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Bandwidth throttling again

JustinJ41
Tuning in

Just at the beginning of the COVID pandemic I noticed a drop form our 500+ meg to around 250 and assumed this was something Virgin did as a lot of people were working at home. After 8 weeks I contacted Virgin support and they wanted to send an engineer. I explained this was not a problem at our end (it was throttled at Virgin Media) but they did anyway. 

At the entrance to our property he measure 290 meg, some way of the 550 we were used to seeing. He did not have an answer but said he had switched our port in the road and to 'see how it goes'. Around 2 weeks later, over night the speed went back up to the 500 to 500 we had previously. 

A week or so ago it dropped again to between 250 and 300 and has remained that way. OK, 300 is still plenty enough but I should receive what I pay for or have a rebate?

I would like to have this resolved one way or another. Don't say you are not throttling when you are, rebate where appropriate although I would prefer to have the speed I am paying for.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Emily_G
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

The appointment would look external to the property as well as internal. 

 

We'd need to book a follow up appointment with you so I'll pop you over a private message with security so we can book this in now.

 

Thanks, Emily.

See where this Helpful Answer was posted

53 REPLIES 53

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

VM don't throttle users.  Your speed is set at the hub according to your contracted speed, and you can see that for yourself in the Configuration page.  If there's a fall in speed, that is either a network equipment or cable fault, or there's too much local traffic for the equipment to manage. 

If it's a fault, then as you can't invoke the minimum speed guarantee at 300 Mbps you'd need to do some more digging as to your hub's status data for Downstream, Upstream and Network log (post it here, someone will take a look and comment).  If we can identify noise or power issues, that may be easier to get it fixed.

If it's too much traffic that's called "over-utilisation" in VM-speak, what it means is the company sold more connections than their equipment has the capacity to serve.  Sometimes VM invest to fix that, but not very often.  This has only a little to do with home working - in normal times over-utilisation still occurred all through the evening peak, with more home working all that's happened is that peak period has widened a bit.  The normal response is to issue a fault reference number and do nothing.

If you want to check for over-utilisation, you need to head over to Thinkbroadband.com create an account, setup a Broadband Quality Monitor, and let it run for 24 hours or more.  If that shows a poor connection that gets worse through the day, and then improves dramatically between midnight and about 8am, that's almost certainly over-utilisation, and you should start wondering who your next ISP will be.

gary_dexter
Alessandro Volta

Are these wired or wireless speeds?

Post the Network, Upstream and Downstream logs from the hub admin pages 


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If you think my answer has helped - please provide me with a Kudos rating and mark as Helpful Answer!!
I do not work for Virgin Media - all opinions expressed are of my own and all answers are provided from my own and past experiences.
Office 365, Dynamics CRM and Cloud Computing Jedi

Thanks for the think broadband link, I will try that. I am testing speeds between here and the nearest Virgin media centre (Basildon) so not on the public Internet. Why I know it is throttling it because it is not time-of-day specific. I am my home office at 5.30am each day and it makes no difference, the speed is never measured higher than 300 using speedtest.net. using google speedtest then it is around 10mps, yes 10. 

Router is in modem mode and all setting there are OK, the engineer and checked and confirmed there was nothing wrong our side and still only got 290.

It is hard to believe there is no throttling, it is not a small drop, it is like a switch, 500+ all times of day to under 300 all times of day. 

I am not recording the speed test results each day and will run the think boradband app and give that a try too, thanks.

 

These are wired speeds. D-link 24 Port Gigabit router, 2 workstations connected at GB, both 2 x Xeon E5's with 96GB ram and 256gb Ram respectively running Windows 10. No other network.

one reason I am convinced it is being throttled is the ping to the Virgin server is good. remember, this is not public Internet speed measurement using speedtest.net, this is from me the Virgin. the google measurement is a better representation of actual Internet bandwidth and this does seem over-utilised but if not throttled, I would expect 500+ within the Virgin network.

