Slow downloads ever since package downgrade

[QuintenU]

I've been a Virgin Media customer for quite a while and I've always had great service but ever since I downgraded my broadband package I've had incredible (compared to what I am used to) slow download speeds.

I used to be on the 50Mb service and would always get (near enough) 50Mb downloads.  A month or 2 ago I was upgraded to the 100Mb service, which I enjoyed for a month or so.  I would see (near enough) 100Mb downloads and all was good.  But as my monthly bill got creeping up, I concluded that I was quite happy to go back to my old speeds and asked for a downgrade to the (by now) 60Mb service.  Ever since that day I have been suffering from speeds barely touching the 20Mb, averaging as little as 10Mb.

I started to do hourly download speed tests to see if it was maybe down to peak/off-peak, but looking at the graph it produced (the red area is the download speed in Mbps), you can see it is neither here or there.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivx26z865olrxl9/Virgin190712.png

I've included my modem configuration as well

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xp44sqsbgcrekbj/modem1.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oe7tkvhsibl01e8/modem2.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9dcx9n7qliyhd47/modem3.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p64m5skj85hcz7t/modem4.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tupz7qs0fun84km/modem5-1.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rbjbd8qad9lcd81/modem5-2.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/acdah8447hy90ai/modem6.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgbg8vsmpjo4dme/modem7.png

Anyone has any comment?

Thanks in advance.

Quinten

[Lindsey_P]

Hi QuintenU,

Very sorry to hear you've experienced this problem since your downgrade, I've checked the network segment that provides your service and your local connection (your modem), both of which appear to be functioning well at the moment.

Are you connecting wired or wirelessly, or does the fault affect both?

Can you please provide us with ping tests and trace routes to bbc.co.uk from a direct connection to your modem? This will help us investigate the matter further.

[QuintenU]

Hi Lindsey,

Thank you for your reply.  I have the modem connected directly to a Mikrotik Routerboard, and then into my home using various switches and for wireless into an Apple Airport Extreme.  The measured download speeds are measured on a server which is connected directly into the Routerboard using a 1Gbit network connection.

A traceroute to bbc.co.uk:

quinten@hp:~$ tracepath bbc.co.uk
1: home.awooga.nl (192.168.0.15) 0.153ms pmtu 1500
1: clock.via.net (192.168.0.1) 1.309ms
1: router (192.168.0.1) 0.791ms
2: clock.via.net (192.168.0.1) 0.786ms pmtu 1472
2: cpc2-ayle3-2-0-gw.15-2.cable.virginmedia.com (62.255.188.1) 14.682ms
3: watf-core-1b-ae1-593.network.virginmedia.net (80.3.1.197) 8.379ms asymm 4
4: popl-bb-1b-xe-701-0.network.virginmedia.net (212.43.162.142) 8.645ms asymm 5
5: glfd-bb-1a-ae4-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.159.61) 22.254ms asymm 6
6: glfd-bb-1b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.172.6) 9.386ms
7: glfd-tmr-1-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.159.46) 12.326ms
8: tcl5-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.185.78) 16.150ms
9: 212.58.239.249 (212.58.239.249) 13.677ms asymm 8
10: no reply
11: ae1.er01.rbsov.bbc.co.uk (132.185.254.46) 46.832ms asymm 10
12: 132.185.255.60 (132.185.255.60) 12.497ms asymm 11
13: 212.58.241.131 (212.58.241.131) 19.747ms reached
Resume: pmtu 1472 hops 13 back 244

A ping to bbc.co.uk:

quinten@hp:~$ ping -c 5 bbc.co.uk
PING bbc.co.uk (212.58.241.131) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=1 ttl=244 time=18.0 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=2 ttl=244 time=11.3 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=3 ttl=244 time=12.2 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=4 ttl=244 time=13.4 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=5 ttl=244 time=9.98 ms

--- bbc.co.uk ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 20087ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 9.986/12.993/18.026/2.759 ms

If there is anything else you'd like to know, please let me know.  My hourly measurements continue and so far has once peaked at 25Mbps, but still averages at 10Mbps.

[Benjamin_T]

Hi QuintenU,

Please complete a direct connection from Modem to PC.

The devices on the first 4 hops must be removed before we can continue to diagnose.

[QuintenU]

1: home.awooga.nl (192.168.0.15) 0.153ms pmtu 1500
1: clock.via.net (192.168.0.1) 1.309ms
1: router (192.168.0.1) 0.791ms
2: clock.via.net (192.168.0.1) 0.786ms pmtu 1472

The 1st (192.168.0.15) is my server, which is connected directly to my router.  The 2nd, 3rd and 4th lines (192.168.0.1) are from my router.  The router is connected to the modem.  Personally I do not see how it is going to matter removing the router from the tracepath/ping, but I will obviously try this tonight.

