Congestion Problems Hit Spotify Access for UK Virgin Media Broadband Users

Cable giant Virgin Media has blamed a Spotify access problem on peak-time congestion that occurs between the ISPs network and the music streaming services data centre. The situation, which dragged on for the best part of two weeks, made the Spotify service effectively unusable for many of Virgin’s superfast broadband customers.

The latest problem, which is in addition to a Major Service Outage that occurred over the weekend and impacted customers ability to access a large number of different websites (here), could be seen as a significant embarrassment for Virgin Media as they have been pushing Spotify hard as a legal music streaming service alternative to internet piracy.

Virgin Medias Spokesperson said (The Register):

“Virgin Media has been investigating a problem some customers have had with streaming music from Spotify during busier times of the day.

We have identified a recent issue with congestion between the Virgin Media network and Spotify’s data centre which can occur intermittently during peak times.

Following some routing configuration changes, this congestion should now be alleviated; however further analysis is being conducted and additional routing changes or capacity upgrades will be implemented as needed to avoid re-occurrence of this issue as the popularity of the service grows. We apologise for any inconvenience.”

Virgin have also been keen to stress that the problem is not caused by their Traffic Management system, which is supposed to make an exception for Spotify traffic as part of the ISPs partnership. A 20 page long topic discussing the problems can be found on Virgin’s support forum.