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I dont why you are picking on Virgin? Seems like a personal attack? Why not look deeper into the problem of most IP carriers. All of the major IP carriers rely upon BTfor there lines. (British Telecom) is the root for many of the problems. No matter which carrier we have had BT was the one we had to pay rental for the line. The problems we have had have come back mostly to BT and their lines.

This is just ridiculous.
What is up with the ASA? Don't they know the difference between "truth" and "marketing"???
I saw Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett last week at Hackney Marshes - the Dick Turpin outfit only had me fooled for a minute - and we had a good chuckle about it all.
I mean, it's not as if VM has partnered with some russian spyware firm, is it?
Seriously!!!

I use Virgin and what irritates me most is the throttling of the already slow upload speeds.

I'd like to run a Tor exit node and that requires at least 160 kilobits per second to be of any use to anyone. Virgin supply me with 256 Kbps of upload capability which would be plenty if they didn't half the speed after just 3 hours of use.

Speaking as a relatively new user of Virgin Media, I think they're doing a lot better than most... Firstly, I agree that their traffic management policy should be made more clear to users, however I think it's one of the more reasonable ones out there. Basically, if you use masses of data in peak hours, they'll temporarily cap your speed to avoid you clogging up the network. There's no penalty (cost-wise) for doing so, and you'll never be cut off, even if you hit the cap every single day. This certainly compares favourably with other ISPs I've used in the past who try to charge you for hitting caps or even apply permanent restrictions to your account!

Also, the "up to" issue is a big one... With VM, I have 10Mb broadband, and I get 10Mb. Within 5% of that at least. This is an awful lot better than ADSL ISPs, whose customers frequently get half the advertised speed or less.

The ASA are right to chase ISPs and force them to be more clear about their advertising, but I think Virgin are one of the best of the bunch really...

Does the VM marketing about "Fibre Optic Broadband" grate a little with anyone else? I was always a big Telewest fan, but switched to an ADSL provider before VM took over NTL.

I know they have the fibre backbone, but the last leg is still copper wire and they still provide an asynchronous connection. I'm of the opinion they shouldn't be allowed to advertise "Fibre Optic Broadband" until they are talking about fibre to the home (FTTH).

I'm I being too picky?

I switched from Virgin almost a year ago. Once they had taken over, our once reliable and speedy internet service turn into molasses. I had been a happy NTL customer for over 5 years.

It's worth pointing out that although their advertised speeds are indeed fast, you won't really be able to benefit from such speeds. For example, assuming you download at full speed you will be throttled after 33 mins @ 2Mb/s, 33 mins @ 4MB/s, 16mins @ 10Mb/s and 20mins @ 20Mb/s.

Say you have the 4Mb/s service. You have a 1GB limit. You download a demo on your Xbox 360. After 33 mins of downloading, your download speed is then reduced to 1Mb/s sec, but even worse, your upload speed is reduced to a paltry 96Kb/s!!

Isn't being able to download large media files (Apple TV movies, Xbox 360 demos etc..) quickly the whole point of having fast download speeds? What's the point in having a 20Mb/s service if it only results in webpages and email loading marginally faster.

"We never get complaints from customers about speed - it's not an issue," an executive at one big ISP told me recently.

That's because, in my experience, ordinary domestic internet consumers have no idea how the internet works and don't check their speeds. They just assume they are getting what they think they paid for from their ISP.

I have to be honest the Virgin speed capping does my nut in. I got so annoyed that I dropped my speed from 4Mbs to 2Mbs, since I didn't see the point in paying for a service that capped me when I needed it most (in the evenings when I returned from work).

Occassionally I need to grab files in the > 2GB range and before I had even got half way I was being capped. So I just waited until late night and did it over night, for which the 2MBs was apple.

Most of the time is games and surfing, for which 2 Mbs is more than enough. So their capping policy cost them £7.

Whats the point of having the bandwith when it gets capped so quickly?

I agree with the first comment that people are looking to blame the wrong people. The problem is that BT should have upgraded the telephone infrastructure years ago. The same time countries such as Sweden and France were. The fact that the UK is still relying on copper wires is ridiculous. This is all because BT underestimated the uptake of broadband and the use of the internet for on demand television and internet gaming. In my opinion BT should not get involved in petty squabbles with other ISP's and concentrate on giving the people what they want. Faster internet download speeds. And how is this achieved? Fibre-optics.

