Author Topic: Virgin Media Misleading Customers - Throttling Universal (Read 2838 times)

GhostShip · « **on:** April 06, 2008, 11:31:12 am »

This report makes for a sorry inditement of Virgins throttling activities, the empirical facts dont match up to their claims.

http://blog.p2pvine.com/to-virgin-media-we-the-customers-dont-like-traffic-jams-either-05042008/#comment-5409

Quote

Virgin Media’s Traffic Management Policy advertised as “We don’t like traffic jams” is rendering normal Internet use in 2008 for customers virtually unusable between the hours of 4PM to 9PM. Being a Virgin Media customer myself i thought it was about time we covered Virgin’s Traffic Management Policy and showed exactly why the imposed limits are unrealistically low for a major percentage of their customer base.

There are some crucial inaccuracies in virgins own description of their traffic management policy.

Virgin state “Your speed won’t be moderated unless you’re in the top 3% of users (up-loaders and down-loaders)“.
Thia is a completely untrue and misleading quote as feedback on the web from customers suggests that virgin limit all customers who hit their transfer limit during the hours of 4PM till 9PM and not just the top 3% as stated. Our testing over a two week period would seem to confirm these reports of limiting being applied to everyone across the board an not just the top 3% of excessive use customers.

We are hitting the same problem as the US has, the networks consumer base is growing faster than the companies had calculated and with this influx of users continually joining and no real extra funding put aside to handle the increased traffic we are seeing the familiar tricks employed by over subscribed networks, the cure is of course reinvestment in infrastructure, having recently been sold to a venture capital group who will be looking at taking profits out rather than reinvesting we can look forward to more complaints of this activity.

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #1 on:** April 06, 2008, 01:28:38 pm »

Maybe it varies by area.. because the above is not my experience, as a light to moderate user i can't say i've seen my speed throttled at any time

GhostShip · « **Reply #2 on:** April 06, 2008, 09:42:16 pm »

Thats not what the guy says in his report but then I,m in no position to check that myself, not being a Virgin Customer.

If anyone has time perhaps they can do some testing themselves to see if its just torrents being hit like this by utilising the Gemini throttling detection system I reported on some time last week or even the one Tiny posted about thats far simpler.

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #3 on:** April 07, 2008, 12:37:52 am »

I just spoke from my experience as one of their customers, I'm not a user of torrents, or very rarely, just havn't seen those things I do use (primarily winmx) affected.

TheMacDaddy · « **Reply #4 on:** April 07, 2008, 12:02:47 pm »

I am a user of torrents and Winmx (for uploading only)
I am also a Virgin customer on the higest package
I do get capped at around 5 to 6 meg download and 30kb/s on most days
I do find however that if i do not dl anything at all betwwen the hours of 9 am to 5 am then my speed DOES NOT get capped for that evening
I also found out (by testing my connection only) that after 12 pm my speed gets uncapped again
On the down side i play a game called Unreal Tournement 2004 online
This game dls alot of maps for the game your joining (all games are hosted on high speed servers hence fast dl speeds)
If i play my game between 9am and 12 pm then i still get capped even if i dont use torrents or WinMx at all

I will allow you all to decied if this is fair or not
Myself personally i dont feel i should be capped for playing a game which i own and is not a copy game.....

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #5 on:** April 07, 2008, 01:02:11 pm »

Whoever made this report in the first place needs to brush up on their English, virgin state users hitting the defined limits will have their speed moderated. This is exactly what happens, no surprise to anyone who can read....

They also state that hitting these limits MAKES you statistically one of the (approximately) top 3% of uploaders/downloaders (the other 97% don't hit the limit & trigger it) there is NO inconsistency here.. nor any misleading of anyone

As one of the 97% (almost always) I can state categorically that since I don't get my speed moderated it CANNOT by definition be "universal".

GhostShip · « **Reply #6 on:** April 07, 2008, 05:29:48 pm »

Perhaps you could point us all in the direction of the page stating all their terms and conditions Bearded as finding it was another of this guys complaints.

..Ñøßß¥.. · « **Reply #7 on:** April 07, 2008, 06:39:46 pm »

http://www.virgin.net/terms/broadband_tc.html

that it?

