Manchester - the honeymoon period is over then [Archive]

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 K

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

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 :o:

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 :mad:

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

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

webcrawler2050

13-10-2009, 17:51

Sephiroth

13-10-2009, 19:07

caph

13-10-2009, 19:51

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.

Don't give up. Chase them to get moved back to a new 50Mb unit. I did and got moved, I now get 20Mb all the time. They promised they would move all 20Mb customers over and you should get them to honour that promise.

Sephiroth

13-10-2009, 19:59

The frustrating thing is you don't know how it's gonna pan out.

I'm on a satisfactory 20 Mbps service which I would prefer to a flaky or oversubscribed 50 Mbps. Since we don't have a clue as to how VM try to load balance (I've tried to tease that out in another thread), I look forward to 50 Mbps with some trepidation.

RyuKokoro

14-10-2009, 23:57

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?

I have to disagree I'm afraid. I live in Fallowfield and VM had a pretty big door to door leafleting campaign at the end of August which was specifically aimed at students. Plus, when you divide the cost of VM internet between a an average of 4 students per house, the cost becomes manageable for a student. No other ISP leafleted around here so the first thing students will see on their doormat will be a VM leaflet and they'll probably sign up because there's a number on the back and it's easy. If VM have indeed advertised their service around this area without bothering to increase the capacity then it shows either an atrocious lack of foresight or a reprehensible amount of greed. I suspect a mixture of the two.

Ignitionnet

15-10-2009, 00:34

Don't give up. Chase them to get moved back to a new 50Mb unit. I did and got moved, I now get 20Mb all the time. They promised they would move all 20Mb customers over and you should get them to honour that promise.

They didn't 'promise' to move anyone over - how they balance the tiers across the networks is entirely their prerogative.

---------- Post added at 00:34 ---------- Previous post was at 00:33 ----------

I'm on a satisfactory 20 Mbps service which I would prefer to a flaky or oversubscribed 50 Mbps. Since we don't have a clue as to how VM try to load balance (I've tried to tease that out in another thread), I look forward to 50 Mbps with some trepidation.

Be happy to fill you in re: load balancing.

VM do have a fair few students, it's an uncapped service which they like. Unfortunately like most cable operators throughout the world the students take their toll on the network ;)

Retrovertigo

19-10-2009, 11:36

Yep, students are all hooked up here. Heck, where I now live in these flats, of the 9 flats, 6 are hooked up to VM.

As someone said, students sharing a house, getting supposed fast broadband, TV and phone for whatever money VM charge. A no brainer when the cost is split at least 4 ways.

Anyway, the area manager just called me and to say it was a disappointment is an understatement. He tried explaining how the system works and that where I live hasn't been upgraded at all, despite it being over subscribed. He himself admitted that the students hammer the system. So if proof where needed of how bad it is, you heard it there from the area manager.

He says they know what work needs doing - but, surprise surprise, no date as yet. He "hopes" it will be in 2-3 weeks. But we shall see.

I asked him why I was still being charged full price when they are admitting they can't provide anything like a decent service (and he quoted the hours of 4pm to after midnight as being appalling) but he pretty much ignored me when I asked about getting a discount until this is resolved. He just reiterated that they found the problem and need to fix it.

But that doesn't help when they are taking £30 per month off me and knowingly selling me short.

What did get on my goat was that I told him this had been going on for far too long now, and he said "we needed more evidence that speeds were bad before we could carry out the work". So it seems, me along with everyone else who complained, wasn't enough for them to take it seriously.

And that has been a problem I knew would happen. Why would a house full of students paying maybe a fiver a month each, care enough about speed issues to pick up the phone and call VM to complain, and they make up the majority of customers around here I suspect.

So, I'll give them 3 weeks then I will be banging on their door again no doubt.

Sephiroth

19-10-2009, 15:52

[QUOTE=Retrovertigo;34893385]....
What did get on my goat was that I told him this had been going on for far too long now, and he said "we needed more evidence that speeds were bad before we could carry out the work". So it seems, me along with everyone else who complained, wasn't enough for them to take it seriously....QUOTE]

What a load of twaddle you've been given. Their routers provide perfectly good contention statistics and at any time they know (or can know) exactly what's what - and can plot it over time).

Agreed, Broadbandings?

spankysmagicpian

19-10-2009, 18:59

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?

I reckon Retro must be in Didsbury / Withington area?
My mate who I am renting a house to in Didsbury is lucky to get 3Mb or so in the evening when he should be on 10.

You should be OK in Eccles - I'm in Stretford and very, very rarely suffer speed issues.

Retrovertigo

19-10-2009, 22:22

Close spanky, I'm in Fallowfield, just down from Owens park - and probably even worse than Withington and Didsbury to be fair.

And yeah Sephiroth, the manager kind of put his own foot in it by saying they needed more evidence and then a little later saying they could see statistics as to when speeds were down. Didn't twig at the time as I was getting annoyed at his excuses.

Lets be honest, they are going to do naff all about this. They won't care about me walking away. Easier losing the odd customer than spending money to fix the situation. It really is pathetic.

Retrovertigo

21-10-2009, 23:23

I spoke to retentions today, and got nowhere, but was told that although they knew my area was over-subbed, the reason it hadn't been upgraded was likely because they couldn't get planning permission from the council to re-dig up the roads and pavements and replace the cables!!!

So there you go, Manchester council are to blame for the poor speeds in Fallowfield, and not as I had suspected, Virgin and their annoying practice of over selling it to everyone in the area :blah:

Their nonsense knows no bounds. The guy even told me he didn't blame me for wanting to leave and didn't try to convince me to stay at all. Although laughingly he tried telling me ADSL wasn't as reliable as it relied on distance from the exchange. Yeah, because VM's service has been soooooo reliable for me at the moment...sigh.

Mick Fisher

22-10-2009, 11:32

qasdfdsaq

22-10-2009, 23:13

Yeah, I've had the exact same problems. Got my own thread about this too, but short summary, nine months of complaining, they've claimed to fixed it, but no improvement. Except for a short period over the summer when the students all left and there were no festival guests. September comes around, speeds down to 0.5-1.5 meg again.

Finally had enough and just left them, very happy with my new DSL service. I'd suggest you check if any good ADSL2+ providers are in your area. BT Wholesale seem to majorly underestimate (at least around here) when predicting line speeds so I wouldn't worry if it predicted speeds aren't so hot. I've found it to underestimate by at least a factor of two in my city...

kibblerok

05-12-2009, 23:25

OK so im into month 3 of my war with virgin media about the speed issues in south Manchester (M20).

They must have done something early November to placate things as my speed was around 2-3mb (enough for me even on a 20mb connection) and up from under 1mb in October. I had a modem swap which did nothing at all to solve the issue.

The last few days however have been ridiculous 25kb/s downloads - Today I refused to leave the phone before speaking to second line which they did their best to stop me speaking to them and said they'd call me in 5 days.

They relented and I finally, once again followed the standard procedure for what feels like the millionth time.

* Connect modem direct to PC
* Turn off antivirus
* Run a speed test (They have always asked me to do this yet when I report back the poor speed result say its not reliable!)
* Reboot in safemode - download a file from microsoft.com
* Confusion and blaming my PC ensues

They then confirm they will need to send out an engineer to check signals - even though I thought this could be done remotely.

As soon as I get off the phone my broadband acts weird and wont connect, the modem keeps rebooting and an odd sequence of flashing lights follows on the front.

I check the connection and i've moved from cpc3-with3 to cpc3-with5.

The modem is connecting - now at 50kb/s (double but still crap) average download but im now getting the following in my log files, the below sequence occurs on average every 20 minutes but as often as a couple in the space of a minute.

Sat Dec 05 23:13:28 2009 Information (7) Downstream sync ok
Sat Dec 05 23:13:28 2009 Information (7) locked and synced to rescue CMTS...all is well!
Sat Dec 05 23:13:28 2009 Information (7) Downstream sync ok
Sat Dec 05 23:13:28 2009 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync
Sat Dec 05 23:13:28 2009 Information (7) Downstream sync failed
I don't care much for speed, I just want my broadband to respond and deliver web pages - im not even after raw constant 20mb downloads, just a usable internet connection, which im not getting.

This is completely ridiculous to have to put up with - and im having to fight tooth and nail to get them to even acknowledge the problem.

caph

06-12-2009, 16:52

Kibblerok it sounds like oversubscription. If you check your event log you'll see if you are connecting on DOCSIS 1.0 or DOCSIS 1.1. If you're on 1.0 then you are on old kit and need to get moved to a new 50Mb capable CMTS which, since you are a 20Mb customer, should already have been done.

