Post-RS errors, a "short term stability issue", cable repull, and friends

[iwantraytolive]

Hi,

I'm really desperate.

I first contacted VM around the end of June (possibly first week of July) after noticing an intermittent fault (internet disconnecting/lagging for 1-15 mins a time, speeds dropping to 4mbps). 

I really want to stress this is an intermittent fault as everyone I have spoken to from faults keeps insisting if there is not a continual problem there is no fault. 

This has been ongoing since June. When I first called I was told there was an area fault that virgin were aware of (but were only going to work on now I called in?). I was texted 30th July to say services were restored - they had got worse. I called in and was told there was no fault and that an engineer attending my property would be £25 unless I opened a complaint.

I opened a complaint which was then closed without anyone speaking to me because 'the issue was resolved'. I called back to say the issue was not resolved and this complaint was also closed without contacting me. I called back to re-open the complaint. Every time I called I was told I would definitely get a call back within varying timeframes - not a single promised call back was made. 

I finally spoke to a lass from Retentions who was amazing, did everything she said about callbacks, and who got an engineer out. At this point VM are describing my issue as a 'short term stability issue', a term they have been using for the last 3 weeks about a fault that has been ongoing for months. Nobody has been able to define VM's idea of "short term".

The first engineer acknowledged there's a fault based on my BQM and post-RS error count, replaced the Hub and said he would escalate as I may need "an entirely new line" or it was a cabinet issue. He described the fault as noise on the line. He then marked the job as completed.

The second engineer installed a box over the cabling outside as I confirmed the problem is worse during bad weather. 

The third engineers were sub-contractors sent to do a cable re-pull (after I received a text to say this would be done in October and called to query it) - they spraypainted the pavement about 30m down from my house, said they have no construction permit to dig up the road, laughed and drove off. They also marked the job as completed (?). This was last week.

The fourth engineer came out on Tuesday and installed a new line outside the property (or connected a new line that another engineer had installed - he indicated a connection outside should have been swapped and was left half-done). He did give me his number in case the issue persisted but I must have it down wrong as I texted him and it won't deliver.

I called today as it has now been 48h and things are as bad as ever and spent another hour talking to the faults department who advised me they had 'refreshed my signal' and things should be fine now. They also advised me to use wireless and not ethernet because I was clear that this is not a wifi fault (again).

I was also made aware by my downstairs neighbour that the reason my internet dropped about 3pm was two more VM engineers attending my property, unplugging my line to do some kind of test, pronouncing it fine and driving off. Nobody left a card, or thought to knock on to ask if it was ok to disconnect my line then - it really wasn't, I was disconnected from a Teams meeting.. I'm in my training/probation period and this is a really bad look. I also wasn't expecting anyone to attend today. This has been a repeated problem - there are 3 VM engineers who have attended my property without letting me know (that I have seen/found out about - god knows how many have actually been out - they don't leave notes either, so there's no record of who has visited or what they were here for).

At this point I don't even know what is going on. Last week I was expecting a total cable repull (based on the text about it from 07445576718 and the subcontractors visit) and was told the subcontractor were waiting for VM to get a permit to dig up the road.

This week it's all about a new line install on my property only and the cable repull appears to have been abandoned. I don't know why. I don't know why VM engineers have attended my property and VM havent told me on at least 3 occasions and no card was ever left. I explained I WFH and am disabled/mental health patient/learning difficulties and this is really affecting me - complaints schedule call backs 5 times in a week and miss all of them. Complaints are closed without speaking to me as resolved (and the first one as a WiFi issue!) when I have explained this is consistent across all devices on the network including 2 ethernet cabled PCs. I have had calls from VM asking if they can send an engineer out same/next day and said yes to everything for nobody to show up. I have had a scheduled engineer not show up at all and not been credited. I have been offered bill credits which have not been applied. Advice given by the faults department is.. terrible, today alone I spent another hour on the phone to them 'refreshing my Hub signals' and told this was more effective than replacing the Hub or the wiring on my property. Faults keep describing the issue as a "short term stability issue" but nobody can tell me what VM's definition of short-term is. When I called today the automated message stated there was a local fault that would be resolved at 3pm - strangely the exact time VM engineers were on my property without letting me know.

There's a lot more, because *every single time* VM have told me what will happen (this is when the fault will be fixed, this is when youll get a call back, this is how we handle complaints, etc) hasn't been stuck to. The one exception to this is a lass in Retentions called Emma who has been amazing and stuck to every call back she's offered, is the reason I got an engineer out in the first place when being told there was no fault in August, and is generally smashing - unfortunately when trying to call her back to let her know the fault is ongoing I get routed through to Faults who won't do anything with the call.

