Upload speed increased - officially announced & 50MB STM

http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=2...

So the upload increases have been confirmed and there is a mention of the 50Mb STM, which if Ive read correctly only affects the upload and not the download, plus it will reduce the upload speed when capped back to more than you get now anyways!

The STM table (http://www.virginmedia.com/myvirginmedia/traffic-management-table.php)still has not been updated to confirm and not firm dates for each area either.


More info on this page:http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management.htm

Looks like no figures for the upload cap, only "during peak (10am � 3pm and 4pm � 9pm) times we'll need to slow you back to 1.75Mb if your upload usage is particularly high."
Not sure why 3-4pm is not peak, but there you go!

Also, it mentions about filesharing / p2p / usenet slowdowns for 50Mb users too. I'm assuming that's new as I'm not heard of that on 50Mb before (I could be wrong of course)

Edited by deleted (Thu 30-Sep-10 12:04:01)

Hmmm, been waiting to hear about this

I'm on 50mbit and tend to upload a lot, which means the increase to 5mbit is very welcome. However I suspected they'd add traffic management, there has been absolutely none so far for 50mbit users.

But if they're only limiting to 1.75mbit at least thats not less than our currently uncapped 1.5mbit, which is still a benefit albeit pretty small. I'll burn through the upload caps pretty much instantly so the 5mbit benefit will only be for short bursts each day.

Still nice to see they've handled this well, I'm interested in seeing what the 100mbit comes with, it should have 10mbit up to maintain this new 10:1 ratio they're sticking with, if that comes uncapped I might be upgrading, if it's capped like the others i'll just stick with 50mbit.

*edit*

They've confirmed the 50mbit upload cap here:

http://www.virginmedia.com/myvirginmedia/faster_uplo...

3pm to 8pm
6000Mb limit
65% speed reduction (1.75mbit)
5 hour cap

No daytime caps though!

Actually that's as bad as I thought it would be, I was expecting not much more than about 2000Mb based on their previous trends for caps. I guess this is subject to change though

Edited by deleted (Thu 30-Sep-10 13:18:58)

LOL - 6GB in 5 hours!!

I think the vast majority of users will be safe.

Edited by deleted (Thu 30-Sep-10 13:58:10)

It's about 2 hours 40 mins of uploading at max speed.

Most of that will go on p2p, you don't think a p2p network will readily suck down that much data given the opportunity

and limiting filesharing to 3Mb uploading for 5 hours during the day is going to kill people??
Still means 40GB of uploading a day without hitting caps.

That's a whole lot of Linux ISOs

haha, yeah...it is quite a lot, I'm not really complaining, I knew STM was on the way for 50mbit it was only a matter of time.

I have a funny feeling that it will be largely moot for the 50mbit users, VM talked about traffic priority, if that is quite aggressive then we may never see full torrent upload speeds during these times anyway.

Yup someone has to host these linux ISO's, good thing I threw myself on that grenade

i see the traffic management is being implemented for torrents and usenet access, i currently have a SSL connection to my news provider i assume that as virgin are not going to shape SSL then it will circumvent any usenet shaping ???

Can they use packet inspection to determine protocol? Pretty sure ISPs have been doing that ever since people started randomizing ports for bit torrent.

In fact I'm sure you can torrent through SSL as well if the tracker supports it (some private ones do) and traffic shaping still catches that I'm sure.

DPI has been available for non encrypted traffic for some time, but if it's SSL then they can't use DPI so in that instance they simply look at the port carrying the traffic and hit the typical ones for SSL.

I know that usenet is typically port 563 SSL but several providers look like they offer SSL over ports 80 and 443 as well which will probably throw that off as they can't block what might be web traffic.

I know nothing about torrents so is there a common port?? If so, I'm guessing again that will be the one that gets hit.

Edited by deleted (Thu 30-Sep-10 19:13:04)

In reply to a post by mrstella:

i see the traffic management is being implemented for torrents and usenet access, i currently have a SSL connection to my news provider i assume that as virgin are not going to shape SSL then it will circumvent any usenet shaping ???

No it won't. It's very obvious what 10 connections, even over SSL, to news.giganews.com are.

The news providers offer SSL to protect your privacy not to evade shaping.

The news providers offer SSL to protect your privacy not to evade shaping

Yes they do

http://www.giganews.com/benefits.html

256-bit SSL Encryption
Take advantage of the same secure connectivity used by banks, retailers, and countless other online services. 256-bit SSL Encrypted Usenet� service keeps usernames and passwords secure, helps aid against identity theft, and can help bypass artificial bandwidth limits.

