Getting through to a human regarding slow uploads

[quintelligence]

Hi,

My download speed is as advertised, but upload speed is about half what it should be, even when wired. Have done various resets etc. but speed still the same.

Would like to speak to someone, or exchange an email or have a web-chat, but it seems almost impossible to do so. When I tried the phone number I went through a number of options before I was just told to powercycle the router and the call was dropped.

How do I get to raise the issue with someone at Virgin?

Steve

[jbrennand · Accepted solution]

You will get best advice and help from the folks on here.

Or wait a few days and a VM person will respond here and probably ask you to do what we would ask first 🙂

[quintelligence]

Hi John,

Thank you for your response. I'm not sure that there is much left to be done this end - I only use the Virgin router in modem mode which then links to a different router, which then has three dedicated wireless access points around the house hard wired to the router (I got very fed up of bad wifi some time ago). Peer to peer speed tests on the network are very fast.

Connecting to the Internet though, I'm consistently getting 100 Mbps download (as paid for) but only around 5 Mbps upload. I read up and saw that uploads were throttled to give more bandwidth for downloads - which kinda makes sense - so I was not too worried about it after discovering that.

In the past week though, I found that on the 100 Mbps service the upload speed is supposed to be a guaranteed 10 Mbps. I would like to know how to report that this isn't the case and I am consistently 5 Mbps slower.

Many thanks for your help.

Steve

[jbrennand]

OK post up the Hub data as per this..,
________________________________

In your browser’s URL box type in http://192.168.0.1  (or http://192.168.100.1 - if in modem mode) and hit return. On the first page up [there should be no need to login if you have done so before unless you have the New Hub4 when you do] click on the “router status” icon/text at bottom-middle or top/right of the first page up and then copy/paste as “Formatted Text” (not images) 3 FULL sets of data onto here – 2 pages from the Downstream, 2 from the Upstream, & the Network Logs page. Don't worry too much about the formatting it can be easily read & DON’T include personal data or MAC addresses - blank them out - if you copy/paste the data, the board software will do this for you (you may need to click the "submit" button again.

Also, in the meantime... If you haven’t already, set up a free, secure and “offlsite” - “Broadband Quality Monitor” to continually monitor the state of your connection and record any true network dropouts , latency issues, packet drops, etc - it will thus allow you to differentiate between those and simple wifi dropouts. It does it 24/7/365 and it keeps a visual record of any/all of your network disconnections, useful data to have to match to the Network logs (in your Hub settings) and also in discussions with VM - note it will take a few hours to start seeing a sensible picture - post up the “link” to the “share live graph” (as per instructions on the TB website) when it starts to develop.

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

[jbrennand]

Also check in the Hub's "Configuration File/data" page.

Look for the Upstream data page and for the box saying summat like "Max Data Transfer Rate" - it should start with a 1........ (its in bps - not mbps) if its 5....... then the Hub has not been configured for the higehr upload speeds. They upgrades sometimes dont go through - it would be worth a pinhole reset of the Hub if its an the 5...

[quintelligence]

Hi John,

Many thanks for taking the time to respond again. The Think Broadband site looks useful, and I now have a monitor "maturing".

The hub settings do not look like you describe, it may be that I'm on an older version of the hub?

Three of the buttons do nothing and the one remaining one only has the option to come out of modem mode, which I don't want to do.

Could a pinhole reset of this router be useful? If done, will it come back on in modem mode and working correctly or is there more that might need to be configured afterwards?

Thanks,

Steve

TB links:

[jbrennand]

Ahhh you have the old SH. You have "signed in" - dont do that.

Sign out refresh the page and it should show "router status"  click on that

Your BQM is a wall of red.  The i.p. address in the BQM settings may not be correct - search for your ip address and check it - or the router is set to not accepting ICMP requests"  i.e. "pings" - you will need to tick the allow box in your own Routers settings

[jbrennand]

Does the label on its base say Superhub or Superhub 2 or 2ac?

You should get VM to upgrade you if its a SH1.

You are in modem mode - so what make model of router are you using - that may be the issue.

[quintelligence]

Hi John,

Thanks, I am in. Re-reading your original description I see I should have done that in the first place.

