Virgin Media Misleading Customers - Throttling Universal

[TheMacDaddy]

The Way i see it is as follows
If you got 100 meg bandwidth to sell to users then you do not do either of the following

1.Ask 10 people to pay you for 20 meg each when you know full well that you will only be giving them (most of the time) 10 meg each
2.You dont tell users that if you only use 5 meg of your 20 meg that others will be able to use your spare bandwidth (even though you would still be paying for 20 Meg)

If you pay for 20 Meg and only use 5 Meg thats your choice
If you pay for 20 Meg and use 20 Meg thats your choice
If you both pay for 20 Meg yet the company only has 20 Meg to give then its the companys fault!!!!!!

Theres no two ways about it.

Also one last question i would like to ask you Bearded is as follows.....

WHY is it that i was still capped even when i didnt go over my alloted speed or gigs for the whole week i tested my connection ??

Is it that cus i did go over my speed and gigs the week before that i am to ALWAYS be classed as a high user ???

Just as a side note also

When i joined Virgin the contract i signed didnt claim anything about capping my speeds as they didnt do that back then
And to my full knowledge i never signed another contract with them since them which stated i would allow them to cap my speed....

[Bearded Blunder]

were you "capped" by the traffic management system? or were there issues at the ISP end of things causing your connection to run slowly?  if you were "capped" you have a case to complain to them & seek redress.. if it's other technical issues you have a case to get them to fix them.. you havn't proved that it's misapplication of traffic management merely by stating it twice, nor will stating it a third time prove it...

what you (as any isp does) with it's 100mb is this

you know that most of the time half the users will be offline
you divide the 100 between your 10 users at UP TO 20mb knowing that most of the time you can deliver it..
on those occasions when more of your customers are online than half.. you divvy it up as fairly as you can between them..

this saves you having to buy 200 (which isp would have to buy IN ADVANCE) & therefore having to charge all your customers double, regardless if it were used or not.. nobody has been cheated.. you never guaranteed 20.. most of the time your customers are delighted to be gettin 20 @ half price (if they're sane) .. a few with a medical condition i shall name "up to blindness" feel cheated....

presumably these same people get mad at Ford, when after driving like a lunatic on a 40 mile journey with a gallon of fuel they find they don't get all of the "up to 40mpg" that was advertised...

[]-[êll.Ôñ.ËÀR'][']-[.]

they didn't sell it as "no holds barred max it out all day & night" though

no but most isp sell it as unlimited ...... which to your average layman that would mean "no holds barred max it out all day & night"  if you wanted to as you would have paid a premium for this service compaired to a light users package.

these packages are sold as "up to NNmb" in any case not as being that all the time

If you ask customer services about this they will say depending on your line.... not depending on how much you use it... if when tested they tell you you can get 8 meg then you should always get this or they should compensate you for any shortfall afterall they are the ones quoting your speed.

the sooner heavy users actually pay their way instead of freeloading off the lighter ones, the more i'll like it

I am a heavy user and make no apologise for it.... why shouldn't i ...afterall i pay four times as much as my neighbour who is a light user,we all have the choice to pay more or less dependant on what we use so why when we pay more should we be throttled..... unlimited should mean that UNLIMITED. no ifs buts or smallprint should change that fact

[TheMacDaddy]

were you "capped" by the traffic management system? or were there issues at the ISP end of things causing your connection to run slowly?  if you were "capped" you have a case to complain to them & seek redress.. if it's other technical issues you have a case to get them to fix them.. you havn't proved that it's misapplication of traffic management merely by stating it twice, nor will stating it a third time prove it...

I dont need to say it a 3rd time  i already stated in a post before that i checked my pc and also PHONED virgin to see if there were any issues with my connection and was told no.

If you took the time to at least give me a little credit for having a little knowledge in this area or at least the time to read my posts you would of seen this.....

[Mytheroo]

Contention is rarely at the exchange these days, the trouble with the 'cheaper' DSL ISP's is them not buying enough backhaul from BTw.

From what I read they reckon the 3% figure is the erroneous one. If this figure is actually 50% would you have an issue with it Bearded?

The potato analogy is pretty lame to be honest, this is a contended service. You will notice however that none of the 'decent' ISP's offer an unlimited service (except Be Unlimited i guess, not sure if they have a fair-use policy)  and this is because they know to be profitable they would have to throttle...and this goes against their idea of a 'quality' product.

Saying ok you get 8mbit most of the time but when it is busy you may get 1mbit is just not accurate with the 'cheaper' or bundled ISP products, time and time again we hear that the maximum ever attained is like 2mbit (4am) and during peak you are lucky to get 30kbps, or just everything times out.

For instance, my parents with 5gb/month Talktalk couldn't use their connection between 5pm and midnight most days because the login server was too busy to let them connect!!!  This is pure infrastructure mismanagement, and these things along with insufficient backhaul are what really shows.

My last point is, why have 24mbit when you are only allowed to do light browsing before being capped. A 100k webpage once a minute takes 0.25 seconds to load at 8mbit....are you really gonna notice the 0.16 seconds difference at 24mbit?