I have had varying numbers of pre-post RS errors to support my case (anything from 200-5000 post-RS errors in a day), a BQM running since the start of July, etc. 

After the initial hub replacement and before this week's visit, the pre-RS errors were 3500000+ a channel and the post-RS errors were proportionally much smaller (although still in the tens of thousands at least). Since the line installation this week, the post-RS errors are proportionally much greater (up to twice the pre-RS) and there are far less pre-RS errors. The downstream values have changed from 0.5 - 4.5 to hover around 0 - from what I understand they were fine before and perfect now. The upstream power levels are all fine but the modulation drops to 32 frequently and sometimes 16qam.

Finally, my downstairs neighbour (same building), the house next door, and the house opposite have all reported massive issues with VM to the point they closed their accounts. I have asked for a deadlock letter as I fear I will have to as well.

Downstream bonded channels
Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID
1 331000000 1 36 256 qam 25
2 203000000 0.2 35 256 qam 9
3 211000000 -0.2 35 256 qam 10
4 219000000 0 35 256 qam 11
5 227000000 0 35 256 qam 12
6 235000000 0 35 256 qam 13
7 243000000 -0.2 35 256 qam 14
8 251000000 -0.4 35 256 qam 15
9 259000000 -0.7 35 256 qam 16
10 267000000 0 35 256 qam 17
11 275000000 -0.4 35 256 qam 18
12 283000000 -0.2 35 256 qam 19
13 291000000 -0.2 35 256 qam 20
14 299000000 -0.2 35 256 qam 21
15 307000000 0.2 35 256 qam 22
16 315000000 0.9 36 256 qam 23
17 323000000 0.7 36 256 qam 24
18 339000000 1.2 36 256 qam 26
19 347000000 1 36 256 qam 27
20 355000000 1.2 36 256 qam 28
21 363000000 1 36 256 qam 29
22 371000000 0.9 36 256 qam 30
23 379000000 1.5 36 256 qam 31
24 387000000 0.9 36 256 qam 32

Downstream bonded channels
Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors
1 Locked 36.3 3010 1864
2 Locked 35.5 1024 20147
3 Locked 35.5 962 12707
4 Locked 35.5 1953 10613
5 Locked 35.7 2412 8897
6 Locked 35.7 1089 12184
7 Locked 35.7 3884 9208
8 Locked 35.5 3625 17791
9 Locked 35.7 6359 7150
10 Locked 35.7 4614 7370
11 Locked 35.7 2116 1650
12 Locked 35.5 2864 1705
13 Locked 35.5 3896 7712
14 Locked 35.7 8106 5983
15 Locked 35.7 4264 1815
16 Locked 36.3 2036 1740
17 Locked 36.3 3126 2500
18 Locked 36.3 2638 1561
19 Locked 36.3 3422 2051
20 Locked 36.6 4256 2092
21 Locked 36.3 4801 2389
22 Locked 36.3 3571 2066
23 Locked 36.3 2723 2182
24 Locked 36.6 3749 2557

Upstream bonded channels
Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID
1 60300000 45.8 5120 64 qam 1
2 46199922 45.3 5120 64 qam 3
3 39399995 45.3 5120 64 qam 4
4 53699975 45.5 5120 64 qam 2

Upstream bonded channels
Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts
1 ATDMA 0 0 0 0
2 ATDMA 0 0 1 0
3 ATDMA 0 0 0 0
4 ATDMA 0 0 0 0

Time Priority Description
08/09/2021 15:01:3 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 15:00:7 Warning! Lost MDD Timeout;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 15:00:3 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 15:00:3 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 15:00:3 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 15:00:2 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 14:12:37 critical No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 09:24:17 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 09:24:17 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 05:32:3 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 05:29:9 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 05:26:59 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 05:26:59 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 05:16:35 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
08/09/2021 05:16:34 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
07/09/2021 11:05:25 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
07/09/2021 11:04:45 Warning! Lost MDD Timeout;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
07/09/2021 11:04:41 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
07/09/2021 11:04:41 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
07/09/2021 11:04:40 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=x:x:x:x:x:x;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Thank you for your time reading this far - part of it was to vent, as I don't know what can be done this side if anything over the issues with customer service, or even if you can find out why engineers keep attending my property without me being informed (and no notes logged which honestly freaks me out - VM should surely know who's houses its engineers are attending and what they do there!)... but please, please, please let me get what I want... stable wired internet. 

