Virgin Media calls foul on web speed testers Virgin Media believes it is being shafted by comparison sites offering ISP speed checks, and has called on them to improve their techniques ahead of the launch of its 50Mbit/s upgrade. Switching sites are becoming an increasingly powerful force in the near-saturated broadband market. uSwitch recently said the tightening of …
Would be to start with a small file, and then work up to, say, a 20mb file to give a better idea of how the line works in reality.
If a file takes too long to transfer then stop the testing there.
I for one welcome a 50Mbit/s service, since I am on the 20Mbit/s one atm.
Just in time for some Christmas downloading then :-)
ttfn
Well what I will do is, take my laptop around to my friends house at 7pm, and download a hd film of about 40gb.... then bring the laptop home to my 16mb adsl and do the same... I assume I will hit the virgin media cap early on and have my nntp traffic slowed to dialup speeds, while my £10 Sky uncapped 16mb connection will be done in a fraction of the speed.
Virgin suck... if they want to be the fastest, stop slowing people down when they use the advertised speed for more than a few minutes.
PS - used to be with Be... but Sky are so cheap, in these dark economic times I had to give them a try, and they are pretty awesome so far.
When I load a website - I have ALOT of small files coming towards me - lots of small images, banners, little flash annimations etc - I want those fast.
When I'm playing a game online, I want the response to be almost instant - I dont want to be running along happily only to find I was shot dead 5 seconds ago.
Virgins complaint is only relevant for large file downloads (patches, movies etc), the speed comparison sites are still relevant using their current testing techniques for everyday surfing / playing games online.
I for one would welcome a low ping over fast throughput anytime.
I've tried a few of these website speed testers and I've never seen one, other than the direct BT Wholesale one, which gives a result consistent with a timed download in a download manager.
I go to site, choose the download test, and they pretty much always tell me I have round about 200 -250 KB/S download speed. Immediately I finish the test I download a large file in a download manager and it gives somewhere between 650 and 750 KB/S, when the rest of the internet is quiet of course. I can even get this when the test and the file download are from the same site, thinkbroadband.com has a Java speedtester and have files available for download, 200 - 250 KB/S on the tester, 650 - 750 KB/S for the file.
Granted my download manager can make multiple connections to the server, but then so can my browser.
Start with a small transfer and then use a bigger one for the real test, based on how fast the "trial run" was? You mean like the speedtester at thinkbroadband.com has done for years?
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html
Personally I also like www.numion.com because you can see how you did the last few times, you can see how others have been doing recently, you can see a plot of data transferred vs time and look at how smooth it is (or isn't), and they've even got a pseudo-browsing test as well as a bulk transfer test, so you can get yourself an objective measure of how "snappy" your service is after you turn interleaving off (or whatever floats your boat).
But lots of others seem to like daft things that pretend to be car rev counters and other Clarkseon-stylee stuff.
Of the reasons why I left Virgin, which include their intention to use phorm, their throttling of VPN and Skype connections (and torrents), one thing that really got my goat was the fact that they open the pipes when you try to do a speed test on any of the main ADSL speed checkers, yet squeeze them back down with regular browsing.
That kind of behaviour is so cynical it's untrue. I'll never use them again.
Can we have a Richard Branson with horns icon please?
... as long as you're not dumb enough to actually use it.
If it really does go that fast, you'll be able to exceed your undisclosed acceptable usage limit within about 2 minutes of peak-time activity, probably by carrying out a speed-test, such as this one. You will then be rate limited down to 80kb/s for the rest of your life, or that week, whichever is shorter.
Anyway, as Virgin saw fit to steal from me that which I paid for, I jumped ship and have been using Enta for the past month, via UKFSN. Virgin can go and get fscked.
fnord
----
Penguins, cos UKFSN pay them to write free code for us, or something like that.
I have no problems with my 10Mbps VM line.
But just to point out the problems with speed tests here are some examples of why you can't always trust them:
Speedtest.net:
Default node for me is Maidenhead, 9764kbps down, 481kbps up, ping 27ms
Paris node, 9788kbps, 477kbps up, ping 85ms.
Surely Paris should be slower?
However the results from thinkbroadband.com (top of the list for google uk only results) only reports 9205kbps.
I have seen tests that report only 3500kbps.
There are so many things that affect link throughput that need to be taken into account that it is impossible to take speed test sites at face value.
Also as links get past the 10Mbps mark the TCP window size becomes increasingly important, especially to servers with high ping times. The default values are wrong on Win2K and XP for high bandwidth / high latency lines. (Don't care about vista).
I used to work with satellite IP links and we used to get complaints from customers about lack of bandwidth when they tested it from a single PC, after talking them through changing the TCP window size they usually shut up as they saw a vast improvement in their figures without us doing anything to the service.
> Would be to start with a small file, and then work up to, say, a 20mb file to give a better idea of how the line works in reality.
Which is exactly what the Speed Tester on ThinkBroadband does!
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html
Tick the Detailed Output box before clicking on the Start button. It downloads then uploads a 0.19 MB file, thence deciding what size larger files should be for download and upload. For my 10 Mbps/0.5Mbps cable line, the sizes are usually about 20-25 MB and 1.25 MB, respectively.
Do you mean these "undisclosed" download limits?
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html
With the current 20Mb/s service, after 3Gb of peak use you're throttled back to 5Mb/s. Which is hardly "dialup speed", given that it's a shedload faster than most "up to 8Mb/s" ADSL services are to start with.
Do be more careful with your lying in future.
AC wrote re. ThinkBroadband:
"Tick the Detailed Output box before clicking on the Start button. It downloads then uploads a 0.19 MB file, thence deciding what size larger files should be for download and upload."
Just tried that -- it downloaded a 5.7MB file and uploaded a 1.1MB one and informed me that I'm getting 5.3Mb/s from my 10Mb/s connection.
Shame that I get around 9.3Mb/s every time I download from n***gr**ps!
VM could presumably help matters by hosting a Speednet server within the VM network?
It's amazing how traffic to speedtesters on their network seems to get prioritised, but all of my other traffic around the same time is barely moving above dial up rate for downloads and is even more pitiful for uploads.
PS: No, I'm not on about P2P, I've actually got a lot of stuff to post up on an ebay shop, but what should have been ten minutes of uploading has taken hours.
But wouldn't it be better for VM to work with Ofcom to help create a standardised speed test.
Then at least everyone is measured against the same stick and we may even get to a point where the advertising will have to stop its lies and false promises.
