Virginmedia's new traffic management policy

[Unique]

Dave, dont mate, just dont hehe

However, TM will now only last for 1 hour or 2 hours depending on whether you break a glass ceiling in download amount within a set period of time. As it used to be around 7GB per 10am-3pm period on a 30Mb connection I can safely say that its a lot higher threshold, its now only 50% reduction at the first threshold and as it lasts for a far shorter time, then its a better deal all round..

sounds interesting. sounds like if you do it a second time in the day you will get a slower reduction though

they aren't planning on bringing it between 9pm and 9am though are they? is that still going to be a free for all period?

about the threshold, it used to be 10gb in the mornings and 5gb in evenings for 30mb which was pretty good considering you have the 3pm to 4pm free for all, but they reduced it to 7gb and about 4gb which was a fair reduction, albeit only 50% slower instead of 75%, so when STM'd it wasn't so bad, but it was easier to hit it by mistake in the evenings

i tend to do any big bandwidth use after 9am or early morning so it would be nice to be able to have a bit more allowance in the evening or daytime if you wanted it, as long as the STM isn't extended till midnight or all night

[Dareos]

midnight curfew i believe, yep theres a 2nd reduction, not quite a 75% one, as its a max of 2 hours reduction tho (if 2nd threshold broken), then its an awful lot shorter than before.

Terb, inbox is full bud

[Scainer]

The only issue I have with traffic management is that when you have network issues, they try to blame you and stand behind any history of being managed.
I made the mistake of downloading BF3 and was traffic managed, after numerous complaints I eventually got the the CEO's office, where again the traffic management was brought up.
As soon as I mentioned BF3 was over 15Gb and the day it was done all was ok.
It was like I was treated as a second rate customer, until I proved I wasn't.

I basically had to prove it was their network causing issues before they admitted it was their problem.

Regarding the SuperHub. It has a bad reputation but I have had no issues.
I believe most of the issues are related to the wireless access point at default settings.
It also has some basic IDS that causes issues. Turn them off and use a wired connection and modem mode isn't needed.

[Terbinator]

midnight curfew i believe, yep theres a 2nd reduction, not quite a 75% one, as its a max of 2 hours reduction tho (if 2nd threshold broken), then its an awful lot shorter than before.

Terb, inbox is full bud

Cleared some messages.

[Terbinator]

FWIW it dropped out again before.

[Unique]

hmm, so 3 hours later. but less time restricted. usually i get home about 6pm so unless i'm dying to download something i just wait till after 9pm. i usually download what i want in the morning before work. i suppose like this i might just download when i get in after work, so potentially congesting the system more at peak times, and perhaps others might do the same. with such a long peak time though, i presume you could be STM'd 3 or 4 times quite easily in a day? i mean download for an hour at 5pm, STM 6pm to 8pm, download an hour till 9pm STM till 11pm, get hit by STM just before midnight. or more times during the weekend if people download stuff all day. i guess only big downloaders would have that problem, but then if you want to download the whole internet i don't see it being a big ask to expect people to do it at nighttime instead

[GoNz0]

Anyone got any idea how I get them to give me a standard new hub for 30Mb (not going to 60Mb till Oct 2012 minimum)?

Im on 20Mb with the old modem plus D-Link router. I seem to remember them telling me there was a one off 30 quid fee for it, but I cant find it anywhere on their pages now.

i think the fee is if you ask for an upgrade, not so much the forced one. either way a phone call to retentions normally gets any fee waived if your out of contract. or even within if they get to sign you up for another 18 months! (see the new deals and work out if your paying more)

even getting an engineer call for random modem dropouts (turn it off for a few mins a few times a day for 3 days so it logs the restarts then call to complain) would result in a hub replacement from the engineer FOC.

[Agent]

http://forums.hexus.net/networking-b...ml#post2429117

Just effing excuses for the last few years and the most incompetent technical services of any broadband provider I have ever experienced....<post>

Ahh that a shame mate. I have to be fair to Sky and say that the service I had was pretty good, even speeds. Are you sure it's not your exchange ratio and is defo Sky?

I'm confused by all the moaning. Even capped performance for top customers runs rings round 99% of competitors at their full speed.