Requested information:

Information

Cable Modem	EuroDOCSIS
Serial Number	xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Boot Code Version	2.3.0beta7
Software Version	V2.39.02
Hardware Version	2.00
CA Key	Installed

Downstream  DS-1 DS-2 DS-3 DS-4 DS-5 DS-6 DS-7 DS-8491000000 Hz 475000000 Hz 483000000 Hz 499000000 Hz 507000000 Hz 515000000 Hz 523000000 Hz 531000000 HzLocked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked11 9 10 12 13 14 15 16QAM256 QAM256 QAM256 QAM256 QAM256 QAM256 QAM256 QAM2566.952000 6.952000 6.952000 6.952000 6.952000 6.952000 6.952000 6.952000I=12J=17 I=12J=17 I=12J=17 I=12J=17 I=12J=17 I=12J=17 I=12J=17 I=12J=173.1 dBmV 2.9 dBmV 2.8 dBmV 2.8 dBmV 2.9 dBmV 2.6 dBmV 2.7 dBmV 2.3 dBmV41.3 dB 41.4 dB 41.3 dB 41.3 dB 41.3 dB 41.4 dB 41.4 dB 40.9 dB

Frequency (Hz)

Lock Status(QAM Lock/FEC Sync/MPEG Lock)

Channel ID

Modulation

Symbol Rate (Msym/sec)

Interleave Depth

Power Level (dBmV)

RxMER (dB)

Upstream  US-1 US-2 US-3 US-42.0 2.0 2.0 2.03 1 2 446200000 Hz 60300000 Hz 53700000 Hz 39400000 HzSuccess Success Success SuccessQAM64 QAM64 QAM64 QAM645120000 5120000 5120000 512000064 64 64 6435.3 dBmV 35.0 dBmV 35.5 dBmV 35.0 dBmV0 0 0 00 0 0 00 0 0 00 0 0 0

Channel Type

Channel ID

Frequency (Hz)

Ranging Status

Modulation

Symbol Rate (Sym/sec)

Mini-Slot Size

Power Level (dBmV)

T1 Timeouts

T2 Timeouts

T3 Timeouts

T4 Timeouts

Channel Type

Channel ID

Frequency (Hz)

Ranging Status

Modulation

Symbol Rate (Sym/sec)

Mini-Slot Size

Power Level (dBmV)

T1 Timeouts

T2 Timeouts

T3 Timeouts

T4 Timeouts

Upstream Burst  Req(1) Init Maint(3) Per Maint(4) Adv Short(9) Adv Long(10) Adv UGS(11)16QAM QPSK 16QAM 64QAM 64QAM 16QAMOff Off Off Off Off Off36 384 384 64 64 64396 6 6 396 396 3960 5 5 7 14 516 34 34 88 220 860 0 0 3 0 5522 48 48 22 22 22Fixed Fixed Fixed Short Short ShortOn On On On On On

Modulation Type

Differential Encoding

Preamble Length

Preamble Value Offset

FEC Error Correction (T)

FEC Codeword Information Bytes (K)

Maximum Burst Size

Guard Time Size

Last Codeword Length

Scrambler On/Off

Modulation Type

Differential Encoding

Preamble Length

Preamble Value Offset

FEC Error Correction (T)

FEC Codeword Information Bytes (K)

Maximum Burst Size

Guard Time Size

Last Codeword Length

Scrambler On/Off

General Configuration

Network Access	Allowed
Maximum Number of CPEs	1
Baseline Privacy	Enabled
DOCSIS Mode	EU DOCSIS 3.0
Config File

Primary Downstream Service Flow

SFID	14648
Max Traffic Rate	115000000 bps
Max Traffic Burst	10000 bytes
Min Traffic Rate	0 bps

Primary Upstream Service Flow

SFID	14647
Max Traffic Rate	10500047 bps
Max Traffic Burst	16320 bytes
Min Traffic Rate	0 bps
Max Concatenated Burst	16320 bps
Scheduling Type	BestEffort

Network Log

First Time	Last Time	Priority	Error Number	Description
05/08/2021 22:24:51	05/08/2021 22:24:51	Error (4)	68010300	DHCP RENEW WARNING - Field invalid in response v4 option;CM-MAC=xxxxxxxxx;CMTS-MAC=xxxxxxxxx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
05/08/2021 17:54:25	05/08/2021 17:54:25	Critical (3)	2436694078	TOD established
10/07/2021 06:23:34	10/07/2021 06:23:34	Critical (3)	82000400	Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=xxxxxxxx;CMTS-MAC=xxxxxxx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Also included the limiting settings, and it looks like this is correctly set to 10 Mbps?

Suspect the router is blocking pings. Will take a look at removing that if required later on.

Would still be good to talk to a human at VM...

Cheers,

Steve

[quintelligence]

No sticker on the base, but on the back it says Superhub.

The router is a Netgear Nighthawk R7000P, which I would hope is not causing a problem.

Regarding a hardware upgrade, I guess that comes back to getting to the point of being able to talk to someone at VM?

Many thanks,

Steve