INTERNET SPIKES, DROPS, DISCONNECTS EVERYDAY

[raphael55]

Hello to all owners of the unfortunate network that is Virgin Media, I am writing another post hoping that someone can help me with a problem that I have had for over a year now. I no longer have the strength or desire for pointless phone calls and visits from engineers who have no idea how to solve the problem (there were about 10 of them). For over a year since I moved into this address, every day, I repeat EVERY DAY, my internet has been disconnected for no reason, even at night when everyone is sleeping and no one is using any device, I lose my internet connection. I pay £50 a month for this service and the quality of this connection is not even worth £5. A lot of time wasted on the phone and waiting for an engineer who several times didn't even bother to come on the scheduled day, lack of strength and a lot of stress only to be disconnected by some 'internet' connection.
There is no question of playing any games, because during each game I have a huge lag, I lose the Internet connection and after some time everything returns to 'normal'. Virgin Media people are trying to blame which of the devices I have at home but everything I own is practically new. I got a new router, I think it was the 3rd time. New wiring inside and outside, everything was tested with their devices and apparently everything is OK, but after each visit of the engineer the problem returns and everything looks the same as before. 

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/157a81eb749f59f4712e77f1557d798894... 

Logs from router after reset the button under.

[legacy1]

do you find that when run a speed test or download or upload your BQM 10mins later shows a spike? 

[raphael55]

No, these all spikes happen randomly. I am not downloading and uploading anything but spikes are still coming and I'm getting disconnected. You never know when you will get dc. 

[Adduxi]

Your DS power is too high and the US too low. They need to be fixed by VM first. 

[raphael55]

The engineer visited literally 4 days ago and said that everything is OK. Can they do it online somehow or do I need another visit from a 'specialist'?

[WorstISP]

Hi Raphael, have you opened a complaint yet? https://www.virginmedia.com/help/complaints

Make one to OfCom too: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/complaints

I had the exact same issue you have, and it took several months to resolve. Virgin Media wasted my time throughout the process and messed me around. I had to wait around and facilitate 8 separate engineer visits before they finally escalated the issue to a network engineer who could actually resolve the issue (Before that they just send support techs who don't have the means to resolve anything beyond loose cables).

Please spend your time gathering evidence (Use: https://www.samknows.com/realspeed/ to record the speed issues every time and copy/paste screenshots to a word doc with dates etc, as much evidence as possible).

After 2 months, Virgin won't fix anything and you can escalate to the Communications Ombudsman. This is the first time Virgin Media will try to fix anything, and then they will lie to the Comms Ombudsman to say you're having Wifi issues. This is why you should make sure you always do speed-tests over ethernet.

Focus on building up your evidence over the next few months rather than trusting Virgin Media to try and fix anything (they won't, not until the ombudsman complaint). Virgin Media WILL lie to the Ombudsman and use incomplete snapshots of a whole bunch of speed-monitoring tools they run during non-peak hours when they know the speed issues won't be shown.

Please do ask me for help with gathering evidence of these issues if you want. You need to have evidence that your speed is dropping below the minimum guarunteed speed for 3 consecutive days (even intermittently 3 days in a row is a breach of contract, but unfortunately Virgin Media will deny this is the case and claim "there's no issues", and the comms ombudsman is paid by Virgin Media so they won't support you unless your case is iron clad).

[raphael55]

Hi mate, the problem is the all speeds are absolutely fine, just the random drops of internet and internet spikes. You never know when you will get disconnected and what is making the games impossible to play. Net connection is not reliable. I can proof all issues just from the broadband monitor so I'll know when exactly I have a massive lag and I'm losing connection. I will try to report the issue to the Communications Ombudsman because I don't have any idea how to sort this problem out for over one year since I've lived here.

[WorstISP]

Ah yeah I understand the issue, I'm just letting you know about the speed issue as a way of pulling contract. Virgin will tell you "your contract doesn't guarantee reliability" and unfortunately the Comms Ombudsman agrees. Unreliable internet can be a breach of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and/or Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (Search for the term "fit for purpose"). As I say, the Comms Ombudsman is NOT independent (regardless of whatever the Tories try to tell you), they are literally funded by the ISPs and work with them day-to-day so you should consider it more like an escalated consumer complaints department shared between the ISPs, not a real regulator. Unfortunately the Comms Ombdusman will not uphold clear breaches of contract under existing legislation, and only cover specific opt-in OfCom guidelines such as the Minimum Speed Guaruntee (See: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/advice/broadband-speeds-c... ), this is why you're sometimes better to focus on speed if you can, even if you're being completely disconnected and that's the bigger issue.

It's all a mess really. UK Telco is an absolute joke and there are political reasons for that. You can't complain to the Ombudmsan until you've "complained to the provider directly and given them a chance..." (ie: given Virgin 2 months to sit on their arse and do nothing). So focus on the official complaint to Virgin first (remember phone support and forums like this actually only exist to reduce the number of official complaints, you have to actually fill in the form to start the 2 month countdown to escalate to the Comms Ombudsman).

Finally, yeah BQM is great but you should collect supplemental evidence. I guarantee you that Virgin will lie to the Ombudsman "we did not detect a problem" and the Comms Ombudsman (again, remember they are funded by Virgin Media and the other ISPs, they are not an independent government office or anything) will treat their claims as facts unless you can explicitly prove otherwise, so the more evidence you have, the better.

[carl_pearce]

You need a better engineer.

[raphael55]

The case was reported to the Ombudsman and a complaint was submitted to Virgin Media. I see that none of the forum employees from Virgin even bother to be interested in this matter, which is a mockery.