In reply to a post by mrstella:

The news providers offer SSL to protect your privacy not to evade shaping

Yes they do

http://www.giganews.com/benefits.html

256-bit SSL Encryption
Take advantage of the same secure connectivity used by banks, retailers, and countless other online services. 256-bit SSL Encrypted Usenet� service keeps usernames and passwords secure, helps aid against identity theft, and can help bypass artificial bandwidth limits.

Then they're doing some creative advertising, SSL is an exercise in futility when it's going to the same servers

In reply to a post by anon123456:

It's about 2 hours 40 mins of uploading at max speed.

Most of that will go on p2p, you don't think a p2p network will readily suck down that much data given the opportunity

i dont think you fully understand how p2p networks work...

you can choose and set the speed that your connection uploads at on p2p networks..

so a p2p network will only 'suck' upload bandwidth at the level that you decide....

unless you are using p2p networks and have not configured the settings,and if thats the case then i dont think you should qualify for an upload increase as you do not manage your connection properly..

In reply to a post by djfunkdup:

i dont think you fully understand how p2p networks work...

you can choose and set the speed that your connection uploads at on p2p networks..

so a p2p network will only 'suck' upload bandwidth at the level that you decide....

unless you are using p2p networks and have not configured the settings,and if thats the case then i dont think you should qualify for an upload increase as you do not manage your connection properly..

I understand perfectly well, a lot of people leave their torrent uncapped, especially when they're not using their connection.

Anyone who does any serious amount of downloading over bit-torrent have switched to private trackers which maintain overall upload/download ratios so it's important to seed and in some cases where rules are strict it actually encourages aggressive seeding.

In reply to a post by pete_thomson:

DPI has been available for non encrypted traffic for some time, but if it's SSL then they can't use DPI so in that instance they simply look at the port carrying the traffic and hit the typical ones for SSL.

I know that usenet is typically port 563 SSL but several providers look like they offer SSL over ports 80 and 443 as well which will probably throw that off as they can't block what might be web traffic.

I know nothing about torrents so is there a common port?? If so, I'm guessing again that will be the one that gets hit.

Well some private trackers use SSL for torrents so it's possible with some torrent clients, there's no set ports for data transmition, you can randomize the port in most good torrent clients.

Yet I'm sure it's still possible to tell, they can't monitor destination like for newsgroups since it's just other peers/seeds inside the cluster, but I'm fairly sure some kind of packet inspection can work this out. Not from my experience on VM but other ISPs.

I can get 6MB/sec from torrents though and peak at about 180k/s up so if VM are traffic shaping 50mbit at the moment it's definitely not capturing SSL torrents, I suspect that traffic shaping is in place like their site says but simply not being triggered due to the large amount of capacity available and low 50mbit take up.

In reply to a post by anon123456:

Well some private trackers use SSL for torrents so it's possible with some torrent clients, there's no set ports for data transmition, you can randomize the port in most good torrent clients.

Yet I'm sure it's still possible to tell, they can't monitor destination like for newsgroups since it's just other peers/seeds inside the cluster, but I'm fairly sure some kind of packet inspection can work this out. Not from my experience on VM but other ISPs.

I can get 6MB/sec from torrents though and peak at about 180k/s up so if VM are traffic shaping 50mbit at the moment it's definitely not capturing SSL torrents, I suspect that traffic shaping is in place like their site says but simply not being triggered due to the large amount of capacity available and low 50mbit take up.

Nothing is being shaped yet but when they switch it on yes it will be capturing obfuscated torrents.

Remember that it's only the communication with the tracker that uses SSL, the comms between the peers use normal, weak Bittorrent encryption and in any event there are many ways to spot P2P.

I figured something like this was the case. I'm going to keep a close eye on my connection when I get the additional upload and see if anything is being obviously throttled.

things using non default ports are the first things I will check. some isps have a tendancy to assume anything not on a mainstream port is p2p hiding. BT got caught doing that on the samknows tests before samknows and ofcom hidden the results.

In reply to a post by anon123456:

I can get 6MB/sec from torrents though and peak at about 180k/s up so if VM are traffic shaping 50mbit at the moment it's definitely not capturing SSL torrents, I suspect that traffic shaping is in place like their site says but simply not being triggered due to the large amount of capacity available and low 50mbit take up.

I think you're confused about SSL encryption in regards to torrent sites, they use SSL to encrypt your connection with the website, not the torrent download.

