Manchester - the honeymoon period is over then

Retrovertigo · 23-09-2009, 21:13

So, the promise of better speeds with the onset of 50meg in Manchester, rather conveniently only lasted the summer while the students were away.

Seems convenient that the 50meg switch coincided with the students going home for the summer, resulting in top speeds all day long over the holiday period.

But now the students are back, the speed is rapidly falling. Down to 10 meg now (on my 20meg line) and that is with a lot of them still not properly settled in. It has been coming down each evening.

What makes matters worse, is tech support openly admitting that this area is over subscribed, and yet over the last 2 weeks there have been countless flyers stuffed through the front doors of the flats around here.

I know I have said it before, but I find it incredible that a company can be allowed to over sell a service, give poor speeds to people in certain areas, and instead of fixing it, they are actually trying to take on more customers and make it worse. The mind boggles, it really does.

I do wish I didn't struggle getting all my equipment set up with static I.P addresses etc. It is the one thing stopping me going somewhere else. The dreaded thought of getting my games consoles etc all hooked up and working again. It was a nightmare first time around.

Paul · 23-09-2009, 21:15

Wouldn't be that bad, if all your machines are on static IPs most routers will handle the setup without issues.

kibblerok · 27-09-2009, 22:02

Getting huge speed issues now in south Manchester the last few days.

Every f***ing year this happens and it takes them ages to fix too in the mean time it gets worse and worse as they pile more students in.

Support won't do anything, "your settings look fine our end" and "speed tests aren't reliable sir" and thats it. Cretins.

Retrovertigo · 27-09-2009, 22:12

I posted on the support newsgroups about the issue and was told at first that it was a temp glitch (haha) - posted again as now down to 5meg in the evening. Tech support are informing me that "speeds vary in the evening from those advertised.

So there you have it, tech support think £30 per month for 5meg at the time of day when most people use the net is acceptable. Incredible.

edit: what they always fail to get through their stupidly thick skulls, is that the issues that cause speed drops, affect performance on stuff like Xbox Live. You end up with huge lag and therefore unplayable games. Just because I get 5meg, doesn't mean my line acts like a 5 meg line. It acts like a 20meg line being hammered. It ruins everything, not just download speeds.

I wish Manchester University would disappear down a great big hole and never return.

Hazanko · 27-09-2009, 22:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Retrovertigo

I posted on the support newsgroups about the issue and was told at first that it was a temp glitch (haha) - posted again as now down to 5meg in the evening. Tech support are informing me that "speeds vary in the evening from those advertised.

So there you have it, tech support think £30 per month for 5meg at the time of day when most people use the net is acceptable. Incredible.

edit: what they always fail to get through their stupidly thick skulls, is that the issues that cause speed drops, affect performance on stuff like Xbox Live. You end up with huge lag and therefore unplayable games. Just because I get 5meg, doesn't mean my line acts like a 5 meg line. It acts like a 20meg line being hammered. It ruins everything, not just download speeds.

I wish Manchester University would disappear down a great big hole and never return.

Yeah, just check out my post. They won't even move me to Docsis 3. I wish they could get sued for stuff like this.

pip08456 · 27-09-2009, 22:25

There is no ISP in the UK that guarantees their speeds. All connections are sold as "UP TO" which gives them all a big get out.

If the ASA got more complaints about this then things might happen (they are looking into it atm). The more that complain the quicker things will happen like ISP's (VM included) would have to state a minimum supplied.

I must admit though VM are without doubt the worst for oversubscription in some areas.

Retrovertigo · 27-09-2009, 22:30

Well, I was moved to docsis 3 (apparently) but as I said in my first post, this tied in with the students leaving Manchester for the summer. This was done by purpose by VM I have no doubt. It gives the illusion that things have been sorted, when in fact, there is simply a lack of customers initially.

I am now back to how I was before the move to docsis 3. Same poor performance in the evenings. I am genuinely curious to know how many people went with 50 meg in Manchester in and around Fallowfield etc. and how it is performing. I suspect that most are student houses wanting a large speed to share amongst a house full of people and it then gets hammered, with none of them caring how well it performs as they are sharing the cost between 4 or 5 people. And of course, ruining it for everyone else.

It must be the biggest problem around my neighbourhood. Students having a house full of people all trying to use the net at once. If each home here was a regular house with a typical family, none of these problems would occur I reckon.

Retrovertigo · 28-09-2009, 00:30

What should the downstream power level be these days? Initially before summer, my level was over 10 so they added an attenuator. Then when an engineer called he added a second one, so I have this ridiculous chain sticking off the back of my modem. That took my power level to around 3, but checking tonight and despite the daisy chain of attenuators, it is up around 9+ again. Without the attenuators, that means it would be around the 15 dBmv mark, which is surely way too high?

kibblerok · 10-10-2009, 19:10

Still slow here... Tech support sent me a new modem - it didn't work surprisingly enough

Called up tech support again after the modem went in who now said there is maintenance in the area, I asked what the maintenance was and why it had lasted over 2 weeks. She couldn't tell me but that there was 'maintenance' going on and they are aware its slow - but couldnt tell me what was going on or give me any date/reference or what they were doing.

They also refused to log an issue or complaint and told me to write in for that - so as far as VM know - everything is fine

Arse and elbow!

Retrovertigo · 11-10-2009, 22:44

I've just posted on the newsgroups again. They reckon an issue was raised on the 29th Sept.

Can't wait for the area manager to call me this week and justify all this. Should be interesting hearing why I'm still paying £30 for a service with a fault, never mind all the other issues.

It has really hit a new low tonight for me as well. Around 50k download speed off newsgroups. The mother of all broadbands!

caph · 12-10-2009, 13:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Retrovertigo

Well, I was moved to docsis 3 (apparently)

I'd be very interested to know if you are still on a docsis 3 cmts. I know of other 20Mb users that were moved to a 50Mb unit then moved back again a week or two later. They even tried that stunt on me.

If you are still on a 50mb unit then this could well be the first incident of oversubscription on the new kit.

You can check if you are on a 50mb unit by looking in your modem event log at the docsis version your modem registered with (docsis1.0 = old kit, docsis 1.1 = new kit).

Retrovertigo · 12-10-2009, 15:42

Well, quelle surprise - docsis 1.0

After all the fuss they made insisting I was being moved, and it is what had cause my problems when my modem needed replacing.

I give up.

eldoctore · 13-10-2009, 17:50

Now quite anxious, new to all this. Due 50meg install tmoz, Eccles area, limited student population, but....... So what ought I to seek from the engineer before he goes, and anything I can easily check post oinstall?

webcrawler2050 · 13-10-2009, 17:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by eldoctore

Now quite anxious, new to all this. Due 50meg install tmoz, Eccles area, limited student population, but....... So what ought I to seek from the engineer before he goes, and anything I can easily check post oinstall?

Wait untill installed. Go from there..

Sephiroth · 13-10-2009, 19:07

Notingthat Retrovertigo now needs to sort out the subscription he has, I was reflecting on this university question.

When the kid gets home, it gets Daddy's nice 20/50 Mbps.

But when they're in their off-uni shared house, one of them will have an O2 mobile or something like that and set up a £7 8Mbps service or for a bit more dosh the 15 Mbps service.

I doubt that the proportion of VM uni subscribers is high.

Anybody else agree?