Sloooow (yes, problem with internet speed)

[Amp34]

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone was in the Plymouth area and had serious issues with their speed?

We are on the 20Mb service with VM and at the moment get less than 1Mbps

eg. now

Download Failed (1)

This has been going on for a month, and no matter what time of day it never goes above 1Mbps. When we first got it installed we had 20Mbps no problems, but a couple of weeks later this happened.

This is just beyond a joke, the other problem is although we have a landline with them as well we don't actually have a phone (or socket) so if we want to contact them it's only via mobile, and the bills add up.:mad:

[moaningmags]

Remove any routers, connect direct to the modem and run the tests again.
Borrow a wired phone, if you have a landline with them there has to be a socket somewhere. But if there isn't, you can contact support through the VM newgroups and they can troubleshoot with you from there via messaging.

Which modem do you have and can you post the power levels and signal to noise ratio from it's config pages, found at 192.168.100.1 root for username and password if it asks for it.

[Amp34]

Thanks, could you tell me the address for the newsgroup?

Is this what you want in the config page?

Downstream Lock : Locked
Downstream Channel Id : 3
Downstream Frequency : 331000000 Hz
Downstream Modulation : QAM64
Downstream Symbol Rate : 5056.941 Ksym/sec
Downstream Interleave Depth : taps32Increment4
Downstream Receive Power Level : -13.1 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 30.7 dB


On the base of the modem it states Trade name: Ambit

EDIT: Just connected straight to the modem and got no better speeds (still only 17-30 KBps) so it doesn't seem to be hardware related on our side.

[bones57]

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone was in the Plymouth area and had serious issues with their speed?

We are on the 20Mb service with VM and at the moment get less than 1Mbps



I don’t think you’ll have much joy – I also have the 20MB package and have had the same problems, also in the Plymouth area, for ages.

All incoming signals, modem levels, etc are fine. When a technician finally turned up, he confirmed all this, and that technically there was nothing wrong, and whilst here also confirmed that my download speed was less than 2 MB – although when he connected his service modem to my PC download speed reached just under 10MB (this was during afternoon STM period).

Basically, I was offered a new modem, but the problem persists. According to the area manager, this is not an over-subscribed are (central Plymouth), and there has been no further explanation offered.

[jcm193]

Iam on newton abbot and I`m currently only getting around 1mbps on a 20 meg connection

[MojoUK]

Us folk in Plymouth get our feed from Newton Abbot btw. ;)

[Amp34]

So they have no idea why the whole area is running slow? Sounds a bit strange to me, did it only start about a month ago for you too, as we had pretty much full speed for the first week or so of our contract.

I guess the best bet then is to phone up and ask for a massive discount on our internet connection as I'm really not willing to pay loads more for a seriously substandard connection.

[moaningmags]

The following link shows you how to set up newsgroups to get support from VM

http://www.virginmedia.com/customers/newsgroups/setting-up.php

If it's Outlook Express, open it go to Tools > Accounts > Add Newsgroup
Be careful of using your proper e-mail address, put an extra space in it to avoid the spam bots.


NNTP Server is news.virginmedia.com

Then look for the virginmedia groups, the one you want is

virginmedia.support.broadband.cable

Post your queries there, where support monitor the groups from 8am - 10pm

To me, part of your issue looks like being caused by

"Downstream Receive Power Level : -13.1 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 30.7 dB"

Power level is too low and SNR is borderline.

Post those levels there along with results from trial downloads and they will, hopefull, tell you where the problem is.

HTH

[Amp34]

Thanks, i'll give that a try tomorrow. :)

[watzizname]

Was it mentioned at all, if your area was undergoing any upgrades?
Am on 20Mb at this end as well, and a while ago, they were tweaking my area, and in the process my dl speed dropped to a browse only capability, of between 8 - 50KBps.
This went on for several weeks, and it didn't make any difference at all, what time of day it was, or where i tried to download from.

It's also entirely possible that those you've spoken to, haven't been made aware of any upgrades to your area, or have, but were told that it wouldn't hinder your service?

The one thing VM seems to excel at, is keeping everyone in the dark, their own staff included :dozey:

[EYEZ]

Having had the same Speed Issue's in Plymouth for as long as i can Remember,i had a reply from support about the Upgrades for the Newton Abbott UBR which follows --

I've looked at our latest list of port relief information and I can see the
work on your UBR is scheduled for the 3rd of December.

BUT This work was originally scheduled for Nov 12th,so i wouldnt take this for granted !!

http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/results/02210028.png

[caph]

That's interesting, the work on my Nottingham UBR was originally scheduled for Nov 12th and also didn't go ahead. I too am getting sub 1Mbit download speeds tonight.

I'm amazed that Virgin can shaft its customers like this and not feel the need to apologise let alone offer a discount. They know it's going on and they know who are affected so they could quite easily be handing out credits to us, yet they wait for people to ring in and try and get a discount because it's cheaper that way. The worst of it is that we are suffering so that they can roll out their precious 50Mbit network. I know us 20Mbit-ers will benefit from this but boy are we paying for it.

Surely they must be aware that their word of mouth reputation is going to be in tatters by the end of this.