Packet loss and bad support

[Kappa1891210]

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

[Kappa1891210]

yessir, from my tests I have gathered that a test with smaller packets sent less often is mostly seamless. But as soon as you increase the size and frequency it all goes sideways.

Here is an example with visible test parameters. Both tests are performed one after the other, the only difference being the size of the packets and the frequency:

[legacy1]

What hub is this?

Does a reboot and running the same test show a problem? Not that is a fix or anything.

[Kappa1891210]

Hub 3.0

Rebooting does nothing, it's all the same.

[Kappa1891210]

3 and 1/2 hours wasted on phone support trying to obtain the possibility to switch to another provider without early termination fees. Samknows says my connection is good so it has to be. Asked their support what were the parameters of their tests, and after not finding an answer, the call ended up being "transferred" but in reality, they hung up. The hostage situation is ongoing, VM proposed that if my problems persist for 90 days, only then I will be able to get out of the contract without fees (1/6 of the contractual period), but the catch is they do not accept that my connection is problematic (Samknows test parameters unknown (my best guess is the parameters are not realistic), my test parameters can be seen in the above packet loss tests that were screenshot).

[Natalie_L]

Hi Kappa1891210, 

Thank you for posting here on the Community. 

I am very sorry to hear of the issues you have faced with the service and your experience on the call. 

We would like to look in to things further from our side so I am going to pop you over a private message to take a few more details. 

This will be available via the purple envelope on the top right of this page. 

Speak soon,

[Natalie_L]

Thank you for providing the details via private message. 

On checking,  I can see a technician visit has already been scheduled to investigate the matter further. 

We will await the report from the visit and then proceed from there. 

Please do let us know how you get on. 

Thank you, 

[Mwindever]

I'm also experiencing consistent packet loss across a variety of games. I have had issues since installation 

[Kappa1891210]

The engineer's visit is over. They checked all my copper wiring, both inside and outside the house, as well as the fiber running to my home. We have identified a total of 0 issues, and once again we relied on Samknows to say that everything is ok. The engineer refused to acknowledge my testing with Pingplotter, saying "we can't go off that" repeatedly, and stating that the only official test we can acknowledge is Samknows. Since only Sam might know what the testing parameters are, any testing done by myself using a variety of methods has been 100% invalidated.

On a more uplifting note, I have discovered that using a VPN to bypass all the VM bs alleviates 100% of my problems (tested with Windscribe since it has a free monthly data allowance). The fact that a VPN solves all packet loss goes to show that neither my devices, nor the game servers are to blame (since we are not acknowledging any other testing that was done across 3 weeks), but instead, all fingers keep pointing back at VM. However a VPN comes with an added monthly cost, should I decide to use one, and I would instead prefer to keep paying the same amount to another ISP that is able to keep my services running in good order.

This being said, I would like to ask again for the promise that my early termination fees be waivered, so that I can go ahead and look for another provider.

[Kappa1891210]

While Sam thinks he knows, let me propose this test to you:

https://youtu.be/X05NIWnVz5g

Can you update your testing methods? Pretty please?

#samwastesmytime

[Kappa1891210]

How can customer service be so bad and a company be so petty that you offer proof of bad connection and they still pretend that everything is ok by not acknowledging other information than that given by the most rudimentary speed test?

Virgin, you send 100 cars on the freeway from point A, traveling towards point B at the max speed of 350 mph. Out of 100 cars, only 50 arrive at the destination, and you have no idea where the other 50 are and you are never able to find them. Is that a success?

Virgin, Amazon ships approximately 1.6 million packages a day. That works out to more than 66 thousand orders per hour, and 18.5 orders per second. If Amazon was run by you, it would not be able to send more than 1 every 5 seconds or 800k packages would be lost every day. Do you understand how bad this is?