I know Ofcom have sucked for ages on this unlimited and fair-usage bollocks which would not be allowed in other industries, but a standard test would at least give grounds for legal action.
When I was in the UK, I had VirginMedia broadband in Sutton. I was allegedly on the 20Mb package after having been "upgraded" from the 10Mb. I never EVER saw anything like 20Mb speed - hell I had WORSE performance than the 10Mb! The most I ever got out of the 20Mb was about 1MB/sec whereas the 10Mb I could get up 1.6MB/sec. Online speed testers all reported back very low results no matter what time of day or night and heaven forbid should I have multiple downloads going... :(
As fnordianslip said; with the pokey 3GB/day "limit" or whatever it is now, on 50MB you will use it up within so much faster and then be capped making it largely accademic saying that they have a 50MB connection when you cannot effectively use it.
When will broadband companies learn that limits of <150GB/month are worthless? I am prepared to accept a "fair-use" policy, as long as it is in the realms of being sensible. 30GB or 15GB / month is not "fair-use" - neither is the 60GB that I get from Cogeco. I would use over 60GB re-installing my main PC thanks in part to the size of games.
*grrrrr*
Just have a look round at all the complaints about VM's service. By all accounts (and from personal experience) it shouldnt be referred to as 'throttling', slamming on the brakes would be more apt. Nothing would ever make me suffer a VM connection again. Oh and how the hell do they get away with advertising the service as fibre ? Low grade co-ax is NOT fibre.
Don't you believe it. I'm a FF user & my d/ls slow to a crawl sometimes being unusable at peak times. (this with the 10Mb connection)
Even worse, after accessing Usenet for any length of time, my connection is dropped completely leaving me to down power the modem and router to re-establish the connection AND I pay £25 pm for the privilege.
From previous experience of these jokers it'll be syncing up at 50Mb, but the actual browsing speeds will nearer 56k. Never, ever again will I use them. I had 4 good years with Telewest, then the worst 18 months I've ever had. Doesn't help I live in the area they test all the traffic shaping, throttling etc. These days I'm a happy BT & O2 customer, and TBFH I would say from experience that AOL has a better broadband product than Virgin. 50Mb? right until you hit your FUP of 10Mb between the hours of 7am and 630am
I'm currently in the process of persuading my landlord to ditch the Virgin connection so that I can get Be in. I'd been with Be for the last few years and moving into a house with Virgin already installed was a worry from the start for me. I was only surprised at how much worse the service was than I'd thought it could be.
Get my coat pic, because in this case it's an accurate portrait of Virgin riffling through my wallet in my coat pocket.
TCP speed is dependant on bandwidth delay product.
With the current cable latencies there is no way in hell for the speed to saturate the line. The TCP window cannot open enough before latency induced "stupor" kicks in. Same is valid for DSL. With the average rtt of 35ms+ on BT DSL the maximum single stream speed is around 3-4Mbit.
It will take at least 7-8 parallel streams to get a good measurement and most measurement services do not use that.
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If you or your children sign up to Webwise on your internet connection, what you or they do on your computer will be spied on to try to work out what you are interested in. You and your children will then get lots of adverts trying to sell you things they think you might want to buy. By signing up you agree to let them do this.
They will be in there like a bearded rat up a drainpipe if they have the chance.
I'm one of the "lucky" people to be upgraded from 4Mb to 10Mb a few weeks ago, since the upgrade I've recieved an average speed of 2.5Mb!
It's worse now than it's ever been!
Everything VM say is pretty much downright lies IMV.
Customer service is abysmal, and the price is becomming increasingly hard to justify.
Lying huh?
Extract from virgin media email entitled "Important news about your broadband service" below:
---
How this affects you
We’ll be moderating the internet use on your account during peak times for the rest of this week (until Sunday night).
This means that from 4pm to midnight from Monday to Friday, and 10am to midnight on Saturday and Sunday your broadband service will be reduced from up to 8Mb to 80kbps (that’s just faster than a dial-up connection).
During these times you might want to stagger your use, so that you’re not doing everything in one go. Outside of these times, you’ll be able to use your service as normal, with speeds of up to 8Mb. If you’d like to find out a bit more about why we do this just click here.
---
Suck my quote.
fnord
The uploading issue isn't necessarily to do with the throttling\capping of the line, more likely to do with the pitiful upload speeds that they have on their lines.
Even when they move to 50Mb, the upload speed will be so low that it is all but imossible anyone will actually get that speed due to the traffic overheads.
I had Virgin/NTHell and it was ALWAYS slow. The download speed was just about acceptable, but the upload speed was a paltry 128KB/s.
Apart from that , they port-block, traffic-shape, and generally piss about.
Don't even bother asking for a static ip.
About the only thing I can think of that was good , is that if you are in a cabled area then you don't have to have a BT line to get broadband.
When I went over to O2 broadband I was amazed, that although the line speed was only advertised as twice as fast as what I was allegedly getting from Virgin-on-the-ridiculous-NTHell, it was in fact around about 6 times faster.
Don't get me started on Billing, I don't think I ever once received the correct bill from the NTHell-Virgin muppets.
The billing department is completely disconnected from the installations department.
Once I was going to get NTHell installed (before I finally went insane and did get it connected), and then cancelled, only to be billed for about 5 months. I phoned them up and cancelled, and eventually my bank refunded the direct debits. Some months later I had a letter from a debt collection agency threatening to take me to court for payment for a service I had never had.
Virgin-NTHell are one supremely useless bunch of retards, BT and O2 shine like beacons of brilliance against their incompetence, and anyone that believes that they are likely to deliver a 50MBs service reliably, and charge you the correct money, should go and seek psychiatric help for delusions immediately.
The real crime is , they actually do currently have the best "final-connection" to many homes. It just ashame the organisation, and back-bone is so piss-poor that the "final-connection" is unlikely to be properly utilized. By the time they get it sorted out sometime in 20 years, BT might have wired us up with fibre-optics.
I could write another essay about over-heating-nthell-cable-tv boxes.....
I don't think they have the right people in their tech division.
Branson needs to go down there and mix it up a bit - perhaps he could employ someone who will don a pair of suspenders and do a can can on top of the servers.
Virgin should be fun, innovative, it should go the extra mile, that is what the brand use to mean. Get fibre laid, Branson, stick it to the man one more time, and let's see this cyber future heralded in.
But, nowadays they just spin out the same old tripe that the other big ISPs spin out.
Find a small ISP is the answer at the mo.
