying to sort all this out. You'd have thought anyone in the CEO office (and yes they do read this board as it's been confirmed to me by the CEO office) would have passed any dealings with a customer\client that had not been concluded onto a colleague before going on leave?. Would be a funny way to run a CEO office if that was not the case?.

I've emailed twice today yet not got the out of office unavailable untill 20th reply I got last night, so I'd assume someone is using or has access to the email account of the person I've been dealing with?.

I then email the original person at the CEO office this afternoon who responded to my direct email to the CEO's email address (earlyer in the week)trying to clarify the situation with whats happening with reguards to who is dealing with us and our un-willingness to wait another 11 days before we can seemingly deal with the same person we have been dealing with again.

They have so far ingored the emails (guess the CEO staff could be very busy?). So shortly after 5pm tonight I re-contacted the CE's email address directly again, thou i'd assume they close no later than 6pm so fair to say I'd not have expected a reply today.

But I'm seriously getting annoyed and the feeling they are trying to ignore us now after they might have messed up an open offer they made and starting to give us the runaround again.

Lets see now, how far have they gone in there addmissions in what the CEO have said and offered:

understand you are paying for a service where in another area customer may be okay to download this however in your area your usage is causing other customers to lose all their connection

On our bandwidth useage:
During the day this is 20GB on an hourly basis which would need to be lowered in order to avoid further issues
Yet they claim the CEO office dont have such detailed info well to me thats slander unless they like to show proof we have apparently been downloading those levels every hour during peak hours on a daily basis which we have not.


We said the following to the CEO:
main issue it that there is clearly an unreanonable amount of restriction being placed on users of the 50MB for the purpose of how we would expect and wish to use it. You cant for whatever reason beyond fluctuation reasons (though myself and many suspect this is more because any stated bandwidth limits on the 50MB & above would be highly valuable information to competators) give what a daily fair use for the 50MB is even though it seems to be less than that of the 30MB package. So clearly the 50MB package is unsuitable for us as we cant and wont know if we are within a seemingly ever unknown fair use bandwidth.

VERY highly damming admission from the CEO:
I do agree with your comment on there is an unreasonable amount of restriction on our higher users as the main purpose of a higher tiered service is for more use.

We asked the following option of 3 to the CEO to help resolve the situation:3-To be moved onto a different package as like a new customer as soon as can be arranged that better suits our current needs and where there is a clear fair use policy thats stated where there is no real risk of service termination as the other internet packages are speed managed instead. But we would still prefer to be given all the benefits as if a new customer as advertised in recent advertising via the post and online as way of a good will gesture which we (as a family) feel would be fair compramise seeing as that would still ensure our custome for the next 18 months.


The bold bit being inportant as this indicates we would expect the benefirs of the online offer of £100 account credit in we were to choose any such package. To which there responce was:

the best option for both parties would be the third, this way you receive no interruption in service, engineers etc and I will arrange for the new customer offer by way of a rolling credit for the term of the equivalent new customer offer. If you can go away and have a look at something you would be interested in and get back to me I can make the necessary arrangements, credits etc.


So of cause we asked for the £20\£25 10mb\30mb(for the price of 10mb for 6months) with L tv, free HD receiver install & activation with the £100 account credit.

But they have gone quiet with the person dealing with us now unavailable, there email account doesnt show as unavailable as no bounced back emails, the other CEO contact possably ignoring enquiry of the situation so emailed the CEO direct again.

Now surely there is some interesting points and an open offer to pick any new customer package with any benefits from onlline they pretty much have to do or the CEO for Virgin will look rather silly wont they? :)

[weezel]

at least when i emailed them they seemed to be reacting to the main CEO account even when it wasnt the CEO himself reading. I guess though emails from their individual accounts arent forwarded to a mailing list covering all the staff so they can track it.

[Dave9946]

at least when i emailed them they seemed to be reacting to the main CEO account even when it wasnt the CEO himself reading. I guess though emails from their individual accounts arent forwarded to a mailing list covering all the staff so they can track it.


Well it was the CE's email I originally contacted them through, what I assume to be a secretery (from her email address) said he was unavailable and she was passing it onto 1 of his (CE's) staff (another email address) to deal with. So either way they have to accept responsability for what they have said and offered the way I see it.

[weezel]

Well it was the CE's email I originally contacted them through, what I assume to be a secretery (from her email address) said he was unavailable and she was passing it onto 1 of his (CE's) staff (another email address) to deal with. So either way they have to accept responsability for what they have said and offered the way I see it.

Pretty much yep they should be honoring their word if you get my meaning. whoever answers it; at that level there should be some consistency.

