Virgin Media now capping

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/08/vigin_nationwide_throttling/

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

I certainly didn't get an eMail from them about it, sneaky barstages!

I'm on the 2meg ('M' package). If I download more than 350meg between 4pm & midnight any day, then the capping kicks in and my connection drops to 1meg and a pathetic 12kbs upstream for the next 4 hours.

I think it's a good idea actually. I'm on the slowest VirginMedia connection which means I can upload about 1GB in 24 hours or download something like 24GB in 24 hours.

Surely that limit PER DAY should be enough for anyone?
Limit throttling is a good idea, especially since most of the time people who max out their connections aren't even at their PCs and wouldn't really notice the difference.

no email for me also, also on the same 'M' package. looks like im installing a download monitor.

anyways thanks for the info. but anyhow when was the last BIG download? not sure, possable was linux dvd.

kev

I hope other ISP's follow that method.

I'm on Orange broadband which is advertised as *unlimited*. In reality this is limited to 50gb of bandwidth a month. If you go over that you can be cut off or you may receive a letter stating you have violated their FUP and to cut down the amount to download. You may even get a letter if you regularly go over 35gb a month bandwidth.

Personally I'd prefer a capping system like Virgin media have introduced. It seems pretty fair.

It's not really capped. It's just Traffic Management.

Basically, the connection is uncapped and you can still download as much as you want, they're just limiting the speed at which you can download it.

For the 10meg connection its a 3gb limit and once you reach it your connection becomes STM'd. This means that your 10 meg connection will be reduced to a 5mb connection for 4 hours only. The same is for the other broadband size connection although their limits are lower. It's 750mn for the 4mb connection and 350mb for the 2mb connection.

You can still download as much as you want but if you go over a certain limit the hoze pipe is turned down a little.

There's been a lot of threads about this on DigitalSpy and most of the complainers are the P2P users who are apprently only downloading legal stuff. :/

But theres been others who claim that STM will affect their On demand video watching from sites like joost, 4oD etc.

I dunno. I'm on the lowest package they have and don't download like a nutter anyway so this won't really affect me.

What are you doing that requires 50GB of bandwidth per month??*

Its very rare that I go over 2-3GB.

* I may not want to know. :p

I'm fine with this. I'm on the XL package with virgin and this makes complete sense.

Some other forums are full of people whining that they have a 10 meg connection but can't download from US websites at more than a meg, they clearly don't understand how the net works.

So I can only download 3 gigs before my speed goes down to 5 meg for four hours, oh dear, woh-is-me! Never mind....

Yeah I hardly use much per month but some people just download pirated movies and music and games continuously via Torrent.

50GB, even 100GB is nothing when you have a connection over 8mb.

Companies are pushing On Demand services now with movies, TV Series and albums being offered on Demand for download. Joost, 4oD, iTunes ect even youtube are providers of on demand services. It's stuff like this that can kill your bandwidth each month.

As for Virgin media, I get the funny feeling that they have introduced STM< because they know that their rollout of the 20mb broadband service is going to choke the network. Rather than invest the the network infrastructure to make it faster they are introducing STM so that the network can handle the 20MB rollout.

This is terrible really, if I use my internet at full pelt for a paltry 40 minutes then I get cut down to a speed that people paying HALF of what I pay are on, and just to add insult to injury, it does this on a per day basis - in other words it doesnt identify users on a longer term basis and then reduce their speed & bills because the network cant support them (which would be the responsible thing to do). This means if I have a night of heavy use I .. well, I cant.

I'm still in the first 12 months of my 'UNLIMITED' broadband, which means I can't cancel and go with another provider.

how the hell are you using al your bandwidth? the only way I can use all my download speed is to have many torrents all running at once.

I'm on the 2 Meg ( upgraded to 4 meg ) package from NTL ( which is now Virgin Media, so I assume the sample applies. ) No email for me either, and I'm not best pleased. I don't have a single P2P app installed but I'm on my PC up to 18 hours a day and I'm sure I go well over these limits.