The CEO's office told me back in May 2009 "... when Virgin Media releases the 50mg broadband this year the 20mg will be moved onto the same platform improving the service". That comment is on my case notes with CISAS but I can provide you with a copy if you it will help you get moved.

EDIT - I've just been informed that you are on DOCSIS 1.1 so you can ignore my above comments.

Good luck getting it sorted.

kibblerok

06-12-2009, 17:08

Thanks Caph - its a 1.1 that im registering on.

I'm getting nowhere past the defences Virgin are putting up - I have started a newsgroup posting that I suggest others have a look at that are suffering in this area.

Issues in South Manchester - M20 on virginmedia.support.broadband.cable

They have confirmed that I was moved UBR - but that one also has a fault ticket open on it :rolleyes:

And whats even more frustrating - the ticket for the slow issues I've been experiencing has been open on since the 7th October :mad:

Thats a ticket two months old tomorrow on oversubscription that Virgin know about yet are doing nothing to resolve.

Whats more is that i've been made to go through hours of calls to faults doing diagnostics and modem swaps and arguements when they've know there are problems all along.

Shambolic.

RyuKokoro

07-12-2009, 19:55

The issue I had which I posted in this thread a couple of months ago seems to have gotten a lot better since then. I read somewhere (most likely on this forum) that in some areas, 20mbps subscribers were moved to an overflow tier to ease congestion. I don't know how widely this solution has been implemented (if at all; I could be mistaken.) Indeed, it can't be that widely implemented if M20 (the next district south of M14) is experiencing speed issues like the one kibblerok describes. I suppose VM internet, in a nutshell, is golden if it's working okay, but a nightmare if anything goes wrong (not because of the service itself, because of the people you have to deal with to get it fixed.) I feel sorry for the VM staff who actually make the effort to get a customer's query dealt with properly because they get tarred with the same brush as the lazy, script-reading idiots you generally seem to have to speak to.

kibblerok

07-12-2009, 23:09

:(

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/12/79.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

http://www.pingtest.net/result/5243084.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

Tony.

07-12-2009, 23:28

:)
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/12/78.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

http://www.pingtest.net/result/5243862.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

RyuKokoro

09-12-2009, 21:54

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/12/66.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

This is whilst streaming a video on YouTube and while my girlfriend is doing an online video tutorial for her uni course. And apparently, Java was updating too. Certainly a lot better than it was a couple of months ago!

pip08456

09-12-2009, 23:29

I do not post this to come across as a smarta**e or to belittle anyone but I feel it must be said.

Not one person complaining of speed issues has ever mentined what anti-virus or anti-malware prgrams they are using.

They have never mentioned if they have scanned their PC to eliminate the problem or not.

The above can seriously affect your internet speeds.

DO NOT RELY ON PC GUARD!!!

Both in my opinion and from experience on other PC's it is not worth having.

There is no real replacement for a good "paid for" anti-virus program.

Examples:-

Eset (AKA ND32) Bit Defender, F Secure, Kaspersky etc. (avoid Norton),

Malwarebytes is one of the best I've found to find malware and spyware, it's free for the basic edition which means you have to manually update it and you don't get "real time" protection.

Get from here

http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html?part=dl-10804572&subj=dl&tag=button

The anti-virus prgrams mentined above will allow you to run a free online scan and fix issues as well, but if your connection is slow expect it to take time. (Also Trend Micro Housecall).

The abve is not to belittle anyone but just make sure the problem is nt at your end and be sure f it before you blame the ISP.

Not doubt I'll be flamed for this but WTH my connection & security is sweet!

Sephiroth

10-12-2009, 00:07

pip08456

10-12-2009, 00:17

Jeez man - you've just given the offshore hell desk their next it must be your fault spiel!

Sorry Seph but only speaking from experience, I look after another 10 PC's for friends and the obvious often gets overlooked (as you may already know).

The number of ppl in the past that have said to me "I.ve got an AV prog" but never scanned etc.

Sephiroth

10-12-2009, 00:24

Sorry Seph but only speaking from experience, I look after another 10 PC's for friends and the obvious often gets overlooked (as you may already know).

The number of ppl in the past that have said to me "I.ve got an AV prog" but never scanned etc.
No worries. Just having my fun!

pip08456

10-12-2009, 00:34

No worries. Just having my fun!

As if I hadn't noticed :angel:

bigitup_j

10-12-2009, 12:39

I live in M20 aswell, and the past few weeks the service has been horrendous! Speeds are terrible, no better than a 2-3mb service and the modem frequently disconnects, especially in the evening after 4pm. It's a joke really. I phoned faults, and they decided to send over a technician to have a look at my modem. But when they did come round he simply said that there was a known problem with the withington server and they were in the process of fixing it. So, hopefully, by the weekend there should be a vast improvement....so we'll see about that.

kibblerok

10-12-2009, 17:00

I do not post this to come across as a smarta**e or to belittle anyone

Too late.

Not one person complaining of speed issues has ever mentined what anti-virus or anti-malware prgrams they are using.

I didn't think it was necessary in order to register a compaint over speed to satisfy your personal list of requirements. The issue has been confirmed as a problem in the area and given several fault reference numbers covering a number of UBRs.

The annoyance in this thread (and others similar to it) is beacuse they know about it and have done for quite a while - but have shown no intetion of fixing it.

DO NOT RELY ON PC GUARD!!!

Whilst not a great product, I'd be concered if Virgin offering and advertising their broadband with anti virus turned around and used that as one of their many barriers to admitting a fault.

The abve is not to belittle anyone but just make sure the problem is nt at your end and be sure f it before you blame the ISP.

Already covered in the diagnostics with tech support, turning off the AV, trying the PC in safe mode as mentioned in my previous postings and also using an alternative PC.

For the record I use NOD32.

Not doubt I'll be flamed for this but WTH my connection & security is sweet!

Well there we go - thats where im going wrong, conclusive evidence :rolleyes:

Retrovertigo

11-12-2009, 13:35

It is completely down for me at the moment. Went off this morning for at least an hour - called tech support who arranged an engineer, but of course 20 mins later it came back on.

Was all fine so cancelled the engineer via the newsgroups - and low and behold, it has gone off again and has been down for the last hour or so. Disconnects are becoming more frequent as well.

They actually did me a deal on 50meg that was pretty good and the area manager himself installed it, but didn't seem happy. He suggested I had some how wangled 50meg at a discount and my actual problem was being fixed the week after. Needless to say this was around 4 weeks ago now with no fix in sight. Tech support say they know about the disconnects and have no date for a repair. It really is a bit of a joke now, and I have lost track of how many times during the day I have to reset my modem.

Had to come to a friends house just to complete some online christmas shopping :/

Sephiroth

11-12-2009, 13:50

If you've got an O2 mobile and a BT phone line, wangle a £7.34 /month discount from VM and spend it on an ADSL2+ service from O2. Then, like me, you'll not be without internet when it matters.

bigitup_j

11-12-2009, 18:39

Today, the connection is even worse, it's been down pretty much all day. I've complained again and it's going to be logged with the network technicians...but there is no say on when it will be fixed. They're give me some money off.
I think I might try and wangle free mobile broadband out of virgin next, as it's getting ridiculous.

Retrovertigo

12-12-2009, 00:01

I hassled them again and they have claimed it is a poor signal to noise ratio with and est fix of the 16th. Cowboys

Sephiroth

12-12-2009, 00:55

I hassled them again and they have claimed it is a poor signal to noise ratio with and est fix of the 16th. Cowboys

You never posted your modem stats here. It might be interesting to see your upstream power level if you have a poor SNR.

December 16th is close to December 18th when the students scram for Chrimbo.

Retrovertigo

12-12-2009, 01:05

they said it was poor snr at the server end. Still worth me posting my levels? Going online with my phone is a pain.

Sephiroth

12-12-2009, 01:28

they said it was poor snr at the server end. Still worth me posting my levels? Going online with my phone is a pain.
Nah - don't bother then. The upstream power should be high if it's SNR at their end.

Retrovertigo

12-12-2009, 10:14

still down this morning. Do they really expect me to have no net until appx the 16th!?

Sephiroth

12-12-2009, 10:48

Dump them. If you have a BT phone line O2 can provision you within 4 days in my experience. I've got O2 at home, at my mother's at my mother in law's. Each provisioned in 3 or 4 days.

