Virgin Media Resorts to P2P File Sharing Throttling

[p2p rules]

The practice of p2p throttling is back in fashion (as if it had ever disappeared).Virgin Media has announced its intention to throttle the bandwidth available to users of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing over its network.

The company said it will reduce the amount of bandwidth allocated to peer-to-peer protocols and Usenet traffic.

So far Virgin Media followed a 'fair use' policy under which it imposed no restrictions regarding the use of file-sharing, only penalizing those users who hog more than their share of bandwidth. The new policy will include these penalizations as well.

There will be variations of the restrictions on file-sharing and Usenet traffic dictated by the overall load on broadband provider’s network. Virgin also said at least 75 per cent of available bandwidth will be always set aside for ordinary browsing, as well as time-sensitive data such as streaming video.

p2p on

[DaBees-Knees]

So there's now a very real possibility that users will see 10 hours a day with a 75% reduction in speed. It looks like panic has set in at Virgin Media about their ability to be able to provide the capacity required for streaming. Needless to say, they have put the blame for that on p2p. It's about time that the regulator stepped in and had a rethink on just what is fair. A speed reduction of 75% for 10 hours a day, when you are paying for 24 hour use, isn't fair to users regardless of what criteria you use.  This freedom of ISPs to make the rules up as they go along without fear of any comeback is totally wrong.

[Bluey_412]

And how much content is being shoved online in the name of 'streaming'?

mebbe we could disguise our content as 'streaming'!