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Hub Disconnection Issue

Stubbington
Tuning in

10 Sept 21

We are having a very frustrating few months with Virgin Media Fibre Broadband.    We joined them in March 21 to get Fibre 100 because we have two home workers.  However, we soon encountered multiple hub disconnections on a daily basis.  Trying to get someone at VM to take us seriously became an issue.   Customer service were keen to get us to reboot the hub every time and then transfer us quickly on to Broadband Tech Support which consists of ‘Andi-Bot’ and ‘Toni-Bot’, then you get bounced back to customer services and Groundhog Day begins all over again.  It seems there is no human trouble-shooter in Tech Support at Virgin Media.   Finally we went to Ofcom and then on to CISAS who awarded compensation in our favour and a technician was sent out to replace the hub 3 and check inside the roadside cabinet.

Changing the hub on 20th August 21 has made little difference to our experience of Virgin Media Broadband as we have had 38 disconnections since that date when the hub turns green.  (I have a full and detailed record of the time and dates when the hub disconnects from, the internet).

Let me reiterate that the issue is NOT slow speed, it is ZERO speed when the hub goes down which affects simultaneously our homeworker on Ethernet cable and our other homeworker on Wifi.  Our two homeworkers lose VPN connections, miss online meetings, even missed an online interview and their online training has been adversely affected.

I note that Ofcom states this month that “Virgin Media is the most complained about company on Ofcom’s list”.  Also Ofcom said that “on average a customer can expect one disconnection every 3 or 4 days from the five major providers”.  I think you must agree that 38 disconnections between 20th August and 10th September is unacceptable.

Virgin media broadband is totally unreliable in the PO14 3LD area.  Our next-door neighbour said today that they have had numerous disconnections (we have had 5 today) and “sometimes they give up watching i-player because of buffering due to Virgin Media’s unreliable broadband”.

Unless Virgin media can swiftly get a grip on this broadband problem in our postcode area we feel they should release us free-of-charge from our contract.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

So the CISAS adjudication ordered VM to resolve the fault, and although they've done some work it does not appear to have correctly diagnosed and fixed the fault? 

And your preferred outcome is just that VM deliver the contracted service reliably and competently?

Go back to CISAS and ask their guidance on this, and as a sideline complain to Ofcom (not that Ofcom do much, but VM were given a formal warning about poor response to CISAS adjudications earlier this year, so Ofcom may want to follow up on that).  I'll flag this for the forum staff, not sure they can do that much because although they're a fine and helpful bunch, once a complaint is formal responsibility passes to different teams within VM.

In terms of leaving without penalty, should be straightforward - the complaints team can authorise this immediately, but depending on any immediate and effective response to the suggestions above you may not need to, or if you need to leave but VM won't do the right thing you might need to raise another formal complaint to VM, demanding release from contract without penalty on the grounds of poor performance, and your request for release from contract without penalty is twofold: First the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that requires any consumer service to be provided with "reasonable skill and care", and second, the Ofcom Fairness Commitments, that state "Customers’ services work as promised, reliably over time. If things go wrong providers give a prompt response to fix problems and take appropriate action to help their customers, which may include providing compensation where relevant. If providers can’t fix problems with core services they have promised to deliver within a reasonable period, customers can walk away from their contract with no penalty."

If you are needing to raise that further complaint, seeking further compensation for the ongoing fault that they haven't fixed and more importantly release from contract, then make sure that it also demands a deadlock letter unless VM agree to your terms - that's to enable immediate escalation if there's any messing around.  Obviously this can go two ways - VM get a grip and fix the connection, or they release you to find another ISP (voluntarily, or as a result of a further CISAS bludgeoning).  If it goes down the latter route give thought to which ISP you'd want.  There's a country mile between best and worst ISPs even though most use Openreach and it may be worth speaking to a competent ISP (AAISP, uno, Aquiss, IDNet, CIX, Zen Internet) to establish your expected speed and whether there's any existing contention issues on the Openreach network around you. You could just use one of the big players (BT, Sky etc) but bear in mind they aren't that much more pleasant to deal with than VM.

And finally give some thought to getting the new ISP connected.  That can take a couple of weeks, I'd say order immediately if and when it becomes clear that you will be cancelling VM - if you try and have the new connection start on the last day you have VM and there's any hiccup, you could find yourself with no internet and possibly no phone line.