[Chris_W1]

Hi iwantraytolive, thanks for the message and sorry to hear about the delay with the repull. I have looked into the area and can see that there is an SNR issue and the fault number for this is F009265802. This SNR fault is estimated to be resolved by the 13th October by the engineers onsite. 

[iwantraytolive]

According to VM the local outage is fixed now, except the road still hasn't been dug where you know the cables need re-laying after the guy with the spectrum analyser came out. VM have explained to me that they need a permit to dig (again) but no permit has been applied for (still) and it's so long ago that the spraypaint on the road to mark where needs dug is nearly washed off.

Another engineer coming this morning but we already know he won't be able to do anything because the problem is noise on the upstream causing post RS errors, RCS partial services and loss of sync.

I don't understand what the area manager's job is except fobbing people off. 

ETA: in case its not obvious, the fault is not resolved and I've just waited another week for nothing. It's so frustrating to know what the resolution is, having spray paint on the road and it fading into nothingness meaning we'll be further back than we were six weeks ago. 

[iwantraytolive]

Today's engineer didn't show up either, now being told that one was never booked despite the Exec Team saying they'd send the engineer out on the 13th because the area outage was supposed to be cleared by now. 

That is 3 (or 4?) engineers who haven't shown up, currently £0 'automatic' compensation which it turns out isn't automatic at all. 

Not counting the reschedules (none of which were my doing), the engineers who weren't booked out but turned up anyway, etc. 

[iwantraytolive]

Refresh data

Downstream bonded channelsChannel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID

1	203000000	4.5	37	256 qam	9
2	211000000	4.3	37	256 qam	10
3	219000000	4.3	37	256 qam	11
4	227000000	4.3	37	256 qam	12
5	235000000	4.3	37	256 qam	13
6	243000000	4	37	256 qam	14
7	251000000	4	37	256 qam	15
8	259000000	3.7	37	256 qam	16
9	267000000	4.3	37	256 qam	17
10	275000000	4	37	256 qam	18
11	283000000	4.1	37	256 qam	19
12	291000000	4.4	37	256 qam	20
13	299000000	4.4	37	256 qam	21
14	307000000	4.5	37	256 qam	22
15	315000000	4.8	37	256 qam	23
16	323000000	4.6	37	256 qam	24
17	331000000	5.4	37	256 qam	25
18	339000000	5.5	37	256 qam	26
19	347000000	5.3	37	256 qam	27
20	355000000	5.5	37	256 qam	28
21	363000000	5.3	37	256 qam	29
22	371000000	5.3	38	256 qam	30
23	379000000	5.8	38	256 qam	31
24	387000000	5.3	38	256 qam	32

Downstream bonded channelsChannel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors

1	Locked	37.3	47980	815
2	Locked	37.6	58301	837
3	Locked	37.3	79298	838
4	Locked	37.3	84316	986
5	Locked	37.6	79381	789
6	Locked	37.6	99644	849
7	Locked	37.6	113805	837
8	Locked	37.6	137566	1031
9	Locked	37.6	124499	895
10	Locked	37.6	131731	1051
11	Locked	37.6	165996	1114
12	Locked	37.6	182230	1043
13	Locked	37.3	226124	965
14	Locked	37.3	215546	847
15	Locked	37.6	208451	1102
16	Locked	37.6	263868	953
17	Locked	37.6	242898	791
18	Locked	37.6	245792	808
19	Locked	37.3	254787	893
20	Locked	37.6	294036	849
21	Locked	37.3	383899	844
22	Locked	38.6	278690	964
23	Locked	38.6	276722	841
24	Locked	38.6	270492	1180

Absolutely no difference in my service since the 'local outage was cleared'. 

[Andrew-G]

@iwantraytolive That is 3 (or 4?) engineers who haven't shown up, currently £0 'automatic' compensation which it turns out isn't automatic at all. 

Not to worry.  Raise a formal complaint with VM (using the form in My Virgin Media), requesting £25 a pop, or a "deadlock letter" if they won't agree to that.  Hopefully they'll pony up, but complaints handling is particularly poor.  If they don't meet your request, you copy the complaint to CISAS along with the deadlock letter, and they'll sort it out, as well as billing VM for the arbitration services.  If it goes to CISAS you might want to throw in the poor connection and delays in fixing.

[Zoie_P]

Hi Iwantrayolive, 

Thank you for your reply, 

I am terribly sorry for the level of service you have received and that you have not had for our team.

I can link in with you and give you updates and reach out to CEO to see who is handling your case.

I will pop you over a message and get some answers for you.

Zoie