New New Traffic Management Policy

Could they have come up with a more complicated scheme?

I have some other scenarios if people can answer them as the Virgin examples are pretty vague.

If I download 2750 MB I will be speed limited for one hour. Provided I download less than 750 MB during that hour the limiter will expire and I can then download another 2750 MB before the limiter will be applied again?

If I download 2750 MB I will be speed limited for one hour. If I download more than 750 MB during that hour the limiter will be applied for two hours. Is that a fresh two hours or does it include the part hour from the first trigger?

The mechanism for retriggering the 2 hour limiter is not clear at all so I will just give a real world example:

I stream a 120 minute HD movie which comes in at a total of 4.5 GB. After that the connection is just used for regular browsing. How much am I limited by and for how long? What would I have to do trigger a further two hour extension?

In the movie example, my Sky Box doesn't actually stream as such it just downloads it, let's say the download only takes 75 minutes and therefore the connection is unused for at least 45 minutes. How does that change severity and scope of the limiter?

The 2750 MBytes in an hour is about 6 Mbits/s so if your kit downloads 4.5 GB flat out it is very likely to exceed the limit unless congestion prevents it.

If I download 2750 MB I will be speed limited for one hour. Provided I download less than 750 MB during that hour the limiter will expire and I can then download another 2750 MB before the limiter will be applied again?

Correct - in this scenario you can download more at line speed than with the old system.

If I download 2750 MB I will be speed limited for one hour. If I download more than 750 MB during that hour the limiter will be applied for two hours. Is that a fresh two hours or does it include the part hour from the first trigger?
Think it is a new two hour

I stream a 120 minute HD movie which comes in at a total of 4.5 GB. After that the connection is just used for regular browsing. How much am I limited by and for how long? What would I have to do trigger a further two hour extension?
Limited by 30% as you go past the 2.75GB figure by 40% for what is left of the hour and another two hours.

n the movie example, my Sky Box doesn't actually stream as such it just downloads it, let's say the download only takes 75 minutes and therefore the connection is unused for at least 45 minutes. How does that change severity and scope of the limiter?
Harder to say as right on the edge, but believe the first hour triggers, and you go just a few Meg over the 2 hour limit so that is triggered two. In reality a 4.5GB file should arrive faster than 60 minutes on the XL 30 services.

andrew you have the old data to put in same post?

Added a link http://www.thinkbroadband.com/images/news/5790-virgi...

Was already linked on the news, and grabbed it as an image so people have it for comparison

I find this bit at the bottom of http://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic... interesting...

Heavy users: Heavy users can cause peak traffic volumes to exceed the engineered maximum load. In practice this refers to a very small proportion of users of a network whose use is excessive to the extent that it impacts on other users.

It looks to me very much like an admission that their network flies so close to the wind that a single heavy user can have an impact on others around them. This is nothing new but it's the first time I've seen such an admission. On ADSL the far larger pipes in relation to sold speeds make it pretty much impossible for a single user to have a noticeable impact on others. Perhaps VM ought to stick to selling only what their network can support rather than keep coming up with ever more convoluted schemes which still won't guarantee that there are no heavily congested areas which stay that way for an age.

More like the M-way matrix signs slowing peolpe down to a reasonable speed that ALL can do but getting there just the same.

Interesting, but remove the bragging rights of the 120 Meg users and what makes their network something 4 million people will pay money to have broadband on?

Perhaps turn off a few more TV channels to bond for broadband more, and don't increase speeds. FTTC is not going to beat 120 Mbps for some time, so it might be a way to go.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Interesting, but remove the bragging rights of the 120 Meg users and what makes their network something 4 million people will pay money to have broadband on?

Nothing much I suspect although the bulk of users are on the low speed tiers and they are staying with VM for some reason or other - inertia and some waiting for FTTC rollout probably.

It suits me because I have a duff phone line that Openreach failed to fix in 5 visits. When I decided to risk FTTC Openreach decided not to bother to turn up and install it so I stuck with cable. In my area now the jitter is pretty high and the SamKnows monitor shows it down to an average over the day of 40Mbps quite often (I have the 60Mbps product) and I suspect that any 100Mbps users will be getting the same. Without doubt FTTC should give better performance here but I'm not going to risk it - better the devil I know.

Thanks for confirming the first two items. Though I'm still not clear on what triggers a further two hours of restrictions once you've incurred the first one. How many MB can you download during that two hours before the timer is reset?

I noticed they have also changed "affects 5% of users" to "affects 5% of users per day". That's quite a big difference as it's not necessarily the same 5% of users every day and could mean 100% of users are affected at some time or another. That seems a lot more likely given the limits and the size of video files.

I think its always been affects a small percentage per day, just not been stated that way

If one hour trigger is 2750MB and two hour limit is 3500 MB, then once past the 2750MB figure, you have 750MB left to use in the second hour.

