Virgin Media

[Gray]

Over the past few weeks [Coming close to 2 weeks now] i have been having really shitty latency. This all was noticed when playing Warcraft. I generally used to have a decent ping however since the past 2 weeks i have been getting some big delays and latency between 500-1000ms+.

I flagged this up to the Warcraft forums and it was there that i noticed that LOTS more people whom are on Virgin Media across the UK are experiencing the exact same issue.

One of the moderators/technicians for Blizzard mentioned it would be best to get into contact with Virgin Media directly about this. I thought they [Blizzard] was infact pulling a quick one, because their own provider has been known in the past to be a cause of a lot of issues regarding connections while in Warcraft.

The days passed and the issue still wasnt resolved. Basically the problem that i have been having is that between 12pm and 9pm [Approx] my connection would be shite. I didnt do much downloading in this time, but when i became concerned that it WAS a Virgin Media problem i found that in the timeframe i was only downloading at about 50-100kb/s on my 4mb connection.

I thought back and recalled how a lot of people on 4mb where also complaining to Blizzard about this. In the end i decided to finally contact Virgin Media about it, because clearly the problem wasnt fixing itself.

I followed their instructions on what to do for them to test everything, included 3 tracerts. Two days later i get a response from them [9am in the morning] to say tests where completed and no problems where located. I sighed a bit.

They asked me to do another tracert, as well as to download some files from a specific source. 4 files i downloaded, from 2 seperate sources. One source i was only getting 50-80kb/s for each file, while the other source i got 200-250kb/s. Virgin Media said if everything was running smooth, i SHOULD get 500kb/s. Dont think i have ever got any of those speeds [and im 1/4 mile from my exchange].

I then started hearing some very scary stories about the tactics that Virgin Media are thinking about employing. I dont know what to think about it and dont know if its a direct bearing on what ive been experiencing.

Cable - News - Virgin Media CEO attacks net neutrality - Digital Spy

I found that after i seen a Youtube clip

YouTube - How to Have Sex with Me? Subscribe & See!

Ignore the Youtube title though, i dont unerstand why they put that title but whatever. Their points seemed valid, but again, i dont know if its just scare mongering...

 

[Ch3tan]

capping would affect your download speed, but it should not affect your ping.

I have had problems before with my cable modem not actually being able to handle the speed of the connection -lots of old kit floating around. Mystic G had loads of problems when he first got cable installed, his problem turned out to be a damaged cable outside his house.

Did you check the service status page when you have had these problems? All you can do is keep trying to escalate it till they send an engineer to have a look.

 

[Binky the Bomb]

When you start having problems, close down WoW and run Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test and check your speeds with london first, then the closest location to your WoW server (If known, do check the WoW website). One of two things may be the problem, VM may be screwing with peoples bandwidth, or there may be a problem in between.

If your bandwidth keeps being dropped, keep complaining, eventually they will get the message. Tell them it happens when playing WoW (and wait for the "We don't support online games" then hit them with the "Not asking you to, just provide the service I pay for so I CAN play. The problem is with your service, not theirs." Yes, had some experience with this.).

They did eventually sort things out when NTL (Sometimes, refunding your months subscription) but with VM, just be thankful if they get it running again.

 

[MYstIC G]

If your cable isn't working properly do the following:

1. Threaten to leave every time you talk to them until it's sorted. Or;
2. Just get Sky. I got more channels and faster broadband for less money.

 

[Gray]

Will have to see what its like over the weekend [Unless Virgin actually work the weekend, unlikely though!].

im not one generally for wanting to switch providers every 5minutes. But i will check the speedtest tomorrow. I had that site listed in my favorites but never thought to check it during the time where issues where arising.

I assume i am going to be looking at the "download/upload" and the ping. Previously i have scored over 4000kb/s but its only at 3700kb/s now. meh. Will see again tomorrow.

The modem i have at the moment is the generic NTL 250 [e08c007]. Been okay for me at the moment. i was thinking of going to get a router a while back but i have decided against it for the moment - I have checked out the modem though but it doesnt mention anywhere [That i can see!] if it is capable of anything more than 4mb cable.

Virgin media some months back said they would be upgrading me [Free of charge!] to 10mb, HOWEVER i have not heard a peep out of them since i recieved the notification.

