Finally an honest answer from VM.......

jimrobo · 01-12-2007, 17:01

I thought I'd post my recent experiences in case anyone else is in my area benefits and might get some advance notice of VM support issues or lack of.

Over the past few months i have had serious speed problems. AM is great I can almost get 15 Mb/s, however after 12-1pm my connection just drops. Normally to around 500 kb/s but sometimes as low as 200 kb/s. This is then constant for the rest of the day. I have called tech support several times and each time they say it is my computer. a few times they have said I need a tech to sort my speed issues out. The last 2 times I have had an engineer it has been the same engineer and has left after 5 mins. His comments were as follows:

engineer:speed issues?
Me: Yes
engineer:I'm on the same UBR on my home connection and have the same problem its just over utilisation. Nothing I can do for you.

engineer then leaves

Recently I have tried the newgroups for support. They have spent a week telling me my connection shows no problems then after i posted what the engineer said they say they cannot give me any further information.

Finally got through to a manager today in customer services who said they will get someone to call me back. 20 mins later i get a call from someone telling me that the ubr I am on is simply overscribed. They told me it was in over utilisation 80 percent of the time. They will have to resegment my ubr and add another server. When I asked when this will happen there was a pause and the answer was there was no scheduled date for this. I thanked him for at least being honest but it has taken me over 4 weeks and 2 engineer visits before someone would eventually admit anything other than it was my computer that was the problem. I will probably be cancelling first thing on monday morning as I have completely lost trust in anything anyone tells me from VM support staff.

Incidently anyone on bagueley 6 may be experiencing similar problems and if you are I have answered your problem but unfortunately it isn't going to be fixed.

Jonnymeg · 01-12-2007, 18:10

well at least you will be freeing up a little space on it!

Gary L · 01-12-2007, 18:11

They have no intention of fixing anything. they are only bothered about this 50Mb and they will carry on fobbing everybody off until late next year when they think everyones problems will be solved. the only problems there will be is that all their existing customers have ****ed off because they were ****ed off. and then we'll all have to get ****ed off with all the new ads saying how great the 50Mb is and please come back we know we ****ed you off, but we wanted to do this 50Mb thing

jimrobo · 01-12-2007, 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jonnymeg

well at least you will be freeing up a little space on it!

not really I don't use it for downloading I use it for trading so don't use much bandwidth i just need it to contact the server very fast. Was going to try be broadband but they have told me I'll only get 4 mb/s so looks like i'm stuck with virgin.........................................

piggy · 01-12-2007, 18:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimrobo

not really I don't use it for downloading I use it for trading so don't use much bandwidth i just need it to contact the server very fast. Was going to try be broadband but they have told me I'll only get 4 mb/s so looks like i'm stuck with virgin.........................................

a constant 4mb is better than a intermittent service imo, my issue with problems like this is now you have been told yes your service is dire and wont be fixed anytime soon you still keep it!!! this is a general comment by the way not a personal dig

Impz2002 · 01-12-2007, 18:50

The 50mb package will be good for the infrastructure as it puts less load on the UBR's so people who sign up to it will be freeing space on the standard DOCSIS equipment. they are likely to get thier full 50mb speed too !

obviously something needs to be done before the end of next year though !

Impz

jimrobo · 01-12-2007, 19:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Impz2002

The 50mb package will be good for the infrastructure as it puts less load on the UBR's so people who sign up to it will be freeing space on the standard DOCSIS equipment. they are likely to get thier full 50mb speed too !

obviously something needs to be done before the end of next year though !

Impz

Any chance you could expand on this post for the not so technically advanced?! Also don't suppose you have a roll out date for the new 50 mb service?

Quote:

Originally Posted by piggy

a constant 4mb is better than a intermittent service imo, my issue with problems like this is now you have been told yes your service is dire and wont be fixed anytime soon you still keep it!!! this is a general comment by the way not a personal dig

I agree with you!!! But unfortunately i don't have much choice! I am 4km from the local bt exchange which means 2 mb/s on adsl max and 4 mb/s on adsl 2 so I have to take a risk on virgin fixing my connection if I want anything faster than 4 MB/s

stewlewis · 02-12-2007, 11:03

I'm on a Baguley UBR, cpc4-stok8-0-0-cust879.bagu.cable.ntl.com , ST5.

Engineer didn't come to visit me on Friday, but called, and said the same, it's oversubscribed. He did say that extra 'boards' have been added to the UBR (scheduled for) this week and they are in the process of spreading the load across those. He went on to say they have/will move people to one section (and really load it) while they add the extra equipment before moving them back over to the new equipment, so adding to the problem for a short while.

These upgrades are going on 'all over' across the country. I should notice a difference next week........

Sirpingalot · 02-12-2007, 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by stewlewis

I'm on a Baguley UBR, cpc4-stok8-0-0-cust879.bagu.cable.ntl.com , ST5.

Engineer didn't come to visit me on Friday, but called, and said the same, it's oversubscribed. He did say that extra 'boards' have been added to the UBR (scheduled for) this week and they are in the process of spreading the load across those. He went on to say they have/will move people to one section (and really load it) while they add the extra equipment before moving them back over to the new equipment, so adding to the problem for a short while.

These upgrades are going on 'all over' across the country. I should notice a difference next week........

Is this difference going to happen on the entire of the baguley network or just your particular UBR? And when you say next week..you mean, tommorow?

Impz2002 · 02-12-2007, 17:38

im not totally au fait with the inner workings of the DOCSIS3 standard myself but i am fairly certain it makes use of more frequencies on the network therefore allowing more concurrent connections through the same bandwith than if everything was running on DOCSIS1.

Traxdata is the guy who seems to know the ins and outs of it so maybe he can spread more light on it.

Also there is quite a good Wikipedia article about all the DOCSIS standards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docsis

The 50Meg product is in a trial stage at present (I beleive in Ashford, Kent) and is slated for launch Q4 2008.

Impz

Rone · 02-12-2007, 18:16

Nice to know they are still obsessed with trying to sell the "we are the fastest" to the public.

stewlewis · 02-12-2007, 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sirpingalot

Is this difference going to happen on the entire of the baguley network or just your particular UBR? And when you say next week..you mean, tommorow?

The feeling I got from the engineer is the upgrade is happening everywhere. My associated UBR had or was being upgraded this week just gone, the change over and load balancing to be completed next week, next week being sometime within the week I guess. I didn't get a definite, tomorrow.

I'm still on 400k today, let's hope the completion is sooner rather than later, and that it makes a difference.

Sirpingalot · 02-12-2007, 21:20

Yes, instead of selling speeds (or rather lack of), I'd much rather they sold a solid, even if slightly slower than the current advertised speeds connection.

stewlewis · 02-12-2007, 21:26

Perhaps a 'down to' guaranteed minimum, rather than an 'up to', joined to the hub via 1 metre of pure unobtainium cables, maximum.

At least with that sales pitch they would have justified complaints when folks drop below their advertised rather than everyone complaining that can't get advertised speeds.

Sirpingalot · 03-12-2007, 08:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by stewlewis

Perhaps a 'down to' guaranteed minimum, rather than an 'up to', joined to the hub via 1 metre of pure unobtainium cables, maximum.

At least with that sales pitch they would have justified complaints when folks drop below their advertised rather than everyone complaining that can't get advertised speeds.

Unfortunately, unless a connection is 1:1 there will always be things out of their control that means they cant guaruntee a certain speed. It's just when things get as bad as to only give the customer 1/40th of what they're paying for. That's what REALLY annoys me.