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"Your area is not oversubscribed...honestly"

TOGAPower
On our wavelength

6111a0c13ea93c15e0becf71519f283f8871222b-17-01-2022

Could somebody please explain how the clear spikes in latency at 3pm and 6pm do not correspond with oversubscription? The above is for today...how about a previous Sunday:

aab89f834d381548e03fc7c2581a87d11c2a746c-02-01-2022

I have been told repeatedly that the area is not oversubscribed. Can somebody from Virgin please explain to me why my connection becomes unreliable at the same time every day, especially on the weekends...

62 REPLIES 62


@TOGAPower wrote:

Would it be possible to pleae get a comment from somebody officially working for VM on this?  A definitive yes or no to the question "Is this deemed to be an acceptable network performance within VM parameters?" is really all I need.



@Martin_N wrote:

I have been able to locate your account and have checked over all systems we have with regards to your broadband and all are showing as working fine.

 


I think that's a "Yes, we think this stinky performance is entirely fit for purpose and acceptable within VM parameters; We can also confirm that unlike our network, our direct debit machine is operating like a piece of well lubricated Swiss precision machinery, so you need lose no sleep that you'll miss a payment".


@Andrew-G wrote:

@TOGAPower wrote:

Would it be possible to pleae get a comment from somebody officially working for VM on this?  A definitive yes or no to the question "Is this deemed to be an acceptable network performance within VM parameters?" is really all I need.



@Martin_N wrote:

I have been able to locate your account and have checked over all systems we have with regards to your broadband and all are showing as working fine.

 


I think that's a "Yes, we think this stinky performance is entirely fit for purpose and acceptable within VM parameters; We can also confirm that unlike our network, our direct debit machine is operating like a piece of well lubricated Swiss precision machinery, so you need lose no sleep that you'll miss a payment".


Eh, I feel sympathy for the reps in this position Andrew. If they say it's a network issue without a ticket (even though they can see what we're seeing clear as day), I expect certain managers will dish out a P45. And you can imagine the mess if a rep said it was a network fault and it did turn out to be a non-network issue. I wouldn't like to be in that position as a technical person higher up my company's food chain, let alone a customer service rep on the front lines.

The main problem is that management within VM do consider this adequate, and set their network performance metrics to such a degree that issues are brushed under the carpet. It's bad management, bad procedures, bad maintenance.

They're not the only people out there as well who do this. All one can do is vote with their feet if they have the luxury of FTTP in the area.

Sorry to hear you're still having some issues @TOGAPower.

 

I've taken another look at the account and checked the area for latency and again, we have not been able to identify any problems.

 

There's no area issue, all your power levels are within the specs we'd expect and the hub uptime is 6 days and no errors which is all good.

 

Kind Regards,

Ayisha_B
Forum Team

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@Ayisha_B wrote:

Sorry to hear you're still having some issues @TOGAPower.

 

I've taken another look at the account and checked the area for latency and again, we have not been able to identify any problems.

 

There's no area issue, all your power levels are within the specs we'd expect and the hub uptime is 6 days and no errors which is all good.

 

Kind Regards,


BS.

Ok I think at this point they are only interested in telling you what is isn't, rather than trying to find out what is actually is. Not exactly proactive are they.

When they check for utilization it only checks at that time, it's not historical. It doesn't say what it utilization peaked at yesterday for example.

I bet if they where to check at 8:00pm things would look different.

If there are any other providers in your area I would take them, even if they are a lower speed.

Virgin should then release you from your contract without penalty if they have an ounce of sense.

Theoretical question for you, Ayisha:

If a hypothetical customer was receiving latency spikes that were 100ms+ for a large percentage of the day, is this considered to be "within spec" by Virgin media?

A simple yes or no answer would be fantastic. I do not want to be told "we have checked from our end and all is okay" again. Perhaps a rather extreme analogy, but if you visit a doctor complaining about constant pain, would you accept the answer of "can't see anything wrong", or would you press for further diagnosis? Regardless of what your equipment checks show, my end-user experience is factually terrible.

Fwiw, here is my connection from yesterday:

9deb1be9c2662e480c259a4042a1096d2c209949-23-01-2022

Any comments from VM staff please?

Just to let you know @TOGAPower , I did raise this failure to respond for a week with VM around 10am today, and asked them to provide a yes or no answer as to whether they regarded the dismal connection as acceptable.  I would hope there's some toing and froing with the field people to try and work out what's happening (nothing, at a guess) and the cause (over-utilisation, we know, they know, they don't want to admit).  

Previous cases like yours where the customer keeps up the pressure have involved multiple visits from field techs who scratch their head and say "over-utilisation mate, nowt I can do", and the forum and customer service staff insist "all looks good to us".  Eventually, through persistence and after multiple visits you might get somebody to own the problem and sort it, but in the very few cases where there has been action take of the order of 7 months or more, but there's no guarantee they'll do anything.  In several cases where a customer has tried persistence here and become enough of a pain they've PM'd them to propose a very modest monthly sum of compensation with no service improvement, or a modest lump sum and release from any contract without penalty.

Hi TOGAPower, 

Thanks for coming back to us on this and I can only apologise for the frustrations. 

When we're looking to see if there is congestion or utilisation on the line, we do look at this over a historical basis and not just 'in the moment'. In order to raise this to Networks, as a minimum at least one of the downstream or upstream channels need to have usage of 10% for over 80% of the time. Looking at your connection there is no time at all where you're hitting this. On one of the upstream channels, this is 0.35% for over 80% of the time. Based on this, the network segment you're on is only using around 60% of it's bandwidth and that's only at peak times. Usual times the bandwidth is around 40%. 

I can see from your BQM's that something is obviously a miss here so I am going to refer this over to the Area Field Manager to see if there is anything they can advise. We've ran all the checks we can here so hopefully they will be able to provide some insight. 

Once I have a reply, I will come back to you. 

Thanks, 

Kath_F
Forum Team

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Hi TOGAPower, 

Thanks for your patience on this one. 

The Area Field Manager has come back to me today and advised to book an engineer on the account. He is going to let them know about the circumstances before hand so they can do a more in-depth check with not just your equipment but the cabling inside and out as well as the cabinet. 

I need to confirm your address with you in order to book the appointment so I have sent you a private message. Just click on the little plum envelope at the top right-hand side of the page to access your inbox.

Thanks, 

Kath_F
Forum Team

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