If it was me, I would think of buying the service at the 40% reduced speed that suited my needs and wallet and then when I get more just be pleased with myself.

e,.g worst case the 60 Mbps service is slowed down to 36 Mbps.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If one hour trigger is 2750MB and two hour limit is 3500 MB, then once past the 2750MB figure, you have 750MB left to use in the second hour.

Sorry, what I'm getting at is after you have triggered the two hours. So I've downloaded 3.5 GB and I've got a 2 hour speed restriction. If I turn my router off I'll have full speed again in 2 hours. But what if I leave it on? In the third Virgin Media example it says I could be traffic managed all the way to 11 pm. But it doesn't say what extends the time you spend on management. How much can I use the connection in those 2 hours without risking the speed restrictions being extended beyond the two hours?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If it was me, I would think of buying the service at the 40% reduced speed that suited my needs and wallet and then when I get more just be pleased with myself.

e,.g worst case the 60 Mbps service is slowed down to 36 Mbps.

Yeah that's a good way to think of it. I'm not really that bothered personally as it's unlikely I'll have a large download on the same day as blowing the allowance on an HD movie. Even if I did I could do the download first and still leave plenty of speed for the movie. Just wanting to understand what I'm getting for my money.

Believe you go back to the start of a new 2750 MB in one hour.

The amount for the initial trigger is clever, as its well above what most streamed HD runs at, i.e. sustain 6 Mbps to trigger on XL30, but love film, netflix are in the area of 3.5 to 4 for HD material.

Don't see how they got 30 Mbps, as there is no 50% reduction level

Believe you go back to the start of a new 2750 MB in one hour.

Thanks, that's actually pretty good!

The amount for the initial trigger is clever, as its well above what most streamed HD runs at, i.e. sustain 6 Mbps to trigger on XL30, but love film, netflix are in the area of 3.5 to 4 for HD material.

Not sure what the Sky Movies run at but looking at the first page of movies it ranges from 2.57 GB for "30 Minutes or Less" which runs for 83 minutes and 5.37 GB for "Alexander" which runs for 160 minutes. I'd say about half are under 3.5 GB and about half are over it. Very few are under 2.75 GB.

Maybe Sky has increased the bit rate, but fitted all the Harry Potter into around 33GB at Christmas

That is still 4.1 GB per movie.

True, but joy of Sky on Demand is you can queue them up overnight so ready to watch over a few days.

Can't remember how long the films were, some of the Harry Potters do last a long time.

Talk about kill use at the weekend.... and you have to manage everything yourself.

Before I could let downloads hit the speed reduction and all was ok .....I could manage on 50Meg

My 100/5Mb connection is theoretically capable of 540Gb/27GB in the 12hours of "daytime"

Under the previous rules I was allowed 120/21.75GB all days of week

now week days are 256.5/17.9GB ....as if upload wasn't weak enough as it is.

weekends are 54/11.4GB

Just an attempt to show how limited "unlimited" really is when viewed as volume rather than speed and to get this you would have to sit at your keyboard for the full 12 hours whereas before one could set timers

exceed any of the above and get capped....If only it were that simple..... and to add insult to injury lets just extend the limits to the time of day when people want to use a computer

Edited by deleted (Wed 17-Apr-13 01:35:47)

I was happy when I jumped ship last November, congestion and utilization in my area is really bad, their STM should be based on speed used over a time period, not data, it's speed that kills the network, but anyway, on BT option 2 UNLIMITED, and very happy with my 73.6Mb download and 19.8Mb upload (Modem Stats are 76.8Mb and 20.0Mb), all unlimited, all uncapped and no STM, gaming is so smooth, no rubber banding, no jitter and no LAG, same with streaming, no buffers here.

Anyway, should be the speed that judges the cap on you line, not the amount of data you download.

Line Speed

Line Quality

Edited by deleted (Wed 17-Apr-13 08:36:08)

Anyway, should be the speed that judges the cap on you line, not the amount of data you download.

It is, you just need to think about it differently. If you are on a 30Mbps package then using more than 20% of your speed on average over an hour will see you restricted.

My main gripe with this is that they aren't treating all the tiers equally, i.e. the 100Mbps users can only use 10% of their speed on average. So my family and I are still OK to run a couple of HD streams but if we run more than that we're likely to hit the limits - though hopefully we wouldn't actually notice.

You have a Sky box downloading over a Virgin Media connection?

Maybe you've already checked but you may be able to get a better deal by getting broadband and TV from the same company.

Only reason I say this is because of the thought process you triggered when I read your post, i.e. that maybe Sky could allow you to set maximum download rates in their box to cope with this type of situation better, but then I realised how ridiculous that sounded, Sky would simply prefer it if you moved over to their broadband.

Am I right in thinking that the users on slower speeds (5, 10, 20) seem to be penalised more heavily?