[photodude]

I note you say the CEO's office read this board etc. If that is the case, maybe it would be wise to deal with the CEO's office, let the situation come to a conclusion either way, and then post the details as you see fit.
If I were in their shoes, knowing you were going to be playing out every step and word in the public eye (on here), I would be very cagey about what I say, and would be reluctant to reply quickly, in case of a wording error, or misunderstanding.
Like someone a few posts back said, your chances of finding some legal error in Virgin's T&C's is quite slim, seen as the legal eagles will have been all over it. But if there is an issue with the T&C's, Virgin will want to correct that before admitting it fully to you, because you are playing this all out in the public eye.
I would seriously urge you to deal with them directly, and not to turn this thread in to a step by step guide on how to irritate the CEO's office;)

[Peter_]

I've emailed twice today yet not got the out of office unavailable untill 20th reply I got last night, so I'd assume someone is using or has access to the email account of the person I've been dealing with?.


You are aware that Outlook has this facility available to all users and is just an automated response from their inbox, we all tend to set this up when we go on holiday so no one will be reading any emails sent to that email address as no one else has access to it.

[Sephiroth]

CEO's office lnows exactly the state of their network. They take seriously calls where the customer hasn't been properly treated and/or where it has gone on for too long unresolved.

They also know their area by area infrastructure upgrade programme and are also aware of the BT Infinity roll-out and imminent upgrade to 80 megs.

They also keep an eye on cases that might bring them before the professionl association. VM rarely, if at all, infringes anything that OFCOM can regulate.

As regards the legalposition, the only simple avenue of approach is top lodge a complaint with the ASA based on what you're getting did not match the headline advertising you saw that prompted you to engage VM. If you get an adjudication (which costs the pric of an e-mail), then you have a stronger legal position if you need to take things further. Always take legal advice if you intend going down this route.

[Dave9946]

I note you say the CEO's office read this board etc. If that is the case, maybe it would be wise to deal with the CEO's office, let the situation come to a conclusion either way, and then post the details as you see fit.
If I were in their shoes, knowing you were going to be playing out every step and word in the public eye (on here), I would be very cagey about what I say, and would be reluctant to reply quickly, in case of a wording error, or misunderstanding.
Like someone a few posts back said, your chances of finding some legal error in Virgin's T&C's is quite slim, seen as the legal eagles will have been all over it. But if there is an issue with the T&C's, Virgin will want to correct that before admitting it fully to you, because you are playing this all out in the public eye.
I would seriously urge you to deal with them directly, and not to turn this thread in to a step by step guide on how to irritate the CEO's office;)

I can see where you are coming from, but simply put they are lying to us, trying to refer us to a department that sent the letter to get the information they know very well has never been provided to anyone,trying to play out the situation like it's the first they have heard of such a thing, trying the refer back to the original department they know wont tell anything ADDMITING THE SERVICE IS UNFAIRLY RESTRICTED because of such issues, accusing us of downloading 20GB per hour in peak hours yet wont give the evidence, offering a new customer contract as advertised with ther benefits then becomes unavailable and dont pass it on to be completed by another staff member. Then being refered back to the place that sent the letter again when they have been made fully aware thats not what we are asking.

They are seriously taking the michael. If the CEO has offered a new customer contract and any benefits that includes for the inconveinience then surely they then have to let us have it?.

[photodude]

I hate to say it, but I doubt the CEO's office has a great deal of knowledge about the state of any given part of the network, at any given time. You seem to know a lot about what the CEO's office know. Are you assuming they know these things, or is it fact? The guys n gals at the top will pay other people to know about things like that, so those people can then advise them should a question (such as yours) crop up. Saying they are lying to people, or taking the pee out of them, is just another way of rubbing them up the wrong way IMHO. Yes it may be annoying what is happening, but you get nowhere by loosing it, or making accusations in public.

[Dave9946]

I hate to say it, but I doubt the CEO's office has a great deal of knowledge about the state of any given part of the network, at any given time. You seem to know a lot about what the CEO's office know. Are you assuming they know these things, or is it fact? The guys n gals at the top will pay other people to know about things like that, so those people can then advise them should a question (such as yours) crop up. Saying they are lying to people, or taking the pee out of them, is just another way of rubbing them up the wrong way IMHO. Yes it may be annoying what is happening, but you get nowhere by loosing it, or making accusations in public.

Fair enough, but the amount of threads on boards and google out there etc suggests they are well aware when many a post and article claims to have gone via the CEO over the issue. So at best they are aware of the issue. And at worst they simply cant deal with it because they dont have the authority prehaps (in my opinion)?.

Like I have said elsewere we strictly speaking dont want to leave Virgin. But the go away like attitude when all we want to do is move to a more suitable clear to understand and stated fair use limits package (even though we know it will be a lot slower if a 10MB, 20MB or 30MB) is not to much to be asking for?.

Given the choice we would stay with virgin but it feels like they are trying to keep us on that 50MB package now with the unreasonable detrimental restrictions because they may have realised any alternative is quite a bit less in income and wandering if thats the sticking point as anything giving more money would have been snapped up by them by now I feel.