The biggest issue techy people have IME is ones like Scainer pointed out. Virgin try to make their traffic policy simple to understand and the phone desk people are always polite and try to help, but for those of us who have experienced it it's clear that it rarely works as a simple speed reduction.

I've had pings go through the roof when managed, along with sporadic upload and download speeds that are much lower than the traffic managed amount, serious Xbox live issues and so on. The Virgin forums have their fair amount of complaints on the issue.

The house I'm living in now used to have a few lodgers, so fairly heavy and regular use. The management got so bad I had a Sky line and broadband installed separate to the Virgin one, and even though I only got 5Meg due to distance, it's was significantly more bearable.

[shteve]

I don't actually mind the traffic management myself. The new one, with the 50% reduction, means that I still get 16Mbps if there's something I want to download and I've managed to go over the cap threshhold. Once I'm upgraded to 60Mbps (hopefully July some time), the cap would put me back to the speeds I get now - all good.

[Tifosi]

Yes, that did make me laugh.

"Hey everyone, you can all have a free upgrade."

"Hey everyone, we're putting our prices up."

But of course, they're completely unrelated.

They did that to us without the upgrade in bandwidth and only by a few quid, but only weeks before had we renegotiated a new price and contract - our bandwidth didn't change we're on 10mb/s.

When I got my bill and the price jacked up I wasn't happy, needless to say I gave them a call and asked to be disconnected to which I was told there was an early disconnection fee - no chance and had the call escalated.

If VM change the T&C's within the contract period without my agreement i.e. jacking the price then as far as I am concerned they've breached the contract and it's void at which point they can kiss good bye to any termination rights. Result, they reinstated the price negotiated and dropped the price increment.

The whole purpose of an ISP contract is to agree a service level for an agreed price. Mobile operators from my experience don't change the pricing midway through a contract so why on earth ISP's think they are different I don't know. If the ISP want's to escalate prices with an index to cover their costs then by all means I'll let them provided I have the right to withhold/prorate payment when I'm receiving a service materially below the contract SLA.

[dave87]

If VM change the T&C's within the contract period without my agreement i.e. jacking the price then as far as I am concerned they've breached the contract and it's void at which point they can kiss good bye to any termination rights. Result, they reinstated the price negotiated and dropped the price increment.

The whole purpose of an ISP contract is to agree a service level for an agreed price. Mobile operators from my experience don't change the pricing midway through a contract so why on earth ISP's think they are different I don't know. If the ISP want's to escalate prices with an index to cover their costs then by all means I'll let them provided I have the right to withhold/prorate payment when I'm receiving a service materially below the contract SLA.

In most long term contracts there will be an indexation clause which provides for exactly this scenario. Unless the performance of the contract is rendered substantially different to what was originally agreed, then the contract will stand with the adjusted price - Orange did it a while back.

Service level is a different issue - Apples & Oranges in this context.

[abaxas]

^^^

In terms of SLA, no-one knows on downtime but OFCOM are happy to define broadband. Which is sadly 64kbps or greater.

OUCH!

[Tifosi]

last time I checked my ISP contract was a 12 month contract. Embedding indexation in a 12 month consumer contract shouldn't be acceptable IMO, if they can't price accordingly for a year then they should wait until the year is out and learn.

If they need to index once I'm out of the initial contract period then sure I agree with that, my gym does that all the time but not whilst within the initial period. VM renegotiating weeks into a new isn't be on, they enticed me with a competitive rate and weeks in were seemingly unable to honour the agreed price.

Agreed, that service level is a different kettle of fish, point still stands though if they want to index prices consumers should request an SLA and penalty arrangement. Collective consumer action unlikely in a world driven by the corporate... even then I suspect you'll end up with a situation like the rail network.

[Tifosi]

caveat I've also sat on the other side of the fence and helped to price one of the UK's largest ISPs..

[Scainer]

Ok I take back what I said.

The new traffic management is bull. Its the weekend. I Just DL 2.16GB of data. My speed in now 50%.
I think that instead of fixing the network they just cap anyone using it, so the majority is happy.
This surely means that the advertised speeds are effectively half if you actually use it.

[DrATty]

I don't think that Virgin should be allowed to surreptitiously reduce speeds after advertising speed increases as much as they did.