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Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality is “A Load of Bollocks”

torrentfreak.com — The new CEO of Virgin Media is putting his cards on the table early, branding net neutrality “a load of bollocks” and claiming he’s already doing deals to deliver some people’s content faster than others. If you aren’t prepared to cough up the extra cash, he’ll put you in the Internet “bus lane”.

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  • lcmatt, on 04/13/2008, -1/+25In all the years I've been with NTL/Virgin this is one of the worst moves a new CEO could have chosen. If they choose to start playing around with my internet then I'll pack my bags and find another company.
    • blackolive, on 04/13/2008, -4/+10Sure, but how long until they're all corrupt? If your HMO is corrupt you can't simply change, they're all corrupt... just like the gasoline companies...

      Corporate drug peddlers... etc etc. All corrupt.
    • alexmuller, on 04/13/2008, -0/+6Completely agreed. Virgin haven't been bad to me, but there's not a hope I'm recommending or using them again now. I wonder what percentage of their customers are tech-savvy enough to know what this means...

      We can always hope there'll be a change in revenue to the extent that they realise it was this that did it.
    • Teej, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3It seems he's going completely against Virgin's image of being a progressive "cool" company that puts its customers first. Incredibly bad move.
    • Turix, on 04/14/2008, -0/+1As Virgin they have never been a good company. I was with Telewest/Blueyonder before the NTL buyout - as an isp they were very good, Good customer support, reliable and fast (for the time). When they moved to NTL, they service was still usable and i got what they advertised. But since they became Virgin, the support has dropped off to almost non-existent, speeds (even at 4am!!!!) are never as advertised, i pay for the 20mb Package and i never get more than 1.2mb/s (Should get 1.8 constant account for overhead, up to 2.2 burst) even under perfect circumstances. Im throttled almost permanently, the traffic shaping rules are ridiculous, it takes me 20minutes! to cap out my "limit" in an evening. And with this announcement, all i have to say is ***** Virgin, even if i loose speed (The most i can get is 4mb from my BT exchange) im not giving a money grabbing bastard silly amounts for a service i dont get properly.
  • Kasot, on 04/13/2008, -1/+28Customers at Virgin, please change ISP.
    • rreadysetno, on 04/13/2008, -2/+9I'm gonna as soon as the contract's up, don't worry.
    • pixeleyes, on 04/13/2008, -1/+3I can't.
      Every other ISP needs a BT phone line, and I have a Virgin Phone line. To change phone line would mean changing my phone number and paying £105 to reactivate my BT phone line.
      Virgin has got me ***** =]
  • jakash, on 04/13/2008, -1/+7Virgin do throttle your speeds if you DL or UL too much between 4pm and 12am... the rules are complicated depending on the package your on:
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/10/virgin_med ...
    http://www.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management ...

    Atleast they're going round the country upgrading people with the L package from 4MB to 10MB and the XL package from 10MB to 20MB, hopefully the throttling won't be so bad then...
  • samkline, on 04/13/2008, -2/+18***** you, Mr. Berkett.
  • mcrosby, on 04/13/2008, -1/+5Virgin Media are a great ISP! Saying that, I will be thinking of leaving soon if net neutrality is not treated with respect.
  • mcrosby, on 04/13/2008, -0/+6Please get all your friends to digg this! People need to know that this issue is very important.
  • djepik, on 04/13/2008, -0/+4An interesting perspective on net neutrality:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3609OtM138c
  • zeabu, on 04/13/2008, -0/+8They should change their name to Heroine Whore Media.... Virgin Media, LMAO.
  • ThePirateParty, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3Ahhhh :(
  • skidpro, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3I dont like what this CEO is saying..I will still use VM, in a contract....but ffs...I am only on 2MB so bandwidth is a big issue, whilst torrenting and uploading, I cant use Xbox Live at same time...if their 4mb goes up to 10MB then I might shell out the £25 per month, I still think 2MB/4MB prices are overpriced and to start off like this the CEO is going to get flak from us...the customer..
    • pixeleyes, on 04/13/2008, -0/+4VM prices are completely overpriced as they are the ONLY uk cable company, they can charge what they want, the users who depend on Cable broadband have no other option.
  • seanieb, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3So he wants money from his customers and money from the content providers...

    Ultimately they can follow this path, but customers will leave when services they use on the internet don't pay the toll, then Virgin will loose their leverage over the content providers, because their customer base will have left. It might take some time for this short sighted old world strategy to play out.
  • UnWeave, on 04/13/2008, -0/+4He's not going to need to throttle file-sharers connections, because there won't ***** be any left with Virgin. Well played, Mr Berkett. You massive tool.
  • ShinRaTDR, on 04/13/2008, -0/+2Content providers who are already losing money because they're business model was to incur all the costs themselves through investments then sell their idea when it becomes profitable, in other words almost every internet business in existence, are not going to want to pay more to every ***** ISP to deliver their content faster. So in other words, if google doesn't shell out the money for this, then no one else will, except big business, and I don't know about you but the number of times I've been to the Pepsi site or GM.com is 0. The best content on the web doesn't have the cash to shell out for crap like this.
  • funchords, on 04/14/2008, -4/+2Sitting back and thinking... what's so wrong about this?

    Let's say I pay $$$ extra to locate my Content Distribution Network node within Virgin Media's network. This means that, since I have fewer routers and lower latency, my content will be delivered faster than it would if I used my normal access provider. Is there anything wrong with that? I'm finding it hard to say that there is something wrong.

    Okay, so let's take that a bit further. Let's say I rig up my own internal backbone that interconnects my Metropolitan areas. That way, outside companies can buy a presence in the closest Metro area to them. Those that buy in get delivered faster. Suddenly, I'm not finding it as hard to yell, "Problem!" as I did in the example above.

    But what's the difference?
  • funchords, on 04/14/2008, -0/+3Link to the primary article (.pdf format) ... http://www.katebulkley.com.nyud.net:8080/18-19neil ... (via CDN) or http://www.katebulkley.com/18-19neil_berkett.pdf (direct).
  • dtele, on 04/14/2008, -2/+1Agree - This is a serious problem - kill off the concept of net neutrality !
  • Richggs, on 04/14/2008, -0/+2I cant really believe a CEO would go flat out like this, although i wouldn't be surprise if the UK government was happy with it, Screwing people is what the UK excels at.
  • dleesgeetar, on 04/14/2008, -0/+2wow CEO tripping XD dugg
  • couscous1, on 04/14/2008, -0/+2I think it's time to boycott Virgin.
  • McJohnnyOWhite, on 04/14/2008, -0/+2STOP Virgin Media!!
  • LongusCatus, on 04/15/2008, -0/+5Rape virgin media!1!1111!!
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