Virgin to introduce broadband "speed cap" for heavy downloaders

Andy Merrett Broadband
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Virgin Media has confirmed that it will introduce a range of speed capping measures for those who download large amounts from the Net during peak hours.

Peak hours count as 4pm to midnight, and Virgin claim that only the top 5% of downloaders on each tier will be affected.

Update: Check out our Virgin Media broadband speed throttling FAQ for all the information you need about this dastardly scheme

Those on tier M who download over 350MB during peak hours will have their downstream speed restricted to 1Mbps, and upstream to 128Kbps, for four hours.

Those on tier L who download over 750MB during peak hours will have their downstream speed restricted to 2Mbps, and upstream to 192Kbps, for four hours.

The top rung service, XL, will see users downloading over 3GB in peak hours having their downstream speed restricted to 5Mbps, and 256Kbps upstream.

Andy Merrett
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78 comments

  • I’ve always had a good connection with Telewest. I have recently found out about the cap and I am pretty pissed that I was not informed.

    I plan to start shopping around for another provider tomorrow and I would encourage everyone to do the same. To restrict the service to such a degree at the hours the vast majority of people will actually be using it is not providing the service people are paying for.

    A disgusting bait-and-switch tactic with zero information on this reaching the customer. I only found out about this issue tonight when noticing absolutely appalling download speeds. To top it off, their callcentre employees sometimes understand English to such a poor degree I need to rephrase my question to get it answered.

    They expect people to pay to call their tech help line to speak to a person who can’t answer your question unless you restrict yourself to using words two syllables long, on top of the dishonest service they are providing which is only a fraction of what people are paying for!

    Virgin can kiss my tush.

  • So THIS is where for the past 3 months my speed has gone to! I can’t believe it! I am originally a Telewest customer and I did not even get any warning they were doing this! I just found out yesterday via the BBC newssite on an article about the 3 strikes law they want to implement! BAH! I’ts a good thing I was about to cancel being with them, right on time too!

    What’s the point of having a broadband connection if they start reducing your speeds to dial-up!

  • I’m getting fed-up too and I don’t think the problems are due to be being ‘throttled’, although that’s what I feel like doing to Virgin media….

    My download speeds can vary in a matter of seconds from 2.6Mb to 0.1, and more often than not hovering around .5 MBPS regardless of time of day, and yet I’m paying for speeds up to 4MBPS using the ‘L’ service.

    And ‘customer service’ isn’t that great either. I think Richard Branson might end-up with a duff company of his own, and I don’t mean Northern Rock, if he carries on like this.

    Like others I’m thinking of moving elsewhere.

  • I’ve tried complaining through their contact form on their site and I’ve had no reply. I havn’t called them as I only have a mobile an I don’t want to give them more money to call a 0845 number from my mobile. I’ve now just sent a formal complaint through the mail, I havn’t had any reply yet but it’s early days, I’ll try an keep people here updated. I will take this complaint as far as I can but if the issue isn’t resolved then I am definitely leaving, even if I have to pay more to another company. I’m not going to give Virgin any more of my money without getting a refund for when they started capping my service and the capping to stop.

    ——————-
    http://www.lost.eu/697c0
    Stay in the game.

  • I’ve tried complaining through their contact form on their site and I’ve had no reply. I havn’t called them as I only have a mobile an I don’t want to give them more money to call a 0845 number from my mobile. I’ve now just sent a formal complaint through the mail, I havn’t had any reply yet but it’s early days, I’ll try an keep people here updated. I will take this complaint as far as I can but if the issue isn’t resolved then I am definitely leaving, even if I have to pay more to another company. I’m not going to give Virgin any more of my money without getting a refund for when they started capping my service and the capping to stop.

    ——————-
    http://www.lost.eu/697c0
    Stay in the game.

  • Everyone on here is spot on, in short the service is BO**OCKS, i signed for unlimited usage & thats what i should get,, its like ordering a pizza at tea time, and when it arrives there only being half a pizza and the delivery guy saying that because it was a busy night the rest of the pizza will be delivered later. plus another disturbing thing ive noticed is when i have been trying to view sky broadband to see what they offer it strangely cuts off everytime leading me to believe that my web browsing is beeing monitored . & now they want to charge me fifty quid to cancel my service.. ahhhhhh! screw virgin!!!!

  • I totally agree with you Jan, I also have the XL 20MB BB and I’m absolutely disgusted by the service. For a while now my internet has been very sluggish, along with my games (ping) which really pisses me off. I don’t see why I have to pay £37 a month for this, the only reason why I’ve stayed for as long as I have is because I’ve always hoped it would pick up the next day.. obviously not. Your right, they are treading on extremely thin ice, they need to buck up and give the customers what they’re paying for. I called them yesterday wanting an answer to why my connection is crippling, the woman on the phone said there was indeed a problem in this area and that it should be repaired during the night. I did see a little improvement, but still.. nothing to be happy about. Woke the next morning only to find the connection had gone right back to how it was. In all honesty, I didn’t have any problems of this kind while it was in the name of NTL, now it’s all gone to shit. Argh.. PISSED OFF!