See where this Helpful Answer was posted

9 REPLIES 9

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

So the CISAS adjudication ordered VM to resolve the fault, and although they've done some work it does not appear to have correctly diagnosed and fixed the fault? 

And your preferred outcome is just that VM deliver the contracted service reliably and competently?

Go back to CISAS and ask their guidance on this, and as a sideline complain to Ofcom (not that Ofcom do much, but VM were given a formal warning about poor response to CISAS adjudications earlier this year, so Ofcom may want to follow up on that).  I'll flag this for the forum staff, not sure they can do that much because although they're a fine and helpful bunch, once a complaint is formal responsibility passes to different teams within VM.

In terms of leaving without penalty, should be straightforward - the complaints team can authorise this immediately, but depending on any immediate and effective response to the suggestions above you may not need to, or if you need to leave but VM won't do the right thing you might need to raise another formal complaint to VM, demanding release from contract without penalty on the grounds of poor performance, and your request for release from contract without penalty is twofold: First the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that requires any consumer service to be provided with "reasonable skill and care", and second, the Ofcom Fairness Commitments, that state "Customers’ services work as promised, reliably over time. If things go wrong providers give a prompt response to fix problems and take appropriate action to help their customers, which may include providing compensation where relevant. If providers can’t fix problems with core services they have promised to deliver within a reasonable period, customers can walk away from their contract with no penalty."

If you are needing to raise that further complaint, seeking further compensation for the ongoing fault that they haven't fixed and more importantly release from contract, then make sure that it also demands a deadlock letter unless VM agree to your terms - that's to enable immediate escalation if there's any messing around.  Obviously this can go two ways - VM get a grip and fix the connection, or they release you to find another ISP (voluntarily, or as a result of a further CISAS bludgeoning).  If it goes down the latter route give thought to which ISP you'd want.  There's a country mile between best and worst ISPs even though most use Openreach and it may be worth speaking to a competent ISP (AAISP, uno, Aquiss, IDNet, CIX, Zen Internet) to establish your expected speed and whether there's any existing contention issues on the Openreach network around you. You could just use one of the big players (BT, Sky etc) but bear in mind they aren't that much more pleasant to deal with than VM.

And finally give some thought to getting the new ISP connected.  That can take a couple of weeks, I'd say order immediately if and when it becomes clear that you will be cancelling VM - if you try and have the new connection start on the last day you have VM and there's any hiccup, you could find yourself with no internet and possibly no phone line.

Zak_M
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Good morning @Stubbington

 

Welcome to the forums and thank you for taking the time to post. 

 

I am really sorry to hear that you have been experiencing the disconnections. I appreciate how frustrating this must be. 

 

Please could you let me know if these disconnection happen with both wired and wireless connections. 

 

I have checked over the network from our end and things seem to be okay, however this doesn't mean there isn't something wrong. 

 

Please could you set up a BQM this will help monitor the disconnections. 

 

Kind regards,

Zak_M

 

Hi Zak

Yes it happens with both wired and wireless devices when the hub has a green light -  which also obviously affects the TV and landline.  Today this happened at 1325, 1358 and 1609 hrs.  (It may also have happened this morning when we were reading the papers instead of being online or watching TV).   The connection between hub and internet usually comes back after a few minutes but it is highly disruptive to our homeworkers on weekdays.  Yesterday we had the TV on and a message came up "Connection problem CS9994" at 1454 hrs on 10 Sept (I log everything now).

Note  that it affects our next-door neighbour also on Virgin media to the same degree (which points to an area network issue) - but not our other next door neighbour who is with BT and says he experiences a disconnection "only roughly once every 6 months".  I might canvass the rest of the street to see who else is with VM and whether they get as many disconnections as me!

What is a BQM?  We are now subject to an Ofcom Speed Complaint to measure our downtime over the next 30 days after I got through to VM's call centre in Glasgow (very understanding) instead of the one in India.  This issue is taking up a lot of my time!

regards

Stubbington

You can setup a Broadband Quality Monitor (BQM) over at https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality that'll show what's going on with your VM connection.  Post a LINK to a LIVE, SHARED graph here and we'll see what's happening.  Usually needs to run for 24 hours before we can draw reasonable conclusions, but the live graph will continuously update so you can post the link immediately.

