Intermittent Service

[BENGR33N]

Good Morning All,

Hoping I can find some help which I have thus far failed to do from VM Customer Services over the phone.  

Last Friday my internet went down for around 6-7h for "planned maintenance" I have been told by a number of sources within VM that this was to upgrade the lines in preparation for Gigabit connections to be available to all in my are by the end of the year.  Since last Friday I have had regular drop outs (typically 16:30-18:00), slow speeds, high ping etc.  I have had an engineer come to the property who re-wired the house side of my connection and found no problem (there was no issue at the time the connection was running as expected at 220mb), however just a few hours after he left the line went dead again, VM CS claim there is no problem outside "temporary line problems" and advise resetting the router.

On the advise of someone at VM who called me I have installed a broadband quality monitor in an attempt to prove that I am actually having issues.  As you can see this morning (Fri 1st) there was considerable packet loss and high latency on the network for around an hour before it cleared, VM CS claim to see no issue and tell me to call when there is an issue (which I've been doing for around a week to no success).

Can anyone identify where/what may be going wrong with the connection?  I have successfully used VM for around 4.5 years with no issues, until last Fridays down time and line upgrade.  

For clarity, I am running an my Hub 3 in Modem mode (have been since June 2021) with an Asus RT-AC86U providing the routing. 

Downstream bonded channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID

1	226750000	-3.2	34	256 qam	12
2	218750000	-2.7	38	256 qam	11
3	234750000	-3.5	38	256 qam	13
4	242750000	-3.4	38	256 qam	14
5	250750000	-4	38	256 qam	15
6	258750000	-3.2	38	256 qam	16
7	266750000	-4	37	256 qam	17
8	274750000	-3.2	38	256 qam	18
9	282750000	-3.5	37	256 qam	19
10	290750000	-4	37	256 qam	20
11	298750000	-3.2	37	256 qam	21
12	306750000	-3.5	37	256 qam	22
13	314750000	-3.7	37	256 qam	23
14	322750000	-3.5	37	256 qam	24
15	330750000	-3.7	37	256 qam	25
16	338750000	-4	37	256 qam	26
17	346750000	-3.4	37	256 qam	27
18	354750000	-4	37	256 qam	28
19	362750000	-4	37	256 qam	29
20	370750000	-3.2	37	256 qam	30
21	378750000	-4.9	37	256 qam	31
22	386750000	-3.5	37	256 qam	32
23	394750000	-3.7	36	256 qam	33
24	402750000	-4.2	37	256 qam	34

Downstream bonded channels

Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors

1	Locked	34.4	682164	94180
2	Locked	38.6	138252	227
3	Locked	38.6	59607	7359
4	Locked	38.9	3465	187
5	Locked	38.6	573	306
6	Locked	38.6	583	157
7	Locked	37.6	1050	398
8	Locked	38.6	675	265
9	Locked	37.6	379	144
10	Locked	37.6	527	0
11	Locked	37.6	549	1
12	Locked	37.6	533	0
13	Locked	37.6	446	7
14	Locked	37.6	428	42
15	Locked	37.6	401	0
16	Locked	37.3	256	0
17	Locked	37.6	426	14
18	Locked	37.3	460	324
19	Locked	37.3	504	93
20	Locked	37.6	134	0
21	Locked	37.3	332	78
22	Locked	37.3	1820	16894
23	Locked	36.6	432	2106
24	Locked	37.3	215	0

Upstream bonded channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID

1	46200000	41	5120	64 qam	2
2	39399961	41.3	5120	64 qam	3
3	53700000	42.3	5120	64 qam	1
4	32599985	41	5120	64 qam	4

Upstream bonded channels

Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts

1	ATDMA	0	0	1	0
2	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
3	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
4	ATDMA	0	0	0	0

[BENGR33N]

Hi Beth,

Yes as mentioned on here the connection is fine other than the random drop outs that no one can explain such as last Sunday and a week last Friday when I posted on here.

The engineer highlighted some more issues today with SNR interference and fixed these to ensure the line was further in spec  

Hopefully the Hub5 will allow me to setup SamKnows as the think broadband BQM everyone on here uses is completely worthless to everyone else in Virgin Media.   Interestingly the engineer tried to get SamKnows working on my Hub3 which he was adamant should work despite neither of us managing it. 

Thanks,

Ben

[BENGR33N]

Initial feedback, the connection seems much better, I haven’t noticed any latency issues which also seems to be backed up by the BQM.  Dare I say its fixed? 

[BENGR33N]

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/0b865c4305c01d63c36c68c7634c144c4c... 

Packet loss creeping in again, suffering from call drop outs on VoIP again. 

[BENGR33N]

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/0b865c4305c01d63c36c68c7634c144c4c... 

Similar drop out of connection as seen previously, this time it came back online without needing a reboot. 

[Robert_P]

Sorry to hear the issues have returned BENGR33N, I've checked the connection in part and all of the level's and spec's are within the ranges we'd expect to see them. To look into the speeds, latency, packet loss and disconnections we'd need the Hub taking out of Modem Mode.

If you do this for a 24 hour period we should be able to get some test results via SamKnows and see more detail. If there is a period when you're experiencing the issues this would give us the best sample size.

Rob

[BENGR33N]

Hi, back on router mode with the Hub5, the drops are rare and sporadic. Please bear in mind that the Hub 5 was only installed yesterday so if the old hub was the issue, we could be sorted?

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @BENGR33N 

Thank you so much for updating us and it's great to hear we potentially have a fix! 

How are things looking now its been a few days since the install? 

Thank you.

[BENGR33N]

Not a great looking BQM, possibly the worst amount of latency spikes I’ve seen. SamKnows monitor still doesn’t appear to recognise the Hub5 even in router mode. 

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/29292420101af215a7a9eccc6c2dfee864...

Really not sure what to suggest at this point, surely this level of latency on the BQM is not normal? Fast.com shows a very loaded latency also, which I have never seen on other Virgin Media networks at friends houses or other Fibre providers. 

[BENGR33N]

Can someone from Virgin Media confirm that there are active tests occurring on my line?  The latency spikes are absolutely horrific and it seems to be bufferbloat, regardless of wired or wireless connection.  

I do not want to continue using the Hub5 in router mode for any longer than is required, the lack of channel optimisation is frankly unacceptable as a device being pushed to customers and the range the router manages to throw the signal is very poor compared to the Asus AC-86 so want to get back to this ASAP. 

The bufferbloat/ latency issues are 10 times worse on the HUb5 vs my own router due to lack of adjustable quality of service, frankly this whole scenario is our of hand now, I dont understand how the connection can go from reasonable to poor, to dreadful in the space of a few days!

[BENGR33N]

Further to my previous post, the Hub 5 is now back in modem mode where it will stay.  The Hub 5 in router mode is not powerful enough to run TP-Link smart plugs (something that the Hub3 fine) at even a reasonable distance in a 3 bed detached house, the channel optimisation is disabled while it is under testing which I suspect is causing interference with neighbours WIFI.

To further prove my point, not that anyone from VM seem to care or believe there is an issue at this point, this test Bufferbloat to show the issue of a loaded network and is exactly the problem I am experiencing regardless of Hub, Hub5 or my own Asus router.  This is abundantly clear at this point that you wider network does not have the bandwidth required for the number of user in this area.

https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat?test-id=8daa23ff-fd5a-419a-a816-2639c4ad8a37