Virgin Media trials longer bandwidth throttling

[gem]

From The Register

Virgin Media trials longer bandwidth throttling
And cutting weekend data allowances
By Chris Williams 11th February 2009 12:00 GMT
Virgin Media's heaviest cable broadband users will be hit with tighter bandwidth throttling at peak times, as the firm tries to cope with increasing demand across its network.
A trial has begun in the Preston area that sees the period when downstream and upstream speeds are cut extended by several hours. Once customers breach daily data limits in either direction, bandwidth will be throttled for seven rather than the current five hours during the week. At the weekend the heavy use will be punished with ten hours of throttling - double the current five hour continuous slowdown.
During the week Virgin Media's definition of evening peak time (4pm until 9pm downstream, 3pm until 8pm upstream) remain unchanged for the trial. At weekends however the current daytime throttling period (10am until 3pm) will be rolled together with the evening period, so data downloaded between 11am and 9pm will all count towards the same limit.
Customers in Preston will also trigger the restrictions more quickly at the weekend. For example, "M" customers, subscribed to a 2Mbit/s service, will be throttled once they have downloaded 1250MB betweeen 11am and 9pm on Saturday and Sunday. Currently, between 10am and 3pm the throttle isn't applied until 1000MB is downloaded. Between 4pm and 9pm "M" subscribers can currently download 500MB before triggering a slow down, so triallists' total data ration is being cut from 1500MB to 1250MB.
Virgin Media maintains on the trial information page that as its current national policy, only the heaviest five per cent of users will hit the data limits on a given day. The up and downstream speeds for those being throttled on each package will be the same as at present.
"The aim of this trial is to enhance the way we do this, limit the number of people who have their speeds moderated and ultimately improve the service we deliver to all our customers," the company wrote.
Virgin Media added that the details of the trial could change at any time as it measures their impact on the network. It gave no indication of when the tighter restrictions will be rolled out to other trial areas or nationally. The trials will run "over the coming months".
At the launch of Virgin Media's 50Mbit/s service in December, CEO Neil Berkett told The Register the firm plans to introduce application-specific restrictions this year to target BitTorrent users. Such a move would mark a significant departure from its current policy of application-agnostic throttling.
A company spokesman subsequently denied the plans to Wired, and then denied having denied it when The Register inquired what part of what his boss told us wasn't true. ®

[Mender]

I think VM will see a huge number of customers leaving when this is rolled out nation wide. I've just spoken to them on the phone. They aren't reducing the prices to reflect the new restrictions, and they maintain "you will still be able to download as much as you like", which is a load of bull! It's been bad enough with the current restrictions, but the new restrictions will effectively make the so-called service just about the worst in the UK.

I really wish I had the option of going on ADSL, but the best I would get is around 256k. If there was a viable option, I'd drop VM like a hot potato!