When I was, I always had the top BB package, so was on the 20Mb connection before jumping ship. Always used speedtest.net, as I wanted to not only know the speed I was getting, but get a historic comparison of the speeds. When it first went to 20Mb, I could get a reading around that mark, however over time this diminished to between 11 and 12Mb. This sort of dl speed was also mirrored in the speed for any actual file download.
Switched to Be* on the pro package and get close to 20Mb down and 2.2Mb up on the speedetst and on the modem sync rates, which is also mirrored in the actual speeds I get.
You couldn't pay me to go back to VM.
In defence of VM (their internet service at least - I've had 4 V+ TV boxes this year grrrr) after reconfiguring my PC as per the VM instructions and replacing my cheap router with a Belkin I would regularly get 19.xMb in multiple different tests at different times of day, More importantly I also got real world performance that matched that (for example downloading unix ISOs, PS3 demos etc - all multiple GB files)
I didn't get that real world speed from every site I visited, and I never got that speed over wireless but I'm happy with the service. I'm only posting to balance out some of the criticism here.
No doubt peoples experiences will vary, but for me in west London once I had done the sensible things of isolating where my problems lay and removing the bottle necks my end, was and am happy.
Oh poor poor Virgin!
The speed checkers are dire! We are so hard done by! Stop the world we want to get off.
The speedtesters (Online) are a crock of shit always have been and always will. None of them are true reflections of speed the only way to do it reasonably well is to download a series of files usually from a number of geographical locations that are UK based sites, European, pacific rim etc. and keep an eye on the speeds.
That's the old way of doing it but still the best.
Virgin like others put out false and misleading adverts that try and entice "The gullible" (and lets face it they have a lot to target) by suggesting they are the fastest and the cheapest. They don't tell you that they traffic shape you, that it depends on geographical location and saturation points as to whether or not you will get good bad or crap service delending on load. They use these comparison websites and then advertise how wonderful they are and many believe it but don't realise these ISP's on there pay to be featured.
It's all a con to get your money and Ofcom and the ASA should be doing something about it.
It's not just Virgin either just look at places like broadband choices, utwits and the others - these people should be taken to task for their misleading rubbish.
At least Paris doesn't hide the fact!Virgin don't like speedtesters online because it shows them up for what they are inaccurate or not.
Virgin media in my view are awful now. 4 years ago i would have said blueyonder where the best ISP i had ever used.
I do not use the internet as heavily as i did 2-3 years ago, i no longer torrent all the time, my downloading now consists of an occassional tv episode, or an iso image or two.
what makes me believe virgin are awful is their lack of understanding of how the publics use of the internet is changing. I am on the 10mb service, which has the 1GB cap put in place between 4-9pm. which means if i use my "super fast fibre optic" broadband at its full capacity for 15 minutes during this time i am restricted. its pointless going to the 20mb service as the "extended" 3GB limit will also be hit again in 15 minutes.
as i said, i dont use the internet as heavily as i used to, however i do own an xbox360 and a ps3, these are everyday common devices with internet services. the 360 offers the ability to download hi-def movies, if i was to get home at 6pm and kick off the download of a hi-def movie (around 4GB) at 10mb this would take a little under an hour, however after 15 minutes tha cap kicks in and the download would take 4 hours. more devices in the future will offer more services and virgin are failing to recognise this and driving a once excellent service into the ground.
they will probably give the 50mb users a 6GB cap so you get super fast fibre optic broadband for the first 15 minutes, then you get switched to the super buggy "gateway timeout" capped service for 5 hours.
sorry virgin, i used to sing your praises, now i too will be leaving. its not about your capping affecting torrent users, as i said, i dont do that anymore, its becasue your service has failed to recognise the demands now of the average user, the bandwidth consumption of the average home is going to sky rocket in the next few years and the draconian limits you are applying are stifling. well done on flushing a formerly great service down the pan
If it has not been said already... even if your pipe can sustain 50 Mb/s signal rate - call it ~48 Mb/s max data rate, not a lot of internet hosts can fill that pipe.
A decent test should download several large files in parallel from different servers who's aggregate bandwidth is known to exceed 50 Mb/s. Else the bottleneck is not the ISP service it is the internet servers.
They're complaining about speedtests not being accurate enough for their customers when they could easily set up their own speedtest. only they don't want to do that because we could all see just how crap a 20MB connection really is with Virgin when it suffers from STM.
I left Virgin because they are intent on selling broadband but have no intention of telling the customer about STM. they just do these kind of scams where they put the blame on everybody else except themselves.
Virgin and cable broadband are quickly being over taken by ADSL. cable was supposed to be the future but it's rapidly becomming the past.
We've been down since our service was "upgraded" Thursday, Oct 9th. Nobody has a clue when we might be back up. One tech told us not to expect anything before Thursday, Oct 16th.
I asked why it we couldn't get through to technical support for hours, and he told me that "thousands had been disconnected" when Virgin migrated from one type of switching technology to another.
Apparently there is a third party company doing work for Virgin in BT premisis, and it's turned into a dogs dinner.
We're in E1 - anyone else impacted?
In any case, Virgin should get the basics right before trying to deploy more advanced stff.
Hi
I know FULL well that Virgin throttle my speed several for hours each day. All I need to prove this is to start downloading a linux iso and watch the speed be throttled down by 75%!! after about 35 - 45 minutes.
I reckon that there should be a gov't speed-check site.
Shaddup all you whingers!!! I think you need to find out the REAL cost of transferring data!!
you will be shocked to find it is in the 3 figure range... your moans are just like a pedant who gets caviar for 'only £2' and then moans that it is not the best quality! - to do that you have to spend much more...
speed tests can always be wrong, if they 'just load a file' - it is like trying to test the max speed of a supercar on a motorway, at rush hour!! - this is why *motorways* have a CAP!! - this is why the POLICE will fine you, or even stop you, for going at excessive speed, without care for other users, and also why no-one has yet built a motor way with *10* lanes each way!!! :D
If speed is really important for you, why not get your own T3 line??? YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!
Proper tests will use a special server (like testing a super car on a private race track) - and so avoid most of the congestion by **all** the other PCs using the net...
http://www.speedtest.net/ can use any server *in the world* for this, and give the most accurate speed and ping - it regularly gives me 8 to 10 M on my VM cable line..
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest - is the worst! on the SAME line, only a minute or two later, http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?flash=1
gives a massive *seven* servers, from NJ to florida....
and it seems to think my speed is about 1.3 Meg... :/ (SF)
- and yes, I tested with speedtest.net, SF server, got 4 Meg!!
It shows how things can be affected...
