Throttling
">> It doesn't matter if Virgin is twice the speed of the others, if you actually use it then it will throttled to death.
Well that depends. The whole reason they are capable of better speeds is because they throttle higher usages. If you want fast occasional usage then Virgin might be ideal."
That's interesting. Before I moved to Sky, which I find to be a lot better value, my ISP was Virgin. Originally, the ISP I signed up to was Telewest, but when it was taken over by Virgin and they started applying traffic management there was no increase to my download speeds.
Also, when I moved and foolishly took Virgin ADSL broadband, I would notice quite a drop in my download speeds during peak hours (and not from traffic management), however when I moved to Sky, which are significantly less restrictive about downloading, my download speeds are consistent whatever the time of day.
Now I know it's a little unfair comparing two ISPs this way, after all I could be the only one with Sky broadband around here (though I doubt it, as cable isn't available here I would assume quite a few would have a Sky package that includes their broadband, and I can't see many having the poor value Virgin ADSL). However, I do wonder just how many people have actually seen any increase to their download speeds at peak times since traffic management became so popular and restrictive.