Every game i download is taking way too long, i have a fast broadband and have not played a game yet? not happy

Who is your provider? Would it happen to be Virgin Media by any chance?

And are you in the UK? Or outside it somewhere?

Hi thanks for replying, i am with BT, 8 meg supposedly, i have finaly downloaded a game but left my laptop on all night which is not ideal. Also i am in the midlands UK.

In more rural areas BT practices very aggressive traffic management during the day - any large downloads can lead to you being capped for the rest of the day or week. Do you regularly download large files from anywhere else? Steam for example?

EDIT: Anyone know what protocol does the Metaboli player download across? If it's not HTTP then BT will throttle it.
Basically, leave BT ASAP, they are one of the worst ISPs around, maybe even worse than Virgin Media.

Dont download anything. I live in a big city and never had any slow downloads before

I'm with Virgin and get an average of about 400kb/sec on Metaboli, but around 1mb/sec anywhere else, this is on a 20mb/sec connection.

Thats a known issue with virgin, which resides within the virgin network and requires Virgin to upgrade the cabling they inherited from NTL, their route to Europe gets choked.. it used to be much worse (20kb)

As for BT yeah they have very agressive throttling issues, not isolated to Metaboli. But not sure if its throttling or just a bad network causing the issue for them.

Try running a traceroute to one of Metaboli's servers to see if there are any issues with the line or if it is just BT interfering. (They slow down big downloads so that no-one else notices the shitty connection).

As does Virgin, according to an old Metaboli customer, they claimed to get through to Virgins tech department and was told they capped large downloads right off the bat. This person assumed that it was capped only if the download would take them over the FUP but Im not so sure, as casual games in the family section dont take nearly as much, though as most media would be under 10mb it might be they have a limit to maybe 50mb (guesstimate) to allow video files anything over gets capped.

Its also quite possible to make it so that certain places arent counted to FUP or checked, which is why popular download sites wont get capped in this method, though why Metaboli, considering they are affiliated and sold as part of their service, is not exempt from contributing to FUP is really strange.

Though considering with Virgin their left hand doesnt know what the left arm is doing I shouldnt be suprised. 2 weeks ago they finally upgraded the cabling to allow the On Demand service here, I had a query, a simple query about why only half seasons of programs were available, and via their website used their email to contact them. Get a reply about needing to supply account number, my virgin email adress (I dont use them as an ISP), phone number and home address. Provide these and same person responds saying that they only deal with the internet part of things.. you couldnt tell me that in the first response without getting all my details?

Found a web form for the TV stuff and get a reply that sounds more like they have no idea what they offer. Heres a snippet and my thoughts

Thanks for your e-mail to Virgin Media about the availability of full
series of 'Babylon 5' and 'Enterprise' seasons. - I cited these of examples only interested in the Bab5 part.

We're sorry to hear that there are no complete seasons of 'Babylon 5'
and 'Enterprise' available on TV on demand. - you should know if you have complete series, not be sorry to hear

Anyway that got a bit off topic there didnt it, just wanted to provide an example of how useless they are.

wildride wrote: As does Virgin, according to an old Metaboli customer, they claimed to get through to Virgins tech department and was told they capped large downloads right off the bat. This person assumed that it was capped only if the download would take them over the FUP but Im not so sure, as casual games in the family section dont take nearly as much, though as most media would be under 10mb it might be they have a limit to maybe 50mb (guesstimate) to allow video files anything over gets capped. Its also quite possible to make it so that certain places arent counted to FUP or checked, which is why popular download sites wont get capped in this method, though why Metaboli, considering they are affiliated and sold as part of their service, is not exempt from contributing to FUP is really strange. Though considering with Virgin their left hand doesnt know what the left arm is doing I shouldnt be suprised. 2 weeks ago they finally upgraded the cabling to allow the On Demand service here, I had a query, a simple query about why only half seasons of programs were available, and via their website used their email to contact them. Get a reply about needing to supply account number, my virgin email adress (I dont use them as an ISP), phone number and home address. Provide these and same person responds saying that they only deal with the internet part of things.. you couldnt tell me that in the first response without getting all my details? Found a web form for the TV stuff and get a reply that sounds more like they have no idea what they offer. Heres a snippet and my thoughts Thanks for your e-mail to Virgin Media about the availability of full series of 'Babylon 5' and 'Enterprise' seasons. - I cited these of examples only interested in the Bab5 part. We're sorry to hear that there are no complete seasons of 'Babylon 5' and 'Enterprise' available on TV on demand. - you should know if you have complete series, not be sorry to hear Anyway that got a bit off topic there didnt it, just wanted to provide an example of how useless they are.

I spend £100 a month on services from Virgin Media.I have never had any problems with any of their services and I'm not very pleased about being told that they are useless by somebody who probably does not use them.

They do not have a cap on large downloads.I recently downloaded Turok in less than 2 hours which should be enough proof for you.

The slowest download speed I have had on Metaboli is 600kb/sec which I am quite happy with.

I will shortly be getting their 50mb service which I wouldn't be doing, if as you say, they are useless.