  • I totally agree with you Jan, I also have the XL 20MB BB and I’m absolutely disgusted by the service. For a while now my internet has been very sluggish, along with my games (ping) which really pisses me off. I don’t see why I have to pay £37 a month for this, the only reason why I’ve stayed for as long as I have is because I’ve always hoped it would pick up the next day.. obviously not. Your right, they are treading on extremely thin ice, they need to buck up and give the customers what they’re paying for. I called them yesterday wanting an answer to why my connection is crippling, the woman on the phone said there was indeed a problem in this area and that it should be repaired during the night. I did see a little improvement, but still.. nothing to be happy about. Woke the next morning only to find the connection had gone right back to how it was. In all honesty, I didn’t have any problems of this kind while it was in the name of NTL, now it’s all gone to shit. Argh.. PISSED OFF!

  • I’ve been with the same copany through two name changes since they were Telewest also.

    To be honest the entire deal no longer represents good value to me and I have been on the supposed top dog deal (now XL) for five of those years. I originally subscribed in 1997. Since then I’ve had TV, BB and phone supplied by them. For years I have worked from home as a freelance designer and have been in the habit of having Discovery channel in the background since we lost Sky1 etc. As I write at this very moment the channels dropped to black screen and has been doing so consistently for extended periods, not just at night but randomly at any time of the day out of the blue the coverage goes out like this.

    That is but the tip of the iceberg. I have really had it with this now hopeless company and am seriously considering the swap to Sky. About four years ago I took out subscription to get Nascar, and up to end 2006 it worked fine. Then the Sky deal went down and I lost the lot, despite being told on the phone by a misinformed idiot that my subscription was safe and that the Daytona 500 plus the Gatorade 125’s at the start of the 07 season would be viewable as normal. Total lies. I’d class it as misinformation normally but they were at the time so insistant that coverage would be unaffected I call it as lies. Since then I’ve been paying extra for channels I never ever watch, those being the Setanta pack. Respect to football fans, it is not what I have been paying for.

    More recently they weren’t done clawing back whatever money they could from subscribers they now charge a hefty connect fee for calling BB tech support. I used to have the greatest respect for the Branson empire, but that is now all washed away in favour of contempt and bad feelings of being totally ripped off.

    Now the capping deal is news to me, and I find this intolerable. I shell out on average around 130 to 150 per month for Virgin services only to be treated like monkey. I make absolutely no apologies for being angry at finding this thread and being very angry at Virgin Media and thier current trends toward ripping it#s formerly loyal customer base off.

    This all has to change, or as a company they are on extremely thin ice with me and many hundreds of thousands of customers around Britain. They may make a compelling advert to bring new business, but it is all useless if that business doesn’t stay with them.

    I really cannot stand Virgin Media any more and it looks like things are getting steadily worse.

  • just found this on another site. http://www.otelo.org.uk/ Telecommunications Ombudsman. email them with your compliant about virgin. remember if we all do it then things will change. also on the same site where I found the Telecommunications Ombudsman link, I found this http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/fair-usage-broadband.html it explains all about the fair usage policy. you will find this printed, if you have good eye site, at the bottom of any unlimited virgin broadband advertising.
    “The policy was designed to protect the people who might be affected by your downloading.
    If you have an ADSL line, then you probably share your connection with the rest of your street because ADSL uses the old BT copper wires network and there is a limit to the capacity that they can carry.
    The problem is that if you’re a big downloader, you could be slowing down the broadband connection of up to 50 other people. And if you are regularly affecting other people’s internet, your ISP might decide that something needs to be done.”
    But I am not on a telephone line I am on cable which comes down my street in a big tube of fiberoptics and then when it finally comes into my house in changes to a copper wire. so how can I be affecting any of my neighbours in my street.I don’t do any gaming, I download some films now and again, I don’t think of myself as a heavy user and I have never received any letter asking me to cut down on my download speed. Virgin are capping my 4mb to 1mb, from 4pm till 12pm and charging me £25. That’s prime time usage, I don’t use my internet past 12pm and I cant use it during the day because I am out and then when I do get home I am not allowed to download more than 750mb or my speed gets throttled to 1mb. I don’t even get the promised 2mb. they are criminals and will continue to do this until they are stopped. I am so pissed off with them and every other fucking swindling company, £25 down the drain every fucking month. no wonder our lives are so stressful, having to look behind your back with every single step…..

  • Well, seems like you can add another dis-satisfied customer to the list, Virgin Media are plainly taking the piss. I pay £37 a month for what’s supposed to be 20MB, what a load of cobs bollucks. I like to download a film or two durin the week, game alot.. but i don’t think i’m a heavy bandwidth user and still i recieve the bandwidth cut every single day/night. I don’t think i’ve ever seen the full 20MB, maybe 17 on a good day.. but those days are long gone and so will i if they don’t start givin me what i’m paying for.

