Virgin Media Community

[darzl]

Hi All,

As per my posts in Drop-outs-all-the-time-again please help me resolve my issue before I decide to go to the ombudsman as I am getting fed up with 'We can't find anything wrong'

See this complaint ref: C-1103213007

My issues probably started over 6 months ago and mainly when my speed was upgraded from 500Mbs to 600Mbs or that is when we really started to notice it but I have a feeling it's had an issue for a long time.

I had an engineer visit 01/04, the only thing he found wrong was the final piece of coax to my equipment the original install engineer (7yrs ago) had stapled through the cable and he said my connection was great and the reduction in my speed that I have been seeing was probably because my cabinet is over subscribed.

As you can see below my internet is not fine!!!!

I will be changing my router Tuesday 27th as a test to make sure it is not this.

My Hub3 is in modem mode, I tried to switch it to router mode but this made the internet speed worse, if I do a speed test a lot of the time it will show 300Mbs or less and then sometimes it will time out and not give a result at all.

[Andrew-G]

As this has been going for so long, and the BQM is so exceptionally bad I have flagged for staff to comment.  You need to be aware that if you've raised a complaint, and particularly if you've escalated to the industry arbitration scheme CISAS then VM's ability to respond is more limited.  In terms of protocols, forum staff have to let the complaints team handle formal complaints, and if it is with CISAS, then VM can't respond to the customer about the issue (although I don't believe there's anything stopping them getting the technical problem investigated and resolved).

Looking at the BQM, I don't believe this is a congestion (over-utilisation) problem, despite what the technician has told you.  Or at least, any congestion is only part of the problem.  I say that because the BQM is too uniformly awful, and it's still poor during the small hours of the morning when there's no volume of traffic on the local coax network where congestion invariably occurs.

Let's see what the forum staff can say on the matter.  One other thought - there isn't a second router attached to the hub is there?

[Zach_R]

Hi @darzl,

Thank you for your post and for providing some further information on the problem at hand, including the BQM graph.

I can see that you've mentioned changing your router tomorrow to eliminate it potentially being equipment related. Please let us know how that goes, and if the issue remains following this then we can proceed from there.

Thanks,
 

[darzl]

Hi Andrew-G

I made an initial complaint via the VM website because I could not get through to anybody by phone and the online chat disappeared. I haven't taken it any further and I am hoping that this forum and the staff can resolve the issue.

Out of pure luck (sort of) I managed to do the online connection check that flagged up a fault and an engineer visited without finding a real fault, every time I do the online test service test I have to laugh because I don't understand how it can check my hub3 and say everything is working even my WIFI looks good when my hub is in modem mode 🙂

I have a few switches on my network as I have a media server plus a few other items in my garage, I would say I am above average tech savvy due to my line of work 🙂 

My network consists of > Hub3 in modem mode > Fritzbox 7590 > Netgear  gigabit switch > 2x netgear gigabit POE switches > Netgear POE powered switch

I do have a lot of items connected to my network and a family that lives their lives on the internet whether it is for remote school work or gaming (wife shopping) so my general bandwidth usage can be high.

My oldest son is deeply into the world of F1 eSports and due to the appalling connection issues he can not be competitive and has lost out on actual prizes and money because he has lagged out at the worst possible times.

I am debating whether I should order a EoFTTC connection because VM is slowly becoming more and more unstable and unusable.   

[Andrew-G]

I appreciate that it shouldn't make any difference at all, but can I suggest that you try overnight running the BQM with the hub in router mode and all ethernet connections unplugged at the hub?  You will need to edit your BQM settings because your IP address will change.

This takes all non-VM equipment out of the equation.  Might also be worth posting the hub's status data for Downstream, Upstream and Network log before trying the above, although these should all have been checked by VM's staff on previous calls, and the technician when they visited.

[darzl]

Andrew-G

I am currently out of the UK for work and changing it over isn't that easy but it is possible.

Now I tried to connect to the Hub3 and I have had this issue before that the web page does not respond, I told the engineer who visited that this was this was the case and he told me that he couldn't change the Hub3 even though he had the Hub4 in his van.

See below when I tried to ping the hub3

PS C:\Users\Administrator> ping 192.168.100.1

Pinging 192.168.100.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.100.1: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=63
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 192.168.100.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 1, Lost = 3 (75% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 14ms, Maximum = 14ms, Average = 14ms
PS C:\Users\Administrator> ping 192.168.100.1 -t

Pinging 192.168.100.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 192.168.100.1:
Packets: Sent = 17, Received = 0, Lost = 17 (100% loss),
Control-C
PS C:\Users\Administrator>

I will have to get the hub3 rebooted to access the webpage, do you think it could be the hub3 causing most of the issues?

[darzl]

I disconnected everything from my router last night at around 10:30pm and connected them back at 8am this morning.

As you can see there is still packet loss and the max latency is still an issue.

I haven't rebooted the hub3 yet and I do not have access to its web page and it doesn't respond to pings, would it be possible to have new hub sent out preferably the hub4 🙂 rather than having another engineer? It would narrow down the cause of the fault.

[Andrew-G]

Personally I'd be surprised if a hub swap would help, and because the Hub 4 is more demanding of line conditions fitting one might make things work.  In your shoes I'd not be wanting a Hub 4.

Looking at the latest BQM, the period between 10:30pm and 8am looks entirely normal for a VM connection other than the grumbling packet loss.  The previous BQM profiles don't fit a normal over-utilisation (congestion) fault, and I'm wondering if it is a combination of a cable noise fault causing packet loss, plus something on your network that's causing the latency issues?

The other observation is that looking at all your previous BQM images, things appear to be improving?  As I have "insightful user" privileges, when I preview your images, I see all of them in sequence, and that improvement is very apparent to my eye.  Do you see that flicking between days on Thinkbroadband?

I appreciate it doesn't seem we're getting much further with this, and that it is difficult when you can't physically get to the hub to check stats, and play around with what is connected.

[darzl]

I saw a change in the BQM yesterday morning at about 9am and the max latency reduced by nearly half so something has changed but not in my house.

I should have the new router today and I will reboot the hub3 to get access to it and see about putting it back in router mode overnight. 

[Serena_C]

Hi @darzl

Thank you for the update, I'm glad to hear the max latency reduced by nearly half.

Please do let us know how things are running for you when you set up your new router today, thanks.

Serena