22 replies to this topic

[MissTengu]

Well for those who don't understand what I am talking about here we go:

*Takes deep breath.*

Speed moderating (or speed capping/throttling.) is when your internet service provider decides when you have broken the pre-set limit for your up and download during on-peek period. Depending on who you are with depends on what they will do and when the on and off-peek periods are. If you go over your pre-set limit most places will just dramatically slow your internet speed down, for a few hours. While others will just cut your internet completely or charge you for going over your limit.

Of course you never get notified when you have gone over. You just all of a sudden get massive drop in internet speed, cut off or receive a nice big bill the next month.

Do you think it's unreasonable for places to do this to their customers?
Do you think places are falsely advertising when they tell you you'll get "unlimited" downloads, when they do this?

Also for those who are with Virgin Media... I quote:

"Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till 9pm) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed. This will last for 5 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied."

Thoughts?

[SMFoxy]

Being slowed down is better than being cut off, but either is a pain in the ass.
I can understand that some people take the piss, downloading a fuckton every single day.
But then, one of the poll options is "I pay for this service, I demand to use it".
The problem with that is that you pay £x for a yMB connection and zGB of download.
If you go over Z, technically you're in breach of contract, so they could point blank refuse to provide the service.

[Shilue]

Hmm... my post seemed to have gotten lost in the move. Well here we go again then.
I never heard of this but then again my ISP does not sell plans based on the amount you download and in the areas they do you have an app on your PC to track the amount of data you use.

I think doing this without letting you know you have come close to your limit/exceeded it is total crap. They do have a rite to bill you for going over on your plan but cutting your speed and still charging you overage fees without letting you know what's going on is just BS.

[cooky560]

Virgin do not charge overage fees on their cable plans (not so sure about their ADSL plans) for going over the limit, they merely cripple your speed for a bit.

[NeppyNepNep]

Not if you're 50MB they don't. While the smaller packages have limits on how much you can download/upload at peek times, their largest package isn't affected by this. But yes, Cooky is right. They don't charge you overfees. At least Virgin doesn't. I have no idea about the other broadband providers. They just cap your arse. I personally think it is a ploy to lure people onto the higher packages so that they can roll out faster broadband even quicker. Virgin already lead the UK with their 50MB and are planning on bringing out 100MB soon. They will then cripple the 50MB but not the 100MB.

[SMFoxy]

I know people who need their arses capping. >.>
<.<

Anyway, yeah. I'm on BT now. They just cut you off completely until you pay.

[NeppyNepNep]

Ohh... ouch... BT... you poor bastard.

[SMFoxy]

It's reliable enough, and fast enough.
In before "that's not what she said".

[MissTengu]

-Kitsune:Sama-, on 27 November 2010 - 21:56 hrs, said:

Being slowed down is better than being cut off, but either is a pain in the ass.
I can understand that some people take the piss, downloading a fuckton every single day.
But then, one of the poll options is "I pay for this service, I demand to use it".
The problem with that is that you pay £x for a yMB connection and zGB of download.
If you go over Z, technically you're in breach of contract, so they could point blank refuse to provide the service.

I put that option because this one nice person I was talking to at Virgin customer services said; before getting my call she was on the phone to a man who was pissed off, since they had completely shut his services off. They had black listed him from using their internet service, since he had been taking the piss with the whole "unlimited" downloads. If I remember right she said he had been downloading 800gb (Maybe more I know it was a massive amount, and had both me and JJ shocked that he was even able to download that much within a small amount of time.) a week. And when she informed him of this he said. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS! I PAY FOR MY FUCKING SERVICES AND HAVE A RIGHT TO USE IT ALL!!!!" So yeah.... in his honour. XD

I agree at finding it a pain in the butt. But prefer it over being charged extra for going over. D=

Shilue, on 28 November 2010 - 01:03 hrs, said:

Hmm... my post seemed to have gotten lost in the move. Well here we go again then.
I never heard of this but then again my ISP does not sell plans based on the amount you download and in the areas they do you have an app on your PC to track the amount of data you use.

