NW3 (camden) problems: oversubscribed

WallIT · 25-02-2010, 12:47

Hi,

I've had Virgin since November and never found it reliable at all. Speeds would vary between superfast (>9.7mbps) and super slow (<100kbps) and it would intermittently drop the connection at all times of the day (even very early morning) and all days of the week and weekend. Resetting the modem and router rarely helped.

In December I had enough and badgered the VM customer services to send me an engineer. He immediately identified a problem with the upsteam (or possible downstread, I can't quite remember) power and fitted an attenuator which put the numbers back in the normal range on the modem. He was happy and left.

However, it's still as bad. I called again and was put through to a manager who confirmed Camden is oversubscribed which will cause fluctuating speed and random drop outs. He said there was "a server upgrade" scheduled, but no date has been set. And for as long as it continues I can claim a refund. I've already claimed December, Jan and now Feb. Yet, they still tell me no date has been set for this upgrade.

I'm on the 10mb package and was wondering whether the 50mb service runs off a different 'box' at the 'exchange' (sorry, I'm not familiar with the technicals of cable broadband). If the 10mb service is oversubscribed, will the 20 and 50mb service also be as bad? Alternatively, if I moved to Virgin Business would the service improve, or does that all run from the same 'box'?

I use this line for working remotely and just need a stable connection (rather than raw speed)

Thanks

Mike.

lukenw3 · 08-03-2010, 15:44

I'm on the 20mb service and Virgin have admitted this oversubscription issue in NW3 to me too.

Prior to Jan i was regularly getting speeds of over 10mbps but now I'm lucky to get 2 or 3mbps even at very off peak times..

At peak times this is making the internet pretty much unusable...

If you're in London NW3 and thinking of signing up to Virgin i would seriously think again until this issue is resolved. Virgin have not been able to reassure me that this will be fixed in the near future.

It's crazy how I can be in the middle of London with a fiber optic cable coming in my wall and still not able to get a decent internet connection!!

pip08456 · 08-03-2010, 17:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by lukenw3

I'm on the 20mb service and Virgin have admitted this oversubscription issue in NW3 to me too.

Prior to Jan i was regularly getting speeds of over 10mbps but now I'm lucky to get 2 or 3mbps even at very off peak times..

At peak times this is making the internet pretty much unusable...

If you're in London NW3 and thinking of signing up to Virgin i would seriously think again until this issue is resolved. Virgin have not been able to reassure me that this will be fixed in the near future.

It's crazy how I can be in the middle of London with a fiber optic cable coming in my wall and still not able to get a decent internet connection!!

Would be great if you had fibre optic coming into your wall but you don't. You have copper coming from the street cab.

lukenw3 · 08-03-2010, 18:39

Fair point

m419 · 08-03-2010, 19:04

Its fine in NW1 Camden.

There are a lot of Virgin Media TV and Internet customers in Camden and Islington compared to the rest of London. Maybe that is the problem.

Ignitionnet · 09-03-2010, 00:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by m419

Its fine in NW1 Camden.

There are a lot of Virgin Media TV and Internet customers in Camden and Islington compared to the rest of London. Maybe that is the problem.

Nah just VM being slack about capacity planning and management. We can assume there hasn't been a sudden huge uptake of customers in those areas and that growth has been fairly steady, so it's VM being late with upgrades and/or not fixing the DOCSIS 3 overbulid up before it became an 'issue'.

Probably shovelled a load of customers onto the overlay network congesting some upstreams going by the abrupt drop OP reports in January.

Either way there are very few areas where there are acceptable 'issues' and a large amount of customers should be an incentive to stay on the ball with capacity planning, the issue would be if there were not that many customers with high bandwidth usage such as a student area where there are multiple people on each modem.

lukenw3 · 12-03-2010, 17:18

Today i've been given June the 28th as a potential fix date for this issue by VM.. /sigh - sadly this is just not good enough.

WallIT · 12-03-2010, 17:32

June?!?! unbelievable!

I see VM have started advertising their broadband to businesses recently. If I had my business in NW3 and started using them I would be livid. Also, you can guarantee if my neighbour rang VM and asked for a new service they'd happily install it, whereas they should be honest and say "Sir, you don't want our broadband. It's oversubscribed and you'll have a terrible service until probably the summer".

It's just like 02 in central london. They sell too many iphones and clog up their network. They issue an apology, but do they stop selling them to stem the problem? - no, they willingly continue taking new customers on-board knowing they're only going to get a sub-par service.

Rubbish. Problem with VM is you can never tell before you've got the line installed and signed up to a contract. There should be a 30-day cooling off period where if the line doesn't perform you can have it uninstalled. I guess it pays to speak to your neighbours about what they are using and their experiences.