    Just tested my broadband speed @ http://www.speedtest.net

    Download – 1300+kB/s (1.3MB/s)
    Upload – 720kB/s

    Give me some of my cash back?!

  • you dont pay for a sports car then expect the engine to be restricted after purchase.
    i think if they are going to reduce your MB then they should also reduce the charge ! surley its against the law to claim they are giving 20mb then dropping it and you still pay for a service your not receiving ,evryone who is throttled should contact trading standards and complian and also watchdog you should only pay for what you getin respect to mb allocation through throttling!!

  • have just been onto virgin media. and said I wasn’t happy and I wanted to cancel my services with virgin. I was then put through to this bloke called Steven who deals with cancelling your service. and was told that I cannot have any discount for the speed been capped for 8 hours a day, and that I cannot leave virgin media because I changed my bundle not so long ago and I have to wait until my 12 months is up. and that I should have read my terms and conditions when I joined which was about 8 years ago. and in those terms and conditions it states in the Virgin Media Acceptable Use Policy. and then for the rest of the conversation he just kept repeating the terms and conditions at me like some f***ing robot again and again and again, telling me that he reads his terms and conditions and so should I. started to get very angry at this point with this f***ing robot called Steven. and started to scream at him. I then told twat face, even with the capping of my 4mb broadband I am still supposed to get 2mb download speed. but I don’t, I only get 1 mb. he then told me to ring the faults department in India at 25p a minute, i screamed at him that it wasn’t a fault and that it goes back to 4mb after 12 and then stops again before 4 in the afternoon, after I download my pitiful 750mb so how can that be a fault, just virgin ripping you off again until you have the time money and the emotional energy to ring the faults people up to change it and then only if your lucky will it get changed. I pay £25 for I broadband and for 8 hours a day I get 1mb. he then said it wasn’t his fault, I said you work for them and you are picking the phone up then its your fault everything that virgin does you do as well. where does the buck stop, it stops here with the twat that answers the phone. if you don’t want that then leave this lying cheating company that hides behind the small print. one more thing sky are no better they lie and steal just the same as any other big company, just look around and see. and even if I could leave virgin its just more hassle in a already hectic life. so i will have to put up and shut up like the rest of us. or go mad.

  • No, I’d complain in exactly the same way if I went to the gym and there was only one machine to share with everyone, and it didn’t work properly.

    dick.

  • I suppose you lot complain in exactly the same way if you go to a gym and there isn’t 1 of each type of machine per member they have on the books.

  • Virgin have OVER SUBSCRIBED in some areas and if they “cap” 1/3 off peoples connection time DURING THE MOST USED AND NEEDED TIME SPAN FOR HOME USERS they can CRAM IN A BIT MORE PROFIT. End of.
    MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY

  • I have exactly the same issue. Have phoned and been told that the speed is capped to 512k, instead of the 8meg I’m paying for.
    Despite this, it will download at around 35kbits/s.
    I am around 5 months into a 12 month contract.

    Has anyone been succesful in cancelling their contract? Would very much like to hear the process of doing this. Please post this info here.

    Very very angry with this stupid rip off company.
    25p per min to speak to an idiot.

    Will never ever go near virgin again.

    Also – never go to a V Festival – it’s the equivalent of their broadband, rip you off at every turn.

    F-cking Branson.

  • Ive only just clued onto this, as i havnt really been usin my PC as much the past few months, but after the past couple of days of finding this out an testing this, Im pretty pissing pissed !

    Ive been with Telewest since they started testing BB, and ive put so many people onto Telewest since then because it was an amazing service, but my god, WHAT the FRIGG have these pillocks done?

    My conncection’s been throttled since around 11 am this morning, and that just from playing online games. My pings terrible, my connection drops frequenlty. Just checked how much ive downloaded in 6 hours and is as follows

    Time Connected 6 hours – 11 Minutes

    Bytes Received – 211,509,810

    Bytes Sent – 24,41,521

    Prtty peeved customer, ill be going elsewhere, and wont be paying for the duration of my contract, gonna sort it out tommorow, cant be arsed now.

  • Another disappointed virginmedia customer here. I’m now seriously thinking of switching over. Had enough crap from them already.

  • I am sick of virgin i was lied to for months about the cap and have still never had anyone from them admit that they are limiting my download speeds. I will be leaving for sky very soon.

  • Virginmedia are crooks. As far as I’m concerned they are defrauding me, because I signed up for 2mb and that’s NOT what I’m getting most of the time. They can make all the excuses they like, but what it comes down to is that they should be providing the service the customer is paying for if they have any integrity at all. Obviously they don’t. I’m going to cancel before my 28 days is up, because already after a week I’m sick of the thought that they’re short changing me. I wasn’t told about capping or aany other limits when I joined and I specifically asked those questions. I was lied to on the phone and now I’m being robbed. That’s Virginmedia for you.

  • I used to be on technical support, and was also on the steering committee for an ISP in Canada, and believe me, this is fraud!

