My Virgin keeps throttling me...is there a way to avoid it?

I'm not on about a fair maiden, just Virgin Media. I go through periods (fnar) of very high usage, then do nothing but browsing for a month or so. Virgins fair usage policy doesn't allow for my high usage so is there a way of getting around this. My high usage centres around torrents and also sopcast/torrentstream/flash streaming.

I know I'm probably fighting a loosing battle but it annoys me that I get throttled so much when I'm only a sporadic high user!

Thanks in advance

[timwilky]

VM fights torrents and other forms of P2P by sharing available low bandwidth for all. Sort of lumps torrents together in the lowest tier even if you buying 120mb from them.

You can get by it through the use of VPNs etc. But virgin for some reason seem to also downgrade some of the more common VPN networks as they see their use as bypassing their "fair user policy"

This, on top of 2 price rises totalling a 25% rise within a year, is making me seriously consider my options regarding TV and broadband!

[timwilky]

I will not have had their phone service as I considered it a rip off. My home phone is VoIP through sipgate. VM don't tell you that they charge 6p/call "connection charge". My kids would put the phone down on an answering service and call back a minute later to see if their mates were home yet. Clocking up a few quid each night. Now with VoIP I have £5/month type bills.

I was that dischuffed with the TV. I had that turned off last month. Freeview and internet downloads do for me.

I just wish I could get an alternative ISP. VM has seriously screwed up and not maintained their technology advantage. Nor do they offer properly routed networks to their customers who as a consequence can only use a single NAT solution with dynamic addressing. I currently have 100mb with a pityful 5MB upload which is scheduled to get upgraded to 120/10 in December. Hopefully Infinity will have arrived where I live by then and I can consider an alternative provider and ideally FTTH.

I am due to take place in a VM trial in February. But at present they are not saying of what. I just hope it is something that will get me better bandwidth in advance of their commercial upgrades.

What package are you on Phil? I did have the 120 and Tivo, which was stupendous. I have abused the bandwidth quite often and never seen any throttling......

Moved house and now down to an 8mb ADSL connection .

[andrewsmith]

Porting high use gear like Xbox's frees a bit on bandwidth with VM
Ive given up with P2P for what Tim's said, I don't have the download limit issue as I use my works for that now

[Tom_the_great]

on a slight derail. Im on VM since moving to the new house loved it in the old house im on the fibre optic 60mb do alot of streaming etc never been throttled so far. in the new place i tried to port my xbox so i got a better connection as i suffered the odd drop out but couldnt get it to work thoughts? problems i had was a> not finding own ip? b> i opened ports which then xbox said wernt open? c> when all seems working its stopped working haha!

Nobody wants to pay for backhaul, it's not flashy and glamorous enough and it doesn't give you any headline figures to brag about. That's the real problem.

[Grant66]

VM guy told me to do big downloads after 10:30, they do shapshots to determine who needs throttling. 5, 7 & 10 IIRC
Not noticed being throttled since I started avoiding peak time downloads.

This is where I'm probably going wrong. I'm on 20 or 30 meg (get 15 in normal use) but when I download I will set them up in the evening (6-8ish) and leave them running all night/until they're done, this means I end up getting throttled back. My package is the friends and family deal but I don't use the phone and have gotten used to fast broadband and lots of channels!