I agree with beardered that ISP's should actually set Gb limits on all their products and be done with it. These Fair Use Policies have never worked for the majority of customers (though maybe Virgin have actually quantified theirs..I haven't looked) because who decides what is fair?

[GhostShip]

The potato analogy is pretty lame to be honest, this is a contended service

Please feel free to show any ISP sales pages explaining this "contended Service" matter, I for the life of me have never seen one.

Unlike some ppl when I got to the store for 10lbs of potatoes thats what I want, not 5 or 12 just the ten I paid for, ignoring this simple anology merely demonstrates that yourself and Bearded are not simply the average ripped-off customers but ones who think the small print should cover misleading advertising.
I dont happen to agree that this is fair or honest practice neither do OFCOM, perhaps my simplicity is lost on those who have other ideas of what they are buying than that of the normal netizen.

[Mytheroo]

I think the contention ratio of 50:1 standard, 20:1 business, and 1:1 SDSL is well known amoungst techie savvy ppl, and having had my fair share of broadband companies I know I;ve seen it stated as 50:1 somewhere in the sales blurb each time I've signed up, and have seen products I couldn't afford at 20:1 and 1:1.  What isn't clear is where this contention lies... is it 'backhaul'  or the '190mbit central pipes' that we read about. Indeed, are thses two things one and the same?

If the grocer sign said ''Up to 10lb of potatoes (depending on how far your house is and the size of bag you brought)''  would that be more acceptable?

However, once your connection is stable at a 7150 bras profile for instance, I DO think it is reasonable for non-tech savvy ppl to think they should get that speed whenever they want on an unlimited service.

Personally, I dont mind the ''up to 8mbit'' stuff.  Most places do their best to explain the factors that can cause it to be less, but maybe the average for that ISP should be quoted too...sync AND throughput...so that the better ISP's can show off their investments in infrastructure

[Mytheroo]

I've just remembered that BTw are the ones who are no longer quoting contention ratios

[GhostShip]

My point is simply this : the majority of users are not tech savvy and read the biggest print on the page offering uber speeds and often the word "unlimited", to then state some technical items in the small print often also on an obscure page really is tantamount to misleading folks who are never going to receive such a service.

Are ordinary citizens now expected to become lawyers to hold a reasonable expectation of a fair deal simply explained in clear and concise terms at point of sale ?

I hope the answer to this is no.

[Mytheroo]

Well, it's hard to put myself in the mind of someone who doesn't know about it to be fair to myself, and I do agree to a point, but I don't think the ISP is to blame for the 'up to 8mbit' problem.  The BTwholesale ADSLMax product is an 'up to 8mbit' product. For non-LLU operators, they are merely a re-seller of that product provided by BTwholesale.

In analogy, I could buy a car with top speed 120mph and 0-60 of 8 seconds. Luckily almost all of us are savvy and techie enough in this field to not expect to travel at 120mph in all places and conditions, and to not achieve that 0-60 time on ice or gravel. The person selling the car knows it can do 120mph and 0-60 in 8 seconds, and until they meet the customer and find out where it will be driven I see no reason why those stats can't be stated.

I fully agree, however,  that the 'unlimited' stuff is wrong and should be quantified properly. You can be sure the companies offering this have a sweetspot of average monthly usage for the product, but they know they can make more money enticing ppl in and then throttling them, whilst lying about doing it or blaming customer equipment etc.  They just need to add a cap to each product and be done with it

[Mytheroo]

i pay my road tax too to use a shared resource (the roads), in the same way i pay my isp for a contended line, i don't expect to be able to drive at 70mph during rush hour when the roads are saturated by traffic, only "off peak", it would be unreasonable to expect the roads to be expanded to permit it...........  I'd have used water distribution as an analogy rather than roads.. but fortunately there the moderate users no longer subsidise the hogs, as they've gone to a metered system...................

at least when the isps do.. you might quit whining about how unfair it is that a minority aren't allowed to hog a finite resource at the expense of those who are more moderate.. the lighter users among us are already subsidising the heavier ones, it's a bit rich for us then to be expected to applaud when they whine we aren't subsidising them enough....

But I work in Milton Keynes, a town designed to flow the traffic, I can easily drive 60mph in rush hour, and if something happens there are 42 other routes home. That's because the infrastructure was designed for the traffic it was expecting.
Granted, it would be hard to add roads where traffic has grown over the years, but they try. It is, however, much easier to add network capacity...you simply pay BTw some more of the money that your customers have already given you. Alternatively, tell your customers that you are no longer offering unlimited 'petrol', but that you are only getting '10 gallons' a month from now on

[..Ñøßߥ..]

Well, i had reason to contact BT recently so i asked the question, just how unlimited is my unlimited account, the answer was "You account is automatically set to flag up after 50gig of usage in a month, at this point we may reduce your speed in line with our fair usage policy but your can continue to DL"

Personally, i have no issue with this, as i dont come anywhere near to 50gig a month, they get around the matter by advertising "up to 8meg" speed and unlimited DL, this means they WILL give you unlimited DLs but at a speed anywhere between 0.1 and 8meg. As i have never gone over 50gig im not in a position to comment on how much they throttle the speed.