    I am paying for a 2 megabit per second connection with unlimited downloads. 2 megabit a second is 256 kilobyte a second which is 15,360 kilobyte a minute which is 921,600 kilobyte an hour!

    If you were buying air pumped in at 2 megabit a second you would end up with 921,600 kilobytes of air in an hour if it is UNLIMITED!

    It is fraudulent to state that they will sell you an unlimited service of 2 megabit a second, and you not getting what your paying for!

    Back in the day when I worked for an ISP, we had 10 megabit modems at the ISP and we would put 10 customers on a modem (which meant they were getting a 1 megabit service).

    This is obviously Virgin Media’s attempt at saving money.

    If you have a 10mb modem and lets say you put 4 customers on it at 512k thats 4 users using up 2mb of bandwidth now you can add 8 users at 1 mb for a total of 12 users instead of 10.

    They are clearly not allocating all the bandwidth customers are paying for because they want to fit more customers on the same amount of modems.

    If you pay for 2mb per second service, and the downloads are unlimited, then they should be reserving that much bandwidth for that customer.

    There is no traffic jams if you reserve 2mb service for a 2mb customer! There is traffic jams when you try to fit more customers than you have bandwidth for!

    Plain and simple they are not supplying the service you are paying for. At 4:25pm they began to throttle me, and rang them up, took down their name and told them that it is fraud to sell me unlimited 2mb/sec service and not provide that stated service, they played dumb. I told them I am going to complain to Advertising Standards Authority http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/ , Ofcom http://www.ofcom.org.uk/ , BBC Watchdog http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/ , Citizens Advice Bureau http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/ and VirginMedia’s complaint dept which you have to write a letter to because they dont have technology like email, as well as send carbon copies to Virgin and Sir Richard Branson (if at all possible).

    Wouldn’t you know it, when I got off the phone, my net wasn’t working, so I reset the modem, and BINGO 5:02pm, no throttling!

    But I would advise everyone to look elsewhere for broadband! Virgin Media has unethical business practices!

  • I upgraded to 20Meg sevice and am only getting 4.5 Meg after 4pm right through to 4am as they have extended this throttle nonsense. as i work during the day i can only get to use it when i get home and now my downloads take 4 times as long putting my electric bill up waiting for this to finish.if they sell a service they should have the infestructure to support it.

  • I signed up to telewest about 7 years ago & had no problems when Vigin took over I upgraded to 4 mb which I was happy with at that time there was no mention of capping,or slowing down the speeds.
    Most of the time the speeds I,am getting now is appox 25%,of the 4mb that I,am paying for.When I phoned Vigin to complain they told me if I don’t like it I can allways leave,Great customer care,has anybody got a good ISP they can recommend

  • thing that annoys me most about this, is before i signed up to virgin XL about 2 weeks ago i asked the sales woman at least 5 times if there were any caps or download restrictions.. she told me there was absolutaly zero and my service truely was ‘unlimited’. downloading now at 4mbps – i confirm is truely ISNT unlimited.

    thankfully, i didnt sign the contract! back to bethere

  • I think that VM is useless, they are capping everybody and not just 5% of the downloaders, what the hell is the use of paying the full price and getting a bullcrap streamed down connection. There is no other true cable broadband provider in the country.

  • The service is garbage anyway. I pay for 20 Meg and have never seen more than about 12 Meg. I contacted them on their ‘Asian’ number and they blamed it on the fact that I use a router!! At this moment in time I’m getting around 1 Meg and have been for about 15 hours but no reports on their status line.

  • virgin are a disgrace i sell it for a big electrical store no more i pay for 4 meg but only het less than 2 they are disgusting they use abuse and lie for custom its a disgrace dont trust them telewest was fantastic i cant doenload more than 350 meg before they drop my speed it cant be legal can it i pay for more helpfull advice needed please

  • Virgin are absolutely awful. They brought this ‘Rate throttling’ in due to the fact their servers couldnt cope with the demand. The first 2 months with virgin from moving to Blueyonder was a nightmare for anyone with internet access because of this, and this is their ‘solution’.
    I just happended upon this webpage as I was looking for a solution with my speed problems.
    When I first noticed it we were not informed this would be happening, and on contacting the customer support teams, they were less than helpful.
    When I contacted them, they had no idea whatsoever what I was on about and insisted I speak to technical support (who charge you 25p a minuite) to go through the standard tests of; “turn of your computer, turn off your modem, etc etc”, before getting anywhere with them. Top be honest as ‘script readers’ I couldn’t do anything with them and left them a formal complaint. Nothing has come back as of yet.
    But thats not all, this peak times thing is not set in stone. ive been known to be online at 2am with these speed caps on a brand new connect to the internet.
    To this end I will summarize.
    Their service is lacklustre, the customer support is shockingly bad and when anything does go wrong, with no faults at the customers end, they charge the customer for their own failings!
    Dont sign up with Virgin for their internet.
    They are a poor joke at the consumers expense.

