Virgin DO throttle newgroups

Despite their claims to the contrary, they do throttle newsgroups even out of peak times.

00:20 last night and I'm getting 2 Mbps

I'm on the 30 Mbps package.

Funny, how when I run my nntp traffic through a VPN tunnel the speed jumps to 15 Mbps

I don't think this is new, it has been the case for some time. When I phoned a while back to enquire about it the agent did confirm that traffic management was in place for the benefit of VMs customers. Using alternative ports/SSL/etc has worked for some time but I imagine we will eventually get caught out, at which point I will take my £95 a month elsewhere.

And so will I. I think the message that VM has to learn, whether they like it or not is:
I've paid for my cake and I will eat it !!.

If they start managing VPN traffic they won't know for sure and can only suspect that
it may be newsgroup traffic.

They will risk peeing off legitimate users and will almost certainly lose some customers.

This is old news. Most people switched to NNTP over SSL (port 443) and got around the limit.

Where is the in stone definition of peak time on the Virgin Network?

By its nature it is when traffic levels are at the highest.

after a bit of digging gives a typical 10am to 10pm at weekends. The use of the word typical indicates that it can vary too.

VM publish the times that their STM (throttle when a given byte count is exceeded) is active. That comes in two lumps 10:00-15:00 and 16:00-21:00. It's a feature built into the hardware although occasionally I've exceeded a download limit and not been punished (speed reduced by 75% for 5 hours). For downstream this applies to 30Mbps and below. Upstream is only areas with the improved upstream (10% of down) and for 50Mbps and below.

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/tm-table-fu-large.jpg


There is also shaping which is supposed to hit NNTP and any P2P but this is more likely to screw up gamers than inconvenience Cap'n Pugwash and his crew as use of SSL or a VPN defeats detection. SFAIK that runs 17:00- 24:00 weekdays and 10:00-24:00 weekends.

VMs defenition of evening peak doesnt seem to match my congestion periods.

They seem to be most busy in my area from about 9pm to about 2am. Congestion doesnt stop until about 4-6am. and thats only congestion affecting throughput, it affects latency 24/7.