All cable customers

[Jonny2Bad]

Ive been wondering why my cable is so slow lately, did you all know that virgin are capping high users at peak times and cutting them down to 1mb download. https://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/i ... affic.html (https://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html)
Its called traffic management, not impressed at all!!! So all you mad downloaders like myself thats why your connection seems slow.

[DarrenT]

You think that's bad, i'm on their ADSL service, I downloaded 7GB during their peak period last week, i'm now stuck on an 80kb line for the rest of the week, so i may as well go back on dial up. When I phoned to complain, they said that the limit is 5Gb a week. So Virgin Unlimited = <5Gb
And I still have 9 months of my contract left to run. :x

[djpc]

tbh if you are downloading tonnes you are slowing everone else down which is why they cap you if you are downloading tonnes it is also to stop you downloading illigal movies and games!

[Jonny2Bad]

You think that's bad, i'm on their ADSL service, I downloaded 7GB during their peak period last week, i'm now stuck on an 80kb line for the rest of the week, so i may as well go back on dial up. When I phoned to complain, they said that the limit is 5Gb a week. So Virgin Unlimited = <5Gb
And I still have 9 months of my contract left to run. :x
Oh dear m8 that is really bad, I know what you mean about going bk too dial up, its sooooooo slooooowwwww.

[matz]

i think i am at 2mb but my dads being saying since we got the tv package we get 4mb but im sure im only geting 2mb connections of around 260kbs

[Chewie]

meh, considering my router frequently needs rebooting (1-2 times a day if i've been downloading stacks of stuff) i havent really got any grumbles about mine.

But then, £10 a month with no dl caps and a 16mb line (highest dl rate was 1.41mb/s) SKY ftw!!!!!!!!

:lol:

[DarrenT]

DJPC - 7GB is hardly 'tonnes' especially when you specifically chose a provider who listed itself as being unlimited whilst everyone else showed cap limits. If Virgin had displayed 5Gb caps on their website, i wouldn't have gone with them. I don't download illegal games or movies, I'll pass their ridiculously low cap limit if I download a single Hi-Def movie via XBox live. The Bourne Conspiracy demo on PSN was 1.7Gb, that's a single demo that takes nearly half my weekly limit, my girlfriend uses 4oD, how much do you think she uses every time she watches a single episode of aTV show on that? If they had listed their caps prior to puchase, i'd be fine with it, but they said only the top 5% of users would be managed. In phone calls with them the last three days, they say this isn't true and anyone using more than 5Gb is managed, it's false advertising, it's against their own terms and conditions. Am I annoyed - Yes. Do I download illegaly - No. Is a management scheme of which due to BT lines actually gives me a connection speed of less than 80k ridiculous - Yes. I'm seriously considering just cancelling and paying whatever charge they put on it for the last 9 months just to get with a decent provider who doesn't lie to their customers.

[Ben]

meh, considering my router frequently needs rebooting (1-2 times a day if i've been downloading stacks of stuff) i havent really got any grumbles about mine.

If your using an old Linksys router, a DD-WRT Firmware upgrade will sort this. :wink:

[Jonny2Bad]

Yeah I dont blame you Darren it is a little much imo. I think i would do the same cancel let them sing for their money for a while and get a diferent isp.

[djgandy]

This has been in effect for ages. Just download over night or outside of 4pm-9pm

[Jonny2Bad]

This has been in effect for ages. Just download over night or outside of 4pm-9pm
Lol I didnt know, I thought it was just virgin having a rubbish service half the time lol.

[matz]

guys im not very good at reading, im in C target group for english :)

im on virgin media and i think its 2mb package, what would i have to download a day for me to have my connection 50% smaller on peak?

[Jonny2Bad]

guys im not very good at reading, im in C target group for english :)

im on virgin media and i think its 2mb package, what would i have to download a day for me to have my connection 50% smaller on peak?
1gig from 4-9pm

[Chewie]

meh, considering my router frequently needs rebooting (1-2 times a day if i've been downloading stacks of stuff) i havent really got any grumbles about mine.

If your using an old Linksys router, a DD-WRT Firmware upgrade will sort this. :wink:


No ben, its a Netgear DG834GT UK with sky firmware which there isnt (as far as i know) an upgrade for, and overwriting it with a netgear normal DG834GT upgrade will likely bollix it up enough that i will no longer be able to connect at all.

