UK ISP Virgin Media Shifts its Window for Broadband Traffic Management

Customers of Virgin Media should take note that the cable operators Traffic Management policy, which slows the download speed of heavy users and P2P file sharing services during peak times (evenings), has been moved because Tablets and Smartphones are changing how people use the internet.

In particular the operator notes that, over the past 6 months, the growing popularity of Tablet computers has caused many of their customers to “log off” from their broadband service a bit later than the usual 9pm window. “Now we’re not seeing a drop off in downstream traffic until 10pm,” said VM’s support bod Mark Wilkin.

VM’s Mark Wilkin explained:

“This is mainly due to people watching TV and streaming content over the internet instead of shutting down their PC and watching TV before they head off to bed.

So because of this we need to move our evening traffic management window to when people are now using the internet. Ensuring that your peak time experience is protected from the impact of people who max out their connection 24/7. So we’re changing the evening window for downstream traffic from 16:00-21:00 to 17:00-22:00.”

The change, which has today become fully effective for all customers, does not affect upstream traffic and nor has there been any change to Virgin Media’s thresholds or the duration of the restriction when traffic management is triggered. Further details can be found on Virgin’s Traffic Management Page.

It’s worth adding that VM has been trialling a number of allegedly “more dynamic and generous” Traffic Management solutions in various parts of the country since October last year. This isn’t affected by the above changes and a further update on the new solution is expected to be announced “within the coming weeks“.

We’ll be able to determine just how “generous” it really is once VM reveals the final changes.

PS – Sorry to readers for not covering this last Friday, as some of you kindly asked. It got lost in a sea of other news.