TRULY unlimited fibre provider - do they exist?

I'm a Virgin Cable customer looking to leave them due to their recent intro of daytime bandwidth limits + STM and bandwidth shaping. All stuff that was absent when I signed up years ago when their adverts at that time promised no traffic shaping and no limits...

So I'm looking for an ISP with no FUP, STM, traffic shaping or any other such similar nonsense. I have FTTC (BT Infinity) available in my area so looking for a 40/10 package. Obviously BT themselves are out of the question since I've heard they throttle pretty badly during peak time and also have a FUP. So are there any other, perhaps smaller, providers who have what I'm looking for? Or am I looking for something that doesn't exist in which case perhaps my only hope is that SKY will be available in my area when they launch their FTTC product later this month...

Thanks, Diane

TalkTalk FTTC. I know i'll get shot down in flames but seriously their actual broadband is very very good....its their shoddy phone support which somehow makes everyone think their broadband is poor too - however their forum support is quite good. A few months ago a family member signed up to their FTTC service and gets line speeds 24 hrs a day. He downloads close to half a terrabyte of data a month on their unlimited package and TT have not blinked an eyelid. I understand TT throttle P2P traffic on a dynamic basis (ie depending on how congested your exchange is) so if you're into heavy p2p downloads then perhaps its not a good idea to join them but other than that, all their other protocols run full speed 24/7. [gets ready to dodge bullets]

Doesnt Virgin Media only throttle P2P traffic? It doesnt touch or monitor anything else.
On top of that the new system has upstream and downstream monitored separately so going over the P2P limits on one will not affect the other and will not affect anything other than P2P speeds.

The rest of your internet traffic ie gaming, direct site downloads, audio/video streaming and such stuff is not affected at all. Other than that I don't think they have anything else in place.

the CIR on FTTC is 20M or sync rate, so there's a limit for a start.

In reply to a post by jamieridler:

Doesnt Virgin Media only throttle P2P traffic?

No.

Traffic shaping applies to P2P and NNTP but is quite easy to evade.

They have always had downstream traffic limits on the lower packages and have now introduced them for all products. Upstream limits for all products came in with the upstream uplifts which is now almost complete all across the network. Exceed a limit and the speed is throtted back for 5 hours. This is by 75% on the low-end products and 50% for the higher speed packages.

If you are interested in the details they are published on the VM website.

Infinity traffic management is also just P2P these days, or they are lying in their KPI

The dynamic nature also applies

You may just have to wait and see if Sky risk running their fibre with no management at all.

Why risk? Because leaving natural contention to manage things can be a nightmare for all, just look at the congestion problems some exchanges have currently.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

TalkTalk FTTC. I know i'll get shot down in flames but seriously their actual broadband is very very good....its their shoddy phone support which somehow makes everyone think their broadband is poor too - however their forum support is quite good. A few months ago a family member signed up to their FTTC service and gets line speeds 24 hrs a day. He downloads close to half a terrabyte of data a month on their unlimited package and TT have not blinked an eyelid. I understand TT throttle P2P traffic on a dynamic basis (ie depending on how congested your exchange is) so if you're into heavy p2p downloads then perhaps its not a good idea to join them but other than that, all their other protocols run full speed 24/7. [gets ready to dodge bullets]

Much as I dislike Talk Talk because of previous history (they cancelled my account by mistake and wouldn't reconnect it unless I entered into a 12 month contract) I would probably go with them unless Sky comes up with an 80/20 product by the time I can get fibre in the next 3,4,5,6,.. (take your pick ) months.

I reckon Sky will only do the 2Meg upstream as a way of limiting the impact of P2P, without actually employing traffic management.

On its ADSL2+ it generally seems to give lower upstream compared to other ADSL2+ providers.

on a Sky forum I saw people discussing how much they p2p each month and one person said that they can do 4TB easily and when Fibre comes they would be able to top 10TB per month without trying.

Well Sky can keep all those customers as far as I care as they must be having an impact on the local congestion with that sort of use.

If they do try and keep the unlimited and unmanaged package on the fibre they will have to try and do something about the people who are using more than a 1TB per month.

I expect Sky are unwilling or unable to do anything that upsets the marketing machine.