Junction cabinet in my hedge
Virgin Media applied to the local highways agency to replace a 85cm high cabinet on the highway outside my house in 2023. They actually put a replacement 1.2m high by 1.2m wide cabinet in my hedge, next to my drive. Earlier this year they dug up my hedge looking for cables under the cabinet and the hedge is now wrecked. I can’t replace it with a fence because the cabinet is in the way. I’ve tried complaining but four months later I’m just being fobbed off with excuses or promised callbacks which don’t materialise. I want to escalate the complaint but am not sure where to go. Is it Ofcom or the Communications Ombudsman?
Connection dropping intermittingly
Good afternoon! For about a week now I've noticed that my internet connection drops for around 5-10s every 20-60 minutes, sometimes multiple times over a 5 minute period and I have no idea why. I am currently wired to the hub as is my other laptop but I notice the connection dropping on my wireless devices around the same kind of time too, others in the household have also noticed this. I have also seen on Reddit and here that others are in the same boat across the UK so I know it's not isolated to me. Is there anything that can be done to resolve this? I will provide any information asked and run whatever diagnostics I am advised to. Thank you.
Connection randomly drops
From Wednesday on this week my connection has been dropping or becoming very slow at random, I obviously checked the service and it stated there was a problem with inconsistent connection in my area, so I thought that explained it. However I am still having issue now and further checks say there are no problems in my area, I can go hours without a drop and sometimes it will then go off and on a few times in an hour and then be fine again, I went through the remote process today of restarting the hub in case this does anything a local reset doesn't but it made no difference. When I check Windows it states that my connection is low quality, if I restart my PC it says the same so I restart the adapter which then fixes it, it should be noted despite this my connection is back up at 1155 Mbps Download and 105 Mbps Upload which is my average connection speeds. Windows also reports no issues with my network adaptor but just to be sure I installed the most recent driver. I'm wondering if anyone else has had similar issues as I see form outage sites that Virgin appears to have had a number of issues recently?Internet only works between certain hours?
My internet connection has only been working properly between roughly 10:09am and 4:01pm every day, and this is now day 5 of the issue. Outside of those hours the service is basically unusable due to the upload speed dropping. I have run multiple speed tests and the pattern is exactly the same every day. Before 10:09am and after 4:01pm, my upload speed sits at around 0.20 Mbps, but between those hours it jumps to around 40 Mbps. I have made countless calls to Virgin Media and am getting nowhere. An engineer is due to visit today between 12pm and 4pm, but I am not hopeful as this clearly is not an isolated fault. I live in a block of flats and multiple neighbours in my block, as well as the block next door, are all affected by the same problem. One neighbour already had an engineer visit yesterday and was given a replacement router, which only worked for about 10 minutes before the issue returned. I am using a Hub 5 and have only been with Virgin Media for two months, so this is incredibly frustrating. Has anyone experienced anything like this before or got any ideas what could be causing such a specific, time-based upload issue? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!Intermittent connection
I’ve been having this issue for months where my connection is perfect for maybe a few days to sometimes over a week, then it will just completely disconnect for hours, for days if not weeks. I’ve had an engineer come round, they replaced my hub with a hub 5 (originally a hub 3) which seemed great at the time but the issue just never fully went away. Done all i can to attempt to fix it, but realistically there’s not a lot i can do. this is todays connection: https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/42b53d2b86f43b5e4cb51298e5366c734a636424 The above images are some of the worst days ive had but there have been only maybe 5/6 days like this so far (a majority of the time its just 20 minutes then its back for maybe 15)
Too Many Disconnections!
Back again, in desperation! I've been having problems for months, but in the last few weeks it has become progressively worse. After an engineer visit new Hub 5 and (apparently!) a new connection at the cabinet, it has actually gotten worse. I have requested an outdoor survey, as all the equipment in my house has recently been replaced and have another engineer visit provisionally booked for 22 December. However, I am now at the point where I will be requesting an early exit from my contract, as this really is unacceptable. My previous request for help were not progressed as I was running my hub in modem mode, so I have now switched it back to router mode in the hope that some kind of diagnosis might be possible. Here are my logs from less than 12 hours of uptime System up time 0day(s)11h:14m:39s Cable Modem Status Item Status Type Cable Modem Status Online DOCSIS 3.0 Primary downstream channel Locked SC-QAM Channel Overview Downstream Upstream DOCSIS 3.0 channels 31 5 DOCSIS 3.1 channels 1 1 3.0 Downstream channels Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID 1 163000000 7.5 43 QAM 256 4 2 155000000 8 42 QAM 256 3 3 171000000 7.3 43 QAM 256 5 4 