I was worried when my ISP introduced a 20GB cap as I spend a lot of time online, too and have three PCs on 24/7.

To date I've never gone above 20% of my bandwidth allocation (140mb daily average).

this used to bother me, but I really don't need all the speed I can have anyway :)

I'm a little pissed that I was supposed to get an upg to 4mb and tghen 8mb, but when I moved, it dropped back down to 2mb and stayed there :(

You may or may not already know this, but that limit to 2mb may be due to the line to your new location & distance from the exchange. I can't get better than 2mb, and my in-laws can't get better than 1mb because of this.

gfk: you only use 3gb a month? I get most of my tv from newsgroups and joost and can easily do 5gb a day.

hey smilertoo. If you have any joost invites can you send me one, please?

My email is in my profile. :)

> If you have any joost invites can you send me one, please?

Wouldn't you rather finish a game in Blitz, or update your forever in construction website rather than subscribe to more time reducing antics? Of course I know what the answer is. :)

Wouldn't you rather finish a game in Blitz, Fix your ugly website than rack up another 1000 posts telling people they should finish things.

I don't want to finish anything in Blitz. I don't want to finish anything in anything. If anything needs finishing then your best bet is not letting me do it. Why? Because i won't finish it. It will remain unfinished and not in a finished state. There will be no finished games coming from me.

:)

I am also never going to update my website. It will remain unfinished for as long as I have a paid account with powweb. :) What am I going to put on the website anyway. I've got fek all to show. :)

The webspace makes for good storage though. Everything stored on the server is unfinished by the way. I doubt it will ever get finished. Why? Because I don't want to finish it.

Infact, I'm going to start several projects each day in blitz with the goal of leaving them all unfinished.

I was under the impression that NTL/Virgin didn't suffer from this because the cables are all fibre optic - and light doesnt start moving slowly unless there's black holes between you and the exchange :).

> What am I going to put on the website anyway.
> I've got fek all to show.

Why have one then? :)

To get truly unlimited internet in the UK, you have to pay for it. I don't know why or how this simple fact annoys so many people, but the number of "I was taking advantage of [insert ISP name here] by downloading 200GB/month and now they won't let me any more" posts I've seen is ridiculous.

To push an 8Mb connection to the max for a month costs your ISP well over £1000. hardly anyone will ever do this, of course, but that's the fact of it. ISP's can only exist if they are profitable. Everyone downloading more than a certain amount costs them money, so they have to limit their liability and protect their revenue using the least annoying technologies around, like traffic shaping, throttling and capping.

Live with, folks, or pay your £50+/month to get a truly unlimited service. Mine costs me around £65. It's worth it.

You're missing the point, which is one of false advertising, not one of the service. You can't ( well apparently you can, but you shouldn't be able to ) advertise one thing, and provide another.

Besides, if they can't afford to provide the service, they should increase the charges, and offer to provide their cut-down service at the price point you signed up with. That way, they'd be being open and honest. The reason they don't do it is because they know how many would leave if they were open and honest.

It amazes me that ISP get away with offering 'unlimited' broadband, but state in the small print (font size: 0.1) that it isnt actually unlimited and a 'fair usage' policy applys!

Gabs, get on to Watchdog! ;D

Dabz

In fairness, I pay £45 a month for a service that was until now unlimited. So until last week I was the smart/smug one.

I've spoken to Virgin over the capping and it seems a very important point was ommitted from their press release, although I could not get the customer services guy to provide specifics so i'm still dubious of the claim - but I was informed that the users who are packet shaped are those who go over the 3gb limit consistently.

This I can accept. I go over 3gb regularly, but not consistently, and i'm told i'm not in the top 5% that they've targetted.

My main concern now is, following the recent Virgin television fiasco, that Virgin are going to introduce more cuts in the future. We'll see on that one.

My local BT exchange is still ADSL1, so I can only get 8mbit broadband with 256kbit upload - so for now i'm sticking with Virgin.