 

[JingleBells]

I'm on Virgin ADSL, and I have the same probs as you, I'll either get a fairly decent speed, or a decent ping. Some times my ping is ~150 ms to CoD4 servers but I can surf fine, other times I'll get 50ms ping but have an incredibly slow connection. Past midnight I rarely have any problems though, but before that it can be terrible, especially from 4pm on weekdays.

 

[chipper]

tbh its either 1 or 2 things either they are capping the service or the contention ratio is extremely high say 100:1 and the connection is getting battered at the times your on

my advice m8 seriously switch to sky the network is much better its faster alot cheaper and ya get some more channels out of it

can honestly say ive not had 1 problem with latency ping or any sort of capping.

 

[GReaper]

Try some of the connection testing advice here: Broadband F.A.Q.

Virgin Media has a Usenet server with some virginmedia.support.* groups, you can get fairly decent support from virginmedia.support.broadband.cable - usually within a few hours. Try and collect some stats to figure out the problems, you'll need it if you're posting a request for support.

Virgin Media said if everything was running smooth, i SHOULD get 500kb/s. Dont think i have ever got any of those speeds [and im 1/4 mile from my exchange].

Firstly - what exchange? You're on cable not ADSL! Distance isn't so much of a big thing compared to ADSL.

Secondly the 500kB/s is an absolute maximum including all connection overheads, expect about 450kB/s maximum.

 

[Reza]

The links you posted are for traffic shaping.

Your problems sounds like a routing problem during peak hours. Traceroute during these times and check each hop and try to find the bottleneck. With that info chase it up with your ISP to either find an alternative route or to try and force the bottleneck to fix their problem.

If many of you virgin customers go armed with info pointing to the same source, its harder for them to fob you off.


Edit, to clarify:

Contention ratios, capping, traffic shaping and all other potential bandwidth reducing measures shouldn't be effecting your latency to the extent that you are getting 500-1000ms pings.

Latency like that suggests another problem.

 

[GReaper]

Virgin media some months back said they would be upgrading me [Free of charge!] to 10mb, HOWEVER i have not heard a peep out of them since i recieved the notification.

Try this: Where's my upgrade?

One other thing you should be aware of is that they're doing trials to alter traffic management restriction times in certain areas (details here).

 

[Gray]

Ah right, looks like my area is still to be announced shortly then. Will keep tabs on that website!

Anyway... Over the weekend, i was EXPECTING my connection to be even more unstable than the previous days, however to my amazement i suffered very little latency anywhere.

The speedtest results where satisfactory and all was good. Cue Monday. Problems have started once again straight off the bat. Immediately i took a few speedtests while the issues where here.

Heres the 3 results.

First i was in Warcraft. I took the speedtest while Warcraft was running, and selected the French server [In Paris] as that was where the Warcraft servers are [Apparently] located. My download was virtually cut in half

-

Secondly, i then did another speedtest, this time with Warcraft open again, but selecting the London-based server. The results where normal. I was getting the full speed near enough once again.

-

Lastly, i closed down Warcraft and ran another speedtest to Paris. This one was even worse than the one when Warcraft was actually running in the background!

I am starting to suspect than its something to do maybe with European servers that i have problems with. The two French results yeilded low download speeds, as well as high latency.

I tried another European server, this was located in Belgium. I got a low download rate again, BUT i also got a much lower latency than that of France

Virgin said when the problems start, give them a call [... on their 090 number!] and "if" theres a problem with the connection they would reimburse the charges. But for some reason if the servers in the UK are working, i dont think they would reimburse if there is a problem with other EU servers

 

[GReaper]

Speedtest results aren't that helpful. Ideally we need traceroutes (or something similar like PingPlotter) to the IP addresses which you're having problems with.

Selecting a speedtest destination because it's located in the same city just won't give the same information - they might take two entirely different routes even though they're quite close.

 

[MYstIC G]

Sounds to me like your problem is the signal to your cable modem. Every time I had problems on Telewest they were caused because my setup required a tuned signal from the box at the end of the street. Every time my connection went to poo it was because some braindead engineer had de-tagged my cable as having a special setup and re-set it to the defaults.

Might be worth checking your modem logs.

 

[Yaka]

when ntl replaced my 10yr old surfboard modem which couldnt do 10mb for some reason with dinky small vm one. i kept the signal boosters before i returned it. the new black was performing rather shitttly i added both the signal boosters to mine and it werks fine now, mabe you needs them?