News - Virgin Media rolling out 152Mb broadband service

[rabbid]

However, I really do wish some website designers would remember we don't all have lightning fast connections, and loads of auto-playing embedded video, flash, etc, is a flaming nuisance. I find a site like that, stuffed full of adverts, I quit the site, don't bother looking there, and buy elsewhere.

Worst ones are the sites that are liberal with popup traps like AdChoices. Been to some US sites and it was like a game of minesweeper - you were concerned that moving the mouse out of the way would result in umpteen different (usually LOUD) popups. Behind those are the sites that popup a full page "registration" page or mandatory ad (like the ones that YouTube show) that you have to sit through to be able to see the page - and they carefully dim out and/or obscure the info that you were trying to look at.

Hexus went through a stage of AdChoice minefield - thankfully someone subsequently decided to cut it down to a much more reasonable level.

HOSTS files... various sources around, pick and choose ones that suit & you will block a lot of ads & popups, etc

Agree with Saracen there, not all of us have unlimited and/or high bandwidth. And even if we do, we dont want this junk thrown in our face.

Have had to use a mobile dongle recently (limited Gigabytes) whilst travelling and it really brings it home how large some pages and their garbage can be!

[rabbid]

So does this mean they can cut you off sooner for exceeding their hidden detrimental usage limits?!

Its all very well to have headline speed, as long as you can use it!

[crossy]

So does this mean they can cut you off sooner for exceeding their hidden detrimental usage limits?!
Its all very well to have headline speed, as long as you can use it!

Sorry for sounding like a VM apologist - but you're way off the ball there. According to "Your guide to traffic management (30Mb or higher)" and "Thresholds" you'd only get traffic shaped if you UPLOAD more than 2.25GB/hour over peer-to-peer or newsgroups.

Note two items - first off, according to VM they don't hit your DOWNLOAD speeds at all; secondly to get hit you need to be using either P2P or newsgroups. Only downside of this is if you were using some kind of cloud-based remote backup system, Carbonite etc - then (I guess) you might get regarded as doing P2P and get "shaped".

Personally speaking that looks like a pretty reasonable set of "restrictions" to me - being selfish I'd be really peeved if I couldn't download a BF game update because you were P2P'ing the contents of your video library. I'll slag them (VM) off where they deserve it - crappy V+ boxes, dire SuperHubs, restricted coverage, etc - but in this case I think you're being unfair and they've got it right.

By the way, I contacted VM about being traffic shaped last year, and was told that I've "not been restricted in more than two years, so if I'd got "issues" then it was probably a hardware fault. Would I like an engineer visit?" And sure enough, it turned out to be a faulty connector. And there was me on my soapbox about how they wouldn't let me use the service I'd paid for, blah, blah...

[Unique]

^ VM do have, or at least did have a FUP with an "undisclosed" limit, which you can find if you do a bit of googling, but it was a pretty high limit and only measured during the VM peak times (the times you could get shaped). and if you broke the limit you got a letter, and would only get d/c if you just ignored that 2 or 3 times however i doubt many people were in that boat and those who were would probably just move downloading to off peak. i recall hearing about someone who downloaded something like 150gb in an afternoon and got a warning letter. just a warning, no d/c. but 150gb during peak time in a single day is a lot and few people, even hardcore downloaders would get that much in a day. offpeak apparently VM don't care how much you download

[PeteBest]

Yep, downloads are great with Virgin. Sadly their upload speed is complete rubbish, just moved from VM 60/3 to Plusnet FTTC. Sick and tired of the already slow 3mbps upload being reduced by 65% if I upload pretty much anything.

It doesn't matter if you're uploading to newsgroups or p2p, they've got two sets of TM in place, one if you go over limits and another that's permanently on for p2p/ng access during peak hours. Check the VM forums out for the amount of people complaining about twitch not being able to maintain a 720p stream due to the upload triggering TM

Sure, I could upgrade to their 120mb package at Virgin, but that's a lot more cash. Over 18m the plusnet FTTC works out £100 cheaper than the 60mb package at virgin, and I'll have 4-5 times faster uploads with no traffic management to worry about

[Taurolyon]

I'm getting around 3-5 MBps for $74.99 USD (or £44.90). I'm envious of the internet speeds available across the pond.