  • I joined telewest around 8 years ago and have never had any serious problems with my internet connection,when i`ve had a problem they`ve always sorted it out pretty quickly and on 1 or 2 occasions given me a partial refund due to loss of service,now since virgin took over we(the public) have lost several tv channels,call rates have gone from per second billing to per minute billing,and you now get charged 25p per minute for them to sort out a problem that isn`t of your making,also you spend more time on the helpline because you keep saying “pardon,pardon” as you can`t understand what the indians are saying(I can`t stand talking to indians and pakistani`s for this reason)anyway for several months now they have been shafting me(illegally) big time,my download speeds during this so called traffic management period have never been higher than 0.5 mbit and have on several occasions have been as low as 25kbps(on a 2mbit connection) which is slower than a 56k modem! I have telephoned them several times and got absolutely nowhere,on three occasions i have asked to speak to a supervisor,the first time i was called back within 10 mins and the last two times they never even bothered phoning back,anyway the only bit of usefull information i have gathered from my phone calls to them was when one of the staff said “hold on a minute,let me refresh my screen…..argh i see your download speed has been limited to 0.2mbps” the phone went dead shortly after this (surprise,surprise) so he actually admitted to me that virgin are breaking the law,0.2mbit when under the traffic management scheme it clearly states that my download speed will be limited to 1mbit,that is blatant stealing, to me it is as bad as burglary,has anyone contacted the police over these issues? also my friend received a letter from virgin last week claiming “unlimited downloads” with no small print attached to that statement like there is on the virgin website so this is clearly in breach of some advertising law,I have just read the fair usage policy on virgin`s website and forgive me if i`m wrong as i`m no solicitor but it doesn`t state anywhere about this traffic management policy ??? and even when you do a search on the virgin website for “traffic management” it says no results found,the way i found info on the traffic management policy was to type it in on google and following this link http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html I`m also wondering why this issue hasn`t appeared in any of the newspapers or on the news,if a petrol station was billing everyone for 1 litre and only giving them 100-200ml of fuel then there would be uproar and this is exactly what virgin(a huge and supposedly reputable company) are doing to us,I also sent them an e-mail(submitted via virgin`s website)stating that if this issue wasn`t resolved within two weeks then i would terminate all my virgin services and guess what ? no reply,anyway i`m going to my solicitor next week and seeing if anything can be done about this,I have enough evidence(including video)to show a court how i have been ripped off,how would virgin like it if i uncapped my modem and stole from them ? my download speed is spot on from midnight to 4pm so it`s obvious that they are using this traffic management period to rip people off hoping that the customer will not notice that they are only getting up to 50% of what they are actually paying for,it absolutely sickens me,my mum and my brother are only getting 1mbit download speed(24/7) on a 2mbit connection so we are all terminating our contracts and hopefully my friends will do the same when i show them the evidence i`ve gathered,just one thing i almost forgot,under the traffic management section of their terms and conditions it states that if a user downloads 350mb of data after 4pm then they will be traffic managed and this will affect the user for 4 hours,well one day i had only downloaded 250mb of data before they traffic managed me and also on three occasions they capped my download speed for between 5 and 6 hours not 4 so there they are breaking the law again,I would strongly advise that anyone that is thinking of taking up one of the virgin services please read all of these complaints as everybody is telling the truth,steer well clear,I am noe looking for another isp and will never buy another virgin product for as long as i live,they could offer me 20mbit broadband free for 5 years and i just wouldn`t take it,I will not associate myself with thieving scum like this,it really annoys me when they start asking you dumb questions like “have you got a firewall or any file sharing software installed or messenger” trying to pass the blame on to me (when i`ve already told them at the start of my phone call that i have no internet accessing programs running at all),one last thing is that the traffic management policy came into effect at the same time as they rolled out the 20mbit service so it`s pretty obvious that their network can`t support the 20mbit service without capping users,and it really annoys me when they say that 5% of users are causing download speed problems for the other 95% of users(they`re just trying to make everyone think that they are doing something good to benefit other users)what a joke ! anyway i think i`ve just about covered everything and if this post helps to put at least one customer off virgin`s services then it has been well worth compiling.

  • “unlimited 2MB broadband from Virgin”

    the above statement is such bullsh*t on many levels.

    im going back to Sky for sure now, ive had sooo many problems with my internet, phone and tv, i have a problem at least every week.

    Sky for sure wont fu*k with you like Virgin does.

    im going back to Sky and get my monies worth!

  • “UNLIMITED 2MB BROADBAND FROM VIRGIN”

    ummm…. BULLSH*T

    im going back to Sky, Virgin is sh*t

  • For me it is simple :
    I am paying for a 2048/256 connection, I am constantly capped a 1024/128 no matter peak period or download limits. Even if I don’t use the internet for a whole day, the day after I will still be capped. That is magic and how to swindle a maximum of customers.

    Naturally they are totally ignoring my mail.

