Bandwidth throttling

My ISP uses bandwidth throttling between 16.00 to 21.00 UK time. This is imposed after you download more than 350Mb (on the lowest tariff) during this period.

Anyone care to guess the average download for an hour of SL play ?

I can just sense the hands hovering around my throat

You can measure it for yourself...

as a satellite broad band user i keep a close eye on my BW usage...avergae with no teleporting no purchases.. 64 meters draw distance and no constant updates is 40 MB dl per hour.

I can make purchases and leave particles going while sims i don't care about 512 meters away are drawn and easily reach 250 mb in an hour.(Thats out of 400 MB alotted to me daily..well within a 24 hour period)

what's strange to me thouggh..is..usually after that 400 meg is reached my usage is like 11 per hour( just standing in a sim and chatting)..so why not when i don't have the high ceiling?

~Lana Tomba

Until very recently, I was with AOL UK who took it upon themselves to apply a similar crippling of bandwidth from 8Mb to 250Kb between 18:00hrs to 00:00 hrs, if in the previous month the quantity of your combined download and upload usage exceeded a certain limit. And this on a so-called "unlimited " broadband package.

Fortunately I managed to prove:
1) that they had mis-sold me the product, as I had specifically and plainly asked for an "unlimited" package, rather than the double-talk orwellian definition of that word that they use

2) that because they provide absolutely *no* tools or utilities to monitor your own usage, that is was unfair to expect the end-user to know what their current usage is and then penalise the user for exceeding the limit

3) that , as their ToS does not actually define any limits, but only makes mention to "applying restrictions as we think fair", that I could not know in advance what it was I was signing up for

4) that their actions likely contravenes the UK Regulators' advise for the 'Fair Usage' policy on this: http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/fair-usage-broadband.html


This, plus teling them I was starting a "I Hate AOL" campaign and would be making a report to Channel 5's 'The Gadget Show' (which is currently running a campaign on this subject: http://gadgetshow.five.tv/index.htm), forced them to refund all payments I had made plus release me from contract.


I now am on BT Option 3 package, which seems genuinely unlimited, and also comes with usage monitoring tools.


In the 28 days I have been with this new ISP, mostly for SL, I have downloaded 26.99 GB and uploaded 7.15 GB, so a combined quantity of 34Gb approx.

Assuming an average of say, 8 hours a day in-world and, say 90-odd percent of the download being for SL , that works out at around 111Mb / hour ( ((27Gb * 90%) * 1024) / (28 * )

Ofc, your mileage may vary....hope that helps

Also on BT Option 3, and using SL for around the same amount of time as Debbie every day, my usage works out to around 115Mb/hour. Thats generally having particles on, and a draw distance of 256m most of the time (not sure how much effect that has, but seems like it ought to).

Incidentally, I've been with BT for over a year, running SL for 8-12 hours a day, and have never had any sign of bandwidth throttling.

I get problems with "Waiting For Region Handshake" on a regular basis with BT.

However, I am sharing the connection with gaming on XBox Live. The Xbox is set outside the DMZ, and the terrible Home Hub router often resets itself to strict NAT.

My PC likes strict NAT. The Xbox has a cripple fit.

Reboot the router - great, NAT not strict. Xbox fine. My PC suffers and I can't stay logged in for more than 5 minutes before fadeout and WFRH.

If I reboot the router it is fine.

BTW does anyone know if your allowance for free wifi accrues or is reset every month on BT? I am HOPING that I can use my laptop at Dover next weekend, as I will inevitably be waiting a stupidly long time between arrival and my ferry departure and there really is NOTHING to do there but sit on uncomfortable plastic seats ... well there is a bar too but there's not much joy there either.

IF I can access wifi there I will be a most happy little bunny.

Thanks for the replies.

I have since discovered some more info on Vigrins Bandwidth shaping (throttling) policies -

This from their site :-

"Broadband Size: M
During peak times, the top 3% of downloaders on the Size: M package download at least 300MB of traffic each, with the top 3% of uploaders uploading at least 150MB of traffic each.

Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till 9pm) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed – their download speed will be set to 1Mb, with their upload speed set to 128Kb. This will last for 5 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied."

Figures for the other services -

Broadband Size: L
800MB downloaded or 325MB upload

Broadband Size: XL
3G Download or 1250MB upload

All who exceed the limits will be limited to 1MB down 128 Up for the 5 hours of peak time.

Conclusion

If I experience mega lag during this period - it may not be SLs fault !

Traffic shaping is the bane of my second life. I used to be with PlusNet but have since moved to Be Unlimited.... which really does seem to be truly unlimited even if the connection speed doesn't quite live up to the hype.

I tend to have rather lengthy SL sessions and can easily burn through 1 gB bandwidth in a day. I'd be choked to death after a week on any of the services listed.

I would recommend Be Unlimited if you can get them in your area. They supply you with a router (Thomson) which for some strange reason always defaults to the firewall being OFF and their tech support is done through a Bulgarian call centre. My reccommendation would be to buy a good 3Com router, set it up manually and take it from there.

I am on BT biz, with an 8meg line, and was recently traffic shaped, and throttled back to 1 meg, or in some cases much worse.

Understandably I had a hissy fit on the phone to the supervisor I eventually got through to, after they claimed that I was causing bandwidth issues for other users in the area. After pointing out that I am in a residential area, and all the other users in my area are not on a biz line, and hence not paying for my "unlimited service" (which apparently they equate to mean unlimited access - not unlimited downloads), they hastily took a step back and ramped my throttling down to an acceptable level. Between 6pm and 8am I get around 2 meg now, whereas before I was down to 229kb.

I do leave my avi inworld 24 hours - or at least try to. Otherwise I get IM capped, but when I know I am not going to be at the computer, all the sliders in prefs are turned to min, and the viewer is minimised.

I also pointed out to them that business hours in terms of the internet are a bit of a joke, and in a globalised environment such as the internet such throttling at any hour is impractical - certainly for me as I am out at my rl job during the day,a n then home to my SL job in the evenings,a nd THAT's when I need the bandwidth.

My work pays for my biz line, so my alternative is to get a second phone line and a second dsl line, and switch between the two. BT throttle for a month at a time and then re-assess.

My US friends were amazed to hear of my issue with throttling, and tbh it's another example of rip off Britain. I wouldn't object to throttling if I was paying a smaller amount, but 40 quid a month - I expect to get better limits.

/me stops ranting

I was with Nildram upto last week and they weren't too bad they had a 50 ig a month peak limit and unlimited off peak and carried any unused peak time over to next month..but now Tiscali who bought the parent company Pipex have started throttling so it was time to move before it got worse. Now I am with Sky on the max package (upto 16mb d/l 784k u/l) which has been smooth, my line can only manage between 7 & 7.5mb which does me fine, there is no throttling in place and is unlimited but with a FUP which some say is around 250-300 gig a month. Which for me is great plus at £10 a month it's saving me £15 a month

For me, it's anywhere from 10mb an hour to 500. It's totally dependent on where I am, what I'm doing, how many other people are there and how I have my preferences set.

If you'd like to measure it yourself, download a free demo of Bandwidth Meter from http://www.bandwidth-meter.net/ - you can use it for 28 days before having to pay