I should imagine there is quite a considerable amount of broadband customers who are not aware that their broadband service may be subject to a traffic management policy.
The idea of implementing traffic management is to ensure that every subscriber will have a good quality and fair service, therefore if you happen to be doing anything on the Internet which is bandwidth-intensive – perhaps streaming HD video, or perhaps file sharing – you may notice that your broadband speeds become quite a bit slower during busy times of the day (usually evening and weekends).
Although ISPs do explain that your broadband service may be subject to traffic shaping, it’s not something they immediately tell you about when you decide to subscribe to their service. However, it would seem that things are about to change, as a few of the major ISPs in the UK have decided to be more transparent with their policies on traffic management, allowing potential customers to make a more informed decision before choosing to subscribe to a particular ISP and also to ensure existing customers know what to expect from their broadband provider.
The ISPs that have decided to offer this information are BT, Virgin Media and Sky, so you can now expect to know exactly when your broadband speed may be reduced and for how long. Although there are only a few ISPs currently prepared to offer this information upfront, hopefully all ISPs will decide to implement this as best practice.