Before i Joined sky (when i was still with Bulldogg) i bought a Dg834N and WB511B N PCMCIA adaptor (from novatech for £100!!!! as a bundle), which was great, but when i joined sky (under the provisio that i could still use my router) i found out that there was no way to configure my N router to get online with the sky system.

Bt uses one type, bulldogg(now pipex or whoever) uses LLU (local loop unbundling) over bt network (eg, they fit their own rackmount switch gear into the bt exchange and you route into that then back out again rather than through the bt switchgear) and sky uses a 3rd type, which is all in the actual PPPoE ip's etc(and their own switchgear in the exchange).

And i just couldnt program the N to logon because the Sky equipment is coded to talk etc through certain channels automatically with no need to get set up.

Still, it seems to have become more stable of late.

[Chewie]

guys im not very good at reading, im in C target group for english :)

im on virgin media and i think its 2mb package, what would i have to download a day for me to have my connection 50% smaller on peak?

Absolutely nothing...its a service limitation because they cant handle the peak online loads.

Think of it like this...

cable is this size,
__________________
------------------>
<----------------
___________________

when they began service it could cope with the load placed on it.

It now needs to be this size
_______________________
--------------------->
--------------------------->
<------------------------------
<------------------------
-------------------------->
<-----------------
_______________________

but its still

__________________
------------------>
<----------------
___________________

and so they have to limit the amount of load placed in order to ensure everyone who wants some actually gets some, just not as much as they'd like.




Kinda like pre-marital *** and post-marital *** (or post-kids ***) :lol: :wink:

[Chewie]

Could be worse though, a colleague at work is from S.Africa, and from what he told me when hje came back a few months ago after taking his new gf to meet his parents, he'd had several power cuts, because their infrastructure just couldnt handle the peak demands.


So they'd switch off whole towns for hrs at a time just to prevent their cables from burning out.

So be glad that Virgin havent had to go that far........




yet!

:mrgreen:

[djgandy]

The caps are to stop heavy downloaders. It's fair. As they've said a small amount of users account for most the traffic.

Something like the top 5% of downloaders account for 95% of traffic.

[Coops]

Yeah there traffic management has been there for ages and to be quite honest i don't think i've ever been hit by it. Certainly not that i noticed.
But as already said just don't download huges amounts during the hours they are limiting traffic. Costs a lot of money to replace there infrastructure so they are just finding ways to make there service fair for everyone especially at peak times like when everyone gets home from school or work.

[Jonny2Bad]

The caps are to stop heavy downloaders. It's fair. As they've said a small amount of users account for most the traffic.

Something like the top 5% of downloaders account for 95% of traffic.
I must be in that 5% then , i'm special lol

[djpc]

It is not hard to do just around 1gb a day would put you in the top 5% as most only surf or do light dowloading or video streaming

[matz]

video streaming does alot mate :)
well lately ive been downloading alot of music albums since new harddrives and ipod :) but yeah in S.Africa my trainer is from the capital i think and hes a nice bloke tells us some stories 8)

[system7]

video streaming does alot mate :)
well lately ive been downloading alot of music albums since new harddrives and ipod :) but yeah in S.Africa my trainer is from the capital i think and hes a nice bloke tells us some stories 8)
The penny's dropped. When my internet slows to a crawl, it's because bandwidth hog matz is online... :evil:

Just kidding, matz. :lol:

[matz]

haha yes i have been abit of a hog lately :P due to albums i want :P and some games, me and dude are downloading grid :)

[JDowdall]

god, buy the flippin game! Like me and jonny model citizens! oh wait i think jonny did 2 hmmm...

[Jonny2Bad]

Dont bother dl it mine took ages so i bought it in the end, lol

[matz]

yeah mine is taking ages, Johnny copied his :P looks like i will buy it and hope i get mine on tuesday :)

[Asce]

I got my copy :D

[fynn]

how long did you wait to get it after it appeared, i waited a few days and then got in about 3 hours :D :lol:

[Asce]

I went into Game today and bought it for £30, could have gone to Play.com and saved £5 but i was already in town.

[TheMadDutchDude]

Same here buddy, although my dad paid for it :) I traded in some of my games for my XBox and I used that cash to buy the game for the PC instead :) Brilliant game once you get in to it!

