Three clamping down on heavy data users

Published Jun 1 2012, 19:55 BST  |  By Mark Langshaw

Three is clamping down on its heaviest data users in an attempt to reduce network congestion caused by the minority.

The service provider claims that at certain times, 5% of its customers are using up 60% of its bandwidth through activities such as downloading high definition videos.

Three has launched an initiative called TrafficSense to ensure that data is distributed more equally, and is trialling the system during peak times.

"As with other internet networks, if we don't ensure a fair balance, a small number of customers can end up using a very large proportion of what is ultimately a shared resource," a Three spokesperson told T3.

"TrafficSense ensures we can share the resource fairly and that the activity levels of a small group does not unduly impact the experience of other users."

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TrafficSense will identify Three's highest data users each month and then allocate them a managed capacity for the next seven days.

The company explained: "As an example, if you regularly stream a lot of high definition video between 3pm and 12am relative to most users, TrafficSense may identify you as a high data user and manage your data traffic for a period of seven days.

"This means some services will appear to run more slowly during peak times within that period."