When VM goes down at home (not often I have to say) I switch straight to the O2 service (to which my son is permanently connected so his Spottify doesn't get up my nose!).

Ignitionnet

12-12-2009, 12:00

You never posted your modem stats here. It might be interesting to see your upstream power level if you have a poor SNR.

December 16th is close to December 18th when the students scram for Chrimbo.

Upstream Tx power can't be taken as an indication of SNR issues regrettably. I did some checking and it's rare the two will coincide and even then it'll be a transient thing.

The values on the modem that could be checked for this are all reachable via SNMP only, which was blocked on the last few modems a while ago.

Sephiroth

12-12-2009, 13:02

Upstream Tx power can't be taken as an indication of SNR issues regrettably. I did some checking and it's rare the two will coincide and even then it'll be a transient thing.

The values on the modem that could be checked for this are all reachable via SNMP only, which was blocked on the last few modems a while ago.

Ah 0 but I was basing my remark on this from the OP:

they said it was poor snr at the server end. Still worth me posting my levels? Going online with my phone is a pain.

kibblerok

12-12-2009, 13:34

Its been down since last night - just come up about 12 and then went but back again for now.

Apparently there is another ticket F001148185 as this is finally classed as an outage rather than over subscription.

Sat Dec 12 11:38:02 2009 Sat Dec 12 11:38:02 2009 Critical (3) TFTP failed - request sent - No Response
Sat Dec 12 11:36:23 2009 Sat Dec 12 11:36:23 2009 Information (7) CableModem DHCP client init ok
Sat Dec 12 11:36:23 2009 Sat Dec 12 11:36:23 2009 Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Time Not Established Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) MAP w/initial maintenance region received
Time Not Established Time Not Established Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) MAP w/initial maintenance region received
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Downstream sync ok
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Beginning initial ranging...
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) downstream time sync acquired...
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Downstream sync ok
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) starting ds time sync acquisition...
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) MAP w/initial maintenance region received
Time Not Established Time Not Established Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) MAP w/initial maintenance region received
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Downstream sync ok
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Beginning initial ranging...
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) downstream time sync acquired...
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Downstream sync ok
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) starting ds time sync acquisition...
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Locked on the downstream. Waiting for UCDs...
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Downstream lock ok
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Sync Start
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) IP helper returned error, re-scanning downstream
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) CableModem DHCP client init failed
Time Not Established Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) MAP w/initial maintenance region received
Time Not Established Time Not Established Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) MAP w/initial maintenance region received
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Downstream sync ok
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) Beginning initial ranging...
Time Not Established Time Not Established Information (7) downstream time sync acquired...

Ignitionnet

12-12-2009, 13:45

Ah 0 but I was basing my remark on this from the OP:

They're probably talking out of their hindmost to be honest. SNR would have to be critical to take an area out and you'd tend to see degredation first. The modem would show all sorts of errors as it tried to range and would have a maxed out transmit power to try and acquire upstream if it weren't getting ranging responses.

Probably they said SNR was bad because it shows as a very low level when there are no modems online on the node ;)

bigitup_j

13-12-2009, 00:17

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/12/48.png (http://www.speedtest.net)
how depressing....at least my upload speed is fine! :|

Sephiroth

13-12-2009, 00:45

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/12/48.png (http://www.speedtest.net)
how depressing....at least my upload speed is fine! :|

It was at that instant!

webdudeuk

13-12-2009, 03:07

bigitup_j

13-12-2009, 07:09

yep, it's an ongoing issue in the area, virgin are working to get it fixed

Burlybolsh

13-12-2009, 10:31

I live in M20 and until September this year have had faultless broadband from virgin. However since they sold cheap offers to all the student houses around here the service has been terrible.
I spoke to tech support who told me the UBR has 434 users which is way below the 2000 user max for these routers - so I was told! Just shows how much downloading of films games and music is going on in M20...
I was told that the problem will be fixed this week but I can't help thinking that Virgin are just waiting for term to finish.

Bluffdemon

13-12-2009, 10:33

I'm living in withington (M20) and have a 50mbps service. My internet has been cutting out in waves for several hours, usually late in the evenings. When it works it's normally pretty fast. The modem loses sync and then regains it a little later with a good signal - but still does not function until several hours later. Its definitely not a problem my end, unless its the modem - has anyone else been experiencing this in the area?

Yeah i have been having the exact same problem i am in the m21 area and its been a nightmare this weekend , my net has been off since friday morning and for some reason only just come back on this morning , had a tech guy out yesterday was here for an hour and even he couldnt fix it , even got a new modem for the 50meg and still no luck , he rang loads of people and no matter what it wouldnt work , still got a tech guy coming out this tuesday so i wont cancel as i want to know if my problem has been fixed , BUT this area and yours and didsbury and burnage and fallowfield is a nightmare at the moment so the guy told my yesterday and yes he mentioned the dam students like in this thread .

Burlybolsh

13-12-2009, 10:43

It's working at the moment. But then again most of the students are still in bed!

Ignitionnet

13-12-2009, 11:46

Students being online and down/uploading won't take you offline.

Just thought I'd best mention that!

Retrovertigo

13-12-2009, 14:37

Been up and down for me all day again today. Sometimes the modem locks on again without a reset - other times I have to restart it myself.

It also starts off really slowly with speeds when rebooted as well. Pages take an age to load and slowly but surely full speed comes back.

I have given up trying to do online shopping at home because the service just cuts out at a moments notice.

Supposedly they had attempted to fix it during Friday night - but the ticket is now open again.

Burlybolsh

13-12-2009, 14:55

How can you see the ticket and it's status?

Retrovertigo

13-12-2009, 21:26

I don't think you can? I just saw it mentioned on the newsgroups that it was re-opened.

Burlybolsh

16-12-2009, 07:55

My connection in Withington has been a bit better the last few days, getting 4.5 to 7.5 Mbit/s download speeds when I can connect.

However I am still experiencing random cut offs. Happened again last night and then night before.

I assume the load on the UBR will be reducing over the next week or so as some of the students go home for Christmas.

I hope...!

Bluffdemon

16-12-2009, 09:46

working slighty ok here in the m21 area , had a problem this morning at about 5am ish as it would not connect , but i left the modem and router on and 15 mins later i had a connection

jem16

16-12-2009, 12:39

Dump them. If you have a BT phone line O2 can provision you within 4 days in my experience. I've got O2 at home, at my mother's at my mother in law's. Each provisioned in 3 or 4 days.

I'm seriously looking at going down this route.

I've emailed VM complaints again with my Glasgow issue of poor evening speeds. We'll see what they are prepared to offer but it will need to be good as I'm fed up with it all.

Retrovertigo

17-12-2009, 23:01

If I was with 02 I'd do it myself.

Had downtime from 10:30pm Wed evening until 1pm today. Then has been off more than on since. I posted on the newsgroups but it is the same old story "it is with the network team" - trouble is it has now been with the network team for about 2 months.

I could have studied all about networks in that amount of time and fixed it myself. They can't seriously be suggesting it takes a team 2 months to fix a problem? If so they need a new team.

Burlybolsh

18-12-2009, 08:27

Was off most of yesterday, finally got through to technical support about 10.30pm who told me it was the cable modem (to be fair the "Ready" light was flashing on and off). Rebooted both modem and wifi router and the connection resumed.

Was told that the UBR has now been fixed and the fault removed from the system.

Lost connection 10 minutes later.

I just wished Virgin could be honest with us, there's obviously a serious issue with the Fallowfield UBR. Why not post it on the server status page?

---------- Post added at 08:27 ---------- Previous post was at 08:23 ----------

Correction! Issue has made it to the server status page!

http://status-cable.virginmedia.com/vmstatus/serviceissue.do?ticket=1148404

bthodgson

18-12-2009, 09:36

Unbelievable, this is doing my head in... The ticket on the status update page shows the issue was resolved yesterday at around 3pm. I don't think so, mine was down at 6pm when I got home and didn't come back up until at least 11pm last night.

I live in M14 and have had connection issues for at least a month. Virgin have got to sort this out...

bthodgson

18-12-2009, 11:42

They have just updated the ticket at 11.32 saying the issue should be resolved. I'll see when I get home after work but i'm not holding my breath.....

bigitup_j

18-12-2009, 15:15

it's been better today, only two disconnections so far... last night it was unusable. so maybe the problem is sorted, I really hope so!

bthodgson

18-12-2009, 15:26

We should not be having any disconnections. I never used to!!