    In addition they tried to take money from my account, money that I do not own them because I have paid them the month before for the 3 next month by cash. I sent them mails to explain them the situation, they still tried to take money from my account which I did not have => 40 pounds fine from my bank.
    I am about to take legal action.

  • It’s a disgrace, I’ve been with Bulldog 8 meg Broadband for a few years now and never had any problems, download what ever I want when I want but because I couldn’t get 16 meg connection in my area, I thought I’d give Virgin UNLIMITED (MY A5RE) 20 meg a go.

    After a few days I noticed the connection wasn’t too good. I phoned tech support and they didn’t even tell me about the capping. When I said I wasn’t happy about the speed and was going to leave he suddenly made up a story about them experiencing problems in the area and it should be back to normal soon (about 4 hours) idiots and me not knowing about the capping, was like ‘oh thanks mate, that’s ok then’. Anyway you know the rest, happened the next night, then I found this site.

    I got up this morning, phoned Bulldog told them not to cancel my subscription and then phoned Virgin to cancel. The woman I was talking to didn’t even know about the capping policy. Now I just have to write a few complaints and I’m done with virgin for good. I’ve had no problems throughout the time I’ve been with Bulldog (now Pipex) so I’ll be sticking with them for now but I need more upload speed

  • Well I have just noticed that my connection is also capped and from what i’ve read on here has p*ssed me off even more. I had NO idea Virgin were capping speeds.
    We’re all bitching about this but something needs to be done instead of just complaining on sites like this.
    I’m calling Virgin tomorrow to complain and threatening to leave unless my original service which I ORIGINALLY signed up for is reinstated. If they wont then i’m going to be complaining to the Advertising Standards Agency http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/ and Ofcom http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/ because on the Virgins website it states there are “No download limits” and what is happening here clearly is a “limit”.

    Does any one know when this actually came into effect?

  • Well I have just noticed that my connection is also capped and from what i’ve read on here has p*ssed me off even more. I had NO idea Virgin were capping speeds.
    We’re all bitching about this but something needs to be done instead of just complaining on sites like this.
    I’m calling Virgin tomorrow to complain and threatening to leave unless my original service which I ORIGINALLY signed up for is reinstated. If they wont then i’m going to be complaining to the Advertising Standards Agency http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/ and Ofcom http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/ because on the Virgins website it states there are “No download limits” and what is happening here clearly is a “limit”.

    Does any one know when this actually came into effect?

  • I think this is another cop out from Mr Branson “Man of the people!” BULLSHIT.. Man of his own bank accounts off shore more like. The disgusting policies and take over bid was a scam and betrayal of loyal customers. Having been a loyal customer since the company was started dial up 56K I have seen it’s demise.

    The Corporate lies and deception are also very disturbing! Paying for a service that does not deliver the service payed for is a criminal offense surely? I can’ wait until some brave person takes legal action in the courts against offenders like these. I can not elaborate much more as I think most of the problems associated with there crap bandwidth and pipes have been covered in these threads and other Forums that proliferate the WWW.

    Branson!
    Listen to your customers or lose them, I’m off to another provider now that will stand up to there contractual rights.

  • YOU CAN LEAVE VIRGIN ANYTIME NOW WITHOUT WAITING FOR YOUR CONTRACT TO END BECAUSE THEY HAVE CHANGED THEIR TERMS AND CONDITIONS NOW AND YOU DID NOT SIGHN UP FOR THIS SERVICE SO JUST PHONE THEM AND TELL THEM TO STICK IT. I DID.

  • OH AND IT GETS WORSE THEY HAVE NOW LOST PRISON BREAK AS WELL, DONT KNOW IF YOU GUYS NO THAT. IM STUCK UNTIL DECEMBER AND THEN WILL BE MOVING COMPANIES, UNLESS THEY DO A 360 TURN AND GET THEIR HEADS OUT OF THEIR ASSES.

  • what an absolute disgrace, virgin are clearly the worst broadband providers around! they lie their asses off to win customers and then get you stuck on a 12month contract. Luckily I have a 30day money back guarantee so im not gonna stay with them after this period. no bloody way!

    And i think you should take note Branson et al, 1. virgin services = more expensive than sky, with few channels (ok fair enough)
    2. You lost sky one because you were too cheap (starting to get mad but we let you off)
    3. You lie about your supposedly limitless super fast broadband with expensive actresses like uma thurman screaming “hot digidy damn thats fast”, except when i want to use internet the most (evenings) my service gets cut in half and is definitely NOT fast. (3 strikes, you’re out!)

  • WTF!!
    What will virgin do next to make more money,The reason why i upgraded to 4meg is so i can download faster when i get home between 4-12 ,I do turn my pc of at night,why you ask well powergen of course another company that like to rip you of where ever they can find a Opportunity ,This is bulls**t and its the rich that get all the benifites again.
    It sucks period and i hope i get a refund.

  • Virgin cheated us by saying broadband let you do more and faster on the internet. Then provide half the promised service by blaming you doing too much. If they can provide the capacity what is the problem. Just like you buying a 2 liters engine car but on half the cylinders are working because you are running too fast.