Have I got this right - as a user on 10M, (and I have no problem with the speed I get at 10m) I can watch approx 1-2 hours of Iplayer in the evening to reach the 750mb limit and then be restricted for 5 hours down to 75% of my initial speed ie 2.5m?

exactly Andrew

It looks to me as if you want to fully utilise your connection during hours your most likely to be at home then you will be punished and have effectively 70% of what your paying for.

ie weekends looks a complete f**k up

I understand if your only 120 and throttled to 80 then download speeds are hardly going to change really even if you are throttled.

my question remains is the throttling just another way of covering up congestions problems, because the three years I was with VM I spent countless hours on the phone moaning that I was being throttled without evening hitting the limits.

1 to 2 hours if you watch iPlayer on its low quality settings.

Essentially if you have not upgraded to the 30 Meg tier, Virgin Media is encouraging you to.

I used to have the Virgin TV service but I wasn't very impressed. Most of the HD channels had lip sync issues and they didn't offer some major channels available on Sky.

When they announced they wouldn't be carrying the F1 channel in HD, that was last the straw. (I know that's probably more down to Sky not selling it to them but that's business.) The only advantage Virgin had was the On Demand service but I'd say over the last year Sky have surpassed them in that area, too.

Unfortunately switching to Sky broadband is not an option until FTTC is rolled out to my street. Something which has been delayed by 9 months so far.

So on my 60mbps I can only get 8 minutes of full throughput before throttling? If they advertised that I bet they wouldn't get many people buying thr product.

The charts are ridiculous. I understand them but my wife and parents would just look bemused.

As others have said - the network obviously can't cope with the volume of traffic.

I would happily have stayed on 30mbps before they doubled it and just left it as that without throttling. At least then I knew where I stood.

Edited by deleted (Wed 17-Apr-13 19:38:07)

As I read it I you have something large to download or stream then avoiding throttling under this new scheme means you'll need to limit the rate to not much over 600Kbps on the 60Mbps package (never exceed 4.5GB over two hours). I had faster broadband that that in 2001.

I used to try to keep under STM thresholds but the new scheme means very slow downloads if what you want is over 3.5GB on 30 4.5Gb on 60 and 5.7GB on 100 so I'll just ignore the rules from now on and take the STM hit if it comes which is what I suspect many others will do too. I suspect that this is counterproductive for VM.

Don't forget that the limits are in BYTES and the line speeds are in BITS, there are 8 Bits in a Byte.

More like 6 Mega bits per second if you don't ever want to trigger it.

Would I rather have a 70 Mbps service with burst to 120 Mbps or a constant 6 or 7 Mbps from ADSL? Very much a decision for the individual and how they use their connection.

On the old system on 30 Meg, if you did 3.5GB in the evening window, you were limited for five hours, so it is not like this is new, and the reductions are lower than they were at the start of the year.

A lot of comments almost are worded as if the STM is totally new, maybe many did not realise that Virgin Media had STM

Yep - got the sums wrong. Doh

Yes I got the sums wrong.

I think I'd still just let anything download flat out and take any STM hit rather than throttle back to ADSL speeds. Quite probably once the download completed I wouldn't need the top speed anyway or to download more. If I did download more though what would be the point of doing so at 6Mbps if 60% of my headline speed was available? I can't see the new STM stopping constant torrent seeding either although the upstream limits do look quite draconian

So I've downloaded 3.5 GB and I've got a 2 hour speed restriction. If I turn my router off I'll have full speed again in 2 hours. But what if I leave it on? In the third Virgin Media example it says I could be traffic managed all the way to 11 pm. But it doesn't say what extends the time you spend on management. How much can I use the connection in those 2 hours without risking the speed restrictions being extended beyond the two hours?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Believe you go back to the start of a new 2750 MB in one hour.

Turns out this is not the case. I blew the limit today and the download finished at 5 pm. Now it's 7.30 pm and the limiter is still active. I have used the connection for basic browsing nothing more. So you definitely don't get a new 2750 MB allowance. Which again raises the question what triggers extensions to the 2 hour limiter? Surely VM have to be transparent about this.

Update: 9.30 pm it is back to full speed.

Edited by deleted (Sun 28-Apr-13 21:29:43)

That sounds very much like the old STM - breach a limit and you get 5 hours of throttling. They probably haven't rolled the new scheme out to every CMTS yet.

Average speed cameras come to mind

I hope ASA grow some and tear VM a new one on this

...and even now there are folks that just wish they could achieve the 60% and 25% speeds any time they would normally expect to use them but is there a cap on adding new users in those areas?

Do they inform new users of the speed they are likely to get?

Do they discount users who do not get the advertised speed?

I so wish I was not too close to the BT exchange to get FTTC. I would even pay for FTTP

Catalog of errors. for ASA and even Ofcom to get their teeth into

In reply to a post by OldChapXS:

I hope ASA grow some and tear VM a new one on this

Just a reminder that the ASA doesn't act unless someone complains. If you are expecting them to act I hope you have raised a complaint with them yourself rather than sitting back and hoping others have.
It is also worth noting that Virgin's Traffic Management Policy has already been adjusted due to complaints and the consequent rulings of the ASA.