Tom_F
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Further to the helpful advice about setting up a BQM - please also post your Hub/network connection details so we can check to see if there is a problem there. If you're unsure how:


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. If you have a hub 2 or 3 when the page loads don't log in but click ‘Check Router Status’. If you have a Hub 4 when the page loads log in and then click ‘Check Router Status’.

Copy full sets of data onto here from the downstream, upstream, & network logs pages and paste them here. Please don’t post screencaps - if you copy/paste the data the forum software should blank any sensitive details out for you.

 

Tom

Hi Tom (F) and Andrew (G)

Many thanks for your very useful advice.  I have a VM Hub 3 but putting in the URL http//192.168.0.1 brings up the hub but it will not allow me to log in - hub says it does not recognise the p/w at the bottom of the hub!    Hope the shared graph link below works.  I think the red lines correspond to the times logged by me yesterday when the hub lights turned green - namely 0856, 1007, 1457 and 1829 hours.

I was told on 10 Sept by "Ethan" at the Virgin Media Glasgow call centre that he was raising an "Ofcom Speed Complaint reference number G-000019652" and "Ofcom would be monitoring my connection for 30 days and send me an e-mail with the results on completion".  When I rang Ofcom yesterday to update them on progress they told me I had been given incorrect information, that they had "received a number of calls from people who had been told the same thing" and had asked Virgin Media "to stop misleading the public in this way because Ofcom has no access to the network".  What do you think of that?

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/6743ce952043ac3e6a9d1f33a4906d3f02...

When I rang Ofcom yesterday to update them on progress they told me I had been given incorrect information, that they had "received a number of calls from people who had been told the same thing" and had asked Virgin Media "to stop misleading the public in this way because Ofcom has no access to the network".  What do you think of that?

I think it entirely representative of the poor standards that apply across VM's telephone customer contact and support, and it is behaviours like this that help explain how the company recently scooped three of the four main "most complained about company" awards in Ofcom's quarterly hall of shame.  In addition to asking Ofcom, you have then raised a complaint with Ofcom yourself about this?  It'll help contribute towards VM retaining the awards next time.  The BQM does have some regular yellow spikes that suggest VM are running their own speed testing, that does not involve Ofcom at all.

The password for settings is on the bottom of the hub, but it's the smaller settings password not the wifi password.  It's usually a six or eight digit number, but when checking hub status data you don't normally need to log in - below the password box there should be a link "Check router status" that works without entering the password.  VM staff can check your hub status remotely, they might have tried that in this instance, particularly given that the company have already been instructed by CISAS to sort their stuff.

If you've had enough, and just want to leave, go back to my earlier post about creating a complaint asking to be released from contract without penalty, and get the ball rolling on that (and copy that to Ofcom as well if you need to escalate as a new complaint to CISAS again).

Hi Andrew

Hi Andrew

Can you still see my live BQM feed? (it is lit up with red lines like a  Nov 5th fireworks display.  I found the e-mail address for the CEO and received a holding reply from his staff.   Wanted the executives to know what is happening at their coal face.   I logged 11 disconnections yesterday, although there were probably more, bringing us up to at least 60 hub disconnections since the hub was  replaced on 20th August (bearing in mind that we have not been monitoring on Sundays).   I have spelt it out that unless they can finally resolve the technical issue very soon, then I want to be released early, free of charge, from my contract on a date of my choosing.   

I told them that one of our homeworkers has had to relocate to another household this week to use their Talk Talk broadband because the broadband service from Virgin Media is so poor at our house.   Ofcom suggested on 13 Sept that we contact Citizen’s Advice Bureau or obtain independent legal advice!! - what is the point of such a toothless regulator?

I located the correct password for the hub (thank you) but it does not tell me much apart from ”Internet partial service (DS only)” whatever that means – but that was only one snapshot in time and may not indicate the real issue behind it..

Serena_C
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Hi @Stubbington

 

I have taken a look at your BQM and booked a technician appointment for you to get the issue of your connection dropping resolved.

 

I will send you a private message now with the details of your technician visit and to confirm your address. Please look out for purple envelope in the top right hand corner and get back to me when you can 🙂

 

Kind regards,

Serena