Author Topic: Virgin ISP - Throttling For All Users (Read 6834 times)

GhostShip · « **on:** May 09, 2007, 11:15:09 pm »

Another dirty trick played on users by a rather large UK ISP folks.

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

Quote

Virgin Media has quietly rolled out bandwidth throttling nationwide, after successful technical trials (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/21/blueyonder_gets_throttled/) in the North West, which the ISP says means a group of heavy users will sacrifice high speeds for the benefit of the majority.

Speeds on the cable network will be limited between 4pm and midnight for traffic which Virgin considers "potentially abnormal". Virgin says the top five per cent heaviest downloaders among its three million customers will be affected - about 150,000 broadband users across the country.
Virgin subscribers will not face restrictions on the amount they can download, but on the speed.

Customers on the "M" package will be throttled from 2Mb/s to 1Mb/s download speed and 128Kb/s upload once they have downloaded 350MB during the eight hour period. "L" subscribers will be allowed to run at full 4Mb/s speed until they hit 750MB, when downloads will be capped at 2Mb/s and uploads at 192Kb/s. Premium "XL" punters, paying £37 per month for 10Mb/s broadband, will be rationed to 3GB at full clip: anything more will come downstream at 5Mb/s and go upstream at 256Kb/s.

Virgin is in the process of upgrading the cable network for its top-paying subscribers to allow downloads at 20Mb/s. Theoretically, this speed would exhaust the 3GB limit in just 20 minutes.

Is'nt it great folks you pay your cash to an ISP and once again they stealthily change the terms and condition in their favour to deny you the service you paid for, I call them fraudsters and make no bones about it, I urge affected users to vote with their feet and go with a provider who delivers what they claim, many other forums are urging the same and if enough leave them, it may force a rethink.

Victim · « **Reply #1 on:** May 10, 2007, 12:59:49 am »

Omfg. I cant wait for them to cap me. Then they will soon know about it when i phone them up.

Omg. Thats it. I'm gunna phone em 2moro.

KM · « **Reply #2 on:** May 10, 2007, 03:01:26 am »

quietly?

whoever wrote that report clearly has no idea about things... years ago NTL had throttling, of the standard variety. when NTL and Telewest merged they started rolling out throttling equipment nation wide, publicly, never once denying it when asked

at least they are actually throttling in a way that makes sense, with luck other ISPs will see the sense and copy that throttling method. It is a fact that ISPs oversell bandwidth and can't actually deliver it (and anyone who claims they are paying for it, somehow i doubt you're paying the actual cost of even the bandwidth, let alone the cost of the ISPs infrastructure to get it to you - otherwise you wouldn't be on an ISP that has a reason to throttle)

Rather than like many ISPs which simply screw up p2p, making light p2p users suffer but heavy web users not suffer target the wrong people and ultimately don't do it too well

the method they are planning will only penalise those who use a lot of bandwidth during peak time, and will simply reduce their connection speed, to something which is still plenty fast enough for anything they would reasonably be doing on a shared connection during peak time - the only thing you couldn't do is heavy full bandwidth downloads during peak time, do those during the night when the shared bandwidth isn't needed by other users

I can only hope other ISPs copy their example and start doing that to penalise heavy users of all kinds by reducing their speed, instead of penalising light users for nothing while the users causing the initial problem continue to download at full speed using non-p2p methods

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #3 on:** May 10, 2007, 03:31:27 am »

* Bearded Blunder waits to see how it pans out in practice

KM · « **Reply #4 on:** May 10, 2007, 04:52:06 am »

in practice i think it should work very well - certainly it'll work much better for the customers than blanket bans like blocking p2p

of course they might find they have to adjust the values of the various parameters, either dropping the speeds a little (i expect they will drop the top limit a bit at least - dropping heavy users to 5Mbit probably won't have too much of an effect, they will just use a solid 5Mbit instead of 10Mbit) and they might adjust the data usage limit for being classed as a heavy user

they would probably be better off getting rid of the data limits, and simply slowing down all users during peak time (drop them to half speed straight away, instead of letting them max it out for a bit first) - i suspect the limit before capping goes in to effect is probably more to do with marketing than anything (if they say it's 5Mbit peak time and 10Mbit the rest of the time, they can't call it a 10Mbit connection - so they have 10Mbit all the time, with a limit during peak time)

Of course in practice they could find it doesn't work too well, however they have tested it in a couple of areas (can't remember where they were, but at least 2 areas had the system operating for tests) so i'd guess they have probably added up the relevant numbers and concluded that it works well enough

the exact figures they are using for data limits and the connection speeds to throttle to are purely made up and I fully expect those to change over time as they get more data from the system, however I think throttling the entire connection to a lower speed that is still fast enough to use reasonably is a much better option than the options of censoring specific protocols that most ISPs do

once they have implemented this and found it to work well for them you may even find other ISPs start to follow along the trend, instead of simply blocking p2p... which would be very beneficial. with a small ISP testing these methods of bandwidth management it would have little effect, but if an ISP that large tests it out and finds it to have good results then other ISPs are bound to listen and at least consider it as an alternative option when deciding to throttle

btw, for anyone wondering: yes, i am one of their customers, and plan to remain so

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #5 on:** May 10, 2007, 07:05:32 am »

i must admit i like the logic of it way better myself than the approach of targeting specific traffic from p2p apps, at least you're left with a useable connection at all times, for whatever purpose it is actually suits you to use it for

i too have no plans to change, though i arrived as a virgin media customer from the let's say "less good" isp when the merger happened, KM arrived having been with the good one

GhostShip · « **Reply #6 on:** May 10, 2007, 07:15:03 am »

To be honest I dont think you folks have any choice in the matter anyway as many ISP's are doing this same trick, changing is more a political statement than an actual useful ploy but the BBC reports they are churning more customers than ever before so its clear many customers are not happy.