I spoke to India this morning and kicked off with them over this. They said that the issue should be fully resolved by the 31st December. I hate to wait that long to see but I think I may have to......

RyuKokoro

18-12-2009, 21:32

Yeah i have been having the exact same problem i am in the m21 area and its been a nightmare this weekend , my net has been off since friday morning and for some reason only just come back on this morning , had a tech guy out yesterday was here for an hour and even he couldnt fix it , even got a new modem for the 50meg and still no luck , he rang loads of people and no matter what it wouldnt work , still got a tech guy coming out this tuesday so i wont cancel as i want to know if my problem has been fixed , BUT this area and yours and didsbury and burnage and fallowfield is a nightmare at the moment so the guy told my yesterday and yes he mentioned the dam students like in this thread .

I live in Fallowfield near Sainsbury's and am on the 10mbps service. Here's a speed test. Bear in mind it was peak time when I did this. I've not had speed issues since early October and have never had issues with the connection cutting out.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/12/21.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

I don't know how UBRs are assigned, whether it's by post code or VM's own system though so it might be a specific distribution point/node (unsure of terminology, I work for BT Network ADSL supplier so I'm used to that) that's buggered.

Retrovertigo

19-12-2009, 14:35

I'm in Fallowfield but am apparently connected through Withington. The phone status line still says no faults in the area - yeah right!

Had several disconnections this morning already. Not long ones, but enough to disrupt Xbox Live. It is pathetic how they seem to have let this go on for weeks and weeks.

bthodgson

20-12-2009, 17:32

I have looked at my router's log and it looks like I was disconnected at around 8.30 and 1.30 today. At least it has been better than the last few days! I don't think this will be high on their priorities at the mo though. As long as it doesn't get any worse over Xmas and they sort it properly by the end of the year like they said (although I suspect that was just to shut me up!) I'll be reasonably satisfied ( I think). Anyway, here's to hoping!!

Retrovertigo

20-12-2009, 23:54

I want it fixing now to be honest. Over Christmas is when some of my mates have a lot of free time and I want some decent gaming sessions on Xbox Live. At the minute it is too much of a lottery, and when I'm solely responsible for messing other peoples games up, it isn't much fun to be honest.

Burlybolsh

21-12-2009, 08:45

Up and down all weekend, better than it has been though. I think that's because the load on the UBR has lessened due to the end of term at Manchester Uni.

I was told it was supposed to be fixed by Sunday but it was still down this morning.

Usual lies from Virgin.

bthodgson

21-12-2009, 10:02

Get this, I just called VM from work this morning and spoke to someone in this country!

I told him what had been happening and the fact that the connection is still going down at times and he said there were no issues in our area OR on our UBR. I told him that I wasn't the only person with this issue but he said that he had spoken to a senior tech and they had said the same. He then went on to tell me to run the modem off the cat 5 and remove my wireless router which was like a red rag to a bull TBH. I asked him how that would make the modem offline and he couldn't answer me. Anyway, after all this he said he was sending me a new modem but of course I doubt that is going to fix it as you good people are having the same issue as me.

AAAAARRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!

Burlybolsh

21-12-2009, 10:21

What number did you call? 151?

I may actually request a new modem and wifi router from Virgin. Just to see if that fixes a problem which is nothing to do with the equipment I've got in my house and everything to do with this bloody faulty UBR somewhere on the streets of Withington/Fallowfield.

It's driving me crazy now.

Bluffdemon

21-12-2009, 10:27

Trust me there is nothing wrong with your router and modem , ive had the exact same problem in the m21 area ( http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33658949-serious-help-needed-with-50mb.html ) , infact over this last week ive had about 1hr's worth of internet connection all dam week and ive tried to use it everyday and its been down , its not down to your router and modem its VM and their ubr and a bug in the software or the actual hardware , ive been on and off the phone for almost a month and a half about this , dont believe the BS that they tell you about unplugging your router and runing your modem straight to your pc , a senior tech guy said that its down to vm

bthodgson

21-12-2009, 11:11

I was ringing from work so had to call 0845 454 1111. I may just have to replace the modem just so I can say that that has been tried and made no difference. TBH my connection has been a lot better over the last few days but is still disconnecting. I'll check my router log tonight and see how it has been today but I can't believe that they cannot just tell us the truth. I just hope that they sort the issue with the UBR in the background somewhere and our problems are magically fixed (holds breath)

saeedk786

21-12-2009, 20:36

im in the M19 area and on the 50mb connection

the modem logged 8 T4 timeouts

it always drops early hours of the morning. quite annoying i got told that Motorola was trying to fix the issue

Retrovertigo

22-12-2009, 00:29

Been up and down again today. I'm on 50meg and my cousin in the flat next to mine is on 20meg and his is up and down as well. If you go to the newsgroups they will tell you this is still ongoing and give you a ref number (which to be honest doesn't help at all)

But tonight I'm just getting really poor speeds. Webpages are taking forever to load. Coupled with the fact a lot of students near me have now gone home, and it is pretty dire to be honest.

bigitup_j

22-12-2009, 15:40

Yeh, the speeds are much improved from a week or so ago, and it still disconnects for me, but much less frequently and for only short periods of time. Let's hope they actually do fix it!

bthodgson

22-12-2009, 17:12

VM engineer came round to mine today and had a look at my Modem. He confirmed what I already knew - that there is nothing wrong with my modem. He said that there is a known issue with the UBR in that it is rebooting itself about 2-3 times a day which sounds about right. He did say that it was high priority as they are getting lots of grief over it so hopefully something will be done soon!! :rolleyes:

Burlybolsh

22-12-2009, 17:38

Do you live in the Withington/Fallowfield area?

It's interesting to see that an engineer has finally admitted that there is a problem with the UBR rebooting a couple of times a day, although it doesn't explain the slow speed for the last few months.

bthodgson

22-12-2009, 17:52

Yeah, I live near the co-op (used to be Somerfield) in Ladybarn.

He also said that the main reason for slow speeds is just the amount of students here. Nothing new there then....

He did say that Motorola were looking into why the UBR is rebooting. Have to wait and see what happens...

The most frustrating thing is not being able to contact anyone at VM to get updates as no-one on the Tech support will ever admit there is an issue with the UBR!!!

RyuKokoro

22-12-2009, 19:27

It is a bit weird how VM won't admit there's a problem. Anyone with common sense knows that electronics as complicated as the equipment used to provide broadband internet is bound to have the odd hiccup and customers would probably be more likely to accept "yeah, we're having a problem with a UBR, it's being dealt with and we'll let you know when it's done" than "it's your equipment, check your equipment, are you connected wirelessly? Yes? Connect via ethernet. Don't use this speed test, use that one because it's more reliable. Your modem is broken, we'll send a tech around to daisy chain 100s of attenuators on the back of it... etc etc etc."

At the company I work for, we get outage notifications emailed to us and if a customer calls through who is on the affected exchange we'll just say to them "yeah, one of the DSLAMs at such-and-such exchange is down as a software upgrade didn't take very well. Blah Blah Blah. Engineer's are dealing with it and we'll keep you updated." We then pass the ticket to CS to call the customer every 2 hours and we find that they almost never get annoyed at us because the service is down. It's all about customer relations management and VM don't seem to have any.

bthodgson

25-12-2009, 23:05

Wow, my connection has been constant for 2 days! You don't think they might have actually fixed the UBR do you???

Burlybolsh

26-12-2009, 08:16

Me too. I think it's more to do with the load on the UBR reducing. I doubt Virgin have done anything to fix it!

Sephiroth

26-12-2009, 11:22

Students are back in mid-January!

Piecing all this together, VM will have had about 6 weeks to:

1. Fix the UBR disconnecting issue
2. Fix the 50 Mbps modem firmware problem
3. Add UBR capacity
4. Re-balance the network

Roll on 18-January!

Ignitionnet

26-12-2009, 18:12

You assume VM care about the capacity side of things. Most cablecos don't and just let student areas rot as as soon as you add more capacity they just eat it up anyway ;)

No money in throwing card after card at areas with not many modems on them but 6 people per modem caning the connections 24x7.

Sephiroth

26-12-2009, 18:20

Bluffdemon

26-12-2009, 19:07

well fingers crossed even though i aint too far away from the student area it wont mess up my speed , we will soon find out though !

Retrovertigo

27-12-2009, 21:47

Well Virgin continue to astound me with their incompetence.

