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Matthew-G25's avatar
Matthew-G25
Tuning in
3 months ago

Issues as a new customer

Hi,

I recently switched to Virgin Media as my broadband provider. From the beginning, the connection has been unreliable. I initially hoped that being a new installation this would be a temporary issue, but it has been consistently poor from the connection date to the present.

The general description of the issue is that apps, websites and media interrmittently fail to load or partially load. Most of the time, services using the broadband work and some are more affected than others for whatever reason. My partner is repeatedly getting kicked out of conference calls due to the connection (with increased frequency if I am doing something data-intensive, but still occurring if I am not using it at all).

All of the help topics seem to centre around turning the hub on and off, which has no effect on the problem. I spoke to web chat, they tested the line, their test found no issues and could not offer any further assistance as they do not have remote access to the version 5 hub.

As the web chat agent could not help any further, they suggested I call 0800 124 4876 and get help from it. This was no help, it was an automated service telling me to reset the hub once again. The web chat did manage to arrange an engineer to visit after I told them the number was unhelpful.

The engineer tested the line and did not find parameters to be outside of normal ranges I believe. Inspection of the outside fibre installation showed that the cable had been bent beyond the cables tolerable bending allowance, so the engineer eased the bend in the cable and left, both of us hoping the issue had been addressed. 

Unfortunately, 2 weeks later the issue has not changed much, maybe a marginal improvement after having adjusted the cable. Being an intermittent fault it can be difficult to demonstrate its effect and apparently identify it through standard line testing as well. What I can say for sure is I didn't have this issue with my BT open-reach service. The connection is unreliable across different devices, apps and websites, I currently have a more reliable data connection on my phone than my home broadband.

Is there anyone on here that can suggest the next course of action for me to take? Any help would be appreciated.


Thanks,


Matthew

10 Replies

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  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    Alessandro Volta
    3 months ago

    Set up a BQM

    https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

    Try to match any periods of poor connectivity to activity on the BQM graph.

    Do the problems occur on both wired and wireless connections together?

  • rafiali123's avatar
    rafiali123
    Joining in
    3 months ago

    Ditto - never had a problem on my older Hubs. As soon as Super Hub 5 was installed (alongside some weird white box in my room for "surge" purposes") - I've had major connection issues.

  • Matthew-G25's avatar
    Matthew-G25
    Tuning in
    3 months ago

    I have set up a BQM and the only thing I can really observe is the increased frequency of high magnitude latency spikes in the evenings. That coincides with the time my partner tends to be on zoom (and losing connection up to 20 times in the session sometimes), but it's also a busier network time as well. 

    The only device I have that is capable of wired connection is one desktop PC, which I have not tried wired. I know signal attenuation isn't an issue as it occurs within close proximity of the hub.

    • Carley_S's avatar
      Carley_S
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
      3 months ago

      Hi Matthew-G25 

      Welcome to the Community Forums. 

      Sorry to hear of your service concerns. 

      We've not been able to locate you on the systems on our side. Do you find you're then only getting the service issues when your partner is on Zoom calls, or is this throughout the day with no real pattern? Are you able to share your BQM live link and we can look into this further? 

      When the connect drops, do you notice the LED lights on the router change at all? 

      • Matthew-G25's avatar
        Matthew-G25
        Tuning in
        3 months ago

        Hi Carley, 

        Thanks for the reply. The reason you cannot locate me on the systems is probably because the broadband is in my partner's name, I have made the online accounts in my name and am trying to sort the issue.

        It's possible that it's worse during video calls (Teams actually), but the pattern of data failing to load appears pretty random. For some reason Netflix and YouTube seem relatively unaffected, but Google search, Udemy, facebook,  instagram, etc will randomly load content extremely slowly (so slow that it essentially isn't loading at all) for a short period of time.

        I recently bought a RJ45 ethernet cable to test it as a wired connection. It seems like it may be slightly better wired, but it's still failing to load things at points. 

        The LED light on the router never change from solid white from what I've seen. 

        That's my BQM below
        https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/ca20b4dcc79e991c80afdf0c30bc67ec9043375f


        Regards,


        Matthew

    • jbrennand's avatar
      jbrennand
      Very Insightful Person
      3 months ago

      "
      The only device I have that is capable of wired connection is one desktop PC,"

      FYI... any device with a port can be connected by ethernet to that port - you just get a cheap Port to RJ45 ethernet adapter.  I have several for my extensive range of Apple kit - many of which have no ethernet ports but use USB2/3,  USBc, Lightning,Thunderbolt, etc.

  • Cardiffman282's avatar
    Cardiffman282
    Wise owl
    3 months ago

    You mention a "version 5 hub". Is this a Hub 5 or a Hub 5x? The BQM pattern points to an Xgs-pon connection. 

    I'm also intrigued that Ipsos Mori, the famous opinion polling company, advised you to reset your hub (unless there is a typo in the phone number you quoted). 

    Something doesn't add up here... 

    • Matthew-G25's avatar
      Matthew-G25
      Tuning in
      2 months ago

      Hi Cardiffman282,

      It's a 5x Hub. As for the phone number, I've mistakenly typed the wrong number from my call logs, the number was 0345 454 1111.