Extremely poor service ongoing, stuck in escalation cycle for 6 months+

humptymoo · 11-12-2007, 19:35

Hi, new to these forums (first post) and unfortunately it's not full of xmas good cheer.

I have been with NTL just before Virgin came in, I had the 10Mbit line that is now 20Mbit line. Ever since it was installed I have had an ongoing issue whereby the modem de-syncs with the network and is off for an intermittent time period. This has got steadily worse these last 3 months to the point I am estimating about 50% uptime (no exaggeration).

Interestingly, a friend I work with lives across the road from me also has the same issues nearly always at the same times and for the same length of time...obviously though engineers think you're sooth saying when you tell them this "oh no the sky is falling!"

As this connection when it's up is (imo) vastly superior to ADSL (which has its own set of woes. I have a "you'll be lucky to see 4Mbit let alone 8Mbit" service) I have persevered with tech support.

7 Engineers (not including the 2 that never bothered to show) and 1 Network guy later I am still in the same position. I have made 2 official complaints and am about to send my 3rd. It's always the same routine no matter how hard I plead, beg, make cups of tea etc:

Engineer turns up, um's and ahh's, attaches new modem, tests line, agrees that it looks like a network issue (if they are switched on and know what they are doing, otherwise its the "run for the door" not much I can do mate.), promises to escalate it, leaves, that's the last you hear of that. So back to the support line!!!! Round and round in circles.

So, does anyone else have any suggestions on how I could get around this seemingly endless circle of frustration that would make even the most hardened civil servant look on in wonder and amazement? Below are answers to the questions posted in the sticky about pleas for support, I would dearly appreciate any help you can offer, sorry my first post had to be one geared towards venting frustration:

1)What, specifically, is your issue?

Modem desyncs with network, below is a recurring set of log entries:

1 Critical(3) 68000300 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
1 Critical(3) 82000200 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
60 Critical(3) 84000100 SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/Q...
91 Critical(3) 84000200 SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire FEC f...
1 Critical(3) 82000700 Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - Re- initializing MAC
4 Critical(3) 82000200 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
1 Critical(3) 82000700 Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - Re- initializing MAC
4 Critical(3) 82000200 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
1 Critical(3) 82000700 Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - Re- initializing MAC
2 Critical(3) 82000200 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
1 Critical(3) 82000700 Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - Re- initializing MAC
2 Critical(3) 82000200 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
1 Critical(3) 82000700 Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - Re- initializing MAC
1 Critical(3) 68000300 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.

a) Is there a specific time that this issue is most prevalent?
No, it is seemingly random ranging from a few minutes to several days at a time.

b) How long has this issue been going on? (days, weeks, months etc)
6 Months+ but particularly bad these last 3 months.

2) Do you have cable TV? If so, is there any reception degradation?
No cable TV, just the Broadband XL 20Mbit flavour.

3) Have you contacted customer support about this problem? If so, what did they say?
Yes many times, they say "please be recycling the windows" then "will book engineer" On occasion I have not gone oversea's the rep has looked at the modem remotely (when its been up on rare occasion) and stated "I can see you have an intermittent issue, I will book an engineer"

4) What troubleshooting steps have you taken to resolve this problem? (aka: if you haven't tried to help yourself, why should *we* help you?)
I have checked the entire path of the cable from the exit of the tube through my garden to the back of the modem for visible degradation, I have tried letting the modem cool, switched it off and on, hired a Luton van to run it over multiple times, emptied the gas tanks on Richard Branson's air balloon.