-
I think you will find the ONLY way to get your massive downloads, is to change to a much smaller ISP... and hope that it or its 'parent' (check http://www.ispreview.co.uk for who ) does not get TOO big, so it has to limit its output, due to too many people using a limited resource - yes, it may be 'limited' to thousands of terabytes, but divide that by the number of users, and it starts getting small.. :(
I am a network engineer and Virgin are right with pointing out the flaws in these ADSL bandwidth testing sites. They are geared up for a few MB and async traffic at that. On numerous times I have tested an E3 Sync link to one of these ADSL sites only to get an upload of a few mb/s. The only way of testing a link is point to point with two devices capable of link saturation using something as simple as Iperf ( http://www.noc.ucf.edu/Tools/Iperf/ ) a windows version can be found by searching. remember windows doesn't have the throughput of Linux (fact!) or any dedicated device like an Acterna 2800... Caps are a different thing and people need to learn the difference between bits and BYTES. A transfer rate of 11mBYTES/second would indicate a 100mbit/s link end to end.
They reckon the measurements are unfair 'cos they measure how long it takes a file to get from A to B rather than the line speed?
Personally I reckon that if the max you can physically move data around the intertubes is, say, 8Mb/s, the fact that your line runs at an honest-to-god 50Mb/s is only indicative of a phenomenal waste of your money paying for it. The only reason I'd be interested in a 50meg connection would to be to move bog loads of data from A (somewhere else) to B (me), so the metrics on this are all I'm interested in.
"I've got the fastest pipe into a shite service" is not even worth the effort unzipping to wave the willy.
I think that the lesson that we have to learn from all of the contentious feedback here is that VirginMedia, like ALL other ISPs vary in their performance from region to region and line to line and also on what you plan to do with the line.
I know that I get the full 20Mbps speed from my VirginMedia line, I get that in speed tests and also through Torrent downloads, which actually peak out at 2.3MB/s when downloaing things such as xubuntu images for which there are many sources available.
My boss is also on VirginMedia, and also on the nominally 20Mbps connection package, but doesn't get anything like the speeds that I do. One of my colleagues also switched to VirginMedia on my recommendation and he does also get the full 20Mbps speeds (phew!).
I can't comment on secret limiting of my line with VPN or other things like that, I don't use VPN, but I just don't get problems with all the usual stuff like email, web, streaming media, iPlayer, FTP, Torrents and so on. Yes, I have hit their download caps from time to time, and to be honest, 5Mbps for a few hours isn't actually that limiting.
When I was on ADSL to the same property, I never got close to 5Mbps speeds on my nominally 8Mbps connection, BUT as I say, I am sure that there are people out there on 8Mbps ADSL lines that get 8Mbps service, it all depends on where you are and the quality of your line, the distance from the exchange (or "green box in the street"), and the number of other people you're sharing your pipe with.
Rolf.
...is flakey as anything, one day i'll get 21Mbps, the next 7 - nothing appears to have changed as i can still download from a decent website (Microsoft, Apple etc) at 2,000 Kbps, solidly.
Even the speedtest on Be's own site reported my connection as 8Mb - go figure.
That said i was surprised by Virgin, my girlfriend moved into a new flat and it was their only option, they ordered a 10Mb connection and they get exactly that.... it's been problem free and fast, i just hope they never have to deal with the customer support folks!!!!
to quote them
"What do the updates to the traffic management policy mean?
To make sure all customers get the most from their connection, we automatically reduce the speed of the heaviest users at peak evening times - between 4pm and 9pm. In extreme cases, we'll now also reduce the speed between 10am and 3pm - something that'll have an impact on just 1% of our customers."
This is in fact a lie the traffic management is bewteen 10am and 9pm for everybody as i have be told 4 times by tech and say you bust your 3GB limit on your 20mb which is rather easy ( stream a few things from iplayer and your son downloads a demo on the xbox under an hour your capped but it does not stop there if they capp you down to 5m then you go on to the 5m capping system which has even less of a DL limit it is just one big spiral.
Telewest where brilliant virgin and disgraceful,
1. fiber optic BB( eh so what is the old coax thing running into my house then )
2. unlimited* (*conditions apply ? so if it is conditional and traffic managed it is not unlimited)
3. Over subbcribed areas of the network struggling to cope.
4. the worst tech support( after a slight issue with web pages taking 5 minutes to load on a 20 mb connection i was told I was being traffic managed? I said i understand but this is unuseable and the connection rate was in the 56k reigion , "yes sir it is a known issue if you turn your router off for 12 hours it will all be back to normal"? the words cancel and downgrade shot right out of my mouth in a instant.
personally i have cancelled my 20mb as it is absolutely pointless and so would be 50mb with 4gb capp..funny how there adverts dont say that and when i move house the lot is going no virgin tv, no cable, no phone, bt and sky can get my business from now on at least they ae honest about shafting you.
I have a mixed experience with VM, I am only on the 2Mbit package and I DO usually get that. However.....if I breathe too hard on my PC I hit the cap. On the other hand, capped to 1Mbit with VM has proven better than being on 2Mbit ADSL for me.
VM need to realise that having 50Mbit is no good if you get capped to 5 after 15 mins. I'd rather have 8Mbit uncapped than that.
I wrote my own.
Why? If you're going to complain to VM about your connection speed, you need to download a file from their own servers.
(Needs CURL, a free internet file fetcher)
@ECHO OFF
TITLE MY SPEED TEST
ECHO.
ECHO VirginMedia download test started
curl -s --write-out "%%{speed_download}\n" http://downloads.virginmedia.com/pcguard/6/virginmedia/tw/web/broadband_advisor.exe -o "%temp%\speedtest.tmp" >"%temp%\speedtestaafile2.tmp"
ECHO Local VirginMedia download test finished
CALL :calculate
Tracert -w 200 -h 15 downloads.virginmedia.com
ECHO.