Isn't the point that those who download the most (often illegally) shouldn't be allowed to impose costs (either higher fees or slower speeds) on the rest of us? Traffic management is one way of doing that, usage limits is another.

If you want to download your high-bandwidth content then do so at off-peak times. Now that Ofcom has (finally!) told ISPs to publish their traffic management policies and fair usage policies we all know what we can do and when.

I'm on the Virgin 20Mb service and i haven't yet got higher than 14Mb on any speed test i have tried. I DID call virgin to complain (so that's one lie right off when they say they don't receive complaints about speed) and was told to call their technical support which is eye wateringly expensive when they keep you on there for 45 mins! Oh and they didn't fix anything - in the end they gave up and just told me that 14Mb is, and i quote, "very good indeed for a 20Mb service". What??!! Has everyone at Virgin been taking crazy pills or something? On what planet is it very good indeed to get only 70% of what you are paying for? (pay attention ASA). Don't even get me started in their so called "fair use policy".

The broadband industry in the UK is now so bad that even customers are taking pity on them and making excuses for them, eg "not as bad as other ISPs". I don't know about you but i don't want to pay £36 per month for something that's not that bad...

Ok rant over. I feel better now.

@ APbbforum

Downloading tv shows from iPlayer isn't illegal, neither is downloading songs off itunes, downloading game demos, movie trailers, working from home, setting up a file server at home so that you can access your own files anywhere in the world or holding skype video calls with distant family/friends.

Also people who are on the higher bandwidth packages are already paying higher fees to use the service than people who just want to browse a few web pages.

You say, "traffic management is one way of doing that, usage limits is another", can i offer a third - that they invest more in their infrastructure so that they can actually meet demand? Isn't that afterall what good businesses do in order to make money?

Of course most downloaded content isn’t illegal. But an awful lot is – most P2P traffic for instance (the blessed iPlayer, amongst others, excluded of course). And P2P is the big problem because that uses networks continuously (gaming, VoIP etc do not).

ISPs could invest more in their networks – that’s precisely what they are doing. But it can’t be conjured from pixie dust. Most broadband packages still charge the same no matter the usage. Until that changes, the vast majority of us who only ever use a few GB per month will have to pay for the usage of the minority. And that ain’t fair.

I don't think it is fair to claim that Virgin Media are being picked on. In the last 12 months VM have had 9 ASA adjudications against them, compared with one against BT, which is an appalling record of dishonesty.

The latest ruling does not even tell the full story. There are now three STM monitoring periods per day. It is possible to have ones speed reduced to 25% for 15 hours out of 24.

While VM claim that "To make sure all customers get the most from their connection, we automatically reduce the speed of the heaviest users at peak evening times – between 4pm and 9pm." if one triggers the limit at 8:59 pm one will be throttled for the next 5 hours, almost all of which will be outside the peak period. Precisely how this policy is supposed to improve peak time performance for other customers is not explained.

When STM was first introduced, VM suggested to those affected that they do their downloads during the daytime. Apparently many of them did. Now there is daytime STM, following trials which were, for a long time, denied by VM.

Few people would deny that some form of bandwidth usage control is fair, but STM as implemented by VM, seems to be an unnecessarily blunt instrument and repeated insistence by VM that their service is unlimited and uncapped does not make it so.

this so called traffic management that virgin has been running has never affected me as i have never seen my download speed drop below 2mbps at all times of the day, as that is what i pay for on the 20mb service.

i wish people would just stop tring to complain about VM BB as there is nothing in the UK that it can be compared to, as all other BB services run on a BT line which is about as unreliable as you can get.

"At 3:29pm on 02 Jul 2008, raven2751 wrote:

this so called traffic management that virgin has been running has never affected me as i have never seen my download speed drop below 2mbps at all times of the day, as that is what i pay for on the 20mb service."



How can getting one tenth of the service you pay for be fair Raven?

I pay my broadband provider to provide me with an internet connection at a specified speed. If the start changing the speed, then I'm not getting what I paid for. This is precisely why I left Virgin.

Virgin is completely within their rights to implement traffic management, but it should be made clear to potential customers that there is a significant caveat to their advertised speeds.

@APbbforum

An alternative to traffic management is lower speeds. Evidently VM doesn't have the necessary infrastructure to cope with customers who actually use their advertised speeds. This isn't the customer's problem but VM's problem.

