NTL 10MB Contention Rates

[tigr10]

Hi,

Over the last month, I have seen poor performance on my 10MB connection in small time windows (typically 7:30 - 8:30am). The problem presents itself as packet loss. A ping to www.google.com during this time will typically lead to *75%* packet loss.

Would I be correct to assume this is caused by a contention rate problem, i.e. too many people in the area (Norwich) trying to use the connection at the same time?

It doesn't happen every morning, so it could be related to a NTL maintenance window.

I've also noticed over the last few months that my max download speed has dropped and typically varies on the same resource at different times of the day. I used to get the full 10Mb speed (approx. 900k a sec download), but now it only goes to approx. 100-200k a second for the same resources (and they haven't changed).

I wanted to check with others on the board. Also, does anyone have any information relating to the contention rates used for NTL 10MB service? I can't find anything on the Virgin Media site relating to this.

[derwill]

I have recently signed up for the 10MB service. I was happy with it for the first 3 days. It has since then become a joke, I am running speedtests and coming up with 256k download and about 56k upload at radom times. Pages are not loading, and VPN connections are failing. It has just become SLOW. I am not happy with this and was wondering if I am the only one having these problems.

[ninteh]

ntl is like 20:1 or something i heard.. not 100% on that though. I used to have really bad lag at parts of the day, so some engineer came out from ntl and put a signal boost thing on the modem and it never lags now, on torrent sites i get about 1.24MB/s at any time of day or night =D s'all good

[Graham M]

LoL, what is this? The first timer's thread!?

[ninteh]

lul i look on here a lot but obviously havnt bin arsed to reply :}

[Carl J]

No contention ratio is offered or mentioned.

25:1 was a figure banded about a while ago, before 10Mbit / 4Mbit / 2Mbit upgrades. No contention ratio is attempted now, the provided contention ratio appears to be down to a combination of usage, cost of providing more bandwidth, and complaints received.

[opollo]

Ive just joined this forum as my ntl 4meg svc has recently been dire since
the take over, I see what is happenin to me is the same with yours. Im no
literary genius for speakin on a forum or IT pro but i can tell when my svc
goes to the dogs.

[swapshop1]

Mine is superb, full speed. I'm sure there could be bad spots in an overall good area, or good spots in an overall bad area. We have no way of knowing which it is! I've seen reports of Lincoln being bad, but in Birchwood (Lincoln city) its fantastic.

[tigr10]

Here's an update on this issue. Yesterday at 3pm I rebooted the router and the entire connection failed. Called NTL (sorry Virgin Media) and problem was diagnosed as a broken cable modem/router.

Engineer called this morning. Took one look at router and said "Oh, you have a 120. What connection speed are you on?". I said 10MB. He said "ah, the 120 can't handle that".

Router was replaced with 250. No packet loss since then and everything seems to be running fine. An extra gain plug was also placed on the back of the new router by the engineer.

Now putting aside the fact that Virgin Media should know I have a 10MB connection and a 120 modem, so an update *was* needed, I hope this helps others in a similar situation.

[Horace]

Are 250's standard issue now for 10meg? I'm still using a 120 and limiting connections to it to stop it crashing. Just wondered if a phone call to request a replacement would suffice or do I need another reason other than I'm on 10meg ?

[woodenbelly]

if you have any modem apart from the 250 on 10 meg the download speeds are shocking .
contact VM and log a fault, and then ask for an engineer to come out he will replace the old modem with a 250 model.
Then you can try and get a rebate from VM as the older modems are not capable of 10 meg connection.