LinkBack URL
About LinkBacksno.Originally Posted by revol68
indeed, which is why I (& I suspect mehmeh) can't understand why you don't get it ...Honestly it isn't complicated.
no.
indeed, which is why I (& I suspect mehmeh) can't understand why you don't get it ...Honestly it isn't complicated.
Your 'point' and what you said are very different. In one post you said one thing, in the next another.
Got any proof for that? AFAIK, they instantly throttle you when you hit the limit, regardless of if you're in the top 5% (which would be very hard to calculate for data constantly being exchanged)
From hereWhat traffic management policies are you applying to the heaviest users?
That depends on the broadband package you're signed up to. You can check out the detail by taking a look at our 'Updated traffic management policy' table below.
It's important to remember that these traffic management policies only apply when the speeds are likely to be affected by people using more than their fair share.
In fact, the policies only affect the top 5% of users on a daily basis - those whose usage of the service would affect other users if they weren't managed.
"The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being." Karl Marx
they throttle/bandwidth manage but don't cap ...
Can you seriously not see how your wording;
Implies that the not advertising on the basis of being uncapped but rather as unlimited is predicated on them having run it past the lawyers and that would imply that they would be on less solid legal ground if they did advertise it as uncapped.VM don't advertise uncapped they advertise unlimited - there is a difference & I'm sure that you will find that VM have run it past the legal bods.
"The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being." Karl Marx
Typo - corrected
That doesn't backup what you're saying.
In fact it makes it clear that you get throttled when you hit the limit, regardless of being in the "top 5%" or not.
I just can't see how the 'Top 5% regardless of data" could be true. Over what period are they doing this? over what area? how many people?
If a certain area has an average of only a few hundred meg one night, does that mean people get throttled at considerably lower limits than claimed? Nothing like this is said on the Vigin website at all, and the articles on the inq/reg etc make no reference to this.
Something as serious as this would probably be all over the net.
Typo - corrected
That doesn't backup what you're saying.
In fact it makes it clear that you get throttled when you hit the limit, regardless of being in the "top 5%" or not.
I just can't see how the 'Top 5% regardless of data" could be true. Over what period are they doing this? over what area? how many people?
If a certain area has an average of only a few hundred meg one night, does that mean people get throttled at considerably lower limits than claimed? Nothing like this is said on the Vigin website at all, and the articles on the inq/reg etc make no reference to this.How clearer could it be? It only affects the top 5% of users on a daily basis. It doesn't say it only affects the top 5% of users on a daily basis except in them times when more or less than 5% hit the limit.
What traffic management policies are you applying to the heaviest users?
That depends on the broadband package you're signed up to. You can check out the detail by taking a look at our 'Updated traffic management policy' table below.
It's important to remember that these traffic management policies only apply when the speeds are likely to be affected by people using more than their fair share.
In fact, the policies only affect the top 5% of users on a daily basis - those whose usage of the service would affect other users if they weren't managed
"The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being." Karl Marx
A lot clearer.
You hit the limit - you get throttled. That's clear from the table.
So what happens if the top 5% are under this throttle limit? Do you still get throttled as my example above?
Your bolded part could just as easily be the number of people that Virgin thinks these throttles hit due to reaching the threshold. It doesn't say either way.
Reads to me like at some point they conducted a study and found the top 5% of users on any given day would consume X amount of bandwidth and applied the STM to that effect. If you read it very carefully, it says "on a daily basis", that would imply 5% of users on any given day hit the STM, it does not make refference to the same top 5% users being managed everyday, merely the top 5% of users that day are likely to be. Furthermore, I wouldnt be surprised if the STM figures are based more on what the network can handle, rather than what the top 5% of users on a given day can get through.
The figure most be taken for what it is imo..A PR statistic, nothing more, nothing less.. How many people would consider themselves to be a top 5% user without any prior knowledge of just how bandwidth hungry even things like youtube and iplayer can be. You can also look at it as an average like I said earlier. Somedays if you check Virgins logs I'm sure no one hits the limit and other days, half the network is managed, law of averages FTW!
Some companies do as good as automatically manage your bandwidth (Tiscali as an example) once you make it onto their "blacklist", they stick you on with all the other heavy users so you all suffer together.. Virgin media do not do that as the normal service is already punishment enough.
Last edited by mehmeh; 01-04-2009 at 01:32 AM. Reason: Cause if you don't use it, you'll lose it
http://www.techdigest.tv/2008/03/virgin_media_sp.html
Why has Virgin Media introduced speed restrictions for some broadband users?
Here's the official reasoning behind the speed throttle:.....
When someone is downloading and/or uploading a particularly large amount of information over a long period of time, it can slow down the Internet speed for other users who might just be checking their email or browsing online....
How many customers are being affected by the throttle?
According to Virgin Media, the top 3% of downloaders (taking stuff off the Internet) and the top 3% uploaders (putting stuff on to the Internet) are the main culprits for degraded performance during peak hours. Combined, that's around 5% of Virgin Media's broadband customers.
These are generally the people who will notice a restriction in connection speed during peak hours.
However, the speed throttle will apply to anyone who hits a particular download or upload limit during peak hours, so it could affect a lot more customers over time.Here's the official line:
Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till 9pm) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed. This will last for 5 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.
