Once again we return to the sorry tale of Virgin Media. A company that offers video services on demand, strangely now finds itself unable to deliver the service it get's paid for by its customers, truly amazing.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/29/virgin_media_daytime_restrictions/Virgin Media will double the number of hours it throttles the bandwidth of customers who hammer its network day and night, changes to its traffic management policy have revealed.
The tightened regime means that between 10am and 3pm subscribers to its "M", "L" and "XL" packages will have their connection throttled for five hours if they download more than their full speed ration
The decision follows recent regional testing of extended restrictions in London and the North West. Previously the brakes were only slammed on for five hours if limits were exceeded at any point between 4pm and 9pm.
Now, "M" customers who bust 900MB during the day will have their theoretical maximum download halved from 2Mbit/s to 1Mbit/s. "L" and "XL" users' usual headline speeds of 10MBit/s and 20MBit/s will be slowed by three quarters if they break daytime download limits of 2400MB and 6000MB respectively.
A spokesman said the new rules are necessary to ensure quality of service for the majority. The move will nevertheless anger some who have been tricked into believing that "unlimited" broadband actually exists by years of crummy marketing by the ISP industry.
Yet another case of "moving the goal posts" once the have suckered in plenty of people on long contracts, nice touch Virgin
If they had actuall plowed a little more cash into their infrastructure they would not need to be making it an "our content" or "your content" network, this is the true root of the problem and it seems virgins investors are not known for their generosity, although in this case it is a sound investment.