ECHO BBC Download test started
curl -s --write-out "%%{speed_download}\n" http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/news/nol/shared/spl/hi/technology/08/broadband_britain/broadband.mov -o "%temp%\speedtest.tmp" >"%temp%\speedtestaafile2.tmp"
ECHO BBC Download test finished
CALL :calculate
Tracert -w 200 -h 15 downloads.bbc.co.uk
PAUSE
EXIT
:calculate
set /P bytes=<"%temp%\speedtestaafile2.tmp"
DEL /Q "%temp%\speedtestaafile2.tmp"
DEL /Q "%temp%\speedtest.tmp"
set /A bits=bytes * 10
REM ECHO Byte: %bytes%
REM ECHO bits: %bits%
REM set bits=282037
If %bits% GTR 10000000 goto 1M
If %bits% GTR 2000000 goto 2M
If %bits% GTR 1000000 goto 1M
If %bits% GTR 100000 goto 100K
ECHO Broadband speed is very slow at %bits% bits per sec.
goto :EOF
:2M
set bits1=%bits:~-3%
set bits2=%bits:~0,-3%
set bits3=%bits2:~-3%
set bits4=%bits2:~0,-3%
Set str1=%bits4%,%bits3%,%bits1% bits/sec
Set /A bitsA=(%bits% / 1024 * 10 / 1024)
set bits1=%bitsA:~0,1%
set bits2=%bitsA:~1,1%
Set str2=(~%bits1%.%bits2%Mb/sec)
ECHO %str1% %str2%
goto :EOF
:1M
set bits1=%bits:~-3%
set bits2=%bits:~0,-3%
set bits3=%bits2:~-3%
set bits4=%bits2:~0,-3%
Set str1=%bits4%,%bits3%,%bits1% bits/sec
Set /A bitsA=(%bits% / 1024 * 10 / 1024)
set bits1=%bitsA:~0,1%
set bits2=%bitsA:~1,1%
set str2=(~%bits1%%bits2%Mb/sec)
ECHO %str1% %str2%
goto :EOF
:100K
set bits1=%bits:~-3%
set bits2=%bits:~0,-3%
set str1=%bits2%.%bits1% Kbits/sec
ECHO %str1%
goto :EOF
What you call broadband speed test is useless if you don't check also the quality of the service known as "bandwidth delay". This is key to keep the flow of data constant (e.g. to watch movie and play game, Voip...). and VM cunningly advertise "speed" while increasing the "bandwidth delay"...
do a speed and quality test and see for yourself and see how ISP are cunningly making money by delaying a 10Mbs service into just 300ms (transfer speed (kbps) and Delay (ms): go to http://myspeed.visualware.com/servers/lhr.html
I'm on VM and downloaded approximately 2.5GB worth of games patch (TWEE) at the weekend and I'm on VMs medium (4Mb/s service) - that being the case my theoretical "maximum" download speed is 500KB/s.
For that 2.5GB the average reported download speed was, I reckon, around 450KB/s - seems alright to me - although granted there were a couple of points where I was getting a reported download speed of 750-800KB/s (which would be approximately 6Mb/s).
Now I'm not saying VM are perfect (or even as good as they used to be when they were BlueYonder) but I still seem to have a good, solid, low-latency (in TF2) connection from Wolvo (which seems to be one of the last places they roll-out upgrades to). Maybe they'll nerf it when they roll out the 10Mb upgrade.
I think cable is the better technology but that there's no competition in the market since the NTL/Telewest merger and the service has suffered - I actually look forward to BT rolling out the fibre.
Firstly a few people have said Virgin don't have fibre - WRONG, remember about 15 years ago when AT&T turned up and started digging up everything in sight, well they were installing fiber, not to the home but to the local exchanges , his means most people in cities are pretty close to a fibre exchange, ever wonder why adsl is stuck at 16Mb max and more like 2Mb in the real world? well its because copper isn't very good at sending data over long distances.
Secondly i normally get 2MB/20Mb/2000KBps all the time from my VM line, but this can only be relied upon from certain sites such as Apple.com, Apple own an entire i.p range i.e if 10.11.12.13 (private i.p, i know)is the i.p for the apple then any address starting with 10 is owned by apple, thats a shit load of i.p's and i imagine they have one or two servers hooked up to the net allowing them to provide high speed access to everyone.
Now compare this to Youtube for example, they probably also could give me my max line speed but they won't because they know that a video clip might fully load in <5 secs regardless of whether i watch the whole clip or not,this means wasted bandwidth which means wasted money so they allow it to download slightly faster than it takes to play.
Then come all th other small sites who's hosts don't have the capacity to give everyone they're max download speed all the time, to you this may make your connection feel slow.
I had a third point but i forgot it mid rant, my point was that i have been with NTL/VM for approx. 7 years and have never had any long term problems, i would guess maybe 4 or 5 times in 7 years i have not been able to connect to the net but that has mostly been sorted out in hours, and the speeds have generally been as advertised.
As for the throttling issue, a while back i added Speed Scheduler onto Azureus/Vuse and set it to throttle speeds during "peak hours"(also useful because 4 of us are on the same connection and Bittorrent really slows things down if left unattended) and i haven't been capped by VM since and my downloads continue at max speed during the night.
In closing all i have to say is roll on 50Mb, currently an hour long T.V episode can be done in about 7mins, cant wait till it only takes 2.5 :-)
Sorry for the text wall.
I have to say, up to now I've not had an issue with my 20mb Virgin pipe. I *do* see a drop-off during the 'peak hours' as advertised, and I am a pretty heavy download user so that's fair comment as far as I'm concerned; I'm happy to share with everyone else..
..but I think this article and the comments that follow has prompted me to perform some tests. I'll edit later with an update.
and MODS! please can you reduce the 'time to live' of the posts to MUCH less than about 24hrs???
"fiber optic BB( eh so what is the old coax thing running into my house then )"
Its currently FFTC - Fibre To The Cabinet, then coax to the home..
- the next step will be FTTH - Fibre To The Home..
other moaners who think anything else using BT lines are better, Rolf Harris does not think so...
and yes, MU, virgin does do server work, meaning a loss of acces for a few days.. last time that happened to me, my net came back upgraded from 4 to 10 meg for FREE.. :)
I would bet that would take a lot longer on a BT line -(BT says line will upgrade, ISP happy, tells users... a week later and no upgrade, ISP embarrased, users angry and leaving... BT still twiddles it's thumbs, while disgruntled badly paid staff 'walk off the job' ... ISP still being 'blanked' by BT(they dont know why the line is dead either...) - workers eventually get back to work, so its all handed back to the complaints dept, its not their problem, ISP tries to pick up the pieces...
VM has it own cables, own exchanges, own staff, does not have to deal with countless 'middlemen' just to clear a line fault!!!
I had the VMedia 20mbit connection and nothing they could do would get it above 4.5mbit download speed and I was testing by pulling a 1gb file from Microsoft in the US who have a 400mbit connection at their end.
Going down to a 10mbit connection all I could get was 2.5mbit, not the 4.xmbit I had before. The engineer at VMedia I spoke with said that was typical for the 10mbit connection speed.
