Virgin's new traffic management policy

[Kate]

Virgin Media is to make changes in its traffic management policy from early next year. The upload/download allowances during peak hours will define how your speed will get managed, and also your package.

Virgin Media says the motive for such a move is to provide better service for all users.
More details on Virgin's new traffic management policy

Interestingly, this policy applies only to the cable broadband users who make up 90 percent of Virgin's customer base. It is also a known fact that the speed on a cable broadband line often depends on the number of users sharing the cable network.

[Marty_Mcfly]

I read the proposed traffic management of Virgin Media. If you hit the usage allowance between peak hours, (if you are with M package), your speed will be set to 1Mb.

Why not TalkTalk do the samething? They could have prevented the severe congestion problems recently experienced by TalkTalk customers in outskirts of London.

[sean]

If you hit the usage allowance between peak hours, (if you are with M package), your speed will be set to 1Mb.

I would like to know what type of traffic will be prioritized by the ISPs. P2P has long been source of traffic congestion. I doubt whether ISPs will take much action against the P2Pusers as they are form the majority of the customer base. If you throttle the traffic, they will leave these ISPs and switch to new ones who impose less restrictions.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Virgin's traffic shaping is aimed at preventing excess bandwidth usage by heavy users. As the traffic management of the ISP clearly points out, if you are one of the 3% of the top bandwidth users during peak hours, your speed will be managed. Since, downloading of videos and other huge files will be the source of heavy bandwidth usage, it is a good idea that you are a bit careful if you download these files during peak hours.