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Virgin Media Introduce Speed Caps

View Comments May 5, 2007 | Everton

Virgin Media are introducing speed capping measures that for users who download large amounts from the Net during peak hours. Peak hours have been defined as 4pm to midnight which is much longer than for most other ISPs, who consider 6pm to 10pm to be the peak.

Virgin claim that only 5% of downloaders will be affected, but looking at the bands I’m not too sure:

  • M tier users who download over 350MB will have their speed capped at 1Mbps during peak
  • L tier users who download over 750MB will have their speed restricted to 2Mbps during peak
  • XL users who download over 3GB in peak hours will have their speed restricted to 5Mbps

Once a user hits the download limit for their tier then their speed will be capped for four hours. The bands look pretty low to me so I’m sure that it will affect more than 5% of users. Also, the way the scheme appears to be setup will extend the period of capping e.g. if a XL user hits the 3GB limit at 11pm, then their speed will be capped for four hours until 3am.

Personally, I’m quite disappointed by this as I regularly download more than 3GB during ‘peak’ and I wouldn’t even classify my usage as heavy. I’ve also been a big champion of Cable’s unlimited policy in the past and this feels like a big let-down.

The Virgin Media FAQ tries to make out that many users will benefit from the upcoming 20Mbps upgrade (although looking at the timetable it looks like the dates have slipped already), but most users don’t need more speed – they want unlimited downloads.

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About Everton: Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University.He also writes for Windows 7 News, Windows 8 News and One Tip A Day. View posts.

  • Cameron
    Hi, i am with Virgin media and my net is super slow... if i coudld get hold or branson i would puch him then let everyone elce punch him, then put him infront or a PC with dialup running... see how he likes it...
  • Ali
    Hello all users. The capping system virgin media using is bullshit and really annoying. i am even thinking of leaving virgin media coz they advertise a lot about unlimited download and better speed and probably they get customers because of this promise they make but you are paying for 10meg speed and they limit it to 2meg . once there capping system get you after that no matter what you download or don't they will still limit your speed.
  • Peter
    hello all users. I dont like how virgin media have capped the internet for people like us who use it more than the average person. For example i download tv shows legit, i cannot download during the day as its a 2 gigabyte limit then i will be capped during the evening and even if i download during the evening i will be capped again for downloading more than 1 gigabyte. i cannot win!
              Im on a 10 megabit connection which i get around 1.2 megabytes per second out my connection, even with my speed i can limit my self for 15 minutes during the evening. I limit my self every single night and this may be just from watching damn youtube videos!! im pig sick of these limitations.
              Any one like me will know the troubles we go through... Furthermore im a gameing fanatic and i even limit my self playing my humble xbox online!.
              Finally Virgin media have even started stopping me from going on the websites i download tv shows from so i have to proxy the web address (they only block for a day at max).
  • utter fuking bullshit!

    trying to download anything which is ment to be done in a day or 2 takes a week at a time. they are fukin perfetic if u ask me, if we didnt download anything they wouldnt even get any money from there larger packages. because there wouldnt be any use for them
  • Tia
    I have been capped for more than two days now. their cappings have gone from 4 hours to 8 hours then to 10 hours and then to 14 hours and now 20-22 hours a day. My Broadband is 10MB and capped to as low as 312kms and I've written to them for ages and each time they flop me off by saying WE HAVE A CAPPING MACHINE to monitor.AS THOUGH IM LYING. I don't even do video streaming or downloads anymore for weeks just to keep an eye on the capping and it stills happen. And it's getting worse and worse. AS SLOW AS DIAL UP. I told them I'm going to citizen advice but I think they have all their small prints and paperwork right. If not they won't have been so daring. I WILL TELL EVERYONE about Virgin media broadband though. HELL
  • Andy1911
    I am just of the phone with virgin media and the guy told me that everyone has there speed cut by half between 4pm and 9pm i was like OK fair enough so why is my speed still showing as having a 75% cut and its after 10pm he is like erm i don't know, moron
    so basically the will still charge us full price but only give you half what you are paying for no matter if you download or not.
  • MAH
    I do all of my downloading through the night,  never between 4pm and 12am and I am currently throttled back to 56k   yes thats right my upto 8meg unlimited download adsl is now at dial up speed and it works like clockwork  at 4pm on the dot every day I am now throttled back,  f@ck%n awful company, useless call centres at extortionate prices,  Branson should be ashamed of himself.  goodbye virgin media  hello O2
  • Me
    Right, I thought exactly the same as the previous responders but after contacting VirginMedia 3 times on the same day, I found someone who could explain and show me the errors in my judgement. I was running on Vista 64bit, my browser was FireFox v3; VirginMedia only support IE, I had AVG scanning everything in the background including downloads. AVG didn't kick in straight away on the downloads and impacted on everything, including 3 different broadband test. After stopping AVG and running both IE and Firefox; still slower than IE at general browsing, my downloads were hitting the max download speed. So before you all rush off and start complaining, like I did, check that your Anti-Virus and Internet Security settings in your software and make sure for just surfing that you're using IE and not Firefox; although I prefer to use FIrefox, and see the difference.
  • Tia
    They lied about the capping. I was downloading at 1am yesterday and now I am cappe to 2mb. And its only 1pm now. Not even in peak hours. SHIT!
  • giedrius
    i have virginmedia internet my speed internet is 10mb next day my speed 2,5mb why
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