Virgin Media Community

[kpatel91]

We recently upgraded to the Gigabit speed Virgin Media package, being "lucky" enough to live in Solihull where it's been rolled out.

Getting speeds of about 900Mb down and 40Mb up which is nice, with a <10ms ping usually.

However, in the last week alone there has been four different periods of time where I have noticed enough jitter to render any games unplayable - I noticed in Call of Duty, Valorant, and streaming video I would get packet loss a few times a MINUTE.

I will ping 8.8.8.8 and notice about 25% packet loss when things are going bad.

It seems this jitter / packet loss has been slowly getting worse and worse over the last month...

This is, of course, over Ethernet (and I've changed the Ethernet cable too just in case there was some sort of damage to the original one) - and it's probably happening a lot more often but when I'm just not actively doing anything.

Perhaps more importantly - it's also getting in the way of running my home business when my audio / video gets mangled over conference calls to my clients. Not a good look when I'm a software consultancy and people (perhaps mistakenly) assume my I.T to be top notch.

What's the point in paying for high speed when the quality of the connection has become so poor?

I've seen a few other people in the forums mentioning problems - but I've not noticed any issues before until I switched over to Gigabit, so not sure if there's something wrong with the new router or if Virgin are just getting hit really hard right now, or if there's any known problems in the Solihull area - but I would love to just get this sorted out, we pay a *lot* for our broadband package!

Thanks all

[gary_dexter]

More speed doesn’t equal better connection quality.

Do you work from home all the time or just during the COVID pandemic?

[kpatel91]

Me and my father both work remotely 4 days a week, my sister is normally at home throughout the week as she does distance learning education and my wife works from home a couple days a week normally - but her internet usage is pretty much just responding to e-mails and reading documentation so nothing heavy at all. She doesn't even listen to music as she works so I can't see her spending more time at home suddenly causing our internet to have issues.

If Virgin say my area is now struggling because of COVID then that is obviously something I can understand but so far I just see my network status is supposedly good. There have been two occurrences in the last month where the internet completely blacked out for a few hours and I chalked that down to COVID, but I just want to make sure I'm not suffering issues with occasional jitter and packet loss needlessly.

EDIT - It's maybe also worth noting, nearly every device in the house is wired via Ethernet. There are a few Amazon Echo's, my sister has a Chromecast and a laptop - and then our mobile phones, but all the other TV's / computers / consoles are all hardwired in.

[gary_dexter]

If you’re working from home (and not because of COVID) then you shouldn’t be using a residential broadband package but VM’s Business offering. 

[kpatel91]

In either circumstance I want dependable broadband.

Business broadband probably is a good idea but as this is my home residence and our broadband is part of a whole Virgin bundle I never went for the option, and we are in a 12 month contract.

I am asking if there is any known issues in my area with jitter or if the new router I have received with my Gigabit upgrade is dodgy - or if something else needs fixing.

[gary_dexter]

“8. Internet access is for private use by you and members of your household. It must not be used for any activities not reasonably expected of someone using internet access for domestic purposes, for example whilst a reasonable amount of working from home is expected, your usage should be within what would be reasonably expected from a residential customer and we have no liability for any business losses you may suffer.  We have other more appropriate packages such as Homeworks, and for small business use there are services provided for by Virgin Media Business.” 

That aside, what results do you get here: https://samknows.com/realspeed/

[-tony-]

but if they want TV - no idea if they have if so it business no good for that - and how do we argue whats business and whats domestic especially with the times we live in

not our role i suggest

[kpatel91]

As I said, when it's good it's good - but its temperamental.

I think this BQM probably tells a better story, check out that packet loss!

samknowsbqm

[-tony-]

an interesting bqm - post the levels from the hub

[kpatel91]

Is this what you meant?  

3.0 Downstream channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID

4	163000000	-1.900002	38.605377	QAM256	4
1	139000000	-0.400002	38.605377	QAM256	1
2	147000000	-0.900002	38.605377	QAM256	2
3	155000000	-1.400002	38.605377	QAM256	3
5	171000000	-2.500000	37.636276	QAM256	5
6	179000000	-3.000000	38.605377	QAM256	6
7	187000000	-3.500000	37.636276	QAM256	7
8	195000000	-4.000000	38.605377	QAM256	8
9	203000000	-4.500000	38.605377	QAM256	9
10	211000000	-4.900002	38.605377	QAM256	10
11	219000000	-5.299999	37.636276	QAM256	11
12	227000000	-6.000000	37.636276	QAM256	12
13	235000000	-6.900002	37.636276	QAM256	13
14	243000000	-7.299999	37.636276	QAM256	14
15	251000000	-7.599998	37.636276	QAM256	15
16	259000000	-7.599998	37.355988	QAM256	16
17	267000000	-7.599998	37.636276	QAM256	17
18	275000000	-7.500000	37.636276	QAM256	18
19	283000000	-7.200001	37.636276	QAM256	19
20	291000000	-6.799999	37.355988	QAM256	20
21	299000000	-6.799999	37.636276	QAM256	21
22	307000000	-7.000000	37.355988	QAM256	22
23	315000000	-7.099998	37.636276	QAM256	23
24	323000000	-7.200001	37.636276	QAM256	24
25	331000000	-6.900002	37.636276	QAM256	25
26	339000000	-7.000000	37.636276	QAM256	26
27	347000000	-7.400002	37.355988	QAM256	27
28	355000000	-7.799999	37.636276	QAM256	28
29	363000000	-7.799999	37.636276	QAM256	29
30	371000000	-7.700001	37.636276	QAM256	30
31	379000000	-7.799999	37.636276	QAM256	31

3.0 Downstream channels

Channel Lock Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors

4	Locked	0	0	0
1	Locked	2439385249	0	0
2	Locked	2447329852	0	0
3	Locked	3790146425	0	0
5	Locked	2393762394	0	0
6	Locked	2396774406	0	0
7	Locked	1248435263	0	0
8	Locked	714755084	0	0
9	Locked	1557701390	0	0
10	Locked	1559628658	0	0
11	Locked	677071023	0	0
12	Locked	198139809	0	0
13	Locked	1173124372	0	0
14	Locked	1193543649	0	0
15	Locked	255299914	0	0
16	Locked	1432679720	0	0
17	Locked	2044098792	0	0
18	Locked	1991825422	0	0
19	Locked	1453853370	0	0
20	Locked	1209576680	0	0
21	Locked	1828425431	0	0
22	Locked	1827695073	0	0
23	Locked	1061571284	0	0
24	Locked	552480393	0	0
25	Locked	1526522150	0	0
26	Locked	1454904085	0	0
27	Locked	758370763	0	0
28	Locked	1379283032	0	0
29	Locked	2162691336	0	0
30	Locked	2966637537	0	0
31	Locked	3427724931	0	0

3.1 Downstream channelsChannel Channel Width (MHz) FFT Type Number of Active Subcarriers Modulation (Active Profile) First Active Subcarrier (Hz)

159

96

4K

1880

QAM4096

759

3.1 Downstream channelsChannel ID Lock Status RxMER Data (dB) PLC Power (dBmV) Correcteds (Active Profile) Uncorrectables (Active Profile)

159

Locked

-15.8

1045535872

246987