I think doing this without letting you know you have come close to your limit/exceeded it is total crap. They do have a rite to bill you for going over on your plan but cutting your speed and still charging you overage fees without letting you know what's going on is just BS.

With Virgin Media they sell it as "unlimited downloads." However their definition of "unlimited downloads" isn't what a lot of people assume it is. What they mean is unlimited "within reason." (aka fair usage policy.) A lot of people with Virgin don't know they have an on and off peek period, in which if they go over their contract amount they will be capped for 5 hours. During the on-peek period speeds are reduced slightly by 20% to allow for extra traffic. So everyone gets reasonable speed.

Apparently a lot of research went into this before they did it. Hence why it's like this.

I guess their excuse for not letting you know is the whole "It's in the small print." Although when we signed up there was nothing like it. Will have to double check our contract.

Other company's aren't as nice. They do a lot worse.

cooky560, on 28 November 2010 - 01:12 hrs, said:

Virgin do not charge overage fees on their cable plans (not so sure about their ADSL plans) for going over the limit, they merely cripple your speed for a bit.

I know they do. It has happened many times to me. I was merely stating what ISP's tend to do. Sorry if I didn't make that clear enough for you.

Neptune, on 28 November 2010 - 09:50 hrs, said:

Not if you're 50MB they don't. While the smaller packages have limits on how much you can download/upload at peek times, their largest package isn't affected by this. But yes, Cooky is right. They don't charge you overfees. At least Virgin doesn't. I have no idea about the other broadband providers. They just cap your arse. I personally think it is a ploy to lure people onto the higher packages so that they can roll out faster broadband even quicker. Virgin already lead the UK with their 50MB and are planning on bringing out 100MB soon. They will then cripple the 50MB but not the 100MB.

I know other company do charge you overfees. Mostly on dial-up or dongel.

When me and JJ can we will go on highest. D:

-Kitsune:Sama-, on 28 November 2010 - 10:30 hrs, said:

I know people who need their arses capping. >.>
<.<

Same here. lol

Quote

Anyway, yeah. I'm on BT now. They just cut you off completely until you pay.

Neptune, on 28 November 2010 - 11:35 hrs, said:

Ohh... ouch... BT... you poor bastard.

^
This.

I heard their services are shitty as well. D:

[cooky560]

Virgin don't cripple any of the services I don't think, a friend of mine is on thier 20mb service and they've never had thier speed capped once, and they do a helluva lot of online gaming and streaming off radio sites.

[NeppyNepNep]

That's funny because when we were on 20MB we got capped a lot of times. Your friend must be lying.

Also... you said in your post earlier they do.

[MissTengu]

Virgin DO cap their services, and you even agreed that they do in your last post. o.O

It depends at what time and how much they do it. Also like Neps said. They are either lying or on 50mb.

Quote

How much can be downloaded before my speed gets cut?

It depends which "size" of broadband you're on, and is only measured during peak hours (4pm - 9pm).

Users on Size M can download 300MB or upload 150MB before being restricted.

Users on Size: L can download 800MB or upload 325MB before being restricted.

When Size: L speeds are upgraded from 4Mb to 10Mb, the upload limit will be increased to 400MB, though the download limit will stay the same.

Users on Size: XL can download 3GB or upload 1.25GB before being restricted.

This was published in 2008. So might of changed quiet a bit.

When we download heavily we always get capped. Since we are on 10mb connection. Which should get put up to 20 or 24mb or something when 50mb get upgraded to 100mb.

As a online gamer I noticed the traffic gets heavy around 3-4pm GMT mark. And the more experience ones don't show up until 7-8pm. It usually goes quiet around 2-3am.

