Throttling, a word that strikes fear into any heavy Internet user, is a reality in this day of streaming and content heavy websites. Virgin Media is the latest mega-corp to enter this arena and is doing so at the cost of its loyal subscribers.
Virgin Media offers up its top tier 50Mb connection by saying it has unlimited downloads, which is irking many users because their traffic is being throttled to extreme measures. The Virgin Media support forums are filled with users complaining about the throttling even though their usage falls outside of Virgin Media"s traffic management policy.
Virgin media states that they reserve the right to throttle traffic on "file sharing traffic" but their support forums say otherwise. A users states, "when I connected to my corporate network (via VPN) the download side of the connection slowed right down, I did a speed test through the VPN and found download speed was reduced to 300 - 600 kbs. Although upload was still 5mbs." another states that "this is what caused me to spend 20mins downloading 3 Rock Band songs from Xbox Live last night (average of 35-45Mb per song)."
There are countless complaints that Virgin Media is throttling outside of its own policy. It seems as if they are throttling heavy users by applying the throttling on an as needed basis, rather than sticking to their own terms. It"s a dangerous game to play when you break your own policy, especially when these customers are paying for the highest level of service that Virgin Media offers.