My area hits utilisation

[legacy1]

So getting high spikes when my connection is idle.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/0ce3e6306e5de1f4976dbc8656e27d02fb1d2acf-23-03-2021  

 Still it could be worse.  

[risc19]

Well a reboot may help as it may lock on to less congested channels. 

My upstream channels do very on each reboot. 

[legacy1]

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@risc19 wrote:

Well a reboot may help as it may lock on to less congested channels. 

My upstream channels do very on each reboot. 

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Or I might end up worse off then I am now so you can't win.😤 

[legacy1]

Please stop adding new customers for my area!

Edit: and no sooner another I made this post the latency goes back to being fine🤔

[legacy1]

How I can tell its upstream latency problem using hrping and timestamps

First thing to note is for some reason (post about this before) you send one ping and I get 3 replies the real gateway is the one with TTL 255.

So setup hrping with:

hrping.exe" 82.34.194.1 -l 1000 -t -K -gg -T -s 1000 -M

^The IP above is fine to post its just the VM gateway that anyone can know

You then need to run it with a low ping to strat with like 6-7ms (if not lower) the lower then better which can only be done when latency is fine

As it running their will be time drift so you have to offset the time by a low ping close by the high ping.

So look at the marked 7.185ms offseting the to be 4tx and 3rx so the offset is 222 for rx and tx is 228 you then apply to the marked 220.252ms tx and rx so 222 – 224 is 2ms so that mean the downstream is fine (note how the rx stays steady) then for tx 445 – 228 is 217ms and thats the upstream delay give or take a ms~

[Akua_A]

Hi @legacy1,

Welcome back to our community forums.

Sorry to hear you are having issues with your service. Has service improved since the last posting? How is your latency?

Thanks,

[Andrew-G]

@legacy1 I don't dispute your conclusion that your area is subject to over-utilisation, nor that this is probably on the upstream.  But you've been round here for a decade, easily long enough to have seen how over-utilisation is dealt with, and to know your options, which are essentially tolerate the poor connection or find a new ISP.

Here's the Cut Out & Keep Guide To Over-Utilisation:

"-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phase 1: Over-sell beyond capacity

Phase 2: Deny the problem for as long as possible, but keep billing customers for a service that hasn't been compromised by over-selling

Phase 3: Refer to Networks if complaints keep coming

Phase 4: Networks team toss coin to decide if the problem passes the threshold to declare over utilisation, if no, return to Phase 2, otherwise proceed

Phase 5: Random fix date plucked out of somebody's fundament

Phase 6: Nothing is actually done at first fix date; At this and each subsequent fix date, Networks roll the official dice* ten times: If ten sixes occur, invest to fix problem, otherwise return to Phase 5 and issue new date

Phase 7: VM hope for a possible 1-2 year resolution from doing nothing other than restricting new sales, if sufficient customers churn out due to poor connection.

"-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* The Networks team are geeks, so the official VM Networks dice is a D20 from somebody's D&D box.  As a result the chances of ten consecutive sixes and subsequent investment to fix the problem is even more remote than the tiny probability that you might first assume.

[legacy1]

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@Akua_A wrote:

Sorry to hear you are having issues with your service. Has service improved since the last posting? How is your latency?

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Was bad yesterday

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/cb8e604a4bb2907111dc69285fe4ed8d6e...

@Andrew-G yes I know but my connection was fine ‎before 23-03-2021 and I should not have to change ISP because VM know about their upstream problem for years.  

[Andrew-G]

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@legacy1 wrote:  @Andrew-G yes I know but my connection was fine ‎before 23-03-2021 and I should not have to change ISP because VM know about their upstream problem for years.  

---

"Should not" is certainly the case, but VM have got away with poor responses to over-utilisation for years thanks to ineffectual regulation by Ofcom, and due to insufficient customers taking these matters to CISAS, so I can't see much changing anytime soon.  CISAS can't force VM to invest to solve the problems, but if sufficient affected customers went down that route, the case fees and resolution costs would quickly add up and probably alter the commercial economics that currently favour VM's "do nothing, its cheaper and we won't be punished" ethos.   

Whilst service was fine before, if you consider what happens to any capacity limited network when new demand keeps being signed up, and per-customer data use is rising year on year, then there's something of a cliff edge, rather than a smooth transition.  This suggests VM wait until problems occur before putting in place a "stop sales" order, but by that time the problem exists, and through customer churn would take around 18 months to see performance return (at which point they start selling again).  

I hope you at least enjoyed my cut out and keep guide.  A work of genius I modestly thought.

[risc19]

I can' help but wonder if all these people getting a speed increase via the new volt deal are the cause of all this.

It's just a guess.

[Andrew-G]

Volt won't be helping where there's already over-utilisation, but I wouldn't have thought that it would be anywhere near sufficient to push any particular area over the edge.  My reasoning there is that "higher speeds" will only create material increases in traffic at the CMTS for sustained downloads and that wouldn't include for example background downloading of system or app updates.  For streaming, gaming, video calls and the like, the bandwidth use is both well inside VM's slowest speed package, but is also fixed by the application and screen resolution, so for the majority of customer traffic having a higher speed connection has no bearing on traffic at the CMTS. 

Basically, the Volt speed upgrade costs VM nothing - broadband customers are already paying the price point they choose, so VM aren't forgoing revenue, it doesn't really create additional traffic or investment needs, and because you can't combine Volt with other discounts VM stand to avoid revenue loss from customers demanding discounts.  There's potentially a bit of lost income for O2 from the higher mobile data allowances since they'll lose some out-of-bundle data charges, and they are a nice high margin earner for mobile providers, but all of this will have been worked out in considerable detail by the VM & O2 pricing and propositions teams.  Whilst the still fragmented branding and un-joined systems are not ideal, Volt is very good marketing that makes customers more conscious that VM & O2 are merging, probably helps reduce churn, with few downsides for either company or customers.

I suppose that the only realistic hope for @legacy1 is that VM start handing out Hub 4 and 5s to customers on the same segment, because DOCSIS 3.1 enables a modest (circa 20%) improvement in network capacity, and that might be enough to bring the network back into balance.