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Unreliable broadband: Unstable ping, high jitter and loss of packets (BQM shared)

BotrusA
Tuning in

Hi,

Right so, I have probably one of the worst connections at the moment, with unstable ping, high jitter and consistent amount of packets lost.

This has been going on for at least since Feb-2020, before COVID-19. It started getting pretty bad then and it hasn't recovered. Sometimes it is stable but that only lasts for a day or two during the week. It has to the point that we have (as a family) got used to it. 

In order to find a solution, I called Virgin multiple times in 2020 and have swapped out my Media Hub 3 which did not solve anything. I then was told by the Virgin Media by customer service the date which it should be fixed but that was delayed twice and was given another 2 dates. I had to give up mainly because I had no time to chase this up and believed that it will be fixed within time... How wrong was I?

Now, the connection is absolutely horrendous. It is not just for gaming as streaming is unbearable. I work from home and I have been forced to go to a local café shop in order to work. I am paying over £50 a month for a service that is supposedly the best in the UK. How is this fair?

Could someone please explain what the **** is going on! I think this isn't just me and we deserve some sort of explanation for this.

My BQM graph - 

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/f7a646abcf140f57e47e04aefce2a9c81c...

Please feel free to go through live graph and go back to when I started monitoring this year. Pretty bad isn't it.

Someone please help. 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

The BQM shows a typical over-utilisation pattern, meaning in simplified terms that there is more traffic than VM's local network can handle because they've signed up too many customers, or failed to plan ahead for rising data traffic levels, which have risen year on year for all customers on all networks since the internet became a public service. 

Nothing you can do to improve matters. In some areas VM do indeed undertake work to rejig the local networks to balance loads and eliminate over-utilisation, and they spend millions each year increasing capacity.  But at a local level sometimes that's either not possible, or judged uneconomic if there's a need to spend money on more equipment.  And sadly VM won't ever admit the truth, so although there will be a fault reference and a "fix date", there's no way of knowing if that fix date is actually backed by an actual plan of action and programme of works. Quite often it seems not, and as the fix date approaches it is simply moved a month or two ahead as you've seen. Your options:

1) Sit it out, and hope that VM do carry out improvement works. There's little you can do to force VM to upgrade the network, nor to be honest about the outlook.  Maybe there's works already scheduled for next week - but you and the customer facing staff will not be told, and the evidence so far suggests that your area isn't high on the priority list of areas for improvement.  You can approach this as a "long march", to force VM to admit what they're doing, why they repeatedly do nothing yet issue repeated fix dates, what is causing the delay, rope in the Area Field Manager, keep pressure on the AFM, keep coming back through this forum etc etc.  The tactic is to keep a "live" debate going in this forum, so there's always something the staff have to respond to and ideally field and networks staff keep getting pressured over, and never waiting on the company to take the initiative or provide timely updates.  You need to become such a polite yet persistent pain in the backside that all concerned conclude the best personal outcome for them is fixing the area utilisation fault.  This may work, but even if it does, unless there's works already at a design stage to fix it, you're looking at seven months or so, and the sheer unproductive repetitiveness of chasing the company every few days for months on end in the face of Virgin Media's Kafkaesque stonewalling will not be good for your mental health (I'm absolutely serious about that, don't think that this is to be started lightly, or that ten quick posts here will be sufficient).

2) Get yourself a new ISP. If you're in a fixed term contract you'll probably have to use the VM complaints process using the online form in My Virgin Media (and probably then escalate for arbitration at CISAS ) to be released from contract without penalty, and to secure compensation for the poor connection for the past however many months, and for the repeated missed fix dates.  If you need to do this, the grounds of your complaint is the poor performance, and your request for release from contract without penalty is twofold: First the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that requires any consumer service to be provided with "reasonable skill and care", and second, the Ofcom Fairness Commitments, that states "Customers’ services work as promised, reliably over time. If things go wrong providers give a prompt response to fix problems and take appropriate action to help their customers, which may include providing compensation where relevant. If providers can’t fix problems with core services they have promised to deliver within a reasonable period, customers can walk away from their contract with no penalty."  And if you need to formally complain, do a quick copy to Ofcom as well via their website.  Ofcom won't get directly involved, so don't put too much effort in, but it raises the pressure on VM in other ways.

Obviously your best outcome may depend on what ISP alternatives you have.  Forum staff may be able to arrange some settlement with you prior to complaint + escalation and I'll flag this for them to advise, and that would be the quickest and easiest route for you, but you need to appreciate that the missed fix dates are normal practice for VM, and the staff you deal with simply see a fix date on the system, and have no influence over the company's miserable handling of these matters.

See where this Helpful Answer was posted

8 REPLIES 8

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

The BQM shows a typical over-utilisation pattern, meaning in simplified terms that there is more traffic than VM's local network can handle because they've signed up too many customers, or failed to plan ahead for rising data traffic levels, which have risen year on year for all customers on all networks since the internet became a public service. 