I'm on Virgin broadband, the 20Mbps package and last night I tested my download speed. I started a 1.77GB download (a game demo, nothing remotely illegal) at 1:30am and my computer said it would take around 60-65 minutes to complete.

This equates to a download speed of approximately 4Mbps, which is diabolical for a service advertised at 20Mbps.

I don't know of the technology but all I can say is that since Virgin have been carpeted for slow speeds my download has jumped from 3.91 to 7.67 Mb/s in the last two days, which is near the speed I signed up for in the first place I was on the verge of going back to BT due to their complacency to improve after contacting them many times.

For the first time in ages I can surf at a much quicker pace, they needed a kick up the bum in my opinion. long may it reign.

If you want the most accurate measure of your connection speed with Virgin Media go to and click on FAQ # 2.

Firstly to whose who say this is BT's problem, this about VM who for the most part dont use the phone lines and use their own Fibre Optic cable. So how can you blame BT?


Secondly VM is one of the worse for not giving you the speed you get. At Uni, my mate was on VM and his intenet was god awful slow during the day at non peak periods how ever on my own BT Line I never had a real problem with speed even at peak periods, I was near enought at 8MB I paid for.

Also i already pay more for the unlimited package that BT offers as I do use the net quite heavly, so to the guy who said we should pay more why? I already paying more for unlimited who I want is a decent sustainable speed.

I think people are missing two fundamental points here.

Firstly, of all the ISP's to make a complaint, it truly is stunning to see BT's audacity (spelling?) to complain about marketing when they are not only regularly listed as the worst Internet Provider AND worst Customer Service, but also regularly top the charts for the "most amount of bulls**t adverts" list. They stretch the truth so regularly that its all bent out of shape before they even open their mouths. Especialy with the whole "up to" thing as Rory mentions. With a BT connection, you are fare less likely to reach even 80% of the advertised connection speed EVER. If I were Mr Branson, I would be reporting BT to the ASA every time they make a new add.

Secondly, things like the speed caps on Virgin and all the other equivelants out there amoungst the ISP's are there for all to see in your contracts. If you don't read your contracts I don't see that you have any valid reason to complain about it - and since it IS stated, you also have no valid reason to claim that are in any way intitled to fully unlimited download speeds - considering the amount of people connecting to these servers, I think it is just plain ignorant and somewhat selfish to expect it.

This isn't new, this is how internet connections have been since the very first internet modem. For those of you old to remember, for many ISP's we would have to spend a good 20 minutes spamming the "connect" button trying to get the modem to connect to the phone line because there were always too many people connected to the service - atleast we are no longer fighting to actually get a connection, but instead fighting for that phabled top speed. Speaking from someone who beat his modems into oblivion on more than one occasion, I can safely say things are far better now than before.

All our ISP's are atleast 5 years behind ISP's in the US, Holand and Germany. Once they've caught up and server technology has finaly caught up with the level of demand, this will be a moot point. Well, except for BT users - we all know that BT will perminantly 10 years behind the rest. Go BT! (no really, go)

I'd apreciate correction to this if I have erred...
Backbone is not the problem. Even today there is still some 'dark fibre' (ie unused) sitting in the ground in the UK waiting to be 'lit'; and with that which is already 'lit', modern techniques can get a lot of bandwidth down a pair.
VM have the advanyage of FTTH, but appear to have insufficient backbone capacity.
BT has, or could access if it would drop its high-minded approach to using others' glass, more capacity than it can use (and to be fair, is investing billions in the network). But BT has the 'last-mile problem.
Is there not a solution here?
Or are the rules which forbid my mobile to roam to other providers in the UK but seemingly to any available provider elsewhere, stifling advancement (and not for the first time)?

I'm not surprised ISPs don't receive many complaints - as Rob_78 points out (#11), they make it extremely difficult to complain in the first place. It doesn't mean that the complaints don't exist.

Virgin Media are now my ex-ISP. I run Linux and often download new distributions to try on other machines and upgrades. STM (VMspeak for throttling) now makes what I was able to get done in one evening impossible to do in one evening. Two or even three is more the case now STM has been extended.

I'm no fan of BT but getting a BT line does give me a far wider choice of ISPs.

BT have been forced to admit they secretly tested Phorm without their customers' knowledge. THat's now in the public domain.