In reply to a post by BlackAle:

In reply to a post by anon123456:

I can get 6MB/sec from torrents though and peak at about 180k/s up so if VM are traffic shaping 50mbit at the moment it's definitely not capturing SSL torrents, I suspect that traffic shaping is in place like their site says but simply not being triggered due to the large amount of capacity available and low 50mbit take up.

I think you're confused about SSL encryption in regards to torrent sites, they use SSL to encrypt your connection with the website, not the torrent download.

No, some clients support encrypted connections to the tracker. Both the tracker and the clients have to support it. Some private torrent sites force the use of specific clients and force SSL connections both to the website and for torrent connections to the tracker.

As someone else pointed out, I'm not sure if connections from peers to other peers is encrypted, maybe not, need to do some more research on that, if they're not I'm sure they can be.

So I presume this Newgroups and P2P throttling is covering downloading as well as uploading and the other packages too?

I found this evening on 20Mbit I was getting around 800KB/sec or lower on Astranews using SSL port 563, changed to port 443 and it's backup to 2MB/sec.

Not the end of the world I guess, it's still quicker than my old DSL connection.

I'm a little tempted now to upgrade to 50 Meg. The wife is doing some voluntary work which she uses the internet for and gets a monthly allowance of £15, that would more than pay the extra required for 50 Meg, that or an upgrade to the TV service.

Rob

Hello

downloading off newsgroups ... Giganews ssl and 50mb


Alt.Binz - Version: 0.31.6 - Speed: 6180.3 KB/s evening

Alt.Binz - Version: 0.31.6 - Speed: 6340.7 KB/s morning

so no problems yet

Yeah I've re-read all of their press release information, the traffic shaping rules only effect you when you're moved over to the new faster upload service.

I'm assuming they will simply email people once that service is ready in their area? I'm guessing Norwich will be last wait I mean

http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/discover-broadband/...

Enfield
Huddersfield
Sutton Coldfield
Warwick

In reply to a post by anon123456:

Yeah I've re-read all of their press release information, the traffic shaping rules only effect you when you're moved over to the new faster upload service.

I'm assuming they will simply email people once that service is ready in their area? I'm guessing Norwich will be last wait I mean

Nope, the traffic management changes when you get the upload the shaping takes effect whenever they apply it to your area. The two aren't connected they just used the news of the upgrade to bury the bad news of the shaping a bit.

Ah well they list the traffic management down on their website in 2 sections one for current connections and improved one for the people with new upload.

In reply to a post by anon123456:

Ah well they list the traffic management down on their website in 2 sections one for current connections and improved one for the people with new upload.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Nope, the traffic management changes when you get the upload the shaping takes effect whenever they apply it to your area. The two aren't connected they just used the news of the upgrade to bury the bad news of the shaping a bit.

Again two different things not connected. Your post I replied to mentioned shaping not the traffic management.

Edited by deleted (Sat 09-Oct-10 08:31:47)

virgin to use BT`s fibre network !!!


http://top10.com/broadband/news/2010/10/virgin_media...

How does this relate to the OP?

It could lead to further rollout of DOCSIS network, i.e. use BT ducting to get the fibre to new VM cabinets...expansion again

?

VM will have ability to rent space in BT duct, i.e. run their own fibre, i.e. potential to link up new VM street cabinets without lots of digging up of roads

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4415-ofcom-announ...

Key anocronym is PIA

Still not following how this is related to the OP.

Surely a new thread should have been started.

I am not sure I will even get it. I struggle now to get more than 1mbps upload. Not sure why I only seem to get the upload when I am fully downloading and then it sits at 1.7mbps. I've tried 4 machines. wired and wireless. Just not happening. On my neighbours line I get full upload so it's got to me mine..

VM say " it's within usual limits" so my hope is that if I do get restricted to the 1.6/1.7mbps it'll be more than I get now anyway! Modem shows 1750000 bps as the upload.

I see the list has gone to:

Bromborough
Cheshunt
Clifton
Enfield
Greenock
Heckmondwike
Hinckley
Huddersfield
Middlesborough
Nailsea
Neath
Pentwyn
Sutton Coldfield
Warwick

No Norwich yet

In reply to a post by anon123456:

I see the list has gone to:

Bromborough
Cheshunt
Clifton
Enfield
Greenock
Heckmondwike
Hinckley
Huddersfield
Middlesborough
Nailsea
Neath
Pentwyn
Sutton Coldfield
Warwick

No Norwich yet

Where'd this info come from??

