Virgin Media has revised its Broadband Traffic Management policy to achieve a “more flexible and responsive” state for its 30Mbps and to enhance the speed of its “unlimited” superfast broadband packages. Under the new policy, Virgin Media will manage traffic between the hours of 4pm to 11pm each weekday and 11am to 11pm at weekends. The new system works on a 1 hour threshold (30% download / 60% upload speed reduction) and 2 hour threshold (40% download / 75% upload reduction), which means that some customers will be able to exit traffic management after at least 1 hour than 5 long hours before. Under the revised policy, certain types of traffic (e.g. web browsing, gaming etc.) are prioritised in busy times while P2P and Newsgroups will be slowed. The increased traffic management complexity is expected to significantly influence front-end customer management systems and practices, especially in communicating to new and existing customers on the details of wide range of 'rules' and ensuing service packages.
“If you reduce your usage below the threshold as soon as you enter traffic management, you can exit traffic management in 60 minutes. If you don’t, you may be in traffic management for 120 minutes or more and have further reductions in your speed.” said Virgin Media.