[QuintenU]

On advice from a friend I installed traceroute (ubuntu comes with tracepath instead), which gives the following:

quinten@hp:~$ traceroute bbc.co.uk
traceroute to bbc.co.uk (212.58.241.131), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  router (192.168.0.1)  0.653 ms  0.966 ms  1.292 ms
 2  cpc2-ayle3-2-0-gw.15-2.cable.virginmedia.com (62.255.188.1)  7.989 ms * *
 3  watf-core-1b-ae1-593.network.virginmedia.net (80.3.1.197)  12.242 ms  12.952 ms *
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  * * *
 7  * * *
 8  * tcl5-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.185.78)  14.737 ms *
 9  212.58.239.249 (212.58.239.249)  13.507 ms  14.510 ms *
10  * * *
11  * * *
12  * * *
13  * * *
14  * * 212.58.241.131 (212.58.241.131)  13.635 ms

I will still try the direct connection...

[QuintenU]

Well, I may have to eat humble pie, but it seems that when I connect a laptop (using wired network, with wireless networking disabled) directly to the modem, my download speed is pretty much as I was having before

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hr5rz4axhznibop/direct-on-modem.png

The traceroute when connected directly to the modem:

macbook:~ quinten$ traceroute bbc.co.uk
traceroute to bbc.co.uk (212.58.241.131), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 cpc15-ayle3-2-0-gw (81.98.198.1) 31.813 ms 17.201 ms 14.507 ms
2 watf-core-1b-ae1-593.network.virginmedia.net (80.3.1.197) 7.029 ms 11.103 ms 6.549 ms
3 popl-bb-1b-xe-701-0.network.virginmedia.net (212.43.162.142) 8.909 ms 75.835 ms 13.441 ms
4 glfd-bb-1a-ae4-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.159.61) 10.937 ms 10.459 ms 8.405 ms
5 glfd-bb-1b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.172.6) 7.626 ms 8.546 ms 11.733 ms
6 glfd-tmr-1-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.159.46) 15.937 ms 12.190 ms 13.447 ms
7 tcl5-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.185.78) 13.070 ms 11.630 ms 12.677 ms
8 212.58.239.249 (212.58.239.249) 11.370 ms 12.764 ms 10.636 ms
9 * * *
10 ae1.er01.rbsov.bbc.co.uk (132.185.254.46) 12.288 ms 28.254 ms 11.685 ms
11 132.185.255.60 (132.185.255.60) 11.437 ms 11.876 ms 11.859 ms
12 212.58.241.131 (212.58.241.131) 12.663 ms 12.305 ms 17.395 ms

The ping looks like:

macbook:~ quinten$ ping -c 5 bbc.co.uk
PING bbc.co.uk (212.58.241.131): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=0 ttl=244 time=13.961 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=1 ttl=244 time=15.889 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=2 ttl=244 time=10.696 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=3 ttl=244 time=11.962 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=4 ttl=244 time=46.934 ms

--- bbc.co.uk ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 10.696/19.888/46.934/13.638 ms

After the testing, I connected the laptop to my router and the router back into the modem and the speedtest was dissapointingly low

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vrk313208rilny2/on-router.png

The traceroute again:

traceroute to bbc.co.uk (212.58.241.131), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 1.330 ms 0.550 ms 0.488 ms
2 cpc2-ayle3-2-0-gw.15-2.cable.virginmedia.com (62.255.188.1) 8.869 ms 7.719 ms 7.480 ms
3 * watf-core-1b-ae1-593.network.virginmedia.net (80.3.1.197) 24.919 ms 26.048 ms
4 popl-bb-1b-xe-701-0.network.virginmedia.net (212.43.162.142) 10.519 ms * 12.476 ms
5 glfd-bb-1a-ae4-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.159.61) 9.299 ms 11.243 ms *
6 glfd-bb-1b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.172.6) 12.962 ms 11.359 ms 12.677 ms
7 * glfd-tmr-1-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.159.46) 10.754 ms 13.417 ms
8 tcl5-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.185.78) 13.859 ms * 10.517 ms
9 212.58.239.249 (212.58.239.249) 13.819 ms 13.241 ms 15.585 ms
10 * * *
11 ae1.er01.rbsov.bbc.co.uk (132.185.254.46) 16.156 ms 14.615 ms 16.682 ms
12 * 132.185.255.60 (132.185.255.60) 16.336 ms 17.516 ms
13 212.58.241.131 (212.58.241.131) 12.568 ms 13.064 ms *

And the ping:

macbook:~ quinten$ ping -c 5 bbc.co.uk
PING bbc.co.uk (212.58.241.131): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=0 ttl=244 time=12.539 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=1 ttl=244 time=11.920 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=2 ttl=244 time=15.332 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=3 ttl=244 time=11.594 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.241.131: icmp_seq=4 ttl=244 time=13.193 ms

--- bbc.co.uk ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 11.594/12.916/15.332/1.326 ms

Puzzled from Aylesbury...

[Ralph_R]

Hi QuintenU,

Thanks for running all these checks.

It looks the router may the problem, perhaps a factory reset of this device may help?

[QuintenU]

Yes, it certainly has been a router problem, and I take everything back.  Virgin, you've been great!

I was advised by an expert friend to flash to the latest firmware on the router, but this caused it to catastrophically fail (fortunately he has got a spare), so I am now running an Apple Airport Extreme as my router (which has its foibles, but at least it works for now).

Thread closed!

[Dai_T]

Hi QuintenU,

Thanks for lettings us know the results of your investigation. I'm glad to see it's working now.