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Moving to BT FTTP

darmo
Up to speed

After years of suffering gaming on VM with its inherent latency issues (DOCSIS). The price increase announced today has finally given me a free out, coupled with great offers on BT FTTP 500 right now, I decided to ditch virgin and switch. 3rd April will be when I’m up and running with BT FTTP. I will post my BQM charts here a few days after the switch. I’m looking forward to playing COD how it should be played finally. 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

My BQM with Virgin Media over the last number of years

06377e858e4e9ca07a4f34c0d1327c3c-05-03-2017.png83b2b34b9127f59462e06bdfc011cefd-14-12-2016.pngBefore New YearBefore New YearAfter New YearAfter New YearCapture.JPG1.JPGb7f320b403fed4510e911a72ced43b04-13-12-2016

My BQM with Vodafone Full Fibre 900

45cecb0323eefa3fbe732cec2673085554501e8c-18-02-2023.png

You WILL NOT miss Virgin Media.

 

See where this Helpful Answer was posted

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jpeg1
Alessandro Volta

Please do come back and report.

- jpeg1
My name is NOT Alessandro. That's just a tag Virginmedia sticks on some contributors. Please ignore it.

My BQM with Virgin Media over the last number of years

06377e858e4e9ca07a4f34c0d1327c3c-05-03-2017.png83b2b34b9127f59462e06bdfc011cefd-14-12-2016.pngBefore New YearBefore New YearAfter New YearAfter New YearCapture.JPG1.JPGb7f320b403fed4510e911a72ced43b04-13-12-2016

My BQM with Vodafone Full Fibre 900

45cecb0323eefa3fbe732cec2673085554501e8c-18-02-2023.png

You WILL NOT miss Virgin Media.

 

darmo
Up to speed

So a guy from Virgin rang me to get feedback around cancellation I told him about this forum, BQM’s, copper coaxial Vs Fibre and DOCSIS. Told him about my terrible gaming experience. He said it’s a lie that virgin isn’t fibre and my understanding is incorrect because and I quote ‘how else would we be able to deliver 1gig!’ … ok then. I explained that a copper coaxial can also deliver 1gig and it uses DOCSIS (which is the issue) and that is a completely different technology standard from a non copper fibre optic cable (True Full Fibre). He told me again my understanding is wrong and that cables makes no difference whatsoever and it’s equipment that does LOL 😂😂😂 At this point I realised I was talking with an idiot but anyway I continued The call. So I then told him I put it in router mode and bought a £300 ASUS router (excellent equipment) but still same issues. He didn’t really have a come back so I thought I’d try to educate him,  I again mentioned DOCSIS but he kept deflecting, I then said right down on your feedback sheet one single word and spelled it out for him like a child D O C S I S and said that word IS NOT fibre. I told him I work in IT and have a COMPTIA networking qualification, I am right, he is wrong. Finally I said Google DOCSIS and learn something. And hung up. 

He also tried some Jedi mind trick to make me believe that my package going up by £15 from £32 I was currently paying ISNT a nearly 50% increase but actually just 14% LOL.

I’m so glad I’m leaving haha. 

Wow can’t wait to have a BQM looking like this. Maybe now when I’m first on someone in cod and shoot I will actually get a kill instead of them magically turning around and killing me first in a split second 😂

When I cancelled VM the agent told me "Virgin is the only reliable full fibre service, you will not get a better service with vodafone, virgins network is award winning" basically the agents feed customers any old BS to keep them with VM.

More areas now have FTTP and thankfully VM are going to lose their monopoly.  VMs network is truly awful.  

Yep, their lack of investment in the network is now coming back to bite them. I know VM are planning to upgrade their network to fibre by 2028 and good on them, but at the current rate openreach keep laying down fibre cables everywhere I worry it’s gonna be too late for VM to catch up. They need to bite the bullet now and get rolling faster otherwise they seriously risk going out of business. You can’t compete against FTTP with Coaxial/DOCSIS infrastructure from the 1990’s LOL


@darmo wrote:

So a guy from Virgin rang me to get feedback around cancellation I told him about this forum, BQM’s, copper coaxial Vs Fibre and DOCSIS. Told him about my terrible gaming experience. He said it’s a lie that virgin isn’t fibre and my understanding is incorrect because and I quote ‘how else would we be able to deliver 1gig!’ … ok then. I explained that a copper coaxial can also deliver 1gig and it uses DOCSIS (which is the issue) and that is a completely different technology standard from a non copper fibre optic cable (True Full Fibre). He told me again my understanding is wrong and that cables makes no difference whatsoever and it’s equipment that does LOL 😂😂😂

--He's a retentions guy, so not a surprise he's no expert. VM actually have 2 million premises served by DoCSIS over Fibre to the Home just FYI. RFoG, RF over Glass.

Why are you blaming DoCSIS for your issues? 

At this point I realised I was talking with an idiot but anyway I continued The call. 

---Or someone who knew VM have built to 2 million premises of full fibre and was a little confused

... he didn’t really have a come back so I thought I’d try to educate him,  I again mentioned DOCSIS but he kept deflecting, I then said right down on your feedback sheet one single word and spelled it out for him like a child D O C S I S and said that word IS NOT fibre.