I’d have the 50mbit connection from them, but going on their track record I wont get more than 8-9mbit from it. Also don’t forget that despite the hype of the connection speeds all accounts get throttled at peak hours so half your connection always goes.
All the usual victory of marketing and spin over substance that I have come to accept as normal from Virgin.
@Stuart Halliday
easier option dl a file from the big V direct to see your actuall speed
ftp://ftp.blueyonder.co.uk/blueyondergames/blueyondergames/demos/
@Anonymous Coward
you said( Firstly a few people have said Virgin don't have fibre "WRONG")
No I am afriad you are wrong the virgin network is indeed fibre but every single house in the uk is connected through coax cables from the MUX in their street..this goes for your cable tv as well, they do not supply fibre connected BB to domestic customers Ofcom has already slapped them once for it and about laying new fibre well if you would check i think you will find it has been a while since that has happened maybe 10 yrs as both NTL and Telewest had a 6 yr hold on new cable becuase both companies where tight on margins and being squeezed by sky to the point that any customer above the standard TV package was actually costing them money and this is why certain areas of their network are over subscribed and running on equipment that most companies disposed of years ago.
I have a "CABLE MODEM" with not a fibre channel in sight and anyway virgins fibre is an internal network if they cant coupe with the bandwidth of their users connected through coax how the hell would they do direct fibre it is just a big phat pipe dream.
Well I can't be bothered to read all the comments so forgive me if someone else has already said this...
Even if the speed tests aren't reporting your true speed, they are most likely reporting the speed you can expect from the average webserver. I know the method used in these tests is flawed and doesn't produce entirely accurate results, but I find them to be a very good indication of the actual speed being provided.
Virgin should be more concerned about their networks not being able to handle the load of all the traffic with the ridiculous speeds they are offering. Besides, even if speed tests are reporting low speeds, your speed gets quatered after downloading what is now considered to be a fairly small amount of data (especially in shared houses where lots of people each use the connection equally). Downloading at full speed on a 20Mb gets you capped in about 15 minutes, which in my opinion is insane. Hence my boycott of Virgin =)
I work for a small ISP, we have peering agreements with level 3 and nitrex so i am aware ofthe costs of data shifting, i can get a free adsl max service from work but i choose not too. when we get onto the 21CN network i will reconsider.
in my view, one gigbayte is not a massive download. and this is where i believe virgin are loosing touch. online services are only going to expand and require more data. Microsoft are now actively advertising their HD movie download service for the Xbox 360 (sorry to keep using that example)
Virgin just seem confused now, they give you a service and then cap it after 15 minutes if you use it at the capacity that they are so happy to shout about in adverts, they defend this policy saying it only hits the top 5% who unless managed would disrupt the service for others (last month i downloaded 4gigs of data in total , 1.3 gigs last saturday from a virgin media hosted mirror, and got limited that day, am i to believe i was one of the top 5% of users that day when my traffice didnt even leave their gateway?) when it it clearly just an arbitrary limit, and to top it all off they are now introducing a 50mb service which will chew even more of their bandwidth.
Jon you are right in everything you say, i agree wholeheartedly, i am just a tad annoyed that a service that was once the best in the country known for being forward thinking has fallen into disarray and confusion and become out of touch.
Does the speed really matter when you are dealing with VM? Isnt their continual lies, overcharging, refusal to meet the contract, no customer services and refusal to reply to any letter of complaint enough to moan about?
I WAS a VM customer, and on the days it worked I was happy. The fact it was slower than dial up was annoying, but no where as annoying as trying to talk to VM about it.
See my comment 13th October 14:31 ... The MUX is inside the cabinet in the street, that converts the fibre channel to coax, that goes to each home.. Fibre To The Home is for the future, and will depend on it being economic or not...
"cable too old" er, no, when I got this house in '95, I got C&W, the cheapest... this was then upgraded to TW, and now VM... even if TW did replace the cable, that is still about 10 years... and I have had no problems getting 10 M... again replacing bad sections will depend on economics... If you dont support it, it wont happen...
No, d/l ing a file will be subject to how congested that part of the net was, and the the speed of the modem it used... speedcheckers only test the 'one off' speed and latency, what you need is Netmeter from www.metal-machine.de/readerror/ It will help you track what happens to speed over time...
"cant cope with the bandwidth" I think you will find that EVERYONE is getting this problem, due to too many greedy people wanting to download lots of stuff for next to no cost!!
check my comment 12th October 13:26 .... I think you will find VM's track record (considering the short time it has been operating) is much better that BTs... BT has only had since the START of 'cheap internet' to get its act together - mid '90s I think.. and it has had the whole telephone network runnning for decades before that....
If you take the time to properly read my post i believe i explained fairly clearly that VM only does fibre to the local exchange, i also stated that copper isn't very good over LONG distances, copper has a pretty low resistance, however it adds up over distance causing signal degradation, there is also the issue of signal to noise ratio, which only increases over distance, in a largish city anyone person is within a couple of Km of a VM fibre exchange, i should have maybe mentioned that copper i pretty good at carrying data over shorter distances, i.e a couple of thousand meters to a fibre exchange compared to the Miles? of copper cable till you reach the BT high speed backbone. I never claimed that VM had fibre into the home and as a matter of fact niether did they, they said that its faster by fibre, which is absolutely true, the fact that the distance to their fibre is relatively short means they have much more speed capacity than BT can ever have using miles of copper cable.
I also have a "CABLE MODEM" i should know as i bought the co-ax to move it out of the stupid place that VM installed it to,(in the Kitchen, who wants their modem in the kitchen)
Now, if you read through the very first paragraph and apply a little deductive logic, and the hindsight with which i have just provided you, you will see that it is all there, if not spelled out letter by letter for you.
"Firstly a few people have said Virgin don't have fibre - WRONG, remember about 15 years ago when AT&T turned up and started digging up everything in sight, well they were installing fiber, NOT TO THE HOME* but to the LOCAL EXCHANGES* , this means most people in cities are PRETTY CLOSE TO A FIBRE EXCHANGE*, ever wonder why adsl is stuck at 16Mb max and more like 2Mb in the real world? well its because COPPER ISN'T VERY GOOD AT SENDING DATA OVER LONG DISTANCES."
* = My emphases for the reading impaired
Read this if you will, as - copper o.k over short distance, copper bad over long distances.
Any questions/flames/rants don't hesitate to post them
is the best analogy I can come up with .
The Bugatti MAY go 250MPH (approx), but with the congestion, plus sensible speed limits you ain't going to do more than 30-40 MPH burst speed, and an average of more like 11mph.