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #8 on:** April 07, 2008, 07:27:48 pm »

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html was undoubtedly the page he referred to.. "hidden" on a big tab labelled "Need to Know" under the cunningly disguised link "Traffic Management" ....

If the higways agency told me they would fine that % of drivers who drive past their speed camera over the speed limit.. & i tested this by doing so repeatedly.. it would be just as daft for me to claim "All Drivers Fined! Highways agency cheats" as his claim is.. as my testing methodology would have the same basic (and blindingly obvious) flaw...

TheMacDaddy · « **Reply #9 on:** April 07, 2008, 07:38:39 pm »

Just a side note here (as my post seems oddly enough to be overlooked)
As i stated i get capped when using torrents or Winmx (my own fault i know)
But what about when i dont use torrents or Winmx AT ALL ???
I STILL get capped......
How do i get into the top 3% when i aint using any speed of any sort....
I even tested this by not using torrents or Winmx or even Unreal Tournement 2004 for 7 days
And low and behold to my suprise (NOT) i still got dam capped and that was with just browesing internet pages....

I feel theres more to this then meets the eye...
Its all well and good beleiving everything writen on a web page is the law for that company,but trust me not all of this info is 100% true......

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #10 on:** April 07, 2008, 08:28:08 pm »

you may have other problems Mac .... generally shitty connections are far from unheard of on virgin, especially in some localities... i never said they were perfect.. just that picking on them for doing "exactly what it says on the tin" is somewhat unjustified

TheMacDaddy · « **Reply #11 on:** April 07, 2008, 08:59:30 pm »

Beared you must not really know me to well....
I am very pc savvy and know my way around a pc and internet connection very well also (i have even done collage courses on these sort of items also)
I know for a fact that my pc has no known issues as in viruses or spyware of any sort...
I also know my pc is of a very high spec and can cope with any data transfer rates
I also know my pc's internet connection is optimized to its best settings...
I also run tests when my connection is capped to see if it is on there side or not (and yes i have phoned Virgin to see if there were any issues at said times).....
Please note that when i havent downloaded a single thing that my capping still runs from 5 pm to 12 am (with no exceptions)
And this was for the full 7 days.....

If it had have been my pc or on virgins side believe me i would of know why,where and what had caused it....

As i stated its not always best to believe all what is writen as being 100% correct

You see i tested my connection by NOT...going over the limit and by going to the other extream and not using any speed or gigs at all.....

There claims are flawed and i guess (and this is just a guess) i am not the only one with this issue.

Just as i side note

When my connection is not capped i can dl at very high speeds (sometimes upto 25 or 26 Meg) so i would guess your theory of a crappy connection is a little flawed there also.

GhostShip · « **Reply #12 on:** April 08, 2008, 12:08:03 am »

Whilst its obvious that services such as those sold by Virgin and other ISP companies would likely collapse and die if everyone demanded the full specs of the package they where sold that's hardly my concern, its up to an ISP how much they oversubscribe their service and to penalise existing users so they can oversubscribe even more to generate a fast buck will certainly not gain any sympathy from me or many others, we do after all pay for a full service and to have it nibbled away at stealthily is not something we should all sit back and take.

They have had our hard cash and we their customers deserve real infrastructural upgrades, spending a few million to keep existing levels the same as some ISP,s would like to continue doing is only acceptable to those paying for the lower levels of service.

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #13 on:** April 08, 2008, 06:37:58 am »

Ghost.. Virgin have spent millions on infastructure, this is why as a long term customer i get more than 6 times the speed i used to.. for the same money i used to spend, i'm sure they could have kept to offering 300k & done so in a manner that suits your notion of how things should be run.. personally i prefer having 2mb *most* of the time.. on average i get *rather more* for my money... especially considering that *even when traffic management has been triggered* my speed is *still* (over three times) faster than the original package to which i signed up....

They aren't selling a pig in a poke like most other ISPs do.. the management system & limits are clearly & publicly stated, unlike most dsl isps where you find out what throttling occurs for what apps, after you've signed up & only by observation. With a domestic isp you're buying contended (shared) bandwidth, this is an inescapable fact, if that's not what you want, other services are available where it isn't shared (at much higer cost)

I confidently predict, that should legislation or regulations be enacted forcing ISPs to deliver their headline maximum speeds 24/7 three things will happen:
1) they (meaning ISPs in general, not just Virgin) will abandon the fixed monthly charge buisness model completely in favour of the (much fairer) charge per GB model.
2) step one will result in a price increase for most users & a HUGE price increase for those few who routinely hit these limits.
3) you'll be bitching about the big & unpredictable bills, rather than speed variations.