Virgin Media have twice refused to answer a direct question asking them to confirm that they have never tested Phorm in such a way. They are no longer trustworthy. It's not just the adverts that are vague and spun out.

Virgin seems unable to play by the rules however they are quite happy to send out threatening letters to their subscribers who even they admit may have done nothing wrong!

Virgin do not provide fiber to the home as is stated above.

What they provide is coax to the home and call it fiber as there backbone is fiber.

Is fiber spelt fiber or fibre?

I wish out advertising standards had more teeth at times. Unlimited usage*

*subject to fair usage policy/subject to a maximum "x"mb per month.

Thats not unlimited. It may be very large but unlimited as i was led to believe by the dictionary is "not limited or restricted"

Virgin Media what a joke it has become!

We are going to leave when I move and I for one, can say I will not miss Virgin Media under my roof.

VM just lacks in everything, from its customer services, products, miss leading adverts.

Even when you call there customer services line and you still get charged the earth for calling them. Even then the people who trying to help you dont even know what to do and what " Customer Services " means.

When I was under Telewest/NTL. At least they was trained to understood the technical information from TCP/IP to Networking. When they did NOT follow a simple computer sreen with questions for them to ask in which they dont under them self the nature of the problem was causing the fault.

I tryed to ring them to deal with a problem. Only to find out they have tryed to take money with out my permission and set up a direct debit.

Another problem I have my account in my name and my mum has her TV under her name. When they said they are going to put both accounts together we told them not to. Only to find out next month they have put both of the accounts together.

There is so many problems I had with these and am glad to see them go out of business. They need to get there act together or at least bring Telewest/NTL back providing to the commercial services rather than just businesses services.

Telewest/NTL - You have made the wrost move ever !

i just signed up so that i could complain about virgin BB...(yes i am that pi**ed)....it's just been two weeks that i moved from sky 8Mb to virgin 10Mb VBB..and now i know what a mistake i have made and with that minimum term , i have another 11 months of suffering to bear..only if i knew about the throttling policy...if i was smart enough to have bothered to look for it.....i would have never signed up for it....at least VIRGIN should be forced to send a leaflet of their throttling policy with every VBB offers they send to people's home ......i had sky 8Mb with a monthly limit of 40GB...and ofcourse at max i could only get upto 4.5Mb..(which is not bad at all)..but i was never capped/throttled for over using or going beyond my 40GB limit...trust me i went well over 40 GB every single month...but never got cutoff/throttled/overcharged for it..i even had a steady upload of ~45KB.......but now with virgin @10Mb with 64KB upstream...i get only 25% of the service for better half of 24hrs.....2.5Mb download is not toooooo bad but the 16KB upload is totally useless...the upload speed is killing me.....ofcourse like in most homes..there is more than one person using the same internet...and that 16KB upload is not even sufficient to make the damn skype call to rest of my family ...or upload my pics/vids to my family who live in USA.........it wouldn't have bothered me that much if the upload was not throttled down to 25% ie 16KB...but it's killing me............should have gone for 02 ...they advertise 1.3Mb upload for 8Mb broadband....ooo that would have been so so sweet...11 more months of suffering of 16Kb upload........so DON'T get Virgin BB..unless u want to pay to receive sufferring and not surfing......

throttling policy here


note it says threshold of 2400MB between 1000 and 1500 for 10Mb......i am going to put it to test tommorrow...i am only going to upload
and will come back to write if get throttled down to 25% before reaching 2400MB..
..

crb119,

In the day you will get thortted.

I was doing windows updates, downloading drivers / games of from Steam @

Which you download a bit of software. Then you log into your account from there you can download your games that you have bought with them.

Only problem is that the games are massive files, around from 200mb to 2gig almost.

Soon as I reached the limit my internet went very slow and it didnt come back to normal speed for at least a day.

I am on the M service, even the upload speed can affect you/me online playing games. In which I have told people not to go with Virgin. As they are so poor in service, money for value etc

O2 am looking at now even Be internet which is also apart of 02 networks.

wow....i went over the threshold today but didn't get throttled down to 25%....@12.30 i have downloaded 2.7+GB and uploaded ~0.8GB since 9 am this morning......thats well over my threshold of 2400MB between 9AM and 3PM.........some one must be sleeping at work #;~)....