A little less throttling from Virgin Media on uploads
Virgin Media has been tweaking its traffic management policy for most of the year, with the largest change a couple of months ago when 1 hour and 2 hour thresholds were introduced. The latest round of changes appear to only affect the size of reduction in upload speeds and a little more clarity on the speeds people will get.
| Traffic Management Policy for Virgin Media from 25th June | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Broadband Package | XL30 | XL60 | XL120 |
| Download speeds | 30 Mbps | 60 Mbps | 120 Mbps |
| Weekday | 4pm - 11pm | 4pm - 11pm | 4pm - 11pm |
| 1 hour threshold | 2750 MB | 3600 MB | 5000 MB |
| 1 hour reduction | 30% | 30% | 30% |
| 1 hour reduced speed | 21 Mbps | 42 Mbps | 84 Mbps |
| 2 hour threshold | 3500 MB | 4500 MB | 6250 MB |
| 2 hour reduction | 40% | 40% | 40% |
| 2 hour reduced speed | 18 Mbps | 36 Mbps | 72 Mbps |
| Weekend | 11am - 11pm | 11am - 11pm | 11am - 11pm |
| 1 hour threshold | 2750 MB | 3600 MB | 5000 MB |
| 1 hour reduction | 30% | 30% | 30% |
| 1 hour reduced speed | 21 Mbps | 42 Mbps | 84 Mbps |
| 2 hour threshold | 3500 MB | 4500 MB | 6250 MB |
| 2 hour reduction | 40% | 40% | 40% |
| 2 hour reduced speed | 18 Mbps | 36 Mbps | 72 Mbps |
| Upload speeds | 3 Mbps | 3 Mbps | 12 Mbps |
| Weekday | 4pm - 11pm | 4pm - 11pm | 4pm - 11pm |
| 1 hour threshold | 900 MB | 900 MB | 2200 MB |
| 1 hour reduction | 50% | 50% | 50% |
| 1 hour reduced speed | 1.5 Mbps | 1.5 Mbps | 6 Mbps |
| 2 hour threshold | 1200 MB | 1200 MB | 2950 MB |
| 2 hour reduction | 65% | 65% | 65% |
| 2 hour reduced speed | 1.1 Mbps | 1.1 Mbps | 4.3 Mbps |
| Weekend | 4pm - 11pm | 4pm - 11pm | 4pm - 11pm |
| 1 hour threshold | 900 MB | 900 MB | 2200 MB |
| 1 hour reduction | 50% | 50% | 50% |
| 1 hour reduced speed | 1.5 Mbps | 1.5 Mbps | 6 Mbps |
| 2 hour threshold | 1200 MB | 1200 MB | 2950 MB |
| 2 hour reduction | 65% | 65% | 65% |
| 2 hour reduced speed | 1.1 Mbps | 1.1 Mbps | 4.3 Mbps |
The full table of speeds is on the Virgin Media website which covers some 12 products. In addition to the thresholds those with a 30 Mbps or faster product have a temporary speed limit applied to peer to peer and Newsgroup traffic at peak times.
The reason the upstream speeds are often dealt with more harshly by management systems on cable broadband products is that the upstream is generally more limited in capacity. In the face of the competition that is promising totally unlimited broadband with no limits or complex tables for people to figure out what speed they should be getting it is difficult to see how Virgin Media can compete.
The purchase of Virgin Media by Liberty Global has not produced any major changes yet, but if Virgin Media is to retain market share in the triple play arena it needs to ensure that there are less people complaining about congestion and other issues. In speed tests Virgin Media does generally fair well which is mainly how Virgin Media market their service, the most vocal complainers tend to be those looking for low consistent latency for online gaming, or the small number who see their speeds yo-yo all the time due to local congestion or traffic management.
People might be less upset about the traffic management if they thought of a the XL60 service as a 36 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload service, with burst speeds to 60 Mbps and 3 Mbps respectively. Alas in a market driven by marketing and getting to the top of price comparison lists quoting the highest speed or lowest price is the real driver.
Comments
I have dumped VM poor 120mb service for Sky 40/10 and have no regrets.Will soon be upgrading to their 80/20 package.
VM still refuse to scrap their policy and insist on advertising their BB as unlimited.
What's the point of having those speeds when you can't use them.
True unlimited FTTC FTW
After leaving VM, I am happy with the 38/9 service from Sky and especially with the way my TBB graphs look.
Maybe the new owners will improve the quality of VM broadband...
Talk about complicated!
What a ridiculously complicated system.
I'm on BT infinity 80/20 package and its totally unlimited anytime of day.
Why would anyone choose cable these days?
error on the last one on XL 30 2 hour reduced speed 1.5 Mbps should be 2 hour reduced speed 1.1 Mbps
Why would anyone choose cable...... Because BT FTTC services sent avaliable to you like in my case, il happy with the download speeds on 120mb package even with restrictions, upload on the other hand I'm not.
Like other I left for FTTC I can download and upload when I want for a long as I want and my speeds are never capped. No regrets
Plusnet 80/20 UNLIMITED is far the best and 20x better than rubbish virgin media 120/12
Fixed my typo, was getting confusing with all the similar figures in the end
- andrew
- over 5 years ago
I have VM and should be on 120mbits, still no upgrade due until november-december, i have had issues since AUGUST 2012 and had my fix date constantly pushed back until AUGUST 21 2013, i have no other choice on BB(faster than ADSL) even though for a year there has been issues, they still bombard the area with adds for SUPERFAST BB
Unless VM is your only option you'd have to be pretty dumb to go with them.
^^^ nail on the head right there
wish all the above would stop slating vm bb has been around for decades beating bt - and all others for some time - this is about being fair and honest all the above have not mentioned they have only been able to get better more expensive bb in the last 18 months or so - have a look at how sky and bt now slating each other because of a war over costs and customers -sky saying cheaper than bt - bt loosing out on sportscontent - bt scrpping traffic managemetn and so have sky in last 6 months -
on traffic amangement - all companies traffic manage -its just a new hot toppic - they all block and slow down peer to peer and news groups - virgin still have upgrades coming on 60mb bb adn upload speeds as part of their upgrade programme which has a few months left to complete and 100/120 is still part of this last part upgrades
@gsituffers1 Sky have not had traffic management for years, if they ever did? Their big selling point is unlimited/no shaping.
Why so complicated?
Simple: The copper coax part of the cable system is a shared resource, with limited total bandwidth.
It gives better top speed to one person running a speed-test, but not if all of the 200-500 properties sharing the coax try at the same time.
It only takes a handful of P2P data-hogs on a segment to kill it for everyone.
If you don't like VM then why not just leave them than keep moaning about the service??
Lots of people seem to think they know the VM network, but very few actually do...
I have been with VM since they started. yet their service keeps getting worse (unable to get cable service). My current dl speed is slower than it was 6 years' ago
@WWWombat
I thought it was fiber to the cabinet then coax to the houses?
virgin fibre is also fttc its just run along cable from the cabinet instead of a copper telephone line which is why virgin can offer higherspeeds then bt or sky fibre ive just joined virgin as sky has pissed me off but im sure ill regret it from what ive heard about virgins ping and jitter problems :(
I have no complaints about VM's XL120 package - we have no other option as BT don't seem top be interested in upgrading our nearest cabinet even though the exchange has already been upgraded.
Never mind the throttled speeds, 3 Mb/s upload on a 60 Mb/s download service is rather poor anyway. Yet they still advertise their service as allowing you to "Upload photos to Facebook faster", despite it being much slower than FTTC.