Poor Line Quality Gaming

[NoGGy]

I had 500mb fibre installed recently (last month) and have great download and upload speeds. Getting on average 550mbps down and 55mbps up. This is fairly consistent. 

Streaming video etc is fine, although on occasions it does buffer. However, when it comes to gaming, its an absolute bloody night. I play CS, Battlefield etc. Any form of online shooter is a pain to play. Its playable with an average ping of around 15-20ms, but I get regular spikes up to 150ms/200ms for 2-3 seconds and it drops down again. I currently have a new Hub 5x, which I think could be the cause of the problems, but I am not sure. Just to provide some evidence, I have run a number of line quality tests, with mixed results. As you can see, its shocking. These tests are done 30 seconds apart and its terrible. 

The same happens when its plugged in. I also also run the same tests on a different internet connection and via my mobile and I don't get any of these issues. 

[harveyl12]

I’ve ran the test multiple times over the last 12 hours and every time I have upload latency of up to 500ms and all the time. Annoyingly virgin media is the only fibre provider in my area at the moment so I’m going to have to ge then to sort this as it’s very annoying

[NoGGy]

That's consistent with my issue, but also appears to impact download on the odd occasion, but mainly upload. 

[harveyl12]

I’ve just restarted my hub and now the upload latency is right back down to normal and consistent as well. No jumping up to 500ms. It sits at 50-60ms on each test.

does your test look much better straight after a hub restart? Or does this not help yours at all?

im going to see how my gaming experience is tonight and keep doing this test every day to see when if/when it starts acting up again.

i shouldn’t need to reboot the hub often just to have a stable line. If it keeps dropping out and I have to keep rebooting to sort it then I’ll add this to my complaint too

[NoGGy]

Make no difference for me, I have restarted multiple times, but never resolves the issue. 

[harveyl12]

I’ve got an engineer coming this morning and I’ve collected all the evidence of the poor upload latency seems as the virgin media technical support seems to not employ anyone who understands the technical side of how broadband works. 

I tested on my parents broadband who have virgin media as well with an older hub and there upload latency is extremely consistent compared to mine 

[NoGGy]

Hi Harvey - Well, let's hope they can make some progress. I am on the phone with Virgin at the moment. Explained the entire situation, and they appear to agree (at least for now) that the evidence I have provided is sufficient for an engineer visit. Let's see what they come back it. Hope yours gets sorted. 

[harveyl12]

Engineer has visited and I showed all my cloudflare tests and he agrees that upload latency is way too high and should not be seeing these numbers. Replaced Hub, cleaned fibres which both have not helped. Now booked in for a new line to the my prem which I don't have much hope for but will try anyways.

I also had some more engineers turn up saying they are going to clean the fibres up on the pole, my fibre is from pole to prem. I'll see if this sorts it once done but I'f not the engineer said it will be an issue with the VM network and nothing my side or my specific line.

Thankfully he has given me means to contact him so I don't have to keep going through the dreadful so called "technical support" which don't know anything about broadband. I've also updated my complaint with all my evidence so we will see what happens from now.

There is my BQM from today, obvisouly red when the engineer visited and was disconnecting my fibre. But my latency is pathetic to say the least

[NoGGy]

Jesus, your graph is worse than mine to be fair but I guess based on all the data I have same issue. Ive got a story to make you laugh, so got put through to the 2nd like support. And after a conversation for 10 minutes. The guy (this is a direct quote) "I've sent a signal to the hub to clear the latency" I laughed for about 10 minutes before I could actually respond....

Spoke to some other people today and from what I've been told Virgins network is over utilised for upload and is apparently just **bleep**. The coaxial backend is just terrible. 

[harveyl12]

It doesn't surprise me at all, I can't stand talking to them with being a network admin myself. Always know more than them anyway. I've setup a new BQM now but not started gaming yet so I will see what its like tonight.

I've read and it could be down to upload BufferBloat but even if it is my parents VM broadband 2 miles away from mine on the hub4 does not have these issues and the upload latency doesnt ever go over 40-50ms. Most the time theres is 20-30ms. I'd just buy a router if I was able to put the stupid Hub 5x into modem mode yet. And I'd see if having some SQM would help with the latency.

I Just don't think I should ever be seeing 300-600ms upload latency even when the upload is being loaded with a speed test. I feel like it should never reach this high and defintley not as often as it is.

[NoGGy]

Hi Harvey, I got an engineer coming in a couple of days, so I will do the same as you and show them my graphs etc. During my discussion with the complaints people (who are actually being quite helpful), I provided all the evidence. I now have about 6 days worth of BQM graphs and its constant. When I moved from BT last month, I was getting around 350mbps with about 45mbps upload, on a 500mb connection. Now Virgin is much faster and that cannot be denied, I am getting far better speeds, but whenever I was gaming or uploading or ran tests, the maximum latency/jitter I would get on upload and download was about 50ms. It never went above that. I never ran a BQM on my BT circuit, as I never needed to, but I did plenty of speed tests over the 2 years I was with them and never ever experienced jitter or latency issues. I have also asked for an older hub, I believe the Hub5 (not the Hub5x) has modem mode. I have a decent Linksys router with the Velop mesh system sat in a box as I can't use it with Virgin as they don't use an NTP, but that was a great system and had excellent wifi throughout the house and never had these issues. I did plug directly into the router and tested BF5 and still get the latency/lag warning message every 30 seconds.