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....

GhostShip · « **Reply #14 on:** April 08, 2008, 08:33:34 am »

What seems brushed over again and again is that even those on the top tier packages are being throttled, so its not exactly fair to parrot Virgins press releases and say your paying for the usage habits of such expected heavy users, its clear you are not.

Lets keep this really simple, when I go to the greengrocer and ask for 10lb of potatoes as advertised thats what I expect to obtain, Should I accecpt 6 lbs because you believe the guy behind the counters tales of others customers hogging the spuds ?

This analogy fits the bill a little easier, now who has my 4lb of potatoes if I,m not obtaining them ?

Clever old greengrocer

']['affy · « **Reply #15 on:** April 08, 2008, 08:41:51 am »

i was a customer of virgin but glad my contract was up b4 they started throttling. I was on the XL package and never had a problem with thier broadband services, only probs i found was there shoddy set top box which constantly updates and loss of recorded material and the bill at the end of the month, bills came close to £130 not bad considering the package was only supposed to have been £85 a month but then again £85 a month is still a heck of a a lot considering what other companies are providing these days like sky least there throttling aint as bad as virgins atm.

GhostShip · « **Reply #16 on:** April 08, 2008, 09:02:29 am »

I think it would be helpful to some folks if I point out at this stage that Virgin offer both a Cable service and an ADSL "Broadband" service, the two services are not the same and likely the usage policies are different.

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #17 on:** April 08, 2008, 01:58:03 pm »

Your greengrocer's analogy is flawed, you aren't (with any domestic isp) buying a particular fixed quantity of dedicated bandwidth, it's more akin to buying a bus ticket, it doesn't entitle you to all 76 seats.. if you want the whole vehicle, you pay the extra & get a taxi....

when it's quiet, nobody gives a stuff if you put your bag on the seat next to you & occupy 2 ticket holder's spaces, during rush hour, you better expect to move your excess baggage for other paying customers....
this is true if you get on the local bus that stops at every other lamp post, or pay for the "fast service" direct to your destination..

it's apparent that you'll never understand the concept of contended lines & shared service.. & given this, the sooner isps switch to charging by the GB the better... the sooner heavy users actually pay their way instead of freeloading off the lighter ones, the more i'll like it

Lagerlout666 · « **Reply #18 on:** April 08, 2008, 02:22:48 pm »

still being a wanker it seems. why cant a topic that is not only affecting virgin but half the isp's accross the world be disscussed and reported on correctly without some moron trying to belittle.

If ISP's sold thier packages by the GB then this post would be completly erelevant, but they didnt.
they sold us the packages we have as either UNLIMITED or 24MB and they fall well short of either of them, this is where this disscussion and report comes from, frustration at being miss sold something and most of us lied too before they admited to robbing you. because that is what it is, theft by deception. So go crawl back under your rock Merlin or bearded or what ever you want to call yourself and stop pissing everyone off, everything i read from you at the moment HAS to be the complete oposite of what anyone is going on about, its becoming tedious.

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #19 on:** April 08, 2008, 07:49:53 pm »

they didn't sell it as "no holds barred max it out all day & night" though.. they have a whole page there explaining exactly how they manage traffic.. right in public view... not hidden, not small print...

unlike many others who fail to mention it.. (although even most of those have the caveat "fair usage policy applies") and the point is actually about fairness... why *SHOULD* light users subsidise bandwidth hogs? i don't think we should.. these packages are sold as "up to NNmb" in any case not as being that all the time, go read the small print if you doubt me..

He wasn't robbed, read his report *carefully* yourself, he got treated EXACTLY IN ACCORDANCE with their stated policy AS STATED... if he chooses to enter legal contracts without reading them.. then he'll find lawyers have a technical term for him... "fool" he got what he bought, many other isps DO short change their customers in hidden & underhanded ways, when virgin do, feel free to call me names if i defend that.. in this case they havn't.. which makes the name you called me fit you far better than myself...