As to the price of the service KM I think if a provider offers a service and set a price for that service then they should provide it, no one forced them to set prices up or down, the customer merely exercised their judgement to obtain the service that suited them and ISP's changing that service after taking folks cash for promised delivery of it over in most cases a 12 month minimum contract, is fraud in my book.

KM · « **Reply #7 on:** May 10, 2007, 02:12:13 pm »

they are providing exactly the service you are paying for, a shared connection... it is stated in many places it is a shared connection and not a dedicated line just for your use - that is why it is so cheap, and the handful of users who you see going around bragging about how they manage to slow everyone elses connections down by downloading 48 hours worth of video every day and stupid stuff like that need something done about them (yes, there are idiots like that, and they are the ones who actually cause the problems)

if you want a dedicated connection that you can max out 24/7 without effecting other users then you pay for one, but if you want a shared connection, you pay for that - I don't expect to get a dedicated connection when I specifically chose to pay the much lower price for a shared connection, and anyone who does expect a free upgrade to a dedicated connection is simply being greedy - if that's what you want, pay for it, don't go paying to share a connection with me then taking it all for yourself

as beardy mentioned i came in to the merger from the telewest side, unfortunately the NTL bosses are the ones who ended up running the show after the merger, and i'm not happy with the rest of the service which has dropped in quality since then, however this throttling I have absolutely no problem with because it's only what any reasonable person should already be doing themselves anyway - the fact they had to force it on to people simply shows how many people are unreasonable and don't do it themselves

Victim · « **Reply #8 on:** May 10, 2007, 03:23:47 pm »

Yes.. but im paying for unlimited broadband. So i hope they drop the price. :|

White Stripes · « **Reply #9 on:** May 10, 2007, 04:35:19 pm »

Quote

Yes.. but im paying for unlimited broadband. So i hope they drop the price.

'unlimited' to an ISP does not mean limitless... read the fine print of the contract....

Victim · « **Reply #10 on:** May 10, 2007, 04:55:30 pm »

I See. Scam Artists I See. (Virgin Media)

KM · « **Reply #11 on:** May 10, 2007, 05:05:12 pm »

you are paying for a dedicated connection?

that's news to me, i thought they only sold those under the NTL:Telewest business brand name and they cost a lot more, and had nothing to do with the virgin side or the throttling...

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #12 on:** May 10, 2007, 10:50:09 pm »

56K is generally *unlimited* too & in the same way, you can get as much data over it as conditions permit
They never anywhere claimed you'd actually get 10 meg or whatever, read closely it's "up to" ...
As KM said, these are shared connections.. off peak they might reach something close to the claimed potential max.. but that figure is very much an "ideal conditions" one & that's the same for any domestic isp
There *could* be a case for bitching to offcom, try to make them also quote a "typical" speed at 6pm or some other useful real world measure, all isps not just virgin
If you actually want that headline speed all the time, as KM said, you have to buy the very much more expensive buisiness package, with the dedicated line & service level agreement

GhostShip · « **Reply #13 on:** May 10, 2007, 11:45:38 pm »

Quote

If you actually want that headline speed all the time, as KM said, you have to buy the very much more expensive buisiness package

What about getting this speed some of the ime as no one i know gets anything like what they rave abouyt in their ad's.

I buy a can of soup and so do millions of other users KM does your logic mean when I buy the labelled soup with a price on it clearly marked and the quantity clearly marked I have to accept less depending on what time of day it is because the guy offering the soup has not made enough for his dinner hour of soup sales

They should provide what they claim, and unlimited should mean just that, its their job to set a realistic price for their services.

Victim · « **Reply #14 on:** May 10, 2007, 11:48:44 pm »

From Virgin Media.. To Soup..

:shock:

KM · « **Reply #15 on:** May 11, 2007, 12:01:08 am »

i've not heard of anyone reporting not getting the full rated speeds off peak in their cable areas... even in old NTL areas there are few users that don't get the full rated speed

the only people i know of who don't get the rated speeds off peak are those not in cabled areas who are on the virgin.net ADSL packages, which is a completely separate network and is just another reseller like the many others with the BT line and a maximum speed your line can handle etc - that side is run completely separately and they only really try to link them together for the branding

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #16 on:** May 11, 2007, 09:19:59 pm »

Ghost, the soup analogy is all well & good, but the situation is closer to 4 workmates ordering chips in a chip-shop.. 4 portions get wrapped together (& these *can* vary according to how many are there) & then those 4 open the paper & each grab chips as fast as they can.. the throttling in this case is more akin to banning one of them from using a shovel & leaving the others with one chip each...

anyhow the soup would be labelled "220ml" or whatever, not "UP TO 220 ml"

Do you also complain when some car maker does sums with the fuel consumption figure & quotes "UP TO 300 miles on a tank" & then after driving like a lunatic round the city streets you run out after 200 miles? Both the ISP & the car maker are quoting potential maxima, not real-world figures, & it pays anyone buying anything to watch for key words such as "up to" "potentilally" etc.

Victim · « **Reply #17 on:** May 11, 2007, 10:19:59 pm »

Virgin Media - Soup - Chips - Fuel

Scyre · « **Reply #18 on:** May 12, 2007, 02:45:51 am »

Well, I shall offer my advice to all of you:

If your chips are not as fast as they are advertised, and you are eating soup during peak hours, I think it is only fair that you complain to the guys who are responsible for rating the fuel economy, and if you have to, be a little pushy to get what you paid for.

As for the bandwidth, I don't know what to tell you... That's out of my league.

Best Regards, and Be Good!

Victim · « **Reply #19 on:** May 12, 2007, 01:12:06 pm »

LOL..