There are other articles out there saying more or less the same thing - the 5% is an estimate of the number of people who they consider to be using an 'unfair' amount of bandwidth.
You get throttled when you hit the limit, full stop. You don't have to hit the limit and be in this 'top 5%' that you seem to think.
I really don't think it's true that hitting the limit = automatic throttling becayse many times I've far exceeded it and not got clamped and at others I have. At my old address we were very rarely throttled but at the new one it happens every time we go over the limit.
I would imagine in areas with lots of capacity and less traffic that breaking the limit isn't throttled every time and so is restricted to the top 5%.
Also I provided a direct quote from VM's site and you provide an articles paraphrasing of the VM policy and take it as gospel, strange.
"The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being." Karl Marx
"A watched kettle never boils".. I'm sure I often carried on oblivious into STM, if a download was going slow anyway or it was early evening, its hard to know untill something bugs you and you run the speedtest.
The STM limits are printed in black and white on VM website and if you emailed or called them, they would comfirm those limits for you (eventually as they seem to have an issue admitting STM exists, wonder why?). Anytime when you may have exceeded the limit and not been throttled consider yourself lucky... One has to assume its a technical issue with the hardware/software at the UBR or wherever they hide all that crap.
Pure conjecture... Virgin Media are a national company and STM is a national policy. They get enough grief as it is for there patchy coverage in over subscriped area's, if such a policy as you describe was in operation, every computer and broadband forum on the internet would be in uproar.
You have to make the distinction between the predefined STM limits and Virgins 5% claim. One is fact offered by Virgin in order for customers to manage their usage, the other is a statistical average based on Virgin's research and porports that 5% of users on the network will find themselves effected on any given day based on their data, which incidently we can't validate, let alone know when or how it was collated.
Incidently.. The Automatic element clearly relates to the automated way STM works, they don't require blacklists or human beings to monitor for heavy use and take action, clever hardware/software does it all automatically and without prejudice.
How about an experiment?
Download a 2GB file at say 6pm from gamerfiles.virginmedia.com or whatever it is everyday this week and note..
The speed
When you hit the STM
The speed once your line is STM'd
On Friday don't download anything and carefully monitor useage throughout the day to keep yourself well under the STM limit. Download the same file again, but don't let it hit the limit, just long enough to stablise.. Your speed shouldnt drop and providing you stay within the limits, should remain constant untill 9pm when you can go nuts.
Compare results. If you get STM'd on Friday, then there is obviously a problem with your line somewhere..
I was easily on any 5% lists at Virgin HQ as I see downloading stuff as my duty, but on days when I took it easy, I never felt the STM and on busy days as soon as my 5hours was up, my line would always jump straight back to 10Mb from 2.5Mb(throttled). The network here (Devon) is solid, so things like contention never were an issue, but suspect in over subscribed area's an element of other factors poluting results and/or people making inncorrect assumptions because they've heard STM is a bitch from some dude on the interwebz has to play a role, no?
Agents link/info comes from a trusted source. The policy made headlines all over when it was introduced and thousands of sites have offered FAQ's, detailed insight and their opinion(s) on it since (pick one) and every single one* says the same thing. Alot of the bigger sites also use quotes from interviews or statements Virgin Media themselves issued to them or others, as this was a massive policy shift for Virgin when introduced and they did there best to put not only a postive PR spin on it, but to make sure it was understood and we all aknowledged that in context, technically and legally speaking, there BB was/is still unlimited
*= excluding anti Virgin sites loaded with script exploits hosted on servers in Sibera.
Anywho, epic post, really must be bedtime...
Yeah I know you're right and that your experiment works I'm just annoyed that they give their traffic management the moral element of "sharing" a local bandwidth. I do not pay to share, I pay for a 10Mb service. Sharing is what you do with sweets and toys.
I realise they aren't breaking any laws though because they fully state all that stuff. I never checked before subscribing to the 10Mb service because it never crossed my mind that a 10Mb service would exist that only allowed you to download just over a single Gb in almost a whole day. In fact, with a 10Gb connection that equates to about 20 minutes of downloading at full speed before you are clamped to death during the day.
Problem being I am not nocturnal and do not like to sleep with my computer running all night.
I just don't think Virgin Media should be allowed to advertise a "high-speed" service that, when only 5% of it's subscribers actually use it to the capacity they pay for, stops functioning for the other 95%. Surely that is proof that they cannot deliver what they advertise?
I realise I'm just ranting but I'm really having problems getting my head around how they can get away with doing what they do.
revol68: "...unfortunately I live in Northern Ireland, a dangerous third world backwater where couriers are routinely kidnapped and ransomed by spud munching tribes..."
This thread:
Anywho. I find VM a pain too, can people recommend good alternatives that offer a TV package too?
Someone mentioned Sky I think. When you're looking to get more than just broadband and you want decent broadband you're limited to who you can go to imo
Yeah see mine is part of the VM package too so I'm wondering if I can just cancel the broadband and leave the rest - my family like the digital tv and the phone service. Ill find out.
revol68: "...unfortunately I live in Northern Ireland, a dangerous third world backwater where couriers are routinely kidnapped and ransomed by spud munching tribes..."
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