  • Well after my last post here I spoke to virgin to cancel. I was then offered half price broadband £17.no time limit (for life) I though that was better and excepted the offer 20meg line unlimited downloads. Got my speed upgrade beginning of june and was still only getting 1-2meg connections after 4pm. I have now cancelled my broadband with virgin. the way this is going the top 5% heavy downloaders will all be gone and there will be a new top 5% all medium downloader in the top 5% when will this stop.

  • Well im at 10 meg waitin 4 20 but at the moment im only gettin 173 k/s dam service virgin…., UNCAPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!

  • my pack has just gone up to 20meg with virgin and mine seems to get capped from 20meg to 5 meg after 8pm now i was never capped at 10meg and when i heard they were upgrading to 20 i thought super but now im getting less really than i normaly did because im at work most the time or sleeping. ill be calling the indians up tomorrow if they dont sort it out im im off.!

  • So now they are capping i guess tv on demand over the internet connection will never be a reality. Im so glad i am with Sky. I pay £10 a month unlimted downloads and get a 1278kbps / 12mb (1.2 Megabyte) connection and am happy with that. 16MB is possible but not yet on my exchange due to distance. Richard Branson needs to sort his stuff out or he will lose the battle with Sky period!

  • dont know if this will help ………If you want to get in touch with Sir Richard Branson, then send a letter to:
    Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Management Limited, 120 Campden Hill Road, London W8 7AR

  • at the moment i have 2 internet suppliers tiscali and VM , reason ? didn’t realise tiscali port throttled p2p to zero ! but as been mention p2p also
    includes gaming ,so subscribed to telewest . VM have ruined the best broadband available but haven’t changed there adverts yet ! still claiming unlimited
    downloads so surely trading standards should look at this ? also VM have made teleport on demand subscription of extra £5 without telling anyone !!
    i hope sky wipes the floor with branson , trouble is only we can do something about it , ideas ???

  • So Virgin are doing a fantastic job of ruining what was a fantastic service. In france and Germany you can have a 20MB service for only 35 Euros uncapped. The UK is now lagging behind in the global internet development stakes, whereas a year ago we were way ahead of the game. What happens when providers introduce VOD internet streaming of HD content direct to your home theatre PC. You need a connection speed of sustained 22-25MB for 1080p multi-channel audio x264 video ( a movie in this format is 12GB + ). So where does that leave capped users then???? We need to move forward not backward. IBM are testing optical networks using existing cheap fiberoptic technologies and can sustain over a 100GB PER SECOND. As copper is becoming more expensive shouldn’t “progressive” companies like Virgin Media be investing in a national Fiberoptic Upgrade to their cable network??

  • Virgin upgraded me from 2Mb to 4Mb, and my service got worse, I rarley see 4Mb more often than not its <512k. Even though they upgraded me i am still classed as an M user so after downloading a measily 350MB I get capped to a download speed of 1MB for the next four hours.
    Unlimited my A**e. Am now shopping round for a new ISP. I was with Telewest/ Blueyonder / yorkshire cable for years. Its taken Virgin just 3 months to destroy the service. Oh and to cap it all they have moved to non UK support. I hope Sky kick their arses and they lose a packet.

  • Just spoke to the call centre to complain about my 10meg line dropping to 2-3 megs after 5pm after 35 minutes taking me through a download test from microsoft.com were i was getting a 235kbs download she wanted to send round an engineer. Then I mentioned if virgin was capping me line speed, she imediatly said she was going to speak to a supervisor. After holding on to a dead line for 5 minutes thinking I had been cut off she came back on and said they were aware of the fault and were trying to trace it. She then wanted to send an engineer around again. F**k,em

  • also would just like to add …. why would anybody need 10 to 20 meg to light dl , i need a fast connection for work , or maybe i just should be happy to browse at lightening speeds, dont think so. fuck you virgin !!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • all the same comments as above.. iam now going to leave virgin and go to sky as well. i pay £37 for unlimited and now its all shit spent 1hour to a dumb ass call center in india for more bullshit.they really have cocked up coz me and about 8 work mates are dumping the bastards right now and going to sky….up yours virgin you greedy twats

  • I don’t suppose there is a governing or regultory body we can complain to?
    BRANSTONS IN A PICKLE
    HIS INTERNET A JOKE
    NO SKY ONE AND NO SKY NEWS AND THE DAMED RED BUTTON NOW BROKE
    THE TELEPHONE CALL TO THE SERVICE CENTER’S HALFWAY ROUND THE WORLD WHERE YOU WAIT FOR AN HOUR GET CUT OFF AND STILL DON’T GET HEARD
    AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

  • “broadband with absolutely no download limits”

    LIES! they say “absolutely”
    what does that mean to a normal person?
    LIES! DECEIVING! they can’t treat people like idiots.

