Cable modem has been "Blacklisted"

The_Scifiboy

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After receiving speeds maxing out at 2.5meg all evening (i'm on 10meg btw) and speaking to 3 customer services reps who all said "no sir you haven't been traffic managed", I finally got one to admit that "yes sir it would appear that your cable modem is currently being traffic managed".

I got a little angry at this point and asked to speak to a supervisor who after a while mentioned that the traffic management system now applies to my modem 24 hours a day as it has been "Blacklisted" by the server.

Also the traffic management levels for 10meg lines are still the same as for 4meg lines, an 800meg d/l limit despite over twice the speed!

Has anyone else heard of this happening with VM?

I am appalled that they can institute a policy like blacklisting someones modem with nary a mention of it on their website.
 
I cancelled my Virgin broadband approx 6 months ago and, if true, I suspect the same had happened to me. I had poor performance consistently during the evening no matter how much or how little I was using it. With Be now, quicker actual download, double the upload and I'm much happier!

I'm sure I download probably more than most and play a lot of Xbox Live but I usually kept my downloading outside the 'peak' hours. I don't reckon I'm into that 'apparent 5%' that 'deserved' to get traffic managed.

I much prefer the non-unlimited deals where you can truly download as much as you like but be prepared to pay extra if you go over x amount of GB. ISPs really need to think about introducing a pay-per-bit model for charging customers, less risky for them and fairer to us!
 
There seems to be a battle going on between what Virgin marketing offer and what the system can handle. Therefore to try and keep speeds up they pick on anyone that uses the service they pay for and throttle the hell out of them.
I moved to Be and get a steady 8mb/s 24/7 no matter what I download and when. Its like going back to the good ole Telewest 10mb/s days when unlimited meant unlimited.
 
I thought I was getting throttled all the time as my DL speeds were easily under a 1MB all day every day. Had the modem swapped out as it would take ages to reconnect following a reboot, the engineer installed brand spanking new virgin media one and I have decent DL speeds once again. The server must be monitoring all modems and then limiting service to a MAC addresses that is DL'ing at a decent rate.
 
Am I understanding this correctly? Or am I just totally neive? An unlimited broadband service can be "limited" by the vendor without any good reason?

Did they romove this "throttling" on request?

I was thinking of moving to Virgin, but now wonder if it would be a mistake.

I have 4mb Bulldog over BT line and the service fast and faultless.
 
@Wardy2005: You'd be hard pushed to find an "unlimited" package from an ISP that is truly unlimited. Virgin implement a peak hours download cap with traffic shaping, majority of other ISPs allow you a certain monthly usage. When the service is truly unlimited, you'll pay through the nose for it (£70+pcm).

There have been some instances of Virgin removing the shaping when people have queried them about it, but I guess it depends on the monkey you get connected to in the call centre.
 
Be is unlimited and costs me £14/month. No download limits at all.
 

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