I also used to DJ from 8pm-12am on Saturdays, 10am-12pm on Sundays and 8pm-10pm on Mondays. We never got capped for that at all. I also stream a lot of music from shoutcast every once in a while. Mostly when I have trouble sleeping I put music on and stream it for at least 6 hours?

Annd lastly: I am a game streamer. On average I usually stream games for something like 4 hours? every few days to a week... Yet never get capped for it.

So either your friends are like me and take breaks between, aren't as "heavy" usage as they are making out or actually do get capped but don't notice. (Which has happened to us a few times.) Or they wait for the on and off peek period and only do their thing round it.

Also according to Virgin the last time we had any "heavy" activity was a few months ago when we downloaded 52gb in total. And apparently that didn't even go near the amount that would make us go over. *shrugs*

[cooky560]

I think when it comes to off peak data usage as long as thier system can't take the load they probably aren't too fussed

[MissTengu]

Well it's more to ease the traffic. "Off-peek" is usually when people are at work or school so the internet isn't used as much. However "On-peek" is when everyone will be home from work or school. So there is more demand. So to make sure everyone gets good stable speed they reduce it slightly for all. (Apart from 50mb customers.) And anyone who is taking the piss at that time is punished for doing so.

Virgin is the only company I know of that does this. Other company's I have noticed don't cope well and usually (I have seen massive complaints over this.) get unstable internet. Like at times it will either be super slow or cut out at random times for a few days or just don't have it for weeks on end!

All in all I think it's fair. But from what I read around; in the early stages of capping it used to piss people off, since they hadn't ironed out the problems. From what I can tell Virgin did a hell of a lot of research into this before implementing it.

[cooky560]

Without a doubt Virgin are easily the best internet provider in the UK and until their monopoly on cable ends (despite the disapproval words like monopoly bring to the table I meant no disapproval I love Virgin internet) they are likley to remain the best internet provider in the UK. I have no experience with their ADSL packages however and I'd like to hear from someone who does to see if they are as good (allowing for the obvious speed differences) quality service as the cable.

[SMFoxy]

On the whole, BT service isn't that bad.
We got our service back within four hours of paying our bill.

Also, I don't believe they should advertise it as unlimited if it isn't.
Same with phone contracts...

[MissTengu]

Virgin media's use of the word "unlimited" has pissed people off. I quote:

Quote

How can Virgin Media say that their broadband service is "unlimited"?

It depends how you look at their broadband offering.

Introducing speed throttling limits a part of the service for some users. However, the "unlimited' claim relates to how much data can be uploaded or downloaded, rather than how quickly.

Imagine if you were still on a dial-up connection, but on a flat rate and with no download limits. Access would be hellishly slow, but it would still be "unlimited".

If you're feeling really pedantic you could argue that, over the course of a month, if your download speed is throttled, then you won't be able to download as much. True, but the Internet rarely runs at "top speed" anyway, and if you're spending that much time online, you really do need to get out more.

Thing is they don't actually stop you downloading unlimited data. They just slow it down. So they technically are keeping to the word of "Unlimited" downloads. In the small print it states "Unlimited downloads within reason." Aka fair usage. A little bit naughty. But they aren't breaking any laws. Just being (as my bank put it.) very cheeky.

[cooky560]

Well I guess they have the right to look at large amounts of data transfer because it might suggest file sharing or other activity they don't like. But at the same time I agree something should be said about "unlimited" packages that are out there

[Shilue]

OK well that does seem a little better to me and does make sense as a small portion of users can often take up huge amounts of band width and this could add to the stability of a network as a whole. Funny though my ISP actually offers a temporary speed boost when downloading large files.

[The Raging Hardon]

I'm on Virgin Media's 50Mb package. I enjoy not being capped. It does strike me as odd that they state that they have bandwidth throttling for people causing heavy load on their network on their 10Mb and 20Mb package. So they give their 50Mb customers, uncapped access, which is 5, or 2 and a half customers on the other package. How intelligent.