Is Virgin's no limits broadband service limited?

PRLog (Press Release) – Jun 03, 2007 – Virgin Media has seen many consumers leave and switch to other Internet Service Providers over recent months, particularly from those on bundle packages that were annoyed at the loss of certain Sky channels on the digital television service. However, the communications giant hoped to pull back some of these losses through recently announcing that it would be offering greater Internet speeds and that the speed of the XL package would be doubling from 10MB to 20MB.

However, there may now be another problem in store for Virgin since their recent announcement relating to bandwidth throttling. Many people are now concerned that although Virgin Media claims that its broadband service is an unlimited one, the fact that the company is rolling out bandwidth throttling across the UK can, in fact, be construed as limiting the service. Virgin, on the other hand, argues that bandwidth throttling is not limiting the service to consumers but is simply reducing speeds for certain consumer within certain time periods.

Around one hundred and fifty thousand of Virgin's heaviest users will be affected by the restricted download speeds between the hours of four o'clock in the afternoon and midnight, which is around five percent of its customer base. As part of the throttling those on the highest speed package 'XL' will be reduced from 10MB to 5MB for downloads and 256 KB for uploads.  For those on the 'L' package 750MB will be allowed during the period before speeds are reduced from 4MB to 2MB for downloads and 192 KB for uploads. After 350MB of downloads during this period, those on the 'M' package with Virgin will have speeds reduced from 2MB to 1MB for downloads and 128 KB for uploads.

Yvan Bamping of broadband comparison site http://www.broadband-expert.co.uk stated “It’s miss-leading for broadband providers to advertise a package as having no download limits when heavy users may be penalised. The trade association ISPA has been watching this situation with interest and has recently advised its members to be transparent and explain the consequences of breaking their bandwidth caps or fair usage policies prior to a customer signing an agreement”

Many people are concerned that the huge popularity with uploads and downloads these days means that people will very quickly reach their limits, and will soon find themselves facing reduced speeds, which can be very time consuming and frustrating. It is thought that Virgin could see another mass exodus of consumers as a result of the throttling, even though only the top five percent or so of customers are going to be affected by the reduced speeds.