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Packet loss and bad support

Kappa1891210
On our wavelength

Hello, 

I have been experiencing really bad packet loss during online gameplay in the past week.

I have reached out to phone support and I have had various bad experiences, ranging from the person on the phone guiding me to find a hole that is not the reset button and put a pin in it for 30 seconds, assuring me that it has to be there and it's definitely not the reset button, to people not even knowing what packet loss is and after reading the definition to them, having them correct me and saying "it is something that we here at VM call latency". The conclusion was that we should "keep our fingers crossed" and hope that it gets fixed. After wasting a lot of time with phone calls, I managed to get a technician sent to my house. They updated my router firmware and proceeded to say there is an unknown problem in the area and VM is not the only ISP to suffer from it, but also Sky and BT. The technician did not check the signal quality coming through the coaxial cable to my router, but instead pulled out his phone and showed me the Sky forum where other people complain about packet loss. Needless to say, neither the firmware update nor the knowledge that other people have packet loss as well indicated where the actual problem is or a solution to fix it. The technician proposed it was BT's fault as he suggested that they knew about the problem before VM found out and failed to communicate, as they partly share the same equipment in certain zones of their infrastructure. That being said, the knowledge of BT's fault did not fix the issue either and as the technician departed from my address, I was left wondering if or when will I be able to benefit from the services I am actively paying for.

Therefore, seeing how even the technician is using the forums to gather information, I must turn to the same activity as I continue the journey to find a fix for the elusive packet loss.

Since it is a common practice, here is a link to my monitor:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/64b024e69ee6ab44f3dc1d205d19fedab3...

 I would really appreciate a solution @VirginMedia

24 REPLIES 24

Kappa1891210
On our wavelength

If we were to look at EA's ISP analysis in the past few days, under packet loss, we would see a spike for VM and not for the others starting around 2 Feb.

This paints a different picture than the technician did. While Sky seems to have a pretty high packet loss overall in comparison, we can see no spikes occurring at the same time as VM, as for BT, their graph looks the best and it did not even flinch when VM's problems seemed to arise. That being said, the packet loss shown in this graph coincides pretty well with the time I started experiencing trouble with my connection. Since the information that BT has the same problems in the area seems quite false right about now, can we please check the equipment?

Screenshot 2023-02-10 044246.png

Screenshot 2023-02-10 164326.png

Screenshot 2023-02-10 202031.png

jem101
Superstar

@Kappa1891210 wrote:

Hello, 

I have been experiencing really bad packet loss during online gameplay in the past week.

I have reached out to phone support and I have had various bad experiences,

yes well, you and quite a few others.

ranging from the person on the phone guiding me to find a hole that is not the reset button and put a pin in it for 30 seconds, assuring me that it has to be there and it's definitely not the reset button, to people not even knowing what packet loss is and after reading the definition to them, having them correct me and saying

"it is something that we here at VM call latency".

Yeh well no sh** Sherlock, the rest of the world calls it that as well! And it’s not good!


The conclusion was that we should "keep our fingers crossed" and hope that it gets fixed.

Now, at least, look they are being honest and putting their hands up and admitting there is nothing they can do!

After wasting a lot of time with phone calls, I managed to get a technician sent to my house. They updated my router firmware  (no they didn’t, or if they did it was by accident and your hub was due an update automatically anyway - but my money would be on they lied) and proceeded to say there is an unknown problem in the area and VM is not the only ISP to suffer from it, but also Sky and BT (rubbish as BT, Sky and Vm use entirely different infrastructure, you were lied to, yet again)  The technician did not check the signal quality coming through the coaxial cable to my router, but instead pulled out his phone and showed me the Sky forum where other people complain about packet loss (possible but entirely irrelevant, yet again you were, well lied to). Needless to say, neither the firmware update nor the knowledge that other people have packet loss as well indicated where the actual problem is or a solution to fix it. The technician proposed it was BT's fault as he suggested that they knew about the problem before VM found out and failed to communicate, as they partly share the same equipment in certain zones of their infrastructure Absolute rubbish, yet another lie). That being said, the knowledge of BT's fault did not fix the issue either and as the technician departed from my address, I was left wondering if or when will I be able to benefit from the services I am actively paying for.

Therefore, seeing how even the technician is using the forums to gather information, I must turn to the same activity as I continue the journey to find a fix for the elusive packet loss.

Since it is a common practice, here is a link to my monitor:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/64b024e69ee6ab44f3dc1d205d19fedab3...

 I would really appreciate a solution @VirginMedia


Now I have put my responses in blue above, and I promise you that I really, really do know what I am taking about - basically every single thing you were told was a lie, based on an incompetent technician, who simply made stuff up, their main concern being to get out as soon as possible and on to the next job!

Now you might want to take this all into consideration when deciding if VM are a good company to continue to do business with in the future.

I am trying to fix this connection so as to not waste time and energy switching ISP. I am aware that most of what was said was either due to incompetency or straight-up lies. Should the services not improve shortly, I will be switching providers, as I am already doing my homework for that. I am not sure how I will deal with their early termination fee policies, but I hope that at least in that department they will be honest and accept it is their quality of service that is determining the termination.

Also, the difference between latency and packet loss is pretty clear unless you feel like there is no difference between an amazon order being a day late vs never receiving it. In conclusion, if you are working as tech support for a company that offers network services, you should understand the meaning of packet loss (but then again they also knew the router has 2 holes for resetting it).

Game player frequently ignore the very worst of latency, jitter and packet loss often comes from selecting the fastest available services.

Not only is 350 mbps not the fastest, but you don't seem to have a grasp on the situation. Do you know what was the most stable and reliable internet I have ever used? Romanian company Digi offers Gigabit internet for the super high price of 7.23 Pounds, and it is reliable. The only time I had an outage was when they literally caught fire, and all damage was mitigated in 24h. But yeah, "game player" should know better and get a 72 mbps connection and wait for family to stop watching 4k netflix 24/7 on 2 additional screens before "game player" can download a game or even play it.

Kappa1891210
On our wavelength

Packet loss still going strong going into the 2nd week I was unable to play.

Tell me Virgin Media, do I have to pay your early termination fees if I want to change ISP in this condition?

Kappa1891210_0-1676266026493.png

 

Odd that your BQM is not showing the same level of Packet loss then that UDP test
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