[Asce]

I use it like bumper cars. If i cant slow down in time, use the rear of their car :twisted:

[JDowdall]

asce u do realise that is what is wrong with the game? lol

[TheMadDutchDude]

I don't play that to race around without crashing, I see who I can hit the hardest.. backfires at times but it is great :D

[Asce]

asce u do realise that is what is wrong with the game? lol

No its the fun part of the game.

[TheMadDutchDude]

Exactly my point Asce, thanks for telling him :D

LOL I don't think that it is unfair that you get capped at all, you download during the day making the net slower for people (fair enough I did it for a week straight and haven't been capped :D) So I think you deserve to be capped so you have it slow as well, the speeds pick up after 6PM again I believe the time is and at 6AM they restrict you.

So if you want to download whilst restricted, leave your computer on overnight and do it that way :)

[mattk]

i knew they dropped speeds at peak times but to 1mb? nah

im on 20MB and at peak times (if i have downloaded over 5gb) it drops to 10mb. after 02:00 it picks up again.

[TheMadDutchDude]

You only got 5GB of bandwidth? That must suck badly LOL UNLIMITED FTW!

[Jonny2Bad]

i knew they dropped speeds at peak times but to 1mb? nah

im on 20MB and at peak times (if i have downloaded over 5gb) it drops to 10mb. after 02:00 it picks up again.
If you go over your quota from 4pm till 9pm they drop it too 1mb says so on the virgin website, they are also sending out letters to big downloaders now apperently.
http://www.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management.php

[matz]

An example of how this works is that if a broadband size M customer downloaded 500MB of data between 4pm and 9pm, their speed would be temporarily managed with their download speed set to 1Mb and their upload speed to 128Kb for 5 hours.

it halfs it, because thats a quote from M size (ME) not other ones for example

[JDowdall]

Lol look how rediculous this is! well done 02!! thats all i can say http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/07/07/o2_twice_as_fast_as_uk_broadba.html#more

[TheMadDutchDude]

Nice, SKY is great too I have to admit, I have downloaded over 50GB last month and I didn't get capped, my brother was downloading as well. We where playing online which is known to use around 2 - 4GB per week (depends how much you play!) so that doesn't help either. I reckon I used around 80GB easily last month! And I have not been affected by it at all :)

Me and my brother both have XBox360's and we both go online an awful lot, so I guess SKY's unlimited is really unlimited :D

[JDowdall]

my mate has sky and he has had fricking loads of problems with it! I think its mainly where you live and your usage patterns

[TheMadDutchDude]

Depends mate, I have used it an awful lot, since I have been signed up to them which is about.. three months now? :| I have downloaded well over 200GB and not one slow down, at one stage I was going at nearly double the speed that I normally get haha. I wish I had faster net though, could do with 500KB/s plus!

[JDowdall]

what speed should you be on?

[TheMadDutchDude]

Well I am on 2.5MB/s giving me on average 230 - 250KB/s to be honest I never really go below that unless my brother is online at the same time. I was sucking over 400KB/s out of my system yesterday.. not bad ayy? :)

[JDowdall]

no what speed do you pay for!

[TheMadDutchDude]

Alright.. dude calm down :D

I pay for the 16MB package but I can only receive 2.5MB out of it :( and it is also only £10 a month so can't complain!

[JDowdall]

lol alrite then cos i was sayin i sumtimes get 700kb/s off peak and im on 8meg :D

[TheMadDutchDude]

700MB/s .. LOL.......................

[JDowdall]

im pro, what can i say!

[TheMadDutchDude]

LOL nahh :P just a type-o there buddy ;)

[Jonny2Bad]

Alright.. dude calm down :D

I pay for the 16MB package but I can only receive 2.5MB out of it :( and it is also only £10 a month so can't complain!
It a big con, bt lines cant carry anymore than 8mb so if your on a bt line thru sky or any of those they cant deliver 16mb with the current technology, shouldnt be allowed really!!

[TheMadDutchDude]

I suppose so Jonny. To be honest with you we were all meant to be getting upgrades to the phone lines.. doesn't look like it has happened :(

I want to use my speed up... or at least be connected at 4MB/s so I get half of what my line can connect at.. LOL also, why am I connected 1.4miles away from my house when there is an exchange box less than 300metres away from me?