I had no net connection at all the 23rd. I phoned them around lunchtime to be told there was a local issue. But my cousin who lives next door to me wasn't affected. I waited until late afternoon and called back to be told engineers were out and it should be fixed "very soon". By mid evening I called back as still no internet and was told that it must just be me as there were no issues locally to be found (apart from the constant disconnections they admit are still happening, yet the status page and status phone line still don't acknowledge)

Tech support told me I wouldn't now get an engineer visit until the 29th, to which I pointed out it wasn't good enough. So suddenly he managed to book me one for the afternoon on Christmas eve. Engineer turns up, tests the line and finds nothing wrong - he calls someone at Vm and they say that there were no issues affecting my connection the day before (this is contrary to what the dedicated 50meg tech support line told me).

So he tries a new modem and it took ages to lock on, so he tried a 20meg modem and that locked on fine. He got another 50 meg modem and that then locked on. I had a connection for a total of 3 hours before it went off for the rest of the day.

I took no chances and went to my aunts house Christmas day in order to talk via webcam to relatives and friends abroad. Yesterday my connection went down again and didn't come on until this afternoon at around 5pm.

But of course, tech support say the same old thing "it's being investigated" - but as I have been having dropouts for almost 8 weeks now, this must be the longest investigation ever!

Really not happy at all. The fact I can't rely on my connection to contact family at Christmas - or even play on my Xbox 360, as downloadable content becomes unavailable when you lose your connection, then it is pretty crummy all round really.

What really makes you realise how pathetic things can be at Virgin - is when you see an engineer take a few minutes to swap a modem - then spend 3-4 times as long sat waiting on his phone because they aren't given a separate line to call and avoid the one customers use. Just a mind boggling waste of time having engineers sitting around in peoples living rooms, listen to elevator music for longer than the time it takes them to do the job they have just carried out.

bthodgson

29-12-2009, 09:47

Has anyone else been having trouble over the last 12 hours? My Internet has pretty much been down.

83mjs

29-12-2009, 10:01

Has anyone else been having trouble over the last 12 hours? My Internet has pretty much been down.

Yep - mine went down last night and was still not working this morning. I thought I'd left these troubles behind after downgrading to 10MB again. Apparently not :(

I daren't phone virgin technical support, last time they kept me on the line for 45 mins before coming to the conculsion "your computer is faulty, sir". Right then. Nice one Vigin!

bthodgson

29-12-2009, 12:31

Just spoke to India again. Got a more helpful chap who said maintenance was going on regarding the UBR issue. My bb came back up whilst on the phone to him as well. Ref for the work is 12965134 apparently. He said the connection will be up and down whilst they are doing this. Well, here's to hoping!!

Burlybolsh

29-12-2009, 12:44

Back up now. Was down from yesterday evening til 9am. I thought this problem was supposed to be fixed?

83mjs

29-12-2009, 12:45

Ref for the work is 12965134 apparently

Thank you very much for sharing! This might my life a bit easier.

I'm at work at the mo so can't check but hopefully mine will be back on tonight. Was down for pretty much 2 weeks solid, give or take an hour here and there. Then last Monday (21st) it came on and was up til last night!

bthodgson

29-12-2009, 14:06

Not a problem, this forum has been a lifesaver in terms of preventing wasted time. As from this place I've been able to find out that other people have the same issues as me! I will update any other info I manage to get out of VM as and when I get it!

Burlybolsh

30-12-2009, 11:02

Problems again most of yesterday and still this morning. Now I can see that I'm connected to the Internet but can only open Google! No other webpages will open.

This is beyond ridiculous now.

83mjs

30-12-2009, 13:50

Aye I had no service last night, again. So it's been off since Monday evening now. I find I can't be bothered with the aggravation of phoning our friends in India either! I just cross my fingers and hope.

Agreed, the situation is totally out of control and unacceptable. I would at least expect an acknowledgement of the problem on the status page.

bthodgson

30-12-2009, 16:17

Same here. Vm booked me a tech for next week. I agreed as I couldn't be bothered arguing. Just got a text MSG telling me they have cancelled it as there is an issue in this area. Only one showing on status page is one for SK4 though!

Burlybolsh

30-12-2009, 17:34

Just spoke to tech support who've now told me that yes there is a problem with the UBR being oversubscribed and no, there isn't a forseeable fix for the issue!

Aaaaaaaaaarg. Utter incompetence.

Sephiroth

30-12-2009, 18:11

Just spoke to tech support who've now told me that yes there is a problem with the UBR being oversubscribed and no, there isn't a forseeable fix for the issue!

Aaaaaaaaaarg. Utter incompetence.

Posts #93 applies. Write to the CEO in a recorded delivery letter. This is something under VM's control and you are entitled to an explanation from a senior person.

bigitup_j

30-12-2009, 22:13

The net has been unusable for me the past two days, thankfully I'm at my parents in London, where virgin media is working perfectly.
They best be getting it fixed, if the network can barely run without all the students, just imagine what it will be like come the 18th january!

kibblerok

30-12-2009, 22:37

Burlybolsh

31-12-2009, 12:52

Has moving UBR solved the connection/speed issues. Looks like with5 is the problem UBR then!

83mjs

31-12-2009, 13:14

Heres how to fix the issue.......... engineer out and a modem swap. I went from with5 to with3 UBR with my modem swap.

Yes the UBR is faulty and oversubscribed and no the modem isn't the problem.... But a new one gives you a chance (no guarantee) of going onto a different UBR when registering.

Just don't come onto mine :p

Ah!

This would explain why everything went tits up after moving to 50MB (they gave me a new modem for the upgrade). I am back on 10MB now but with the same modem and therefore presumably still on with5 UBR?!

How do I tell which UBR I am on?

---------- Post added at 13:14 ---------- Previous post was at 13:11 ----------

Also if I buy a second-hand Ambit 256 modem from eBay and swap the modem myself will that change the UBR? Or does it need an engineer to authorise the swap?

Sephiroth

31-12-2009, 13:55

Ah!

...How do I tell which UBR I am on?

Hit the CONNECTION link at the top of this page and the UBR is the device listed after the first hyphen.

e.g.: cpc2-rdng21-2-0-custxxx.15-3.cable.virginmedia.com

bthodgson

31-12-2009, 13:57

You can find out what UBR you are on by doing a traceroute to BBC.co.uk in command prompt. Line 2 or 3 of the trace should tell you the UBR.

Command for this (in case you don't know- I never assume!!) is:

tracert bbc.co.uk

I posted onto the support newsgroup about this and support said that 'a 3rd party company' are looking into it still (I presume they mean Motorola). They said that looking at the 'extensive' notes on the account it looks like it will be fixed fairly soon-ish. I hope so as the last 48 hours were torture. Today mine has been fine so far. Keeping everything crossed it stays that way!!

Ray.uk

31-12-2009, 17:08

Have been having similar problems disconections etc for the last 5-6 weeks,all ok last week,then Monday night off it goes and stays disconnected,engineer came today swapped modem and at least am up and running, have gone from with5 to with4 so maybe I will get a little respite for a while.

Ignitionnet

31-12-2009, 17:36

Sephiroth

31-12-2009, 18:19

Unless on a Motorola BSR one will not see any information on the uBR in a traceroute, it will show as an RFC1918 address rather than a fully reverse DNS'd up public address.
I'll do the honours and part translate that for you!

The UBR will be represented as a private internet address in the range 10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255.

The other private IP address ranges covered by the aforementioned RFC are
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (which you'll recognise as used by home routers).

Mwah.

Ignitionnet

31-12-2009, 20:59

Oops sorry about that :blush:

saeedk786

01-01-2010, 15:24

im on with5 and was without internet all day yesterday, its been on and off for the pass two weeks

think i better had tried this modem swap thing

RyuKokoro

01-01-2010, 15:54

I don't know if this helps but I'm on with4 and my internet has been fine for a couple of months now. It tends to be at about 4mbps in the evenings during term time but that's as low as it goes and I never have problems staying connected.

This has probably already been thought of but it might be an idea for everyone in M20/M14 that are having problems to post which UBR they are on in this thread then you can take that info to VM and say "look, I've spoken to several people on the same UBR all having the same issues. Stop ********ting and get it fixed!" It might be useful to post the same info in whichever newsgroup deals with these kinds of issues (I've never been on the VM newsgroup so I'm unsure of how it works.)

Anyway, from what I can see, with5 seems to be where the problem lies!

bthodgson

01-01-2010, 22:18

I'm on with5 and it has been down most of the day.