5 Who you are and what you have
a) Where in the country are you?
Reading UBR 10

b) What is your operating system?
Windows XP pro sp2 patched up

c) What is your home network setup? Provide details.
CAT5e booted cable from Nforce 100Mbit onboard NIC into Ethernet port on back of, now VM 255, but same setup when was on the NTL 250, the sync issue with modem is regardless of whether I am plugged into it or not tho...tested that just to make sure. Both 255 and 250 do exact same desync attached or unattached to PC.

d) If you have more than one computer, is the problem occurring on all other machines?
Yes happens on my laptop also as well as a friends laptop and my mums computer and one of the engineers laptop. Strangely it also happens when its sailing through the window into my back garden...

e) Are you running a firewall of any sort? Have you ever installed one? Did you try to turn it off during troubleshooting?
Yes, yes and yes. Same thing happens with windows firewall, zone alarm, mcafee and some pony thing my brother inlaw uses.

f) Please supply a traceroute from you to www.bbc.co.uk in text format
C:\Documents and Settings\Humptastic>tracert www.bbc.co.uk
Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.253.72]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 10 ms 8 ms 8 ms xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
2 10 ms 12 ms 35 ms rdng-t2cam1-a-ge98.inet.ntl.com [62.253.122.57]
3 18 ms 12 ms 9 ms winn-t3core-1a-ge-014-0.inet.ntl.com [195.182.178.101]
4 11 ms 12 ms 11 ms win-bb-a-so-130-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.184.113]
5 28 ms 10 ms 11 ms gfd-bb-b-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.172.130]
6 11 ms 12 ms 11 ms redb-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.78]
7 11 ms 12 ms 11 ms 212.58.238.189
8 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 212.58.238.133
9 13 ms 11 ms 11 ms fe0-0.rt0-frontpost.prodgw.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.222]
10 11 ms 22 ms 13 ms www3.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.253.72]
Trace complete.

6) Further Info: If you're posting about:
a) Connectivity issues: Please post a
line test
If you think it would help in this case please let me know how or where I can get the info on how to do this.

b) Speed issues: Please post at least one speed test which tests speed in both directions.
No issues with speed when it’s running, it does what it says on the tin in that department, hence the reason I think it worth pursuing to get this fixed.

c) For latency issues please post traceroutes and pings to some major sites in the UK. www.bbc.co.uk, www.nildram.net, etc
No latency issues when it's running.

Wow...epic post, if you read this far you have done well!

Thanks and best regards,

Hump T. Moo

Nedkelly · 11-12-2007, 19:39

What are the levels like ? 192.168.100.1 upstream and downstream and the snr like ?

humptymoo · 11-12-2007, 19:52

I am unable to check those at present as it's down again strangely, i'll post them when I can but I can tell you they fluctuate over quite a large range when the modem has desynced in that small time before i lose the internal address.

The upstream will go as high as 61 and low as 20dbmv and the downstream will go as low as -9.8 and as high as +18dbmv with SNR at about 36.0 which of the readings seems more stable.

Thinks thats the right way round, memory is not what it once was

Nedkelly · 11-12-2007, 19:57

If the upstream is going to 61 dbmv then you have a problem as this will cause the modem to drop off .if others in the street have the same problem then it could be the amp failing

humptymoo · 11-12-2007, 20:29

oh dear, I had a network engineer round after I got one (and only one) escalation that worked and he said he didn't know what it was so he reset my physical connection to the cabinet, he did mention in passing though that we are due an upgrade in that area as we still run the old amps and whatever the other stuff he said was.

That will be first quarter next year though earliest....I have no chance till then basically if I have had no luck in 6+ months

Thanks for your thoughts tho,

Regards

Humpty

Impz2002 · 11-12-2007, 23:41

Wow,

I admire your self discipline ! I would have blown a rather large fuse after that lot !

humptymoo · 12-12-2007, 09:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Impz2002

Wow,

I admire your self discipline ! I would have blown a rather large fuse after that lot !

I have a backup ADSL line which although rather like 2 yoghurt pots with string, is half way reliable so im never really dead in the water.

The reason for my patience is i'm kind of now going along the path of "ok how much are you prepared to spend not to fix the problem". I not only don't recommend VM to people now, I strongly urge them to avoid it at all costs and to tell others to do the same. 7 engineers and a network guy has to have cost them a good piece of my pie also, not to mention the fact that each month i'm claiming back my downtime.

I really thought VM would bring a bit of welcome improvement over the old NTL but so far if anything it's got worse.

So anyway, back to nibbling at their revenue.