Virgin ready to throttle from 10am to 9pm

[Mender]

This is an official VM announcement on the Virgin Support newsgroup:

"Hi,

I know there have been many queries regarding STM (Traffic Management), and
below is the official statement regarding changes to the STM policy.

If you have any questions or comments, please can I ask that you post these
in the Feedback group (virginmedia.feedback) to keep the support groups
clear for the team to respond to service affecting issues. This has been
cross-posted to feedback.

Thankyou.

STM Statement:

· As part of our continued efforts to improve our customer's broadband
experience we are continuing to trial measures which will more efficiently
and pro-actively manage network traffic.

· As part of our continued efforts to improve our customer's broadband
experience, we are making changes to the current Traffic Management Policy
within certain trial regions.

· This updated policy will be trialed within the following regions
Preston, Wigan, Blackpool, Camden, Dalston, Enfield and Haringey.

· These measures are based on policies that detect traffic patterns
that are deemed potentially abnormal and apply traffic management rules to
ensure that other customers are not adversely affected by this traffic.

· The trial aims to prevent or reduce the effects of a minority of
users abusing the network and preventing the majority of subscribers from
having the network performance they desire.

· For the vast majority of customers, upwards of 95% of the base,
their experience will be a more consistent speed (both upload and download).

· Those who have the policies applied to their connection will
experience their download / upload speed being constrained (less than 5%
affected). Breach of acceptable use policy may lead to these policies being
applied.

· These optimisation policies are being trialed during the following
times where the potential for abnormal traffic has been identified as having
the greatest adverse impact on our customers' experience.

10am - 3pm Download only
4pm - 9pm Download
3pm - 8pm Upload


During these times the following thresholds will be applied for upstream and
downstream.

10am - 3pm Download
Size M: 900Mb
Size L: 2400Mb
Size XL: 6000Mb

4pm - 9pm Download
Size M: 450Mb
Size L:1200Mb
Size XL: 3000Mb

3pm - 8pm Upload
Size M: 200Mb
Size L: 700Mb
Size XL: 1400Mb


--

Kind Regards
Karl Rio
Virgin Media Technical Support

Yet they are still advertising their broadband offerings as "unlimited downloads"

[CaNsA]

Will you still be able to download during these times?
The answer is - Yes you will
Hence unlimited downloads......

Still, its a bit of a crap plan innit.

[Mender]

Hence unlimited downloads......

Well, if I hit the download level and get STM'd, my speed would be cut by 75%. Therefore, while I'm STM'd, I'll only be able to download 25% of what I should be able to download for a period of five hours, so my download is limited. That makes the term "Unlimited downloads" simply a lie.

[Jim Smith]

>>During these times the following thresholds will be applied for upstream and
>>downstream.

>>10am - 3pm Download
>>Size M: 900Mb
>>Size L: 2400Mb
>>Size XL: 6000Mb

>>4pm - 9pm Download
>>Size M: 450Mb
>>Size L:1200Mb
>>Size XL: 3000Mb

>>3pm - 8pm Upload
>>Size M: 200Mb
>>Size L: 700Mb
>>Size XL: 1400Mb

Priceless....unbelieveable incopetence ( so long as the OP was a cut and paste..) I think that it perhaps should read Kbps rather than Mb..

Jim.

[Mender]

Priceless....unbelieveable incopetence ( so long as the OP was a cut and paste..) I think that it perhaps should read Kbps rather than Mb..

Those figures I posted are the limits in megabytes that you can download during those times before being "traffic managed". They are not the download speeds

And yes, it was cut and pasted verbatim.

[Jim Smith]

I beg your forgiveness.

Many apologies, I stand corrected.

Jim.

[CaNsA]

Jim, are you on ADSL or Cable broadband?

[Jim Smith]

We've been here before mate.. ADSL..

Seems if you look at ISP ratings that Virgin Cable and Virgin ADSL have split into two camps regards ratings..

Virgin ADSL are now rated at one of the worst ISP offerings in the UK.

Virgin Cable is somewhere under middling..

Methinks that Virgin have had enough of us ADSL customers and couldn't give a rats arse about us any more.

Jim.

[Jim Smith]

So who did you end up working for then ? you never did say..

Jim.

[CaNsA]

TalkTalk, then i walkwalked cos they have the most ancient software ever, totally un-organised, and its run like a nazi boot camp.

The database software that is used for all mobilephone, landline and adsl customers was designed when TCW 1st started for use with the mobile customers to pay their bills.

several years on it is struggling to cope with the constant use.

the support ladder is crap, u get to 1st line which essentially are customer srvices, who pass you the 2nd line number, you wait in a queue for about 4hrs to be taken through the standard checks that any normal 1st line support tech would do, then if it isnt resolve it is passed to 3rd line (who are 2nd line really) who wont speak to customers, and pass it onto BT Open Reach so that within 5 working days your problem might be sorted.

Oh and the amount of times i had some-one screaming at me because they signed up for broadband 18months ago and they still havent been connected is rediculous.

In short, talktalk are pants and im glad not to be there any more.

Next job is in a data centre as an operator. i chill all day doing SFA. i look over my shoulder once and hour to chk the comms room isnt on fire and thats about it.

[Jim Smith]

Sounds like a pretty cool existence.

I'm an IT network tech looking after hundreds of SMB's

Broadband provision is the utter bane of our lives.

Though it's been better in recent yesars since we became an Entanet reseller.

I could change to that in a jiffy if I could bear to give up my Virgin e-mail address.

I'd get better service at cost price.

I must be mad.

Methinks the end of the internet is nigh..

Just been to BT Speedtester site.

I'm profiled at 6000 kbps on my 8mbps ADSL MAX

The test showed approx 4000 kbps result.

Connect back to VM do a couple of speed tests.. 60 - 70 kbps.

Shocking isn't it.

Mind you I've discovered someone who is investigating all of this, can't say who.

Jim.

i get the same results as the posting above, im on VM unlimited 8mb adsl, get 6mb in the morning, but then after 4pm 60 - 70 kbps until after midnight. Now i under stand capping is nesscessary but i think 60-70kbps is a bit of a joke, i could still work with 1meg, but dials up speeds are not on! Location is Belfast by the way!. This cant be the begining of this pattern, some one must have contacted them and had some sort of resoltuion. The email sent from them (VM)to a posting earlier states its supposed to be 3mb capping in the evening,but i get nothing near that. I do download constatly and have a seperate machine(which is low on power consumption), which is on all the time, but thats what unlimited means though doesnt it. So i am a very heavy user, but thats what i paying for isnt it?

[Worldlife]

Thought my average download speeds of 2Mb on Eclipse were too low!

As a long standing Virgin customer I regret to say Virgin ADSL line speeds are crap.

Does it take a mathmatical genius to see that Eclipse limited service of 20GB a month would on Virgin, allegedly unlimited, be subject to throttling?

Now running at only 526kbs down and 380kbs up with 52 ping.

BT Speedtest seem unable to check from telephone number and I need toenter my ISP log on ID each time. Is this difficulty the result of throttling?

[Jim Smith]

VM are rubbish, throttle you down to just 80kbps for a week if you are in their top 5% of downloaders the week before.

What gets you in their top 5% ?

just over 5GB in one week...

I'm leaving them on Monday ! yippee !

Jim.