The VM site

http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/discover-broadband/...

It's being updated every now and again.

In reply to a post by pete_thomson:

Where'd this info come from??

http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/discover-broadband/...

(and that information came from google)

In reply to a post by anon123456:

The VM site

http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/discover-broadband/...

It's being updated every now and again.

It's amazing that they rate hudderfield over Sheffield. I always thought Sheffield was erm bigger!?

Thanks - I searched the community forums and found nothing.... fail.

In reply to a post by docki:

In reply to a post by anon123456:

The VM site

http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/discover-broadband/...

It's being updated every now and again.

It's amazing that they rate hudderfield over Sheffield. I always thought Sheffield was erm bigger!?

It's nothing to do with how they 'rate' areas. They did trials in Huddersfield so it was good to go. Sheffield isn't yet. All about how much work it is to get each area ready, how good the networks are, and the workload of the guys in the local area.

A year or so to go before this is all complete.

Plus, I would expect smaller areas to be hit first as it's potentially easier and a good way of catching any last glitches and affecting smaller numbers of people before they go live in larger areas.

I'm not expecting Bristol to be done any time soon.

In reply to a post by pete_thomson:

Plus, I would expect smaller areas to be hit first as it's potentially easier and a good way of catching any last glitches and affecting smaller numbers of people before they go live in larger areas.

I'm not expecting Bristol to be done any time soon.

Ah not so much, due to how the network is constructed glitches will affect smaller areas anyway regardless of whether they roll out to a town, village or city.

These aren't actually geographical lists, they are lists of hub sites, locations where Virgin have equipment and customers' connections go. Kinda the equivalent of exchanges on the BT network. Each of these has a number of routers in them which the customers actually connect to, and in turn line cards within those routers. The upgrade is rolled out by line card. The work needed to upgrade the networks in preparation for the upgrade is done in the field on fibre cabinets within the VM network.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by pete_thomson:

Plus, I would expect smaller areas to be hit first as it's potentially easier and a good way of catching any last glitches and affecting smaller numbers of people before they go live in larger areas.

I'm not expecting Bristol to be done any time soon.

Ah not so much, due to how the network is constructed glitches will affect smaller areas anyway regardless of whether they roll out to a town, village or city.

These aren't actually geographical lists, they are lists of hub sites, locations where Virgin have equipment and customers' connections go. Kinda the equivalent of exchanges on the BT network. Each of these has a number of routers in them which the customers actually connect to, and in turn line cards within those routers. The upgrade is rolled out by line card. The work needed to upgrade the networks in preparation for the upgrade is done in the field on fibre cabinets within the VM network.

An engineer told me once that the amount of work required to maintain a 50mbps network was immense. Is this the same scenario for 100mbps?

In reply to a post by docki:

An engineer told me once that the amount of work required to maintain a 50mbps network was immense. Is this the same scenario for 100mbps?

The engineer didn't know what he was talking about. The 5Mbps upload requires far more work to install and maintain than the 50Mbps downstream did. The 50M actually requires not a lot more maintenance than the earlier DOCSIS 1.1 network did.

The 100Mbps is reliant on additional work to increase upstream capacity as well as extra work through node splits downstream which is why areas that are on 5Mbps upstream aren't on 100Mbps downstream yet.

Edited by deleted (Wed 27-Oct-10 20:26:37)

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by docki:

An engineer told me once that the amount of work required to maintain a 50mbps network was immense. Is this the same scenario for 100mbps?

The engineer didn't know what he was talking about. The 5Mbps upload requires far more work to install and maintain than the 50Mbps downstream did. The 50M actually requires not a lot more maintenance than the earlier DOCSIS 1.1 network did.

The 100Mbps is reliant on additional work to increase upstream capacity as well as extra work through node splits downstream which is why areas that are on 5Mbps upstream aren't on 100Mbps downstream yet.

I did wonder if they were doing the upload speed increase along with the 100mbit down increase, seems like it would make sense to do both at the same time, but I guess in reality it's not that simple.

Oh well, I'm just getting ready to embrace either benefit, I really want extra upload, going from 50mbit to 100mbit is nice for sure but not as in demand as more upload, I'd be happy to wait for the 100mbit for a year or so if they can get the 5mbit upload live soon.

They haven't added my area to their page yet, but it looks like Nottinghamshire is getting the upgrades. I noticed my new upload speed yesterday

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1010958569.png

Well I am lost with my problem.

VM tell me they are not trained to deal with any upload problems and it is my area. which is that is the case fair enough. However if it was my area would I honestly get maxed upload when downloading and a piddle when I am just uploading?

