How would YOU fix this?

Given that a large number of folks are struggling to use VM's services in the way they expected to (probably as a result of the advertising), Lets take a positive approach and look for remedies to the situation.

This may take the form of truthful advertising or it may be related to infrastructure or a hardware/software fix which enforces caps on speed or possibly we go back to the dark ages and pay for each GB of download?

What do YOU think is the way forward?

My view

Unlike in some northern European countries, at sometime in the past it was decided that Fiber to the house was and would remain unnecessary.
The time is fast approaching when this is no longer true so the upgrade of infrastructure must now take a more expensive route of replacing a lot more of the hardware than might have been the case.

Selling new connections should be related to availability of bandwidth, not whether or not there is a cabinet nearby.

Selling should state not just the headline speed but the average speed from said cabinet

Service should include a minimum set of statistics below which the user has automatic right to either cancel a contract or seek assistance in resolving the problem and that within a given time.

If a connection has an expected use amount related to the contention figures used to calculate how many must share a given bandwidth let the customer know what that is then he can choose to limit himself at that point.

So, just a bunch of thoughts, kept somewhat simplistic, to start this off

Super fast fibre is not necessary if all were given the ability to have a constant 20mbps (for example). The more people are given then the more they will take.

Edited by deleted (Fri 05-Apr-13 17:27:13)

I'd be interested because, as I understood it, they stopped sending letters threatening disconnection etc. in order to retain their right to continue to advertise their service as "unlimited".

IMO what they should do is stop advertising "unlimited" and simply terminate the contracts of anybody abusing the service after the first warning. That way maybe there would be a lot fewer congested areas.

If you can scan it and email it to [email protected]

No need to hind any personal information, I will make sure that this is removed before publishing.

If you do publish please post a link in this thread.

I suspect it may just be the advisory letter which they do still send out but I wasn't aware that it contained any threats or offered a get out of jail free on contract termination.

Not entirely - they don't charge per GB (BT do on their capped sevices) or cap the download volume although naturally limiting the download speed has that effect if you expect to be able to download 24x7 at full speed.

In practice most normal users can download as much as they want with VM so long as they avoid the shaped protocols or take steps to avoid the shaping - apparently for NNTP just using encryption is enough. Simplest by far is to use HTTP or FTP which only has the STM to contend with and as we've discussed before that certainly only used to operate for both of us during the published evening period. I'm not sure if that remains the case with the new regime as I've been away from home since it was announced until yesterday afternoon.

I've seen that one before, it's nothing new. It's just an advisory letter explaining that you may have been throttled by the STM. So far as I can see there are no threats that you will be constantly throttled or have any higher sanctions applied than those published. I suspect people are reporting it now because there has been an STM change but that letter was the one they started sending out after they stopped using the "detrimental use" threats of disconnection.

Same letter Oct 2012 - http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-30Mb-Speed... There will be earlier examples I'm sure - that was just the first hit I got from googling one of the phrases in it.

Edited by kwikbreaks (Sat 06-Apr-13 09:14:04)

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

Now I have 4G I have disconnected from Vermin Medium after getting a letter saying as I had done 1.6TB over 3 months I was to be traffic managed

They offered me a free get out so I got out.

Now I am sure the letter will be of interest to some people - maybe TBB?

Unlimited 4G coming to 3 in september. yeah man! - 42mbps down 22 up from EE right now

Quite funny..

Yesterday VM called me to check how I was doing and whether I was happy with the service..

I said I was happy with everything other than VM extending the STM time to 10:00pm... she said she will speak to the technical dept and then came back and said VM do not throttle connections and there is a technical fault which I should report.

Then she insisted I have downloaded 600GB in the last one month and this quite high... I told her when I was on 20mb I downloaded 600GB and now on 100MB I am still downloading 600GB so please explain me how that is high... as expected she didn't have any answer...

Then she again changed the subject to VM not throttling connections and I have a technical fault..

I told her straight that it is written in black and white on their website and I have no intentions of getting into an discussion...