Dropped packets , again ,,,,

[andrewmm]

Here we go again

   13th July, started getting noticeable drop out periods,     BQM monitor shows a few , and the monitors here email me saying no internet !!  ( I get them when internet returns )

Getting worse, day by day

     have engineer here 14th Aug after most amazing run around on phone / web for weeks. Becoming expert at resetting hub  / pin in the hole job !!

Looks in logs,checks cable etc, Engineer says nothing worng with hub, apart from the fact it keeps dropping packets.    SNR / power / BER et all.

last 24 hours of BQM

Been on phone and web today,

    Support on phone guy "steve" with heavy accent, put us on hold after a few minutes, and after 10 minutes of silence , line went dead .

Web says come back  in 0 minutes and well help you to book an engineer 

 ( again)

We have three cables from hub, on to our own wifi AP, one to a PC direct, other to HP switch and other PC's . All lose internet at same point.

Come on virgin. . . . .

    This is ( as before ) wither your cable / hub or your "switch / exchnage"

         I have two teenagers, 

   can I give them your number , so you can explain what your doing,  as my ears hurt

And were paying almost 75 pounds per month for this !!

    come on.

[andrewmm]

Hi @natalie_L

Thank you for chasing up

    I am amazed, you know I have been posting those same screen shots of the BQM monitor, and the links to the forum for years, and a lot in this post of the last few months of absolute hell, and Ive never noticed the IP address in in there, an no one has ever commented, nor blocked the graph, 

    well done for noticing 

As for the link,

   to re cape, taken many days of work to have the engineer visit, been through multiple hubs , evne had cables "reversed" by the engineers,

      no end up enforced resets / soft and hard,

And "the answer" in the end , was a) it rained  or b) the service person I was talking to on line who said they "pressed some buttons" , i.e re routed us past the faulty kit at virgin, has "fixed it"....  

the up come of this, is  have been looking around at alternate providers,

    I currently pay near to GBP 75 for phone and 350 M broadband when it work 

   and I am amazed at how much over the top I've been paying for being a loyal NTLworld then Virgin customer,

Thank you

[Carley_S]

My apologies @andrewmm. 

Just to confirm, do you notice these drop outs at your side or are you just seeing the monitor? These red spikes can also be when speed tests are being run rather than connection drop outs themselves. I have checked at our side and cannot see any disconnections in the last 5 days. 

[andrewmm]

The drop outs were noted on our computers and TVs

     Streams being played would stop, streaming audio would stop, web browsers would report lack of internet,

OK, this has hapend over time on Virgin, and we just put it down to  thats life

    but when it got "bad" that we could no longer guarantee to work from home due to uncertainty, I set up the BQM monitor, so as to eliminate our end of the system, 

even had the hub unplugged from the house, i.e. only your hub and cable, and BQM still reported dropped packets.

We are so far from the box, we have had problems on and off for a long time

    I only hope we get FTTP in the next month ( street boxs have been installed and connected )

[John_GS]

Hi andrewmm

Thanks for coming back to the thread. From a system check done today, some of your downstream levels are out of spec, this will need a tech visit to sort out.

I'll send you a PM now to book this in.

Best,

[John_GS]

Hi andrewmm

Thanks for joining me on PM and providing me the details to book a tech visit in for the power levels. The appointment date/time will be in the online account - virg.in/myVM - which will be available for you to view/cancel or reschedule later today.

There will be no charge for this visit unless:
• The technician diagnoses the faults as not being caused by our network/equipment 
• The technician discovers that the fault or problem relates to your equipment
• The technician discovers that the fault or problem relates to any system that we are not responsible for
The technician will confirm during their visit if any of these instances apply, and if so, a £25 charge will be applied to your account. 
Please ensure there is someone over the age of 18 present at the time of the visit. If you need to change or cancel your appointment you can do this online or via the MyVM app by 4pm the day before the appointment.
If you do miss an agreed appointment for any reason, a £25 missed appointment charge will be applied to your account on the day of the appointment

[Sephiroth · Accepted solution]

---

@John_GS wrote:

Hi andrewmm

Thanks for joining me on PM and providing me the details to book a tech visit in for the power levels. The appointment date/time will be in the online account - virg.in/myVM - which will be available for you to view/cancel or reschedule later today.

There will be no charge for this visit unless:
• The technician diagnoses the faults as not being caused by our network/equipment 
• The technician discovers that the fault or problem relates to your equipment
• The technician discovers that the fault or problem relates to any system that we are not responsible for
The technician will confirm during their visit if any of these instances apply, and if so, a £25 charge will be applied to your account. 
Please ensure there is someone over the age of 18 present at the time of the visit. If you need to change or cancel your appointment you can do this online or via the MyVM app by 4pm the day before the appointment.
If you do miss an agreed appointment for any reason, a £25 missed appointment charge will be applied to your account on the day of the appointment

---

I find it bizarre that you're given the £25 spiel when the VM bod has already said your downstream is out of spec.  The technician may well turn up and find nothing wrong at that moment (faults can be transient) and then declares 'nothing wrong, Squire - £25 please".

[John_GS]

Hi andrewmm

No worries, I have cancelled the visit for you as per the last message. it is needed however as I say as some of the downstream levels are out of spec.

Best

[andrewmm]

Thank you for your time 

As per the pm.

We go throught this every spring / autumn, attenuators being added or removed, seems to be related to how wet it has been.

As said in pm ,at least two of the last 6 engineers have said we need a new cable , and due to our long distance from the street cabinet , to achieve the high bandwidth , fibre is the way forward. 

Being self employed and due to the intermittent broadband recently I can't work from home. I've already lost 25 hours over the summer having to wait in for your engineers. 

I'm not inclined to accept yet another visit , especially if like one of the previous ones , the engineer reversed the cable from the hub to the wall as it was "the wrong way round" and then left .

[Sephiroth]

We haven't seen your stats on the forum. The VM bod said that the DS was out of spec. If the levels are too low, then weather is a possibility as I'll explain.

For WET weather, it is possible that your external wall box is not waterproof and your suffering from electrolytic effects between core and shield. More likely, though, is water ingress into the drop point outside your property (street). If that is how your service is delivered, you can lift the drop point lid with a screw driver and if it's water filled, there's your answer.

If you feel like posting your downstream and upstream stats, we, the ignorant community members, might be able to advise you further. Obviously it's down to VM in the end and I can see how useless the tech visits have been.

[andrewmm]

The power might be out of spec today , but when it dries out , it might be out of spec the other way. 

We have a tsunami of engineer visits , adding and removing attenuators. 

At the cost of me having to take off half a day each time , this is a very expensive broadband. 

It would seem self evident that adding and removing of attenuators is at best a patch , not a fix, which is costing me a lot each year in unpaid time off work.

Your engineers have said the length of the cable is the fault , and adding and removing attenuators on a regular basis is not a solution .