Nothing you can do to improve matters. In some areas VM do indeed undertake work to rejig the local networks to balance loads and eliminate over-utilisation, and they spend millions each year increasing capacity.  But at a local level sometimes that's either not possible, or judged uneconomic if there's a need to spend money on more equipment.  And sadly VM won't ever admit the truth, so although there will be a fault reference and a "fix date", there's no way of knowing if that fix date is actually backed by an actual plan of action and programme of works. Quite often it seems not, and as the fix date approaches it is simply moved a month or two ahead as you've seen. Your options:

1) Sit it out, and hope that VM do carry out improvement works. There's little you can do to force VM to upgrade the network, nor to be honest about the outlook.  Maybe there's works already scheduled for next week - but you and the customer facing staff will not be told, and the evidence so far suggests that your area isn't high on the priority list of areas for improvement.  You can approach this as a "long march", to force VM to admit what they're doing, why they repeatedly do nothing yet issue repeated fix dates, what is causing the delay, rope in the Area Field Manager, keep pressure on the AFM, keep coming back through this forum etc etc.  The tactic is to keep a "live" debate going in this forum, so there's always something the staff have to respond to and ideally field and networks staff keep getting pressured over, and never waiting on the company to take the initiative or provide timely updates.  You need to become such a polite yet persistent pain in the backside that all concerned conclude the best personal outcome for them is fixing the area utilisation fault.  This may work, but even if it does, unless there's works already at a design stage to fix it, you're looking at seven months or so, and the sheer unproductive repetitiveness of chasing the company every few days for months on end in the face of Virgin Media's Kafkaesque stonewalling will not be good for your mental health (I'm absolutely serious about that, don't think that this is to be started lightly, or that ten quick posts here will be sufficient).

2) Get yourself a new ISP. If you're in a fixed term contract you'll probably have to use the VM complaints process using the online form in My Virgin Media (and probably then escalate for arbitration at CISAS ) to be released from contract without penalty, and to secure compensation for the poor connection for the past however many months, and for the repeated missed fix dates.  If you need to do this, the grounds of your complaint is the poor performance, and your request for release from contract without penalty is twofold: First the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that requires any consumer service to be provided with "reasonable skill and care", and second, the Ofcom Fairness Commitments, that states "Customers’ services work as promised, reliably over time. If things go wrong providers give a prompt response to fix problems and take appropriate action to help their customers, which may include providing compensation where relevant. If providers can’t fix problems with core services they have promised to deliver within a reasonable period, customers can walk away from their contract with no penalty."  And if you need to formally complain, do a quick copy to Ofcom as well via their website.  Ofcom won't get directly involved, so don't put too much effort in, but it raises the pressure on VM in other ways.

Obviously your best outcome may depend on what ISP alternatives you have.  Forum staff may be able to arrange some settlement with you prior to complaint + escalation and I'll flag this for them to advise, and that would be the quickest and easiest route for you, but you need to appreciate that the missed fix dates are normal practice for VM, and the staff you deal with simply see a fix date on the system, and have no influence over the company's miserable handling of these matters.

Hayley_S
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Hello @BotrusA,

 

Welcome to the community page, thank you for posting on here.

 

I am sorry for the issue you are having with your broadband at the moment.

 

I located your account and found that this: We are planning to undertake some upgrades to support the increased demand for our services in your area. When completed, any slow broadband speeds and buffering on TiVo apps you may be experiencing (particularly at peak times) will be resolved.

 

Estimated fixture time: 22 SEP 2021 13:10

 

I hope this helps clear up why this is happening. An engineer is aware of this issue and is doing everything possible to get this done asap.

 

Many thanks,

 

 

Hayley
Forum Team



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Hi - Thank you for your reply.

"We are planning to undertake some upgrades to support the increased demand for our services in your area. When completed, any slow broadband speeds and buffering on TiVo apps you may be experiencing (particularly at peak times) will be resolved"  May I ask, how long has this been in "planning" and what exactly are you upgrading? 

Also, you say estimated fix time is 22 SEP 2021 13:10, what is the likelihood that this gets fixed by that date? I ask this because I have been given estimated time for the past year and it always gets pushed back. What are you offering your customers for this type of inconsistent service?

I would like an answer for each question please. 

 

Thank you.

 

 

what is the likelihood that this gets fixed by that date?

 

I think you know the answer to that... Slim to none!




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Hub 3 - Modem Mode - TP-Link Archer C7

Zoie_P
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Hi BirrusA, 

Thanks for reaching out again.

I am sorry I know this must be incredibly frustrating. I have checked and the eta has been extended to 06 OCT 2021 13:10, as this has been going on a while, we can get you a high utilisation credit. 

I can apply this to your account I will need to clear security via PM, keep an eye out for the purple envelope 🙂 

Zoie

Hi Zoie,

What is the actual date that this gets fixed? or I'm getting out of my contract. It has been horrible, the amount of disconnections I've had during work has been unreal. 

Hi @BotrusA

Thanks for coming back to us. I am sorry it's not sorted. I shall PM you now to assist further and go through your options.

Best,

John_GS
Forum Team


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