What is the cut off mark for Virgin Media STM?

2008-11-18T02:23:00.001-08:00

Apparently from Virgin Media's website, bandwidth usage is monitored from 4pm to 12 midnight on a weekday, and 10am to midnight on weekends, and if you download excessively during these peak periods, your broadband speed will be reduced, for cable users this is halved for the next 5 hours (and monitored from 10am to 3pm, as well as 4pm to 9pm all on the same day).

However there are suspicions that that is not the case at all, and STM(Subscriber Traffic Management) is being implemented regardless of usage even during off peak hours. The suspicion is that STM is implemented if you download in a continuous stream of 10 - 20 mins during these peak hours (so watching a 10 minute youtube clip puts you over the threshold), which will then mean you will be throttled for a week (if you are on adsl), Virgin Media are not quite clear exactly what triggers the throttling, or when indeed the throttling begins, but the suspicion is that it begins immediately on surpassing 10 -20 mins of continuous downloading during these peak hours.

Imagine having to drive your super fast sports car, you are paying for, for 10 - 20 mins and you are told because you used it for 10 - 20 mins at its optimal speed, you are now forced to walk for the entire week from4pm to midnight. Hardly fair whichever way you look at it.

If you are being Traffic Managed, be sure to let us know when it occurs, and for how long, and if the speeds reduction is as advertised by Virgin Media, or much worse.

Limiting users while promoting unlimited bandwidth

2008-11-16T06:55:00.000-08:00

As of last year Virgin Media have started throttling its adsl and cable users, it claims that apparently 5% of its users use 95% of the resources, and throttling its users speeds to some extent no better than dial-up is the best case scenario for all involved.

As expected they have been an uproar that customers are paying for an unlimited broadband service only to have it limited in usage, Virgin Media still claims its broadband is still unlimited, however that argument does not hold much ground, in that dial-up is still unlimited, but what is the point of waiting a week for a download. It is the equivalent of having bought a top of the range sports car, and you are told if you use that top of the range sports car between the hours of 4 and midnight on a week day, and between the hours of 10 in the morning and midnight Saturdays and Sundays, you are going to be penalised by having to walk for the rest of the entire week simply because you used what you paid for.

What makes matters even more insulting in that for adsl Virgin Media customers on the up to 8MB adsl package it could take less than 20 mins to download 350MB, this apparently is the cut-off mark to determine whether you get throttled or not.

So using your unlimited broadband pacckage for 20 mins a day means you are going to be reduced to dial-up speeds for the rest of next week. Unless ofcourse you chose to be a vampire and only download after midnight, and don't work during a working day, because that apparently is the only time their throttling/bandwidth STM (Subscriber Traffic Management) does not apply.

Virgin media throttling

What is the cut off mark for Virgin Media STM?

Limiting users while promoting unlimited bandwidth