So where is this virgin-on-the-ridiculous 50MB/s going to take you ? All the way into the traffic jam with the P2P-ers, iPlayers and other surfers, just like the Bugatti let's you join the congestion in it's realm.
Virgin are just full of hype, they are the ISP for Sun readers.
@ mr coward
"Firstly a few people have said Virgin don't have fibre - WRONG"
i think if you read mines this is the portion of your comment i was commenting on this statement is false virgin do not provide fibre access which mean it is a coax connection pure and simple no arguement! and yes they did say fibre connection and have been slapped down by ofcom (maybe you should do some background checking first)
ofcom state it is how the user is connected to the network that defines the connection method and not the system behind it, futhermore Virgin have now got round that by say fibre optic network and does not mention connection at all in their adverts.
and you should check with ofcom before your say Virgin has a better track record than others I have :-)
@ jon
that is an internal ftp for virgin customers nothing to do with the net what ever speed you get from dl'ing will be you max speed , which when you complain about slow speed is what they tell you to do and if your getting 56k speed for say bbcnews and any other external sites, but 1300 from the that link I posted they tell you it is not their fault and everything is ok ?
Virginmedia are struggling with debt, with infrastructure, with customers and legacy of mismanagement from NTL and Telewest days even to the point they have to drop channels because they cant afford them or instagate traffic shaping because the network cant cope with demand and them complaining about speedtesting is a bit like having a race car with square wheels on the open road but complaining that it runs faster when you put round wheels on it and run it off road ..yeah but i bought my car for the open road not some internal little track.
you need to understand what you read and not just take the points you think have the most weight for your poor attempt at an argument !!
Firstly - as has been said by many people, the VM Core network is FIBRE, with high quality TX equipment ( leading edge in most ) The Access network, which is your local area is ALSO fibre to the little Green cabinets you will see in your street. From the Cabinet to you him is indeed NOT fibre, it is Coax which if you understand transmission principls ( which i doubt you do ) is far better at data transmission than your copper wire from BT, Sure COAX has cooper in it so if you wish to call the 2 totally different types of cable copper feel free...
Ofcom wise, yes it was classed as misleading, but then again so have many other ISP's with there claims, how about you take a look as some of the one VM have raised as un fair and have WON the complaint !!
As for dropping channel's, i assume that you refer to the SKY channels, these channels which are owned by a direct competitor of VM, and one who felt that the best way to try and fight VM was to raise the costs of the Sky channels. it did not make business sense to pay a highly inflated cost for channels whos actual audience numbers are dropping year on year. If you are that unhappy that you cant get a couple of the sky channels ( sky1 and sky news) feel free to jump ship but that seems a pointless exercise when VM win their case agains SKY for unfair costing... ( guess u didnt know that bit either )
By all means edit Reg. At the very least get a few friends to try the experiment and publish the results - Please.
“Virgin Media believes it is being shafted by comparison sites offering ISP speed checks, and has called on them to improve their techniques ahead of the launch of its 50Mbit/s upgrade.”
To pick up on the shafting from there, Virgin is certainly ‘improving’ its own ‘techniques’.
He’s a nice little test for you to try this coming morning.
Go here and look at Virgin’s posted throttling policy.
http://www.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management.php
I’d draw attention to the 10:00-15:00 throttle-session.
There you’ll notice that you can attract a throttle if you *download* more than 1000MB in that time period. The theory is that if you don’t download more than that in that period, you don’t get throttled. Here is what Virgin is actually up to.
I’m on a 2Mb connection served, I believe, out of what it labelled as ‘Blueyonder, Livingston’.
On Tuesday 14 October 2008 and Wednesday 15 October 2008 I conducted the following little experiment because I was becoming increasingly convinced that Virgin had started running another scam in their throttling regime. I’d strongly suggest that others try this for themselves and see what results they come up with.
Launch your news-client and line up a download queue that will easily bust the 1000MB limit.
Set yourself a fairly generous ‘discount’ off of that limit (allowing for communication overhead etc.). In my case I reduced the Virgin enforced limit of 1000MB by 30MB – so I’m aiming to download 970MB. That isn’t going to bust the limit – I’m not going to get throttled.
Sit down and actually calculate the amount of time it would take, if you were running your connection at full tilt (in my case 256KB/s) to download that 970MB (or whatever value you calculated for your own connection rates). Remember, you’re not going to get your full rate so, in effect, this is a further discount on the Virgin imposed limit. In my case I calculated that out at 64 minutes to hit near to the 970MB. There is the communication overhead, but we’ve been generous in allowing for that and some of that will be mopped up because we ain’t going to run at full tilt anyway. All in all – we ain’t gonna get busted.
Okay, that’s us covered the download part of the experiment. Now we need to set up an upload part.
Now fire up a p2p client and set a queue such that you will *not* be downloading. You are *only going to upload*, OpenOffice, Linux distro – whatever. Fair enough you have a communications overhead for this but you have already discounted your download limit by more than 30MB and that 30MB (and a bit) should more than cover the download component of the communication overhead for your planned upload session. You should manage to *upload* for the remainder of the 10:00 – 15:00 period without getting busted for overshooting the 1000MB *download* limit. You can’t get busted for the upstream because there is no upstream throttle-penalty inside this time period.
Wait until 10:00. When it arrives set your news-client to start downloading. Time it. As soon as the system clock hits 11:04 shut the news-client down. As you do so pay attention to the download rate you had just as you shut it down. Two days in a row mine was around the 252KB/s mark i.e. I hadn’t hit the limit and hence wasn’t being throttled.
Okay, 11:04, start the p2p client to uploading. Should be uploading for the rest of the 10:00 – 15:00 period without difficulty, you can’t get throttled by Virgin for uploading in this period – Hey, it’s ‘unlimited’! Boy do you have another thing coming. I doubt you’ll get beyond 15-20 minutes and the throttle will step in. Have a look at what the p2p client is saying about the amount you actually *downloaded*. Within that 15-20 minutes I hadn’t even download 0.5MB. But, wait a minute (or 20) I had *uploaded* around 17MB.
Guess what. These charlatans, the ferkin sharp boys at Virgin have started *adding in the upstream* to count towards the *downstream throttle penalties* they’ve published on the web. And, as soon as your *upstream use* when added to the *downstream traffic you’ve already done in the period* busts the published *downstream limit* - you get busted.
I’ve tried it the last two days because I was so damned suspicious of the pattern of throttling I was being subjected to. I had calculated my rates, been generous with discounts – this had even worked for a while – and hey presto I was suddenly being throttled. And there it is. Likely this will Ofcon Approved ™ Or if it isn’t now, doubtless it will be in no time soon.
