[Merged] Virgin National ADSL speed/congestion issues

**Chris** · 21-02-2010, 20:03

Are any Virgin National (ADSL) users experiencing issues with their download speeds at the moment?

Here's the speed test I just ran:

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the DSL stats in my router so I think I'm right in saying this isn't a local line quality issue. They look like this:

Quote:

DSL Status: UP DSL Modulation Mode: GDMT DSL Path Mode: INTERLEAVED Downstream Rate: 3040 Kbps Upstream Rate: 448 Kbps Downstream Margin: 4 db Upstream Margin: 17 db Downstream Line Attenuation: 60 Upstream Line Attenuation: 31 Downstream Transmit Power: 0 Upstream Transmit Power: 0

I know attenuation is pants, but that's normal for my line. I'm a long way from the exchange.

The BT speed test site confirms my BRAS profile hasn't nose-dived either; it's set at 2500k, which is where it has been for a few months now. However it does seem to think the speed is below the acceptable minimum for my line...

dilligaf1701 · 21-02-2010, 20:08

Actually now that you mention it.... I am having problems today.

**Chris** · 21-02-2010, 20:08

Supplementary question:

Does anyone know what password to use with the BT speed tester when your router insists on using one? The instructions are only valid for people who are changing their connection settings in IE; they're no use when your Linksys router refuses to save connection settings with the password field blank!

I have the test username already, it's bt_test_user@adsl.virgin.net, but a default password would be nice!

Ignitionnet · 21-02-2010, 21:19

Looking in this very forum Chris there seems to be a bit of a spike of issues.

From what I'm reading there may be something up with the traffic shaping, pings aren't too bad but speeds suck for people.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/vir...yone-else.html
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...ice/td-p/27792

**Chris** · 21-02-2010, 23:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

Looking in this very forum Chris there seems to be a bit of a spike of issues.

From what I'm reading there may be something up with the traffic shaping, pings aren't too bad but speeds suck for people.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/vir...yone-else.html
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...ice/td-p/27792

Bummer.

Well, I just checked again and got this:

I never seem to be able to find my way to the details for VM's ADSL service, I always end up on their cable pages. What are the terms of traffic shaping on ADSL, anyone?

I know I'm certainly not tripping the thing myself, we get nowhere near what you'd describe as heavy downloading in this house.

moaningmags · 22-02-2010, 00:12

http://help.virginmedia.com/system/s...ice.controller

should help

Scrap that, it doesn't, still looking though

I went to www.virginmedia.com ten clicked Help at the top right hand side.
Then selected National, than All Broadband Connection Help and it's on page 5.

**Chris** · 22-02-2010, 09:27

Hmmm

Completely normal.

Mags - I had a look there but may have got lost along the way. I'll keep trying though.

Meantime, does anyone know what password to use with bt_test_user@adsl.virgin.net when you have a router that will not allow you to leave the password field blank? There are a number of forum posts on this around the 'net, most are unanswered and one or two suggest you can put anything in, as it will be ignored. Tried that last night and it didn't work ...

Ignitionnet · 22-02-2010, 09:50

If it's congestion related as a number of people suggest Chris it'll degrade as time goes on and people come online. Pretty low usage on broadband networks still at this time.

See how it goes when the little ones are back from school

moaningmags · 22-02-2010, 17:36

I followed the steps that I followed last night and

it's gone!

So I checked again and found it here:-

http://www.virgin.net/allyours/faqs/...gementFAQ.html

It's still showing as virgin.net but it's the only one I can find.

**Chris** · 22-02-2010, 20:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

See how it goes when the little ones are back from school

Well, here we go:

It is never normally this bad at this time of the evening. Normally I can stream SD content from the iPlayer no problem during the evening, but with these stats, no way.

Am I being STM'd? I shouldn't be, there is absolutely no way my downloading could get me anywhere near the threshold (not that the threshold is very clearly defined in their terms).

dilligaf1701 · 22-02-2010, 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris

Well, here we go:

It is never normally this bad at this time of the evening. Normally I can stream SD content from the iPlayer no problem during the evening, but with these stats, no way.

Am I being STM'd? I shouldn't be, there is absolutely no way my downloading could get me anywhere near the threshold (not that the threshold is very clearly defined in their terms).

Well i AM being traffic shaped (as I am supposed to be at the moment 'cause of what I've been downloading). So here is my test for comparison.

I still get 6.2mb/s spot on during the day.

**Chris** · 22-02-2010, 20:17

You gotta love the way they route traffic on their National service, Speedtest thinks I'm closer to Milton Keynes than you.

It does look like the muppets are throttling me though. Any ideas how I can take this forward? I can't be doing with phoning them up if I'm just going to get a 'computer says noooooh' line from someone who assumes that if I'm being throttled, I must therefore have done something to deserve it ...

**Chris** · 09-03-2010, 20:05

A comment on Rory Cellan-Jones' blog made me remember this thread yesterday. It was a user claiming he had phoned VM National tech support to complain about his download speed, and been told that VM had under-estimated customer growth this year, resulting in congestion and poor download speeds. Also that this should be rectified within a couple of weeks. Does this sound likely?

My downloads continue to fall off a cliff every evening. Half an hour ago I had about 750k down, now I have this:

... which is a great big pile of old pants.

I used to be able to download a one-hour programme from iPlayer (approx 650MB) in about an hour, or else have immediate viewing by streaming it in reasonably good quality. But it has been several weeks now since this was possible. I downloaded something last night and the iPlayer was predicting more than four hours.

fireman328 · 09-03-2010, 21:29

Mine is usual, poor.

pip08456 · 09-03-2010, 22:32

Can't really blame VM for that as distance from the exchange is a problem for all ADSL packages.