Virgin throttles broadband for high-speed customers

[williammorris]

I guess this means that Sky will attract even more heavy downloaders as they launch the SBUF product in 9 days.

Sure some people across the country have experienced issues on occasions with Sky, resulting in their connection appearing to be fine, but where the backhaul has slowed their throughput down, but at least Sky keep improving things.

For anyone who downloads new games, streams video content to their TVs, iPads, updates their computers or streams content from their home to where ever they may be on the planet, Virgin is going to be a killer. When it comes to having multiple people connected at the same time (i.e. partner & children) who also add a high usage, BTW and VM just cannot cope.

I'm sorry, whilst the UK average may be 17GB per month, the figure is growing exponentially and will more than double that in a couple of years. Remember that 'average' means that there will be people who will download considerable more, whilst some will continue to hardly do anything.

A Blu-Ray disc contains over 40GB. Should someone wish to download a full 1080p movie, then they can easily go over the 7GB limit allowed during the daytime, for example.

Looking at Anytime+. The first movie listed at the moment is 'The 13th Warrior'. This movie is 98 minutes long and will consume 3.17GB in HD. Further down this list is 40 Days and 40 Nights. This 91 minute film will consume 3.29GB.

Anyone who has two people (which IMHO in a large household is very likely) watching two separate movies on-line at the same time, something a fast connection should be able to cope with, is going to find their connection regularly slowed down.

Fear not princess..

I am doing 400GB a day between midnight and 8am in the hope they will disconnect me

Therefore my usage on Sky will be light for the moment - but even when it's not and I am done with VM I will only be doing 30-40GB a month. I download on VM for the sake of it because I can. (and because I hate the Vermin!)

Sky? I have masses of respect for

[Ipster]

We all talk about broadband speeds (me included) but besides the ISP's restricting speed don't forget the only true way for us to take advantage of any fibre product is by having equipment thats allows the service to work as it was intended. Its great have 100megs or even 40 if onces it hits your home your modem/router then slows it down. Then of course you need to have a computer with the right type of wifi or ports... and finally the website you are visiting also needs to have good servers.

But I do worry all those heavy downloaders will all jump ship to sky, it will be hard and interesting to see how sky to manage how people use their network without restricting speeds and without applying restrictions to certain websites.

[williammorris]

We all talk about broadband speeds (me included) but besides the ISP's restricting speed don't forget the only true way for us to take advantage of any fibre product is by having equipment thats allows the service to work as it was intended. Its great have 100megs or even 40 if onces it hits your home your modem/router then slows it down. Then of course you need to have a computer with the right type of wifi or ports... and finally the website you are visiting also needs to have good servers.

But I do worry all those heavy downloaders will all jump ship to sky, it will be hard and interesting to see how sky to manage how people use their network without restricting speeds and without applying restrictions to certain websites.

I can't speak for others but for me rest assured it's only on VM's network. I don't use my sky connection much apart from lastnight when I did 5GB overnight.

[NewsreadeR]

I am doing 400GB a day between midnight and 8am in the hope they will disconnect me

Hypothetically, if I were an ISP I would boot you off, but I am not, so fill your boots.

[FelixTCat]

I do love all this knocking of Virgin. I was on Sky and later O2 LLU. I was overjoyed to receive a massive 2.5 Mb/sec downstream rate. I could download a film in, oh, several hours. I changed to Virgin Cable with only a 30 Mb/sec downstream rate, doubling to 60 in July. If I really hammer the connection, I will be cut back to ONLY 30 Mb/sec for being a naughty boy. That's if I download or upload 10 GB in the morning or only 5 GB (more than I HD film) in the afternoon. Note I will STILL be downloading at 30 Mb/sec, 10 times the maximum I ever managed before. The previous traffic management policy cut my speed to a quarter; now it is only to a half.

I joined Virgin through Quidco and had a £150 cashback, so it costs peanuts. When they put the price up recently (by ~£1.50 per month) I complained and was offered a reduced rate of £23 per month instead of £28.

You can have your Sky FTTC since you have to have a Sky telephone line with its very expensive calls. Even with talk Unlimited and rental pre-pay it's no cheaper than BT.

There; I've taken a tablet and I'm beginning to feel better already.

Regards,

Felix

[Scubbie]

We'll forgive you Felix.


...but with that saving, the next round on Friday is on you.

[williammorris]

I do love all this knocking of Virgin. I was on Sky and later O2 LLU. I was overjoyed to receive a massive 2.5 Mb/sec downstream rate. I could download a film in, oh, several hours. I changed to Virgin Cable with only a 30 Mb/sec downstream rate, doubling to 60 in July. If I really hammer the connection, I will be cut back to ONLY 30 Mb/sec for being a naughty boy.

Are you sure about that mate?

I've just tested the STM. I got to 8.9GB after not downloading a single thing on it today.. And then I was put onto the "badboy pipe" - that's fine I hear you say , I will get 50% so 50mbps I hear you say.

I wish!

I went from 108.2mbps to 4.1kbps!

Yes you saw that right..

NOTHING works.. even Google has timed out. Luckily for me I have a slower but more reliable SUB connection to fall back on.

On the advise of a trade description solicitor in our firm I have self terminated the contract pending VM's contact to discuss. This is a massive change of policy and therefore customers have the right to leave.

[williammorris]

Hypothetically, if I were an ISP I would boot you off, but I am not, so fill your boots.

But if it was Gednet I wouldn't do such a thing. It's driven by hate for a company who simply sells BS and then changes the rules.

[FelixTCat]

I went from 108.2mbps to 4.1kbps!

Are you suggesting that this is solely due to their fair use policy? Really?

[FelixTCat]

We'll forgive you Felix.


...but with that saving, the next round on Friday is on you.

Sorry, Scubbie. Alcohol and tablets don't mix.

. . .

Having thought about that, I'll stop taking the tablets.