Burlybolsh

02-01-2010, 12:29

I'm on with5. Ok at the mo. Thing is do you risk moving UBRs if they're going to fix this one only for the other one to go wrong!

Retrovertigo

03-01-2010, 01:22

I'm on with5 as well. But I'm 50meg and there have been definite points where I have lost connection for hours, but my cousin next door on 20meg, and through with5 has had no problems.

What happened to Baguley that I used to be on by the way?

Someone mentioned everyone complaining to VM that we are all having the same issues, but it's a waste of time. I have had my 50meg now for over 2 months I think, and when the area manager himself installed it, he told me that the issue of disconnections was being fixed the very next week. He said...."We know what the issue is and the date is set for next week and we'll be fixing the speed issues as well". So they are more than happy to string people along - everyone speaking with one voice won't make one bit of difference sadly.

He even gave me an excuse he had used a few weeks prior to that - that they needed to hear from enough customers to know there were speed issues in the area. They needed "evidence" that there was an issue. Of course, it was then pointed out to me here that VM know exactly what speeds people are getting without gather this so called evidence first.

spankysmagicpian

03-01-2010, 21:30

I have never had so many problems until recently. Latest one is internet has been off ALL DAY today and only just come back on.

webdudeuk

04-01-2010, 18:42

My connection has been appallingly unstable since october and I live in the M20 area. I think I am going to have to call virgin and cancel because they're not providing the service I'm paying for and we're just getting fobbed off by them. They've had months to work on the problem so I foresee it lasting a long time until they choose to deal with it.

bigitup_j

04-01-2010, 20:58

i want to make a letter of complaint to the top managers at virgin media about the ridiculous "service" being offered by them. who shall i write it to, address etc?
thanks

Retrovertigo

05-01-2010, 01:55

Sephiroth

05-01-2010, 09:08

been off the last few hours again here. Still no mention of it on either the status phone line or the website. I know there are people here who stick up for virgin. But 2 months and still no fix is either incompetence or ignorance. Neither are acceptable when they still charge me as normal.

Name & shame those people! It is truly shameful that VM don't keep their customers informed; they need to make the effort to respect their customers not steal from them - albeit they're offering the rebate at the end of the problem. For what my opinion's worth, VM have behaved disreputably and disrespectfully towards their afflicted customers.

Burlybolsh

05-01-2010, 21:58

Phoned up yesterday and booked in a technician to fix the non faulty cable modem just so I could swap UBRs from with5 to another.

Then this morning I actually got a call back from tech support to say they'd finally identified the problem which was a dodgy junction box and fixed it.

The ready light on my modem went from flashing slowly on and off to flashing quickly on and off then went steady.

Perfect connection ever since, fingers crossed...

saeedk786

06-01-2010, 00:03

not had any internet today :( thank god i have a o2 connection on the BT line as backup much more reliable than virgin even during xmas

logged in to the modem and its only showing DS-1 as connected and the power level has gone down to 3

seems like with5 is totally dead for me

83mjs

06-01-2010, 09:15

A word to the wise - I would take any suggestion the issue has been fixed with a pinch of salt, cos mine is STILL off - as it has been now since last Monday. That's over a week with no service at all.

On the plus side, I wrote a letter of complaint a couple of weeks ago and they phoned me back and have allowed me to cancel. So - BT line getting installed next week. I'm going with O2 broadband.

I'm happy to be out of the mire, just disappointed with Virgin. Until I upgraded to 50MB that fateful day in November, the service was perfect.

Retrovertigo

06-01-2010, 11:09

Same here - don't believe for one second the main problem has been fixed. I decided to call them yesterday afternoon after my connection had been down for over 12 hours at that point.

The guy tried all sorts, looked through the system and found no faults in my area (even the ongoing one was news to him) so eventually they booked me an engineer (which I was told would take a week!!). About 2 hours later I get a text message saying there was a fault in the area and that the engineer had been cancelled.

My connection is back this morning - but if VM aren't aware of a local fault around 12 hours or so after it first appeared, then I have no faith in them having sorted this out properly.

It's been going on for at least 2 months now as has been mentioned. I find it highly unlikely that a faulty junction box couldn't have been diagnosed sooner.

I am guessing the last few days has been a separate incident from the ongoing main one. What gets me is that they very rarely offer any kind of compensation for loss of service. For all the days I lost over Christmas, only one guy ever offered me some discount on my bill.

I'm struggling to think of any other main service in my house where I pay the same price as everyone else and can get a severely degraded service compared to other customers.

83mjs

06-01-2010, 11:54

Bluffdemon

06-01-2010, 12:38

I know. I've just finished writing another letter of complaint, asking for my money back since this whole fiasco stated.

Most recent bill was for £116 (yes you read that right)! Including £55 installation charge for the XXL. Absolute jokers!

Anyone else had any luck getting charges refunded becuase of this issue?

yes i have , thats because ive been on the phone complaining so dam much since november when i upgraded from 20-50meg over december they didnt charge me a month for the BB thats because it was only working for about 5-6 days in december

83mjs

06-01-2010, 14:28

Good stuff, glad to hear you got some cash back. At £28 a month, nearly £1 a day, it soon adds up when you're not getting any service!

I was only on the 50Mb for a couple of weeks before I managed to get a downgrade to 10Mb again, so to be still charging me for the engineer and activation is well cheeky.

I have just written to em though because if you phone up it can be a bit of a lottery (India/UK, also some are more helpful than others!)

Burlybolsh

06-01-2010, 18:07

Well guess what. After being told the problem had been fixed (faulty junction box) my connection is now down again. This is of course after the technician appointment had been cancelled.

I phoned India and actually got through to the lady who originally booked me the technician appointment and she was very helpful. Apparently the network team are fully aware of the issue but the tech dept in India aren't and are happy to book a engineer visit. As soon as this happens you'll get a call to cancel this appointment.

What is really annoying is the blatant lies that I've been told. The issue is widely known by the network team but there is still no timeline for a fix. I just can't understand this.

One more thing I wad told that if you want to get through to the UK call centre call after 10pm because that's when India signs off.

bthodgson

06-01-2010, 19:23

Mine went down about 3.30pm today and is still down now with the ready light flasing on and off once per second. Sick of this now and I bet it won't be back up till midnight, if at all!!!

RyuKokoro

06-01-2010, 19:38

I can't believe just how stubborn and downright unprofessional VM are being about this. I got a call last week from one of our customers who was having slow speed issues. He sent us in some speed tests, these confirm the issue he is experiencing and we looked into it for him. I found out that the VP he's on is maxing out quite a lot so we've ordered an upgrade (he's on IP Stream so we've got to get BTW to do it) which is due by Friday. If I dealt with customers the way VM did I would be in a lot of trouble with my superiors because that is just not how business is done.

Anyway, I hope everyone here has their problems resolved sooner rather than later because I know there aren't many things more frustrating than the internet being down and your ISP not lifting a finger to fix the problem.

saeedk786

06-01-2010, 21:51

Mine went down about 3.30pm today and is still down now with the ready light flasing on and off once per second. Sick of this now and I bet it won't be back up till midnight, if at all!!!

Mines doing exactly the same :( i think its time to ring them and get money back for at least this month

i feel sorry for those who need the internet for assignments and it stops working :td:

Burlybolsh

06-01-2010, 23:03

Retrovertigo

06-01-2010, 23:28

sterling repair work by vm last night. Down again already and has been for the last couple of hours. If there is shoddier company in the uk right now i'd love to meet them. Absolutely disgraceful

Sephiroth

07-01-2010, 00:17

Got through to the Swansea call centre who told me that it is a very well known problem in the area (no kidding!) and it was supposed to be fixed today at 10am. However it hasn't.

The crux of the matter is that it is due to a low signal to noise ratio.

I have no idea if that's true and if so is easy to remedy..

You've posed two very wise questions. If you Google and download "Digital Transmission: Carrier-to-Noise Ratio, Signal-to-
Noise Ratio, and Modulation Error Ratio" ( a Cisco document), you'll see how complex diagnosis can be and how even triple views of the various impairment effects can fail to pinpoint a cause.

That said, if this is one that's taking weeks to resolve, what's going on?

indivisibleman

07-01-2010, 02:01

Sephiroth

07-01-2010, 10:45

When I do a trace route the first hop is through 'with-cmts-05-lback-20.network.virginmedia.net', I assume this is Withington 5. I've been having the disconnection problems for a few weeks now. I'm in M14 too. I've had an engineers visit 2~3 weeks ago, he added a 10dB attenuator to the modem (nothing changed), phoned VM on many occasions and had lots of the excuses or been told that it will be fixed by the weekend, tomorrow, etc. Is this expected to be fixed or should we complain to get moved?
Complain and MOVE from VM sounds like a better bet.

