on 23-07-2021 19:19
As the title reads, im having major issues with latency on Virgin Media. Im using a Hub 4 on a WIRED connection and averaging about 400mb/s download and 35mb/s upload. I will attach below a Broadband Quality Monitor graph so you can see what I'm talking about. (https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/view/a1a95abd3c307810a2e3f61db9047dd212...)
My latency issues mean Call Of Duty is absolutely unplayable, usually getting around 150-500ms of latency while the ideal is around 1-50ms of latency.
I've spent numerous hours on the phone with VM repeating myself about my problems but i never seem to get anywhere, I tried to be patient and have waited to see if the problem fixed itself but it just gets even worse.
This is my last ditch attempt at trying to get some help from someone from VM.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
YES i've restarted my hub.
YES i've tried both wired and wireless connections
YES i've tried multiple ethernet cables
YES i've tried multiple consoles / NO i don't have a faulty console
Answered! Go to Answer
on 28-07-2021 12:50
@joethoughhh wrote:
I'm still having problems, and have been for over a year now sadly. Here is a link to my BQM showing high ping, making gaming unplayable.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/23f02d9871f6697f4285715fe32320b49f...
That, I'm afraid, looks very much like the distinctive fingerprint of "over-utilisation", where VM have overloaded the local network by selling more contracts than their equipment supports. You see how it's very poor during normal waking hours, and then peachy from about half past midnight before starting to get worse again as traffic rises through the day? Shows that the network and your hub are working OK when there isn't too much traffic. Over-utilisation is not strictly speaking a fault in the sense of something broken, but rather equipment working exactly as expected when VM sell more contracts than they can support in a given area, and the way the company respond to these is often very poor. Put simply, at busy times more data packets are at times being transmitted than the equipment capacity allows, so the data packets get queued at the equipment that joins the local coax network to the upstream VM network and internet exit points. And although that queue time is not that long, it's easily long enough to wreck performance of any latency sensitive use like gaming, live-streaming, or video calls.
There is (mostly) 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 doing this. But sometimes that's either not possible, or judged uneconomic if there's a need to spend money on more equipment. And regrettably, VM often struggle to admit (a) that there is a problem, and if they do then (b) they struggle to be truthful over whether any fix date is attached to real network changes. So even where there is a fault reference and a "fix date", there's no way of knowing if that fix date is 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. Your options:
1) Sit it out, and hope that VM do carry out improvement works. There's little or nothing you can do to force VM to upgrade the network, nor to be honest about the fix dates. This has been a festering issue in some areas for a long time.
2) Get yourself a new ISP. If you're in a fixed term contract you may have to use the VM complaints process (and possibly escalate for arbitration at CISAS ) to be released from contract without penalty. 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 VM have signed up to, 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."
on 23-07-2021 19:21
on 23-07-2021 19:22
on 26-07-2021 08:39
Hi joethoughhh,
Thanks for posting and sorry to hear you've had some issues with your connection.
I've been able to locate your account using your forum details and can see there is currently an outage affecting you.
This is due to be resolved later this evening, please let us know if you're still experiencing connection problems after this timeframe.
Alex_Rm
on 27-07-2021 16:55
on 27-07-2021 16:58
on 28-07-2021 10:10
Hi joethoughhh,
Thanks for posting on our community forums. Disappointing to hear that you're still having ongoing issues with high latency, and this is making gaming online very difficult.
Unfortunately I have tried to run some remote checks from our end, but your hub is showing as offline? Can I ask you to reboot the hub for me and come back to me once this has been done?
Kind regards Jodi.
on 28-07-2021 12:50
@joethoughhh wrote:
I'm still having problems, and have been for over a year now sadly. Here is a link to my BQM showing high ping, making gaming unplayable.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/23f02d9871f6697f4285715fe32320b49f...
That, I'm afraid, looks very much like the distinctive fingerprint of "over-utilisation", where VM have overloaded the local network by selling more contracts than their equipment supports. You see how it's very poor during normal waking hours, and then peachy from about half past midnight before starting to get worse again as traffic rises through the day? Shows that the network and your hub are working OK when there isn't too much traffic. Over-utilisation is not strictly speaking a fault in the sense of something broken, but rather equipment working exactly as expected when VM sell more contracts than they can support in a given area, and the way the company respond to these is often very poor. Put simply, at busy times more data packets are at times being transmitted than the equipment capacity allows, so the data packets get queued at the equipment that joins the local coax network to the upstream VM network and internet exit points. And although that queue time is not that long, it's easily long enough to wreck performance of any latency sensitive use like gaming, live-streaming, or video calls.
There is (mostly) 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 doing this. But sometimes that's either not possible, or judged uneconomic if there's a need to spend money on more equipment. And regrettably, VM often struggle to admit (a) that there is a problem, and if they do then (b) they struggle to be truthful over whether any fix date is attached to real network changes. So even where there is a fault reference and a "fix date", there's no way of knowing if that fix date is 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. Your options:
1) Sit it out, and hope that VM do carry out improvement works. There's little or nothing you can do to force VM to upgrade the network, nor to be honest about the fix dates. This has been a festering issue in some areas for a long time.
2) Get yourself a new ISP. If you're in a fixed term contract you may have to use the VM complaints process (and possibly escalate for arbitration at CISAS ) to be released from contract without penalty. 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 VM have signed up to, 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."
on 28-07-2021 16:13