Help for Cable customers

Subscriber traffic management

We want all our customers to get the best possible broadband service. That means speedy downloads for all customers – not just a few. When someone is downloading and/or uploading a particularly large amount of information over a long period of time, it can slow down the broadband speed for other users in their area who might just be checking their email or browsing the web. That’s why we occasionally moderate the speeds of customers who are downloading and/or uploading an unusually large amount. That way, everybody gets great speeds and all our customers stay happy.

File Sharing traffic management

At peak times we also slow down the speed of file sharing traffic – that’s services like Limewire, Gnutella, BitTorrent and Newsgroup (Usenet) traffic. You will, of course, still be able to use these services, but downloads and uploads will take longer during these peak periods.

How does this relate to speed doubling?

How do I know if I’m a heavy user?

How does file sharing traffic management work?

How often will you change this policy?

Detailed traffic management policy by tier of service?

How does this relate to speed doubling?

As part of our Speed Doubling programme we've reviewed our existing traffic management policy and for customers that have been migrated to their new fantastic speeds we've been able to relax the traffic management thresholds.

For speeds above 30Mbit we've also changed the level of downstream reduction to 50% of the headline speed.

How do I know if I’m a heavy user?

The table below and the example that follows will help you understand what we classify as heavy usage:

As an example, a size: XL customer on our 60Mb service can download 5,000MB between 4pm and 9pm on a weekday before they are traffic managed. During this time that customer would have to download 7 standard definition movies or 1,250 songs before a 5 hour temporary speed reduction was applied, and even then they can of course continue to browse the web and use services like the iPlayer without interruption. The customer’s upstream speed would remain unaffected during this time, assuming they hadn’t surpassed the separate upstream threshold during that time.

How does file sharing traffic management work?

We moderate the total volume of file sharing traffic on our network between 5pm and midnight on weekdays and midday and midnight on weekends. This policy, which applies to all broadband packages, is restricted to Peer to Peer (“P2P”) applications which are commonly used to distribute large amounts of data.

This policy does not impact any applications other than Peer to Peer, so things like watching iPlayer, online gaming, making calls via Skype, downloading music tracks from iTunes or streaming them from Spotify and sending an email or normal browsing are unaffected.

It's important to remember that these traffic management policies only apply at peak times when speeds are most likely to be affected by people using more than their fair share. Outside of peak times we do not manage traffic.

How often will you change this policy?

The way that our customers use their broadband is changing all the time, so in the future we will adapt the policy in order to continue to provide the best service possible for all customers. Don't worry though, we'll always let you know on our website if we're going to make any changes, and its not going to change very often.

Detailed traffic management policy by tier of service, pre and post speed doubling

Unsure what package you’re on? Go to My Virgin Media to find out.

30Mb and above

* This KFI gives an overview of typical traffic management practices undertaken on this product; it does not cover circumstances where exceptional external events may impact on network congestion levels.

**This excludes any service, content, application or protocol that an ISP is required to block by UK law and child abuse images as informed by the list provided by the Internet Watch Foundation.

***If no entry is shown against a particular traffic type, no traffic management is typically applied to it, though overall network management rules shall apply.

Glossary

Traffic management:

Traffic management is the term used to describe a range of technical practices undertaken to manage traffic across networks.

The different outcomes achieved by the use of technical practices can include:

•the prioritisation of certain types of traffic in busy times or busy areas to ensure that it is of an adequate quality

•the slowing down of certain traffic types that are not time-critical at busy times or busy places

•ensuring compliance with a consumer’s contract, for example slowing down of traffic for the heaviest users

•supporting the delivery of managed services, for example to ensure a guaranteed quality of service for a specific piece of content

Managed services: The majority of internet traffic is delivered on a “best efforts” basis. A managed service, on the other hand is one whereby an ISP offers “quality of service” that can guarantee a certain level of performance, so that the content, service or application can be delivered without risk of degradation from network congestion. Such a quality of service arrangement can be made between an ISP and a content or service provider or directly between an ISP and the consumer.

Best Efforts: This phrase relates to the delivery of internet traffic where traffic management is applied without distinctions based on the source of that traffic.

Slowed down: This outcome is achieved by the deployment of technologies that can decrease the priority of traffic types deemed to be non-time critical on the network e.g. slowing down traffic such as downloads during busy times and busy periods.

Prioritised: This outcome is achieved by the deployment of technologies that increase the priority given to certain traffic types, e.g. time-critical traffic such as video. This outcome can also be achieved as a consequence of slowing down other selected traffic which reduces the overall data flow on the network.

Heavy users: Heavy users can cause peak traffic volumes to exceed the engineered maximum load. In practice this refers to a very small proportion of users of a network whose use is excessive to the extent that it impacts on other users.

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