If you ask to be moved then there'd be congestion on whatever you're moved to. Possibly, if it's the same type of CMTS you're moved to, then it has the same problem as With-05. That soet of thing.

VM will sort this scandal (sorry - but that's what it is) out eventually but I doubt they'll ever officially admit what was wrong. It'll come out anecdotally - possibly from a disgusted VM tech posting on a non-VM forum!

Bluffdemon

07-01-2010, 12:11

The Trouble with VM is that we joe public know there is a major problem and its so very sad that such a major company in this country can't admit that there is a major fault and instead we are all given these absolutley pathetic excuses infact its bloody laughable to be honest .

They do know we aint going to take this BS for long as i cancelled my phone and broadband a week or so ago and ive had phone calls from them trying to get me back , i have relented and giving them 1 more chance to sort my problem out , as it will be alot of hassle for me to move to sky or bt as we dont have a bt line installed from the acutal telephone pole outside to our house , but i as i stated to a VM person a couple of days ago that am willing to spend whatever it takes to move from VM to bt or sky because of this garbage BB and excuses they are telling me .

83mjs

07-01-2010, 12:48

Too right. It's unacceptable. I'm paying BT £122.50 to have the line installed in my house, but I have no option - if Virgin thinks I'm just gonna sit and twiddle my thumbs forking out month after month for broadband that doesn't work....no ta.

I can understand a couple of weeks downtime. It's high-tech and no doubt very complicated to diagnose/repair. But 2 months and counting is just taking the mick.

I wouldn't recommend VM to anyone now.

Retrovertigo

07-01-2010, 14:17

Sephiroth

07-01-2010, 14:43

What really gets my back up, is that is it probably accepted that Manchester is the most over subscribed area in the country - meaning that per UBR (or however it is worked out) Virgin make more money from here than any other area they provide for.

Yet they don't seem to want to spend any of that improving the service. So basically we get the worst service, and fund areas where they don't have as many customers? And ironically, they get the best service. Doesn't seem fair. I could be wrong of course. But per connection, they must be getting more cash flow from here than anywhere else.

They'll be refunding their revenues in nearly all the suffering Manchester cases. Why not tell your story to the Manchester Evening News (is it still there?) and get them to investigate how many customers are affected and givvy them up into claiming their refund? VM may well comment to their reporter and you can wise the paper up to the weasel words they can expect and so perhaps they can do a Paxo on VM!

In any case, write to their CEO and put these points in a calculated and effective manner. Ask him not to come back with vague answers but to pinpoint exactly what's happening. Copy your letter to the Daily Mail or Daily Mirror if you wish!

Keep us informed.

Ignitionnet

07-01-2010, 15:49

Given it's run by the same people who own a big chunk of Sky I think The Sun would enjoy that story too.

Burlybolsh

07-01-2010, 17:26

They're not getting any money from me for broadband at the moment. They cancelled the charge and offered me additional £20 rebate.

BUT, I'd rather pay and have a consistently good connection.

Having said that, connection has been steady all day, but will probably go down again shortly.

bthodgson

07-01-2010, 18:41

Another way to go may be to BBC's Watchdog programme!

Bluffdemon

07-01-2010, 18:47

Sephiroth

07-01-2010, 19:50

I bet sky would be wetting themselves knowing all this VM are doing and their lame excuses , perhaps sky and bt can learn big time on how not to run a company well lol

at least VM would be useful for something !

Partly well said - except BT are laughing because of their wholesale division. I reckon VM are schmitting themselves over BT's FTTC.

Incidentally I saw a Jobserve type ad for a "triple-play" project manager to run a roll-out in the South East of England expansion of a triple play network (Broadband/TV/Phone). Make what you will of that.

Burlybolsh

17-01-2010, 16:09

Intermittent broadband connection for the last couple of days.

And here was me thinking that Virgin may have actually fixed the problem...

Students back now as well... Fun and games ahead.

bthodgson

17-01-2010, 16:19

Same here. Connection had been good since last weekend. Suddenly it's starting the old disconnecting issue with flashing ready light. Probably it's the students that's caused it to fall over again. I can't believe it's still happening after all these months. All you get on the newsgroups is that it is still with 3rd party and it is happening on other UBR's around the country. What is the matter with them????

Retrovertigo

17-01-2010, 16:38

Yeah same here - and I'm going to look into writing to the papers or whoever (not that I think it will help)

But the mind boggles as to how a company can sit back and watch people lose connection on a regular basis and not fix the problem.

I was offline from around 9pm Fri to late Sat eve. Newsgroups give the same stock reply "it's with the network planning team, with no set date". Which after 3 months is truly pathetic.

I wish there was a regulator of some kind you could complain to about this. But then I guess if there was, VM wouldn't be so incompetent in fixing this in the first place.

I got the usual £15 knocked off my bill when I phoned and complained. But honestly, who cares - it ain't much use when I then have to go visit friends if there is something I want to do on the internet.

webdudeuk

17-01-2010, 16:40

Mine's just disconnected in the last hour. I'm going to write to them and leave mid contract. They're not reasonably meeting their obligations in maintaining the service and it's really frustrating. I'm not sure it's just students as it seems people continued to lose their internet during the period where the majority of students were away. If anyones thinking of leaving, check out the website quidco before you sign up to anything - the cashback is normally pretty good.

saeedk786

17-01-2010, 19:05

Same here guys, worked well for a week but then since Friday its just been totally off even now its flashing the upstream light. This is well annoying

Retrovertigo

17-01-2010, 23:16

I am wondering what the legality is of selling a service you know you can't possibly provide? I'm not talking about speeds here - or lack of them. I'm talking about Virgin still selling broadband to people in the affected areas, when they know the service is faulty and is crippled beyond belief.

Surely there are grounds there for people not only getting out of contracts, but also getting compensation?

Anyone who signs up for a connection in Manchester will suffer outages. How can that be legal to sell such a thing - especially with no warning of what lies ahead, and with no date set for repairs to be made.

Ignitionnet

17-01-2010, 23:33

I'm guessing you guys having these ongoing issues don't have other options?

Sephiroth

17-01-2010, 23:35

I think it's disreputable (if it's occurring) but, IMO, ;egal.

The contract has penalty free get-outs if VM fail to meet their obligations.

However, it may contravene (if it's happening) VM's obligation under the ISPA rules to which VM is signed up: (www.ispa.org.uk)

2.5.1 In their dealings with consumers, other businesses and each other, Members must act fairly and reasonably at all times.

Retrovertigo

18-01-2010, 00:53

I'm guessing you guys having these ongoing issues don't have other options?

I did do some research a while back into adsl offerings. And while some people close to Manchester said BE unlimited was a good bet, I couldn't find anyone actually in my area as such.

This of course means I would need to take a gamble on signing a new contract, and hoping most students in my area were all on cable, and not crippling the adsl services as well. But sadly, until I signed on the dotted line I'd never know for sure :(

I believe they do short term contracts, but if VM fix this problem, then I'm actually on a very good deal at the minute (when it is working of course)

Bluffdemon

18-01-2010, 07:04

VM have stated to me that this problem is still ongoing and won't be fixed until the end of january , thats what i was told last week , ive had this problem since early november , so we will see

Ignitionnet

18-01-2010, 11:06

I did do some research a while back into adsl offerings. And while some people close to Manchester said BE unlimited was a good bet, I couldn't find anyone actually in my area as such.

This of course means I would need to take a gamble on signing a new contract, and hoping most students in my area were all on cable, and not crippling the adsl services as well. But sadly, until I signed on the dotted line I'd never know for sure :(

I believe they do short term contracts, but if VM fix this problem, then I'm actually on a very good deal at the minute (when it is working of course)

I can assure you that someone like Sky and in vast majority of cases Be don't have the problems that cable does coping with small areas, their load is spread across the entire exchange and upgrading can be far easier than VM.

Just a point - I do empathise with your issues and alternatives may need some serious investigation :(

Sephiroth

18-01-2010, 11:46

I can assure you that someone like Sky and in vast majority of cases Be don't have the problems that cable does coping with small areas, their load is spread across the entire exchange and upgrading can be far easier than VM.

