Virgin Media Community

[Branwen80]

This is not a question, just a means of venting my frustrations today: Virgin Media are an absolute joke when it comes to supporting their customers! They say I have to wait up to an HOUR to be answered on the phone - and their live chat just directs me to their website!  Why is Virgin telling me that the Covid virus means longer waiting times on the phone to them? All the IT people in my workplace are now working from home - are Virgin's support staff not doing the same?? I have an issue with the broadband signal coming into my house and it's affecting my work - I need it sorted, and I'll have to wait up to an hour to speak to these people!  It's time for a change of supplier I think. 

[jbrennand]

VM have told me they have had technical issues on the phone lines that they have just been discovered and they are working on sorting out. So no "normal service" until then - but normal service is often hour log waits. So calling any VM number is always best done at 08.00 to get through quickest - so just keep trying.

Meanwhile if you post up details of what equipment you have and what issues you are having on both ethernet and wifi connections, and what you may have to tried to sort it yourself  - then people on here will see if they can get to the bottom of it with you.

[Branwen80]

Thanks for the reply John - but why should we as customers have to wait an hour on the phone to get seen to? The live chat function is good - I've just discovered though that I need to sign myself into my VM account for this function to pop-up on my screen. However being able to talk to someone when an issue arises means so much more - I'd implore this company to get more employees on the phone. 

The issue: I apparently, have 100MB of broadband speed coming into my router; I live alone and no-one else uses my internet. Since last March I have been working from home whereby I have daily Microsoft Teams video-calls on my work laptop. During these calls I have intermittent sound issues, in that I lose the sound, so the picture is fine, however no sound. I have carried out 'Ping' tests on my computer during these calls and after, and whenever the sound issue happens, it will say 'Request timed out'. There will sometimes be up to 5 continuous 'Request timed out' pings, one after another, which means I will lose about 5 seconds of sound. And if it doesn't completely time out, then the ping will give me 100+ms results, and not the circa 20ms results which is what I should be getting when no issue. What I'm thinking is, 100MB seems like a good strength broadband coming in, and so why am I getting this issue when using Microsoft Teams for video-calls? I've had this issue for a long time now - probably since I started working from home last March. For information also, sometimes, I completely lose signal on both my personal and work laptops here at home - it will throw me off the network completely.  Then, after about a few minutes I can get back on. And this can happen many times in a day. Any replies would be helpful, thanks a lot. 

[jbrennand]

100Mbps is more than enough. A quick comment re. teams -- my neighbour was having Zoom issues and asked me for advice. I told her that the only way to guarantee that was to connect her laptop directly into the Hub by ethernet cable. She bought a 50 metre roll of cable for a tenner and just rolls it out from the study to the Hub for the duration of the meeting and then puts it back into the cupboard afterwards. Never had a problem since. Its just the vagaries of wifi connection and interference in your location and being surrounded now by many more users working/schooling from home etc - all using wifi bands/channels that your equipment will be seeing.

Remember, VM do not guarantee wifi connections for this very reason - only ethernet ones carry the connection guarantee.

So you may be having similar wifi interference issues that TBH are best sorted by yourself and not involving VM in any way. But to check that this is the case for you and that you dont have a cable connection issue - can you connect a computer/laptop by ethernet cable and test how stable it is when the Wifi signals drop? Also - what Hub model do you have - its printed on its base sticker - and what do the various lights show/do when the drop outs happen

One thing to try, do a quick check that all of your white coax cable connections are all in nice and "finger" tight - at the Hub and wall box and also at any inline connectors etc. Ensure there are no “unterminated cable loose ends dangling about. If you can disconnect all the connections and reconnect to be sure they are tight enough. Also check that the internal wiring is ok with no kinking or chaffing (or dog chews 🙂 ), quick check that all looks good with the outside cabling and wall box too.

[Branwen80]

Thanks for this reply. 

My work laptop does not have an ethernet port, however I will ask an IT technician from work if I can somehow test the laptop via a cable rather than wifi. For information we don't use Zoom on our work laptops but I do use Zoom on my personal laptop, and I have not had a similar issue with using Zoom on my personal laptop. I don't have Teams on my personal laptop. 

I have a Super Hub 2 router. I will look at the lights on the router when I next have a Teams call issue. 

I have just checked all the white wiring from router to wall box and outside on external wall box, and they seem fine. 

I am going to call Virgin tonight because I need to find a way forward with this - thanks for your advice though. 

[jbrennand]

OK... what laptop is it?

Two of my Mac ones don't either - I use adaptors for the ports they have - one is USB-c - RJ45 (ethernet) and the other I have is an older USB-3 - RJ45 one - both work just fine on an Ethernet Cat5e or 6 cable. Available at the usual online places for £10-20 and useful to have in your bits drawer - some have other multi-connections on them to connect other devices too. However, if Zoom is working fine on your own lappy then it suggests its not a wifi issue per se.

Re, Teams I dont use it much but there were a lot of reports last week in the media and posts on fora about Micro$oft Team's servers having problems affecting users worldwide. Not sure if that was pertinent to you - maybe do a Google search and see if that's resolved and give it a test run. Also try a test of Teams on your laptop - you can get a "free" account just to test it with a friend.

TBH - I dont think there is any point contacting VM - they wont have a clue as if they test your connection and it's fine at the time - they will just direct you to .. "Gadget Rescue" which is a paid for service and IMO not much cop. Also see what your IT Dep says too - as it seems the issue is on their equipment (if not M$) rather than VM's

I have an SH2 too but have never used its wifi - I have all my own equipment. It works perfectly in modem mode - but they are getting long in the tooth and you can get a free upgrade to a Hub3.

[Branwen80]

Thank you - that is very helpful, like all of your messages tonight. I'll consider what to do next.  One more thing: you mentioned cables, I went out and took a picture of my external VM box - it's below. It's in artificial light I know, but there seem to be 2 cables here - one large black one, which was intact, however there was also a smaller black one which separated into different smaller wires halfway down. Is this normal? It's been like this for a long time - the reason I know is because the cover comes off very easily, and I have in the past tied the cover down with string. Thanks. 

 

[apcyberax]

the smaller wires are the phone cables and the larger one is the COAX for TV and internet

[jbrennand]

Above my pay grade i'm afraid 🙂

But there are many on here when they see this will know whether its ok or a potential problem - see what they say. But as you are getting normal connections on wifi on your laptop - I suspect not - its more likely to be one of the other issues I mentioned. Happy to be corrected.