AntiCap UK - Editorial: Virgin.net Capped

Virgin.net Capped (08 Dec 2003)

Severe Limits Imposed by ISP

It is widely accepted that Virgin.net have been having a number of problems with their broadband service in the last few months. Virgin's tweaking of their infrastucture hasn't been enough. So a few days ago they posted on their website Broadband Announcement 1st December which included the statement:

"A small minority of customers are constantly uploading/downloading large files and thus clogging up the network. We have contacted these customers requesting everyone to reduce their levels of uploading/downloading activity to 1 gigabyte per day up to a maximum of 5 gigabytes per week so that everyone can enjoy the service in full."

This is even more harsh than the terms ntl tried to impose on their customers earlier this year. After all ntl allow their customers 1GB a day which can be exceeded once or twice a week (or all the time if we believe ntl are not enforcing their policy). However, if the text on the Virgin website is to be believed, it might just be a temporary measure?

We do acknowledge that Virgin are attempting to impose their cap in a more reasonable manner than ntl's fiasco. They have written to the affected customers. Virgin also state they are not taking on new broadband customers until they have improved their infrastructure. This will undoubtedly hurt the ISP in a competetive industry, but it does suggest Virgin.net are trying to act responsibly.

We can find no indication on the Virgin.net website that there is to be a permanent policy introduced. Indeed the terms and conditions for the broadband service in the section "you will not" simply include the comment:

16. use the Service in any way which, in Virgin.net LDA's opinion, is, or is likely to be, detrimental to the provision of the Service to any other Virgin.net LDA customer. This includes, but is not limited to, running any application or program that places excessive bandwidth demands on the Service for continued periods; this will only apply in extreme circumstances and we may have to temporarily suspend or disconnect the Service at our discretion. You will be notified in advance by email

We have spoken to Peter Tuomey, Virgin.net's Sales & Marketing Director. He told AntiCap:

"The cap is discretionary. We genuinely don't want to apply it, and don't want to get into the situation of terminating customer accounts".

We further understand from Mr Tuomey that

"the problem is that about 1% of Virgin customers are using 40% of the peak bandwidth".

That is unacceptable to the ISP as they "want to be able to give everyone a fair crack of the whip". Virgin.net suspect that many of these heavy users are running businesses on the residential service.

It is interesting to compare the apparent willingness to discuss the issue openly, compared to ntl's silence about their cap, and who might be affected. Mr Tuomey also said

"A majority of those contacted have already shown a reduction in use. The weekend's figures aren't available yet, but last Friday's patterns indicate half of the heavy users had shown a reduction in their use patterns. This is a win win for everybody"

As a final observation, Virgin Radio (who despite the branding similarity are not part of the same group) in response to the ntl cap earlier this year gave us the observation: "While we understand ISPs wishing to make a good service for all of its customers, we don't believe usage caps and online radio stations mix well......if you're worried, you ought to move your ISP to one that doesn't have a usage cap."

Let us hope that Virgin.net can be believed and that they really do want to avoid enforcing any cap policy. AntiCap UK believe that broadband service provision should be about 'delivering abundance' rather than 'managing scarcity'. We will be watching and encourage any Virgin.net customers who are affected to contact us with their thoughts.