--He's a retentions agent. He knows they have the same Superhubs at full fibre homes as they do older school networks. So presumably the same standards. 

I told him I work in IT and have a COMPTIA networking qualification, I am right, he is wrong. Finally I said Google DOCSIS and learn something. And hung up. 

--You used an entry level qualification in an argument from authority. Your brandishing that makes you sound pretty junior. You're a little low in the chain to punch down. I am too, which is why I never patronise or try and educate these guys I just inform I'm off to a superior service. If need be I play the IT worker card and say I need better performance, they need no details and will only get them if they ask.

I’m so glad I’m leaving haha. 

--Seems the right time


I've replied to a couple of your posts where you've claimed extreme latency and jitter are normal in DoCSIS networks. They are not. 2-4 ms extra latency relative to GPON, XGSPON, etc if it's all working right, less than 1 in LLD mode, jitter depends on network load but 2-4 ms - the extra latency I talked about is about right. I was able to hit my CMTS from my 3.0 modem, no routers given for 3.0 then, first install on hubsite, at 5 ms. No real jitter, occasionally ended up at 4 or 6 but 5 nearly every time 

You know DoCSIS, right. Explain to me, like I'm a VM retentions guy, why I wasn't seeing the latency and jitter you think are a systemic flaw in DoCSIS networks. Maybe why I was seeing 4s and 6s.

XGSPON first hop by the way:

10 of 10 packets received 0 % packet loss Min: 0.563 ms Avg: 0.703 ms Max: 0.797 ms 

In any case I'm delighted with my full fibre connection. Like VM's upcoming symmetrical services on their XGSPON same speed both ways, and in my case that's 8-8.3 Gbps. I'm also delighted with my backup 550/75 link that can cut in and take over, depending on reason for failure, in between 1 and 8 seconds, and the 25 Gbit connections I have in the switching spine enough clear for 10G devices to max out on internal transactions while others can use the broadband connections. Indeed both of them if traffic is really high, it'll waterfall from one circuit into the other.

Anyway here's what the latency looks like from West Yorkshire. I take a trip over a 100 Gb link to Manchester where I join the Internet and either go off there or, as in the case here, to London. 

6e5de687c0ff49c17b64ab7ecac8ca3fbdcfd0c0-08-03-2023.pngBQM - Aware it has an IP: don't care. 

BQM - Aware it has an IP: don't care. 

You might not care, the mods will and it should be blocked.  They're only doing their job, but if you simply used the Thinkbroadband "share" facility then it won't be a problem.  Like this:

My Broadband Ping - Aquiss/Openreach 330 Mbps

Curiously some days are a quite a bit spiky-er than shown here, but light years ahead of a (in relative terms) good connection on a Hub 5, doesn't seem to have an visible impact on gaming, which is experientially better than VM, and minimum and average latency remain very tightly controlled.  Potentially this is contention somewhere along my smaller ISP's routing, I'll accept that for their vastly superior customer service.  Any gamer remaining with VM needs to either be in the top 1% of VM connections for quality, or to have their head examined.

There is a downside to proper FTTP of course, and that's when you get splatted in CoD or CSGO, you can no longer blame Virgin Media.


@darmo wrote:

So a guy from Virgin rang me to get feedback around cancellation I told him about this forum, BQM’s, copper coaxial Vs Fibre and DOCSIS. Told him about my terrible gaming experience. He said it’s a lie that virgin isn’t fibre and my understanding is incorrect because and I quote ‘how else would we be able to deliver 1gig!’ … ok then. I explained that a copper coaxial can also deliver 1gig and it uses DOCSIS (which is the issue) and that is a completely different technology standard from a non copper fibre optic cable (True Full Fibre). He told me again my understanding is wrong and that cables makes no difference whatsoever and it’s equipment that does LOL 😂😂😂 At this point I realised I was talking with an idiot but anyway I continued The call. So I then told him I put it in router mode and bought a £300 ASUS router (excellent equipment) but still same issues. He didn’t really have a come back so I thought I’d try to educate him,  I again mentioned DOCSIS but he kept deflecting, I then said right down on your feedback sheet one single word and spelled it out for him like a child D O C S I S and said that word IS NOT fibre. I told him I work in IT and have a COMPTIA networking qualification, I am right, he is wrong. Finally I said Google DOCSIS and learn something. And hung up. 

He also tried some Jedi mind trick to make me believe that my package going up by £15 from £32 I was currently paying ISNT a nearly 50% increase but actually just 14% LOL.

I’m so glad I’m leaving haha. 


The fact its coaxial does not matter - coax has enough bandwidth and noise insulation for GIG1 and over. The real issue is DOCSIS and the way it works with modems all blasting out their packets at agreed timing and RF to optical conversion. This adds latency over Openreach FTTP. There is a firmware upgrade for the Arris CMTS that improves DocSIS 3.1 latency even more. From memory, both downstream and upstream had to be operating off 3.1 and I've never seen any article or declaration from VM that they implemented the firmware update. That's probably what the VM person meant when he said not the cables and down to the equipment, although equally from what you said he may not have understood technical reason and defaulted to that.