In reply to a post by teabelly:

I'd happily pay more to get a product that suits my needs ie unlimited so I can recover a broken computer without it taking weeks rather than hours. I'd pay extra to have it.

Check out their 'Big Red Internet' products for true unlimited service, it does indeed cost more but it is also totally unlimited as per your needs.

As for VM advertising 'unlimited' on their consumer priced products, the only way we are ever going to get that stopped is by continuing to complain to the ASA, nothing posted on these boards is going to make one iota of difference.

I shall be complaining to the ASA. You can't describe something as unlimited and reduce service at such low levels of usage.

I'd be interested to know anyone on the plusnet fibre service which is also described as unlimited and whether they have the same issues.

Fibre is due locally soon so jumping ship is a likely possibility.

Moderate restrictions are allowed, only if you describe a service as Totally Unlimited are no restrictions allowed.

So as per update to news item if people feel that the 40% restriction for those triggering it is not moderate then complain at next advert. Though I do not that unlimited is not so heavily featured as it used to be

BT have been pointing the finger at VM for some time in their adverts by saying that "unlike some" they will never slow you down. I don't know what shaping is done on BT these days but those adverts infer none. If in fact they do use shaping then they are more in breach than VM are by claiming to never slow you down...

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10495...

Is traffic management used to manage congestion in particular locations? No
Is traffic management used in relation to heavy users? No

Interesting tables on that page. I like the one that says:
Is traffic management used during peak hours? Yes
But then fails to tick any of the boxes to detail what type.

It does seem to contradict all the other assertions they make on that page, so probably just a typo.

That certainly seems to say that unlimited is unlimited with no shaping applied and it that is the case their adverts are true.

Moderate is a vague term andrew and its my view VM restrictions are not moderate.

The ASA have got themselves in a mess here, totally unlimited and unlimited are basically the same thing. But somehow they are treated differently by the ASA.

But cutting speeds by 40% at a low usage isnt moderate throttling. I have to be fair myself been victim of VMs STM few times accidently, not downloading anything particurly huge vbut due to how much they oversell their network and how close the burst speeds are to the shared capacity VM it seems are having to be aggressive on throttling. Watching netflix in HD eg. will likely trigger STM.

In reply to a post by kwikbreaks:

BT have been pointing the finger at VM for some time in their adverts by saying that "unlike some" they will never slow you down. I don't know what shaping is done on BT these days but those adverts infer none. If in fact they do use shaping then they are more in breach than VM are by claiming to never slow you down...

BT dont shape now but they do in my view have some form of priotisation in place.

They have a QoS that priotises assured traffic, meaning for that to work other traffic is depriotised. I have had variable speeds during peak, yet when executive complaints start checking my line the connection is suddenly perfect at peak. an hour after a call to me saying they closing my case the connection resets and the variable peak performance is back as if the QoS flag has been swapped again. With that said tho the varying speeds on BT are not in VMs league, its still generally 40+ mbit at peak and no affect on latency/jitter/upload.

No protocol based shaping on BT either now. They removed it in February. Except for customers on old contracts.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

BT dont shape now but they do in my view have some form of priotisation in place.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

No protocol based shaping on BT either now.

Well either they do have some prioritisation/shaping (to me the terms are synonymous) or they don't. Their website says they don't and I think you are saying you can't actually prove that they do so I reckon they probably don't.

As we both know VM's Achilles heel is upstream so their puny local upstream capacity can't tolerate 24x7 torrent seeding which is why they have and admit to having p2p shaping. The real problem though is that it clearly doesn't work and circumventing it is fairly easy - especially NNTP downloading. The fallback of STM simply isn't harsh enough to solve the issue so you see many segments of the VM network "traffic managed" by congestion. Their pretty poor peering can naff things up for those not blessed with a couple of torrent freaks in their street.

I said a year back that I thought VM's days were numbered - BT's FTTC roll out may save them by siphoning off devoted downloaders of the internet if that is not truly unlimited. I can only hope that is so as I really don't trust the local Openreach clods to provide me with decent or indeed any FTTC. My address now isn't on the BT database at all - possibly in retaliation at me cancelling after their no-show for the Infinity install but more likely incompetence. As my cable is still behaving I really don't feel like battling again to get their useless system to recognise that fibre really is available to me. I certainly wouldn't go through any non-automated order process as that would knockout the possibility of cashback.