UK’s Virgin Media to launch traffic throttling
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Britain’s second largest ISP, Virgin Media, will join the likes of Bell Canada and Comcast in the US in adding DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control to its service, blocking Net Neutrality in the process.
It’ll next year launch, “network monitoring technology to specifically target and restrict BitTorrent traffic,” The Register has Virgin Media’s CEO Neil Berkett stating.
“The move will represent a major policy shift for the cable monopoly and is likely to anger advocates of ‘net neutrality’, who say all internet traffic should be treated equally,” says the story, going on »»»
“Virgin Media currently temporarily throttles the bandwidth of its heaviest downloaders across all applications at peak times, rather than targeting and ’shaping’ specific types of traffic.
The firm argues that its current “traffic management” policy allows it to ensure service quality at peak times for 95 per cent of customers while still allowing peer-to-peer filesharers to download large amounts of data.
The details and timing of the new application-based restrictions are still being developed, Virgin Media’s Kiwi CEO Neil Berkett said in an interview on Monday following the launch of his firm’s new 50Mbit/s service. They will come into force around the middle of next year, he added.
A company spokesman later declined to provide more detail on the CEO’s comments. He said: “Broadband has become integral to delivering home entertainment services and with data consumption growing rapidly, we are exploring new ways to enhance our product offering. Part of this involves intelligent monitoring and understanding the way people use our broadband service.”
Virgin Media has launched its 50Mbit/s broadband package without any form of traffic restriction, but it said it would do so as take-up increases. Berkett said top package customers would be reined in from the middle of next year; the same time he proposes to introduce application-based restrictions.
In the story, BitTorrent is singled out as the major villain of the piece, characterised as a “major problem for network operators,” with BT users labelled as “bandwidth hogs”.
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission fined Comcast traffic throttling, banning the practice, and in Canada, Bell is currently in the middle of a bitter fight with its customers, smaller ISPs as well as users.
In the UK, “there has been no regulatory opposition to application-based bandwidth restriction,” The Register says, continuing, “Major ISPs including BT and Carphone Warehouse use specialised ‘deep packet inspection’ (DPI) equipment to monitor and manage the protocols running over their networks.
DPI was made infamous in Britain by data pirate Phorm, and in Canada by Sandvine, a company catering to the likes of Bell and Comcast to aid their traffic throttling activities.
In July, a panicky Virgin Media, disavowed itself of any possibility of taking legal action against, or banning, its customers as part of a corporate music campaign aimed at P2P file sharers,” said p2pnet, going on »»»
Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG`s BPI (British Phonographic Industry) wants all UK ISPs to, sign up to a so-called three strikes policy – where users of file sharing networks get two warnings and are then disconnected if they are sharing copyright files, we said earlier today, quoting BPI boss Geoff Taylor from a BBC story.
The BPI said it was, prepared to back up the education campaign with legal action, including taking ISPs to court.
But, It`s doomed to fail, predicted Will McGree, 20, a recipient of a BPI `legal action` warning`.
Virgin Media will lose a lot of customers over this because people don`t like to be accused of stealing music over their morning coffee.
It made me feel betrayed. I was under the impression that I paid Virgin Media money to keep my internet connection protected and safe.
Now, Virgin Media has promised the BBC there`s, absolutely no possibility of, taking legal action or banning internet users as part of a campaign against illegal file-sharing on its broadband network.
What`s the point of this really bad PR exercise, then?
Or does Virgin really believe paying lip-service to Big 4 demands will keep it in their good graces for future reference and at the same time, persuade users to keep away from the P2P networks.
Adds the current story in The Register »»»
… Berkett was clear yesterday that application-based restrictions would form part of a broader strategy to “monetise the intelligence” in the Virgin Media network. The firm did not, as reported by The Guardian today*, promise “to press ahead with its targeted online advertising technology”.
DPI technology is at the centre of Phorm’s system, but it’s understood Berkett’s comments about DPI yesterday did not refer to a behavioural advertising strategy. He also said comments he made at an analyst presentation in New York last month (”Our next initiative probably won’t be with the Phorms of the world”) did not preclude the possibility that Virgin Media will adopt such technology, but indicated it will look to other services powered by DPI– ones likely to be perceived as more consumer-friendly — first.
For example, Virgin Media is known to be in advanced talks to launch a legal, licensed peer-to-peer music service. DPI would be used to monitor the popularity of music files, enabling it to fairly divide subscription revenues among record labels.
*The passage quoted has been removed from the story, notes The Register.
Stay tuned.
The Register – Virgin Media to dump neutrality and target BitTorrent users, December 16, 2008
banning the practice – Stop throttling traffic, Comcast ordered, August 1, 2008
bitter fight with its customers – p2pnet traffic shaping digest, April 19, 2008
Phorm – `Black Wednesday` Lamont joins Phorm, December 1, 2008
Sandvine – Sandvine — branded, May 23, 2008
p2pnet - Virgin shies away from anti-P2P threats, July 3, 2008
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December 17th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
So, it seems that Virgin Media need another scapegoat for slow speeds now does it? Isn’t this it’s business model?
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3605-asa-upholds-complaint-about-virgin-media-advert.html