179000000 7.2 43 QAM 256 6 5 187000000 7.1 43 QAM 256 7 6 195000000 7.3 43 QAM 256 8 7 203000000 6.9 43 QAM 256 9 8 211000000 6.8 43 QAM 256 10 9 219000000 6.4 43 QAM 256 11 10 227000000 6.2 42 QAM 256 12 11 235000000 6.2 42 QAM 256 13 12 243000000 6.1 43 QAM 256 14 13 251000000 5.8 43 QAM 256 15 14 259000000 5.8 43 QAM 256 16 15 267000000 5.4 43 QAM 256 17 16 275000000 5.3 42 QAM 256 18 17 283000000 5 42 QAM 256 19 18 291000000 4.9 42 QAM 256 20 19 299000000 5 42 QAM 256 21 20 307000000 5 42 QAM 256 22 21 315000000 4.7 42 QAM 256 23 22 323000000 4.7 42 QAM 256 24 23 331000000 4.4 42 QAM 256 25 24 339000000 4.6 42 QAM 256 26 25 347000000 4.6 42 QAM 256 27 26 355000000 4.4 42 QAM 256 28 27 363000000 4.5 42 QAM 256 29 28 371000000 4.6 42 QAM 256 30 29 379000000 4.3 42 QAM 256 31 30 387000000 4.4 43 QAM 256 32 31 395000000 4.3 42 QAM 256 33 3.0 Downstream channels Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors 1 Locked 43 1305039 326305 2 Locked 42 447669 51730 3 Locked 43 1099552 1437186 4 Locked 43 1427030 1538202 5 Locked 43 830628 1408003 6 Locked 43 23039 45053 7 Locked 43 25310 49669 8 Locked 43 655 86 9 Locked 43 276 45 10 Locked 42 255 103 11 Locked 42 160 109 12 Locked 43 163 96 13 Locked 43 154 110 14 Locked 43 104 37 15 Locked 43 163 8 16 Locked 42 134 26 17 Locked 42 187 0 18 Locked 42 720 49 19 Locked 42 456 16 20 Locked 42 236 0 21 Locked 42 117 0 22 Locked 42 86 0 23 Locked 42 71 0 24 Locked 42 82 0 25 Locked 42 87 0 26 Locked 42 86 0 27 Locked 42 91 0 28 Locked 42 85 0 29 Locked 42 96 0 30 Locked 43 73 0 31 Locked 42 57 0 3.1 Downstream channels Channel Channel Width (MHz) FFT Type Number of Active Subcarriers Modulation (Active Profile) First Active Subcarrier (Hz) 37 94 4K 1840 QAM 4096 1108 3.1 Downstream channels Channel ID Locked Status RxMER Data (dB) PLC Power (dBmV) Corrected errors (Active Profile) Uncorrectable errors (Active Profile) 37 Locked 0 3.0 212999039 0New Hub 5 keeps dropping internet connection
I had a new Hub 5 a few weeks ago (replaced a Hub 3 and briefly a Hub 4) and have now had a few times where the internet just stops for a few minutes, then comes back. During the outages I am able to talk to the Hub 5 quite happily via Wi-Fi and see its status page , so this seems to be some kind of internet/cable modem issue rather than a Wi-Fi problem. All our devices lose internet at the same time, even those cabled into the hub via Ethernet. Note that we had zero problems like this with the Hub 3 for all the time it was here (a week or so prior to the Hub 5 arriving). I had a look in the Hub 5 status pages and during the outages had the following things logged: 24-11-2025 14:22:03 critical Unicast Maintenance Ranging attempted - No response - Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 24-11-2025 14:22:03 critical 16 consecutive T3 timeouts while trying to range on upstream channel 8;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 24-11-2025 14:19:04 critical Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 21-11-2025 20:22:41 critical No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 21-11-2025 20:22:40 critical Unicast Maintenance Ranging attempted - No response - Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 21-11-2025 20:22:40 critical 16 consecutive T3 timeouts while trying to range on upstream channel 8;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 21-11-2025 20:22:34 critical Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 16-11-2025 11:09:30 critical Unicast Maintenance Ranging attempted - No response - Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 16-11-2025 11:09:30 critical 16 consecutive T3 timeouts while trying to range on upstream channel 8;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 16-11-2025 11:09:24 critical Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 14-11-2025 17:20:25 critical Unicast Maintenance Ranging attempted - No response - Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 14-11-2025 17:20:25 critical 16 consecutive T3 timeouts while trying to range on upstream channel 8;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; 14-11-2025 17:20:19 critical Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=70:7d:a1:74:e7:45;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:7b:ac:54;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1; None of that means anything to me, but I have found other people with similar issues and this being a total pain to get sorted. I've just called the VM support number and they're going to book a techy to visit on the afternoon of 26th, but being an intermitted fault I suspect it's unlikely it'll do it whilst they're here. The person on the phone saw no issues when they looked at the connection (I'm guessing they don't get to see the Hub logs...) In the 3.0 Downstream Channels bit, one line stands out as significantly different to all the rest: Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors 8 Locked 39 196 761 All the other channels are at low single digits for Pre RS Errors and zero for Post RS Errors. No idea if that's related? The log messages are talking about upstream channel 8 and the above is downstream channel 8. Also, when we had the Hub 3 fitted years ago, a 6dB attenuator was fitted. I have no idea if that's still needed, I recall the installer saying the signal was a bit strong. Perhaps the Hub 5 would work better with this removed, or maybe it even needs a higher value attenuator? Can anyone tell me what range of numbers I should be looking for in the Downstream or Upstream sections? I'm guessing there's a normal operating range for the dBmV power levels? Thanks for any help, advice and suggestions 😊