Psedtest.net.jpgspeed.jpgtraffic in house. 

JustinJ41_1-1593167642693.png

 

Again, Virgin don't throttle or traffic manage connections.

It could be utilisation/capacity - the TBB graph is likely show if this is the case.

*****
If you think my answer has helped - please provide me with a Kudos rating and mark as Helpful Answer!!
I do not work for Virgin Media - all opinions expressed are of my own and all answers are provided from my own and past experiences.
Office 365, Dynamics CRM and Cloud Computing Jedi

Downstream bonded channels
Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID
1 283000000 0.2 40 256 qam 19
2 139000000 3.4 40 256 qam 1
3 147000000 3.5 40 256 qam 2
4 155000000 3.2 40 256 qam 3
5 163000000 2.9 40 256 qam 4
6 171000000 3 40 256 qam 5
7 179000000 2.7 40 256 qam 6
8 187000000 2.7 40 256 qam 7
9 195000000 2.2 40 256 qam 8
10 203000000 2.2 40 256 qam 9
11 211000000 1.7 40 256 qam 10
12 219000000 1.7 40 256 qam 11
13 227000000 1.2 40 256 qam 12
14 235000000 0.7 40 256 qam 13
15 243000000 0.5 40 256 qam 14
16 251000000 0.2 40 256 qam 15
17 259000000 0.5 40 256 qam 16
18 267000000 0.5 40 256 qam 17
19 275000000 0.5 40 256 qam 18
20 291000000 0 40 256 qam 20
21 299000000 0.2 40 256 qam 21
22 307000000 0 40 256 qam 22
23 315000000 0.2 40 256 qam 23
24 323000000 0 40 256 qam 24

Downstream bonded channelsChannel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors
1Locked40.34692
2Locked40.95860
3Locked40.988811862
4Locked40.37650
5Locked40.36890
6Locked40.95780
7Locked40.35430
8Locked40.95753
9Locked40.948512
10Locked40.94890
11Locked40.950812
12Locked40.94510
13Locked40.35000
14Locked40.94610
15Locked40.34780
16Locked40.34560
17Locked40.34910
18Locked40.34040
19Locked40.34360
20Locked40.34560
21Locked40.948614
22Locked40.34110
23Locked40.94892
24Locked40.947572
23/06/2020 11:54:20criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
23/06/2020 05:17:36noticeDHCP Renew - lease parameters tftp file-Vcb573b2ee9a9587e.cm modified;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
23/06/2020 05:17:36ErrorDHCP REBIND WARNING - Field invalid in response;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
22/06/2020 23:37:36ErrorDHCP RENEW sent - No response for IPv4;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
22/06/2020 21:00:5criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
22/06/2020 17:57:39ErrorDHCP RENEW sent - No response for IPv4;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
22/06/2020 12:42:53criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
22/06/2020 06:37:45ErrorDHCP RENEW sent - No response for IPv4;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
19/06/2020 00:23:37criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Uncorrected (post-RS) error count on channel 3 is far too high relative to other counts.  That suggests that there's a problem at the 147 MHz frequency which your channel 3 is on, which wouldn't be a typical fault of over-utilisation.  My guess is a faulty joint or damaged cable, but guesses don't help you.

When you restart the hub, the error counters get reset.  So at some stage, restart the hub, let it run for (say) 12 hours, and then re-post the Downstream data.  If that's still showing post-RS errors in any numbers then you need a technician.

Hi Justin, 

Thanks for using the forums to get this issue sorted, I am sorry your services have not been up to speed recently. I'd love to try and help get them back to normal for you. I am going to send you a PM now so I can get some account info and do a health check on your services.

Once I've got this we'll come back onto the public forum so the others can stay involved.

Thanks , speak soon!

Megan_L

Thank you, very useful. Engineer did say they should have used a better quality coax in the original install that that would give overall loss, not just in one area.

Hopefully Megan will help who just made contact.