I have to say overall BT is the best ISP i have ever had, the up time is excellent, speeds are always around the 6.5mb, which is the best available in my area, the only sore point is, its a little expensive, and as soon as my local exchange is upgraded i will be tempted by Skys new Max server, up to 16mb speeds and unlimited DLs for £10 a month, thats more than 50% cheaper than BT, anyone got this yet?

[..Ñøßߥ..]

i pay my road tax too to use a shared resource (the roads), in the same way i pay my isp for a contended line, i don't expect to be able to drive at 70mph during rush hour when the roads are saturated by traffic,

You rather shot yourself in the foot there bearded, the reason the roads are so congested is gross mismanagement of the taxes collected from motorists by our government, in fact our government seems to be brilliant at mismanaging everything they turn their hand too.

[Bearded Blunder]

I suppose really my main points are these:

Virgin are by no means the worst for potentially misleading even custoers who do little research about what they buy, unlike many others not only is the fact sppeds are moderated during peak hours public & available, but i know of no other major isp that states under what circumstances or to what degree this will happen...

The original report cited at the start of this thread misrepresents throttling as "UNIVERSAL" when they purposely set out to trigger it.. were i to test speed cameras this way, i would rightly be laughed at for accumulating multiple fines, by all the other drivers who go past without incurring them.

It's a fact of life this sort of moderation is required for any broadband service that is going to be affordable, the alternate of providing effectively dedicated lines to domestic customers would render fast service beyond everyone's pocket, i've no objection to requiring it's made clearer, however on *that* point, virgin stack up about the best of any isp i've encountered, the triggering criteria are stated, & you're permitted to continue to download (at still not too bad speeds) towards your cumulatively still unlimited grand total in the month.. most of the time with no restriction at all..

please compare that to the likes of tiscali.. who make no mention that they render p2p apps unuseable.. regardless if you use them lightly or heavily...

& myth, yes capacity can be increased (although there are cost implications) & here again virgin don't fare badly, they have a rolling program of improvements in capacity that has been running now for years.. i believe i mentioned my speed has been increased multiple times.. this continues...

Basically i think it was sensationalism, to pick a seriously flawed report, & use it to paint what is actually one of the better isp's as evil... there are plenty of REALLY villainous ISPs out there.....

[GhostShip]

Basically i think it was sensationalism, to pick a seriously flawed report, & use it to paint what is actually one of the better isp's as evil... there are plenty of REALLY villainous ISPs out there.....

Perhaps you have missed the many other reports of worrying ISP activity here and the same response from myself, multiple times ?

Please use the forum search function if you need to brush up on other reports.

[Lagerlout666]

I am a BE* Pro user. They advertise unlimited and i get unlimited, no throttling, no torrents/winmx blocking. I am very very happy with them, ive even sent them a email asking them to create another package higher priced as i feel like im robbing them.

What they push is true, now if they started saying they will add fair use, then ill be creating a thread like this complaing, Like i did when i was on BT. I was very happy with BT till last year when they started messing with torrent and winmx traffic. I was finding it nearly impossible to download or upload anything when i was paying for the "TOP" Business package. I have no issue with paying my way, but when i am paying for something i want what they advertised and what i think im paying for.

[Mytheroo]

Bearded? u on fixed 2mbit service?  If so your speed increases are due to BTw increasing the Wholesale product that Virgin (and non-LLU providers) re-sell. I had the same thing with Tiscali from 512 to 1024 to 2048.  However, I think BTw's invoicing to the ISPs changed sometime after that to cost the ISP for bandwidth (95% of peak?), and not just per central pipe or whatever it was before.

I have actually just read the report, and it is very flawed...Bearded is right. But it doesn't explain the issue MacDaddy is having, and maybe it's issues like this that were being cited as 'postings on the web' or whatever they called them.

I think Bearded is virgin's ideal customer, ppl need to realise they need to get the right ISP to match their net usage. At least Virgin publishes actual figures for their traffic management policy, and the testing in the report appears to confirm it working properly.

[Mytheroo]

Tiny, am trying to get Be* pro at new address, what is your line length and sync stats?

[DaBees-Knees]

It's strange how the law seems to allow ISPs to alter the terms of contracts as and when they see fit without notifying the customer. I have been a Diamond Cable/NTL/Virgin Media customer for many years. In that time I have never been directly informed that my contract has altered. It may be that I am expected to daily check the terms published on the ISPs site just in case they might have decided to have a change. In my original contract there was no mention of traffic management or limited use. I was just told I was being supplied with an unlimited service. I might add that great play was made of the UNLIMITED part specified in the terms and conditions as it was used as a selling point over other ISPs. I now wonder if I, like my ISP, am allowed to alter my side of the contract at will to allow for a reduction in payment as and when I see fit? I find it intriguing how ISPs define a contract to only allow them to alter terms as and when they want. Regarding a throttle, it's just an excuse for lack of investment. I am fairly lucky as I get a 40% reduction of bandwidth between 6.00pm and midnight each day. Others seem to fair far worse. My ISP thinks it can redefine the word "FAIR" anytime it likes so things could get worse in the future.