I still have difficulty in believing that a company, any company, can get away with the kinds of sharp, could even be claimed fraudulent, practices that Virgin evidently feels it has the liberty to perpetrate. But it has. ASA, Ofcon, the politicos have stood by and either ignored, tacitly approved of, or in Ofcon’s case actively engaged in shaping, Virgin and its business practices which to say the least amount to open fraud.
I keep scratching my head and ask, how this can possibly be? The answer I keep getting is that this has nothing whatsoever to do with ISP connection speeds, download limits or anything of the kind. This is to do with the shaping of future business politics and how it interfaces with the politicos. And all of this is happening because the future is going to be corrupt, they’ve started practicing now. Never thought I’d say that about the UK – but that’s the way it is. My oh, my, Beardie – you have come far, what company you must keep. Thanks to God the Courts had the sense to help keep your hands off the Lottery – guess they recognised a bad ‘un when it turned up to wax eloquent on the difference between right and wrong.
"I wonder if my share's been left in here. Ah! Nothing but whiskers."
Requiem for the integrity the UK once had. (Nice one, Beardie!)
"Thursday, 16 October 2008, 11:19 a.m.
Same experiment. Same result. Must be this is what Virgin means by improving accuracy.
Still Virgin got the ol' Ofcon Approved ™ stamp on 'Fair Use' and that is all the liberty they've needed ever since. Those 'Fair Use' clauses have amounted to nothing but 'Liberty for Utter Abuse of the Public' clauses - they need to outlawed. But, no action from the politicos. Wonder why?
Of course, it's politics.. And in politics there is no such thing as no action. 'Inaction'' is, in itself, the action. Suppose we can forget about Trading Standards and the Law over Virgin then?
(Is it any wonder more and more people don't bother to vote? You vote and the politicos arrange the likes of Ofcon to kick your teeth in for your trouble. Dang, they'll even have you pay them before they kick you in the teeth.)"
Friday,17 October 2008, 10:30 p.m.
Same experiment. Different result. Shafting continues. Virgin accuracy being improved.
“I guess someone other than myself must read the Reg. Set up the experiment as before and no throttle steps in at after the '10:00 mark'. Spend most of the rest of the 10:00 – 15:00 'download throttle-penalty period' uploading without being throttled. That said, I’ve been careful I’ve sat and calculated the rates – there is no way I can be throttled, I’m only uploading in an ‘unlimited’ upload period.
Did I have another thing coming:
14:50 and the throttle jumps in, upload rate cut to 50%. How can this be? I’ve a discount of 30MB and, after downloading the 970MB I’ve done nothing but upload for the rest of the 10:00 – 15:00 downloading throttle-penalty session.
I look at the p2p client, it says that my total download (which can only be for comms overhead during the entire ‘unlimited’ *upload* session) is at 2.8MB. Granted the client could be a little inaccurate, but not by anywhere near 27.2MB worth.
Funny how convenient it is to throttle in this way is – just before the 15:00 – 16:00 ‘unlimited’ download (but throttle-penalty upload) session. Five-hours worth of open fraud now at the point of delivery.
Where is the Law? Nowhere.
Where are Trading Standards? Nowhere.
The Politicos? Nowhere.
Virgin? Calculating the results of open fraud. Doctoring them for flaunting in the market-place.
Ofcon? Busing its ‘independent’ little self. Polishing the stamp for another round of Ofcon Approved ™.
I should thank the Reg. Nice try. But fraud seems now a wide-spread policy support matter. Future looks grim. Ofcon and Virgin leading the way. Sun is setting in the UK. Bearded rat can be heard scuttling in the shadows. Lord know what company it keeps.
Getting very dark now. Over and out.”
I never have much of a problem with my VM 10MB connection. I know about the throttling between 5-9pm... so i don't do any big downloading until after then. Apart from that my speeds are pleasantly reliable and constant.
BUT
My brother, who lives a 5 minute walk away, is on the VM 20MB service and got VM to agree to a discount on his bill because his service is never anywhere near to 20MB... when i visit it is noticeably slower than my connection. Then again he deserves it because he is a gaylord with a big bum and likes crappy rock music and smells of poo.
Last from me on this subject.
Hadn't been using the p2p client for a couple of days. But over the last couple of weeks have noticed:
(a). Increasingly longer and longer periods required to connect to the VPN , Relakks, I've been reduced to using because Virgin is now no longer trustworthy in any respect over anything.
(b). The VPN method for p2p has gotten slower and slower. This again is Virgin at its fraudulent best. I've tested this during 'unlimited' periods. Set up a download (not a torrent) and have it come down the VPN - substantially less than half rate. Disconnect the VPN use the Virgin ISP [sic] connection direct and down it comes at near full rate.
(c). Today I'm back to using the p2p client and Relakks. But, after about ten minutes of Relakks-ing that VPN tunnel grinds to a halt. It VPN doesn't get disconnected - it just stops transferring data in either direction via the p2p client. I disconnect it several times during the day, reconnect (eventually - getting through the delay connection time stunt that Virgin has introduced) and start to torrent transfer. Result, a few minutes later it grinds to halt, again. Virgin at its fraudlent best, again.
(d.) Subscribe to a different VPN to give it a whirl. Pretty different, in the end I decide it looks like Virgin has a definite target on Relakks. That said the download rate is way reduced from previous experience so more of the same from Virgin.
So what now, dragged into playing more merry games the Virgin way?
No. I phone up accounts and say I'm canceling. There is a pause. Next thing I know I'm with sales. I get offered a lower price. I explain some of the stunts that Virgin is up to. I explain that they should be in Court on trading standards charges (at the very least). The woman is clueless. I cancel. In one month I'm out. Thank the Lord.
It boils down to ethics. Do I want to support this level of corruption in a company all under the umbrella of a so called 'fair use' clause? No, not by a single penny.
Telewest, to Virgin, to stunts, to crime. Sad story of Ofcon Approved TM and open fraud. I'm out.
Sadder still is that, as far as I can see, very few Reg readers actually get the plot. They'll argue and argue over co-ax and 'cable' and rarely do they show any sign of seeing the politics that are being played out, the precedents that are being set - financial, privacy, commercial ethics and standards etc. Do yourself a favour guys, and gals; stop arguing over the smoke (-screen), that's really playing the game they've set up for you to play. In the boardroom they'll love you for playing the part so well.
Have a very good look at the fire.
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