Most broadband internet providers in the UK do traffic shaping to prevent the heavy users from taking undue advantage of unlimited packages. As all uncapped packages offer unlimited downloads, the fair usage policy often puts some kind of cap at least on the usage during peak hours. What happens when a few customers indulge in downloading huge files during the peak hours? As this activity of heaviest users could drastically slow down the speed of the line, the only way that is left to the ISPs, in such a case, is to shape the traffic, in other words, to moderate the speed of these users who are downloading huge files in peak hours. Most often traffic shaping is done to help the ISPs to prevent traffic jams and to ensure decent speed for all users.

In the UK, all major broadband providers have set their own traffic management rules. Recently, Virgin Media, the cable ISP released the full details on the traffic management that it plans to implement in early January, 2008. The new traffic management policy will only apply to cable users.

The traffic management policy only applies during peak hours, i.e. 4 pm till 9 pm. Again, if you are not one of the heaviest users, i.e. not in the top 3% of users in terms of uploading and downloading, the speed of your connection will not be moderated.

If you are with Virgin Media size M package and your downloads exceed 300MB or uploads exceed 150 MB during peak hours, your speed will be managed and set to 1Mb download speed while the upload speed will be set to 128Kb.

Likewise, if you are a size L user and your usage hits 800MB download or 325MB upload during peak hours, your connection will be set to 1Mbps download speed and 128 Kbps upload speed.

The download and upload allowance during peak hours for XL size package are 3GB and 1250MB respectively. If you happen to breach these limits during the peaks, your speed will be managed immediately setting the download speed to 5Mb and upload speed to 192 Kbps.

Traffic management of all packages will at least continue for five hours from the moment you hit the permitted allowances during peak hours.

Virgin Media packages and bundles come into picture, when anyone is looking for cheap broadband options. It is also found from a recent survey that more than 40 percent of new customers in last 12 months preferred broadband bundles to standalone packages.