I am happy with it in general. I have put off any file backups until 5MB that's assuming I actually get it.

Edited by deleted (Sun 31-Oct-10 14:14:02)

List is bigger again

Aylesbury
Bolton
Bromborough
Cheshunt
Clifton
Cwmbran
Darlington
Enfield
Greenock
Hartlepool
Heckmondwike
Hinckley
Huddersfield
Middlesborough
Nailsea
Neath
Pentwyn
Stoke
Sutton Coldfield
Warwick
Yeadon

I see the list is getting bigger on a near daily basis

Wow, yes, the list has almost doubled.

Aylesbury
Amersham
Bolton
Bromborough
Cosham
Cheshunt
Clifton
Cwmbran
Darlington
Enfield
Farnborough
Folkstone
Greenock
Hartlepool
Heckmondwike
Hinckley
Huddersfield
Kempston
Middlesborough
Nailsea
Neath
Oxford
Port
Talbot
Pentwyn
Reigate
St Mellons
Stoke
Sutton
Coldfield
Swindon
Treforest
Trowbridge
Warwick
Yeadon

No Norwich yet, I was hoping it would be added, I got disconnected at exactly midnight tonight and then several times since, hoping they're doing the upgrade, but no faster upload yet!

I have my faster upload for around 2 months now, however it maxes out at 3.5mbit i cannot hit 5mbit. Any advice how i can maybe fix this ?

How are you testing this?

This is now being updated in a PDF with expected update dates for all the cities/areas

Norwich is June 2011 *sadface*

aug 2011 here. a late date but is better than not knowing.

'Being Planned' in my area. Not sure what that means, but I suspect it's not good.

Ditto - But I'm in Bristol with 2 huge Uni's here.

Maybe they've got to increase backhaul into the area to cope or the network may just fall on it's knees if they increase the uploads?

Jan 2011 here in Swansea.

brighton is an area upgraded now and has had a history of congestion, it fell on its knees post upgrade.

Not sure then. I know Bristol is some kinda of super hub so I'm wondering if the areas attached to Bristol are being done first then Bristol itself is being planned for when those are complete. I'm not sure how that fits in with other "in planning" areas?

Maybe I should stop trying to second guess them.

List was updated again a couple of weeks back:


http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf...

I woke up today, went to work, remotely logged into my PC back home, checked my torrent list, almost missed the fact that I was uploading at about 600k/s...

Did a speed test and 4.8Mbit upload.

Woohoo, looks like I'm upgraded! Norwich was scheduled for June so Christmas came early xD

In reply to a post by anon123456:

I woke up today, went to work, remotely logged into my PC back home, checked my torrent list, almost missed the fact that I was uploading at about 600k/s...

Did a speed test and 4.8Mbit upload.

Woohoo, looks like I'm upgraded! Norwich was scheduled for June so Christmas came early xD

yeah VM are running ahead of schedule in most areas.

my area is due in august but the work required is done (docsis2 upstream upgrade), so just waiting for config to be rolled out now.

same here in Swansea, DOCSIS 2 has been done and just awaiting the config file, the BSR im on isnt due to upgrade till July.

yeah VM are running ahead of schedule in most areas.

Maybe they'll catch up enough to finish planning Bristol and get on it

Well Swansea Cwmburla was updated last night im now on the 5mb upload.

Another update:

http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf...

My area has been moved forward by 2 months...

they r throwing out more updates than Microsoft!!

In reply to a post by JimKirk363:

they r throwing out more updates than Microsoft!!

3 in 5 months and they STILL can't get a date for Bristol.....pffffft

Still 'being planned' in Perth too

None of the areas 'Being Planned' have been changed to a date yet. Expect this to be between August 2011 and March 2012.

Yes I did say March 2012 - some 18 months after the first areas got their upgrades and pretty much at the same time as the 100M upgrades complete.

That'll count me out then. I'll be an ex-customer by then.

My area was scheduled for the 5mb upload for August 2011 and it got moved forward to June 2011 but I got the speed upgraded last night...

Still don't get the full 5mb and I am stuck on 3.7xmb with the mini slot still on 1

Out of interest I just did a speedtest and we've also been upgraded. we are on Hayes (HAYE), on the list as scheduled for June. also only getting 3.78Mbps according to speedtest though.

looks like they've fixed the problem. my modem was reporting the upstream mini-slot was 1, apparently it should be 4. checked it today and its been fixed. proper upstream speed now.