Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality is “A Load of Bollocks”
Written by enigmax on April 13, 2008The 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 says he’ll put you in the Internet “bus lane”.
Net neutrality really is the hot topic at the moment. Ignited by the Comcast fiasco, the concept of net neutrality has certainly been brought into the mainstream. Most ISPs are never quite forthcoming about their throttling, capping and otherwise interfering behavior, but that crowd certainly doesn’t include the CEO of Virgin Media, the UK’s second largest ISP.
In an interview with the Royal Television Society’s Television magazine, far from covering up their intentions, Virgin Media’s new incoming CEO Neil Berkett - who joined the Virgin Media Board just a few days ago - has launched an attack on the ideas and principles behind net neutrality.
“This net neutrality thing is a load of bollocks,” he said, adding that Virgin is already in the process of doing deals to speed up the traffic of certain media providers.
With around 3.5 million customers in the UK, and already traffic shaping due to lack of capacity, it’s a sobering thought that at the behest of “content providers” with deep pockets, Virgin is prepared to speed up their traffic, which would presumably have a negative impact on those at the bottom of the ISP’s priority list, namely bandwidth hungry file-sharers.
Berkett then turned on the BBC and their iPlayer service, telling them - and other public broadcasters like them - that if they don’t pay a premium to gain faster access to Virgin Media’s customers, their service would be put into “bus lanes”.
It just shows that some ISPs are happy to throttle just about anyone in the name of profit, it’s just that most aren’t as open about it as Mr Berkett.
via DigitalSpy
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226 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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public broadcasters like BBC should turn around and tell Virgin if you don’t give OUR customers the same bw as everyone else, we’ll give YOUR customers no service.
Those Assholes Talk like They Are Giving Us The Connection For Free.
I wish he gets Gang Raped.
PS : Just Asking , Is There Any ISP Which Give Proper ‘ Unlimited Connection ” ?
Unlimited In The Sense :
Dictionary:
unlimited
(ŭn-lĭm’ĭ-tĭd) pronunciation
adj.
1. Having no restrictions or controls: an unlimited travel ticket.
2. Having or seeming to have no boundaries; infinite: an unlimited horizon.
3. Without qualification or exception; absolute: unlimited self-confidence.
unlimitedly un·lim’it·ed·ly adv.
unlimitedness un·lim’it·ed·ness n.
Alienating your customer base is always a great business move. This will work out really well.
I’m currently with Virgin. If his actions are as big as his words, I along with thousands of other file-sharers wiil be leaving.. Give your customers what they want, dont persecute them. What a prick!
Keep going along this path and they’ll be Virgin no more. They’ll be F&*^ed!
@4; I’m already gone then I move.
Their billing is a joke!
Here to the fall one once a great media company (C&W & NTL).
Since Virgin took over,
Its just be going down hill.
- Danny.
Hahahaha
Just got a guy from BT/Sky come round the other day offering a free BT line connection (instead of £150) the other day, switching to Sky now because Virgin are REALLY going down the drain. This is just another reason to add to the list of why we’re changing.
(And their customer support is SHITE)
Peace
Saying internet neutrality is bullox is like saying human rights is bullox. Internet is something msot of us need, its like having electricity/water and other things thats considered a human right to have.
How would it look if you gave more water to the ritch guys and less water to the ones in small homes and low income jobs? Its a violation of human rights, and exactly what internet neutrality is about preventing.
Virgin will become a human rights violator if they start treating groups of users differently, noone cares what you use your water for, if its to drown someone or to survive the same should apply to the internet as its a intigral part of our lives jsut as water, electricity and other services. If they cant deliver enough water they should do what is normaly done and expand the service, not start preatching who should recieve the most water and who should be cut out..
Who’s talking load of bollocks here?!?
Threatening the BBC into paying money to deliver what the customers pay you (and not the BBC!) for to get?!?
What about customers who want the BBC stuff leaving our Virgin virgin if he can’t behave?!?
April fool’s day is over and you, Mr. Berkett, execute a miserable fool here - and you are late on top!
But no! Wasn’t he named CEO - chief executing officer? So what theatrical play will you execute tommorow, Mr. Berret? Always beeing at pains to entertain your customers?
Let’s hope you will still have some audience tomorrow if your representation doesn’t please.
ofc if you use water to drown someone then thats the police job, not the water service provider..
Oh gosh, I wish the BBC would do something improbable such as just blocking all Virgin customers from using any BBC related site.
I know it’d never happen, but I’d love to see Virgin scramble…
fuck that cunt!
thank fuck for talktalk
Its a worrying trend to see a CEO make such sweeping statements regarding how his company offers services to people who would like their own choice in the matter respected.
Lets hope Virgin are hauled up before a parliamentary committee to explain why they believe they have the right to penalise their customers for utilising a service they where sold.
what a disgusting attitude.
Unforutnately, virgin is the only isp prepared to offer 50meg connections (soon). So im staying with them. I’ve had no downtime, live a long from my exchange yet get 19.7meg on a 20 meg contract and seem to get bittorrent speeds of 2.3mb/s. Virgin are great, and I doubt this “bus lane” thing will have much impact then :-)
As long as they don’t give in to the BPI I’m happy - although the net neutrality thing did shock me. Next we’ll have someone “owning” the internet.
Pffft, they want nothing more than more money. Charging people for their connections isn’t enough, they want to charge whoever the people access through the connections :x
Ahahahahahahah! Sorry? Did I miss something? Ahahahahahaha!
I like the Burkett CEO - she’s one of the funniest women I’ve ever heard of.
Aaahahahahahah!
So the content creator - whether corporate, commercial, hobbiest, non-profit or charity - has to pay for hosting. Then they pay the host for bandwidth. The more money, the better bandwidth. But to really make use of that bandwidth, they have to also pay internet service providers. And then the end-user also has to pay the service provider.
So the carrier/ISP gets to double-dip. Everyone pays everyone at every level for everything. And can you imagine the MASSIVE accounting headaches that would come with having to maintain payments and invoices for your little internet website or company to EVERY ISP ON THE PLANET to make sure people have a good experience with your site?
And since I run a non profit auction site, how long until eBay pays every carrier a shitload of money to increase their speeds. AND another shit load of money to *DECREASE* every auction site’s speed that is not ebay?
Fuck this guy. I’ll never buy or use a virgin product. Period.
meh
If you’re in the UK check out this website for a list of all the decent ISPs.
Virgin Media are 2nd to last with a pathetic 3.3/10!
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php
I can personally say good things about zen.co.uk - clear monthly caps and no traffic shaping whatsoever.
Here marks the beginning of the end of innovation of the internet..or perhaps the beginning of the end of Virgin as an ISP…I’m pretty sure it’ll lose its userbase mighty quick if it decides to throttle the iplayer
@ The BBC/Media Providers being charged….
Don’t pay, you have the power to get customers to switch to another ISP to provide decent access to your service.
[quote comment="343339"]If you’re in the UK check out this website for a list of all the decent ISPs.
Virgin Media are 2nd to last with a pathetic 3.3/10!
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php
I can personally say good things about zen.co.uk - clear monthly caps and no traffic shaping whatsoever.[/quote]
I think you’ll find it is 6.75/10, not 3.3, no one uses the adsl version any more.
Look, unlimited 20meg broadband, 50meg soon. The only cable isp in the uk. You can go wrong with virgin, and they do NOT shape traffic, unless you download over 3gb between 7pm-9pm, then you are resitricted to 5meg for 10 hours
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