  • i think vergin media needs to upgrade every thing to fall in line with other service providers
    If the Virgin servers cant handle the data transfer of only 5% of people using it to full capacity then in my eyes it shows there service is poor the the people paying nearly £40.00 a mounth for a preminum service……
    y cap at peak times is this a money making scam or just to get people to leave..????
    i think virgin has made a bad mistake in this move….
    they say you can stream video play games e.c.t…..
    but the truth of the matter is you can`t it`s a joke
    i hope for there sake they sort it out sooner than later for there good reputation up thill christmass or is good buy from me……..
    and welcome sky…..

    i have a 10 meg conection and x box live (((bet they wont refund me any money for these services i pay for as well as my broadband connection and the games i bought to play on line…!!!!

  • I’ve been capped since December. VM only admitted they were throttling in February. Make an online complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority – I did but they say they need more to do anything about their “Unlimited”,”download me as many times as you like” campaign.

    Just swapped back to BT & BE broadband, now getting 18Mb down 24hrs a day, no limits 🙂

    Virgin sucks big time!

  • I for one will leave virgin if this comes into force. Many other providers are happy to take my money and give me a better service. When i read comments like these i wish it had stayed NTL. I have been with ntl for the last 5/6 years and found no need to cancel my subscription because of good service but that leap to sky is getting closer.

    totally outrageous

  • Im paying £37.00 for 10mb and im getting capped to 1-4.5mb between 4pm and midnight because I online game every night with video-calls and stream down internet radio and video, as soon as the downloaded data reaches 3gb the Virgin Traffic Management comes into operation limiting all web use to a fluctuating speed of between 1 and 4.5mb making it useless for gaming, the ping is reaching 400 at times..20mb….dream on Virgin…

    Just FYI ive had the modem flash upgraded, the modem address (mac) switched to two other servers with no better connection..

    What a let down, Virgin Media has now become pretty much useless for me now every evening. A group of us are seriously considering other options now…we are not even getting the service which used to be in place.

    If the Virgin servers cant handle the data transfer of only 5% of people using it to full capacity then in my eyes they are not offering anybody the service they are paying for or claim they have in place.

  • This is absolutely stupid. They’re upgrading the XL package to 20Mb and downgrading every other service with this speed cap. If they don’t have enough bandwidth they shouldn’t be upgrading the XL package.

  • Telewest were great for broadband, virgin sucks after six years as a telewest customer i’m leaving.
    Virgin have just limited my download speed to less than half speed between 4pm and 12 midnight, i’m paying for 4096 kb/s and i’m now getting 1870 kb/s its a disgrace as i just spent i hour on the phone to find this out. THEY ARE FOBBING PEOPLE OFF and not telling them.
    LEAVE VIRGIN MEDIA NOW they are ripping you off and tell everybody.
    THEY GAVE OUT NO INFORMATION ABOUT THIS, is this legal?
    THEY say we don’t have enough bandwith I SAY don’t sell something you don’t have i can’t.
    If you go in a garage and pay for a tank of petrol and they give you half a tank or say we can only give you a pint every hour because were busy, or come after midnight and you can fill up at the speed you are paying for, would you go back. Think about it.
    First no tv now this. Congratulations BRANSTON. Maybe someone should sue you, i know i’m not getting what i paid for.
    Phone them now to find out how your being shafted. #150 make them pay for the call.
    WRITE TO YOUR MP’s take the time and we can change this.
    Mick

  • If I pay for a 2mb connection, I expect a 2mb uncapped connection… I use my total bandwidth each time I use the .net and do a lot of bandwidth intensive work, I cannot afford it to be cut in half just because I went over a set limit… Shame on your Virgin if you implement this…

  • I have virgin media and enjoyed watching Sky One everyday. Even though Sky one has gone from virgin media i still stayed with Virgin Media. But this speed limit is going over the top and im definetly going over to Sky now. I thought virgin media would win the battle with Sky but i think Sky will beat them.

  • Whether you call it capping or throttling the end result is the same. I think the article makes it clear how it works – for that 4 hour period of time the maximum speed is capped.

    Bear in mind that these are fairly large limits for the average broadband user. OK maybe 350 meg isn’t a huge amount – 3 Gig is fairly substantial, though.

    I believe BT have been trialling this as well.

  • It’s not capping, it’s throttling. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story though.

  • I too think this is disgusting. I download abot 10-15 GBa night and only during these times. There is no need for me to be with VM if this is the way they thank me for sending them nearly £100 a month overall.

    Might have to have a chat i think.

  • This is absolutely disgusting.

    They intensively promote the company as the best Broadband company with these big ‘Thankyou’ billboards, upgrade speeds to a great 20mb… then all of a sudden introduce a nasty ‘traffic management system’.

    At home I use a wireless network, promoted by Virgin themselves, and share my connection with others in the house. We all use it a LOT and choose Virgin for the best speeds and reliability. We all use it more than ever and if only ever at peak times.

    This is seriously going to affect our connection and I’m very disappointed in Virgin Media.

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