While Virgin Broadband has been hitting the headlines for some time in relation to its ultra-fast fibre optic network there have been a significant number of complaints regarding “throttling”. This is the process by which traffic is “managed” in order to ensure as few system problems as possible and can often lead to slower broadband speeds and significantly extended download times. However, Virgin Broadband has now addressed this issue for a number of its broadband customers.
From today customers who subscribe to the Virgin Broadband L and Virgin Broadband XL packages will see increased download speeds during the day and customers subscribing to the Virgin 50Mbps package will have unlimited downloads throughout the day and night. While many customers are able to download with very few restrictions in the evening, there have been a number of “throttling” issues in the daytime which have impacted significantly on broadband speeds.
The issue of “throttling” is one which refuses to go away with many customers slightly confused as to how any broadband package can be advertised with no restrictions yet “broadband traffic management” systems are being applied. This is something which the regulator has looked at on a number of occasions and while the system has changed over the last couple of years there is still much work to be done.