Virgin Media Community

[コナー]

After months of ringing up and getting nothing out of it I'm taking it to the forums.

Despite my contract stating I shouldn't be throttled on P2P like clockwork if I attempt to download anything via P2P, like let's say the Ubuntu ISO, it will pick up speed to then nosedive to just a few kilobits per second, this oddly enough occours over the whole network so everything connected via ethernet or wifi has a pretty much unusable connection until the throttle ends.

In testing I can see my broadband bring back up speed after pausing or finishing the torrent.

This occours with the Hub 3 in modem mode and router mode and didn't used to happen previously. I have had multiple replacement Hubs in the mean time.

[DJ_Shadow1966]

Hello

When you notice this is happening are you uploading to your max speed, as if you are then if your upload is maxed out it will stop/slow your download download speed, as you need upload to be able to download.

As far as I am ware there is no-throttling on the Virginmedia connection, has been none for at least 3 years.

Regards Mike

[jem101]

Think about it, if VM openly say that they don't throttle certain traffic but secretly do - how long until it is discovered; and how much trouble would they be in with the ASA? More likely is that you are saturating your upstream - just configure your client to restrict the connections.

And the slowdown occurring throughout your network is not odd at all - it's exactly what I would expect to see happen.

What makes you think the Hub 4 will make any difference at all?

[jhuk]

AFAIK there is and always was P2P during busy peak times if your area is congested but there is not STM now.

You cannot really go by P2P for this testing esp. Torrents as you can get full speed then no speed then half speed in the way it works from the swarm/seeds/leaches connected to it.

[コナー]

@DJ_Shadow1966 That might be the case if the throttling didn't put the download and upload speed down to pretty much nothing showing no utilisation.

[コナー]

@jem101 I can't think of any other reason for this, my upstream is not saturated as again my speed goes down to kilobits on both the torrent and my entire network. And as a counter to that statement Virgin's Hub 3 has caused more issues without them getting in trouble before, like the puma 6 issues.

This exact config doesn't cause issues on Sky or EE or Three or Virgin further than 6 months ago.

[コナー]

@jhuk I am aware how torrenting works but if a torrent can consistently drain bandwidth from your entire network while also getting none itself there's evidence of an issue there.

[jhuk]

If you are uploading at full speed then your DL will drop to nearly nothing, limit your upload to about 85% of full speed (to be honest I am guessing as it is not clean what you are really saying apart from you know how torrents work (I would look at your clients configuration).

[Topbloke]

I agree with the others on here, it almost sounds like the torrent program not set up or fine-tuned as well as it can be.

Try these suggestions:

1:) Download a different torrent app (not the portable versions) try the latest qbittorent or uttorrent release (I prefer utorrent much more stable than Qbittore)

2:) Set up the port forwarding properly and while the torrent programs open use canyouseeme.org to double check the ports open

3:)Turn off uTP fully, usually called 'enable bandwidth management uTP' under bittorent section settings in uttorent program and if you really want under bittorent is an option called 'protocol encryption' set this to =Forced this blocks any isp from knowing you are torrenting.

4:) Reduce your upload speed by even 30-40% and your download speed by 70%, otherwise line will become unusable during surfing.

5:) Don't try to separate download folders to temp or multiple folders, stick to one download folder (usually defaults) but put the download folder onto

An SSD hard drive, if its on a mechanical hard drive this can cause instability, caching issues and even speed drops.

Now try queuing up 3 version ubuntu torrent files from here:

https://ubuntu.com/download/alternative-downloads

You should get almost full performance with those 3 torrents just do the test during early morning or afternoon not 6pm-10pm (peak times)

I have not seen any sign that Virgin media are traffic or shaping torrents or openvpn or any other protocol but could be wrong.

[Topbloke]

Just wanted to add further findings and wanted to ask is コナー

Are you using a VPN connection with Virgin media ?

If you are I believe openvpn may not be so compatible with Virgin media hubs 2,3,4.

Try switching to IPsec or Wireguard and retry the ubunutu torrents again. I have digged into this issue for a few months and found openvpn and hub 3 do not play nicely with each other. Just be aware IPsec and WireGuard are not 100% privacy friendly such as Openvpn so do some research on this a good starting point is here:

https://restoreprivacy.com/wireguard/