Lag, packet loss, unstable connetion for over a year now

[DannyEvans]

Hello All

I want to share with you the pain and torture it is dealing with this company, not only with their customer service online but also the engineers

Took out virgin media around 2019-2020. Router came everything fine and worked fine up until around 18 months ago when the network kept dropping out. This later turned out to be a fault in the area and then an upgrade to their hardware in the area which resulted in days with no Internet. Ever since this work was complete my connection has become so unstable I can barely stream a film and if it does come on it renders in at 360P ( I was on 250mb at the time ) package. Online gaming? Good luck with that! 

Ran some network tests and was getting 100% packet loss. Contacted virgin media and an engineer was sent out

1st visit. Engineer arrived " there is a knick in the cable outside, I'll get it sorted and get you a cable rebury booked.  Cable done, rebury done. Same issues. Contacted virgin again. Sent another engineer

2nd visit - faulty hub apparently. Hub changed still same issue. Back onto virgin

3rd visit- faulty hub..... replaced again. Same issues

Back onto virgin. " your speeds are fine " I know the speeds are fine but the connection is unstable I can't do anything. Advised gaming is impossible online and I'm connected to LAN. The resolution? " I'll send you a WiFi pod.....

Obviously same issues. Engineer booked again

4th visit - cab outside is out of balance. I'll contact them and get it sorted and we will let you know when the work is done. Didn't hear a thing. 

Contacted again. Advisor tells me I need to upgrade. New contract, same issues but hey 500mb now!

At this point I gave up until a week ago when it became unbearable. A senior engineer was sent out this time.

Engineers advises me that if I contact virgin again then I'll start getting charged a call out fee. This is before he even does anything. He then tells me nothing will be wrong without checking anything. I show him pictures of the upload speed at around 1mb. He says virgin are not responsible for upload?? He then asks me to turn the PlayStation on and show him it not working. I load up efootball, connection straight away is gone, button input 5 seconds behind, game freezing and catching its self up. Engineer then advises he knows the issue now and it is because I'm playing a free PlayStation game ( I wish I was making this up ) and that the issue is with them. When challenged why a free PlayStation game would make my chromecast not work or my ring doorbell to not connect to the Internet I was greeted with silence

So here I am, still with an awful connection and none the wiser why it's gone. It can't be an issue with my set up as I've tried the chromecast on its own on WiFi and had the issues and I've tried the PS connected with ethernet with nothing connected to WiFi and still get the same issues.

So I suppose this is a last effort for virgin to see this and maybe actually acknowledge the issue

Any advise would be greatly appreciated but I think it's safe to say I will be leaving virgin as soon as I can. No full fibre in my area but I'd rather have a stable 50mb connection than 500mb and not know if I can watch a bit of Netflix today!

[Sephiroth]

In ther meantime, I suggest that you remove the attenuator (aka filter) and report back.  They do degrade and so contribute to noise.  Worth a try and your power levels will not go out of spec.  Btw, your downstream frequency range is very large, with the lower frequencies being more noise prone than the higher ; I’ve not seen this range before.

[DannyEvans]

Hi

thanks for the advise. Last tech that came took the filter with him. Virgin have just sent me a text to say ive now got to wait until the 19th for the install....

[DannyEvans]

Starting to get a bit sceptical that this cable is going to make a difference. Next door neighbour is on virgin. Retried in her late 60s, only has the TV on the Internet. Got her set up on BQM to monitor her connection also. Low and behold the connection is all over the place. Now my question is can a faulty cable cause this issue to spread to other addresses or is this going to he a wider issue with the cab?

 

[Sephiroth]

If RF noise is the issue the it will propagate to everyone served from the same street cabinet.

[Gareth_L]

Hello DannyEvans.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Sorry to hear about the poor experience you've been having with your connection.

And now the cable replacement has been delayed to the 19 November.

We can run a few checks from here and see theirs an issue with the signal coming in, which would warrant the need for the cable to be replaced.

We also noticed your Hub has been online for over 3 weeks. Would you be able to unplug it for a few seconds and then back in again? Over time the hub might just become a bit sluggish and need a freshen up.

Gareth_L

[Sephiroth]

I think you've had an encouraging reply from the Forum Team.

On a technology point, the suggestion of rebooting the hub for the first time in three weeks to "freshen up" is nonsense.  Most people have their hubs running for months without there being any intrinsic reason for the hub becoming sluggish (except perhaps for the wretched Hub 3 which you don't have).  If you're feeling mischievous, you could ask the Forum Team to explain just which part of the hub becomes "sluggish". LOL.

[DannyEvans]

Hi Gareth

Thank you for taking the time to reply. What concerns me the most is that you can confirm that there is an issue with the signal coming into the property and you can see that from your end. My question is why could this not have been done when I first raised this issue well over a year ago?

In terms of the hub. Turning it on and off to " refresh it " is nonsense. I'm on my 3rd or 4th hub since all this started as that seems to be the go to solution from your engineers 

I appreciate you have gotten back to me but this just raises more questions about your fault checks than anything

Fingers crossed when the cable is replaced that this is all resolved but then I suppose the question of compensation for over a year and a half of being fobbed off and told nothing is wrong and being told I need to upgrade my speeds to fix the issue needs to be addressed 

[DannyEvans]

Oh I know it's nonsense lol just a standard answer to make it look like some sort of help is being offered

[Sephiroth]

It didn't used to be like this.  A few years ago, the Forum Team were technically competent.  Then they moved the forum out of tech support and into Social Media, which, as we all know, is "yah-ok" land of minimal value.  Oh - and they fired the technical staff that used to populate the Forum Team.

[DannyEvans]

Seems like a great buisness decision! Look at the state of this today