Just a point - I do empathise with your issues and alternatives may need some serious investigation :(

I've got to back that up from BBings. Right at the start, ADSL avoids the contention on a shared trunk to the street box; each phone line has its own path to the cabinet as you obviously know.

The number of exchanges is an enormous help to the avoidance of congestion (as distinct from the lower number of VM regional head ends). With FTTC under way, all BT has to do (though not trivial) is pull fibre to the cabinet, put in a few MSANs at the exchange and forward up to the next tier or across to the likes of Be, SKY present in the exchange.

The fact that the likes of Be, SKY etc have their own fibre infrastructure distributes broadband load further.

VM have some worries over and above the pickle they're now in.

Ignitionnet

18-01-2010, 12:06

I've got to back that up from BBings. Right at the start, ADSL avoids the contention on a shared trunk to the street box; each phone line has its own path to the cabinet as you obviously know.

The number of exchanges is an enormous help to the avoidance of congestion (as distinct from the lower number of VM regional head ends). With FTTC under way, all BT has to do (though not trivial) is pull fibre to the cabinet, put in a few MSANs at the exchange and forward up to the next tier or across to the likes of Be, SKY present in the exchange.

The fact that the likes of Be, SKY etc have their own fibre infrastructure distributes broadband load further.

VM have some worries over and above the pickle they're now in.

I think you misunderstand the nature of FTTC Seph, the MSANs go in the cabinet and terminate the copper lines then are backhauled with fibre to an exchange, not necessarily the closest one. At that point they either go to another exchange or connect to a switch there and then for handover via 802.1Q-in-Q to BT Wholesale and any other operators who have chosen to purchase connectivity to the switch.

DSL's advantage is where the contention point is - it's in the exchange, the backhauls from the MSANS (equivalent of CMTS / uBR in cable) rather than being at a street cabinet which needs additional fibre connectivity. Splitting cable nodes to increase bandwidth requires, eventually, new cabinet builds, new fibre pulls and new line cards, upgrading DSL backhaul if the operators has been sensible with their build requires just a new line card / NTE either side at most, and in some cases just one side if the other is a GigE / 10GbE port running below that.

VM's comfort comes from how late BT are to this game, how long it will take them to roll it out to a significant number of people, and how many will actually want it given most people still choose price over quality. 10Mbit service is still the one people take most often because it's the cheapest.

Sephiroth

18-01-2010, 14:52

I think you misunderstand the nature of FTTC Seph, the MSANs go in the cabinet and terminate the copper lines then are backhauled with fibre to an exchange, not necessarily the closest one. At that point they either go to another exchange or connect to a switch there and then for handover via 802.1Q-in-Q to BT Wholesale and any other operators who have chosen to purchase connectivity to the switch.

DSL's advantage is where the contention point is - it's in the exchange, the backhauls from the MSANS (equivalent of CMTS / uBR in cable) rather than being at a street cabinet which needs additional fibre connectivity. Splitting cable nodes to increase bandwidth requires, eventually, new cabinet builds, new fibre pulls and new line cards, upgrading DSL backhaul if the operators has been sensible with their build requires just a new line card / NTE either side at most, and in some cases just one side if the other is a GigE / 10GbE port running below that.

......

No I don't misunderstand 21CN (nor thus FTTC). I was trying to keep it simple. The DSLAMs at the exchange are being replaced by MSANs. Homes connected directly to the exchange can be connected to the MSAN there. FTTC, as you say, requires new cabinets so that the "deep" access level tier MSANs can be accommodated. The reason I didn't put it this way is that people might getconfused as to the CMTS analogy you made.

bthodgson

18-01-2010, 17:56

Bluffdemon

18-01-2010, 18:24

This is just getting odder now. The 'ready' light on th modem has been flashing on and off since last night but throughout this time I still seem to have full Internet access??

Not sure what's going on anymore...

its virgin's new disco light but still working internet ( but not for long ) ( and we love you ringing us for us to tell you its your router )

bthodgson

18-01-2010, 21:55

Yeah, never heard VM tell me it's my router before.... Lol

Ignitionnet

18-01-2010, 23:07

No I don't misunderstand 21CN (nor thus FTTC). I was trying to keep it simple. The DSLAMs at the exchange are being replaced by MSANs. Homes connected directly to the exchange can be connected to the MSAN there. FTTC, as you say, requires new cabinets so that the "deep" access level tier MSANs can be accommodated. The reason I didn't put it this way is that people might getconfused as to the CMTS analogy you made.

Seph I have to say I think you do misunderstand. 21CN is nothing to do with FTTC so misunderstanding of them is completely independent of one another. 21CN is the DSLAM -> MSAN migration removing ATM from the BT Wholesale DSL backhaul network and facilitating full POTS over MPLS functionality replacing the legacy switches with software switches and is not related to Next Generation Access at all. It's not even the same part of the BT group doing them. Next Generation Access / FTTC and FTTP are purely an Openreach (http://www.openreach.co.uk) project, 21CN is purely a BT Wholesale (http://www.btwholesale.co.uk) project.

People who connect directly to the exchanges in FTTC connected areas don't get anything new happen, beyond a feeling of persecution as they remain stuck on ADSL and ADSL2+ so limited to 24Mbps.

If you wanted to keep it simple wouldn't it have been better to simply say that it brings the 'exchange' to your local cabinet for broadband purposes, and as the problem with DSL is usually distance from the exchange cutting it from as much as 6 or more KM to a few hundred metres gives much better performance?

I didn't actually make the CMTS analogy until after you made your post, indeed the analogy was part of the response to it so I'm not sure why your post would be phrased to avoid confusion with one I hadn't made yet unless you were using the Meerkat crystal ball! :)

---------- Post added at 23:07 ---------- Previous post was at 23:03 ----------

its virgin's new disco light but still working internet ( but not for long ) ( and we love you ringing us for us to tell you its your router )

Doesn't mean it's going to die, they do that for some reason even on working non-50Mbit modems. If a 50Mbit modem does it on the other hand you're either unique or imagining being connected to the net as you are in fact disconnected ;)

Sephiroth

19-01-2010, 00:12

Seph I have to say I think you do misunderstand. 21CN is nothing to do with FTTC so misunderstanding of them is completely independent of one another. 21CN is the DSLAM -> MSAN migration removing ATM from the BT Wholesale DSL backhaul network and facilitating full POTS over MPLS functionality replacing the legacy switches with software switches and is not related to Next Generation Access at all. It's not even the same part of the BT group doing them. Next Generation Access / FTTC and FTTP are purely an Openreach (http://www.openreach.co.uk) project, 21CN is purely a BT Wholesale (http://www.btwholesale.co.uk) project.

.....

Far from it my friend - yopu rather choose to misunderstand what I understand. The two go hand in hand. The MSAN at the cabinet needs the MSAN at the exchange and so on all the way up the tiers. 21CN is the enabler for FTTC. It doesn't matter which part of BT is doing what since it all bolts together for use by the various delivery or sales divisions of BT.

Anyway, can we stop arguing please?

Retrovertigo

19-01-2010, 03:33

Well as boring as I'm sure it is to read about yet again, I had no connection at all again during peak hours this evening. God knows I am bored of keep writing about it - but it is kind of a therapy now. If I share it, it doesn't feel so bad :)

It is worrying that since students started trickling back into the area, that the problem has got worse. Five nights in a row now with no net - and counting. Money keeps getting knocked off my bill (last months was around £13) - but as I have said, it isn't good enough.

I'm kind of defeated by the net at the moment. I know it isn't quite the same, but when shopping around for different gas/electricity suppliers - you never get what they promised and you realise you are no better off :/

Luckily I am home all day at the moment so I do most of my internet "stuff" during the daytime and enjoy rather excellent speeds [part of which makes me want to hang in there (so stop moaning I hear you scream..haha) ]

One thing that does niggle me. I was having so many problems that I switched to 50 meg, as I was told by VM that not many people in my area were on it and so things would vastly improve. When the area manager turns up, I mention this to him - and how with hardly anyone on 50meg I should get full speed all day long.

He replied with "oh no, most of the students around here are all on 50meg as they want the fastest speed possible." Sigh.

I think I have moaned enough for today :)

I was thinking back though to when I signed up with NTL. I recall having had a couple of technical problems maybe 12 months after having it installed. Each time I needed an engineer visit. And on both occasions he arrived within 2 hours (!!!) of me calling and fixed the problem there and then.

Now when I speak to them, I have never had an engineer booked less than 5 days later, apart from the day before Christmas eve when I told them no way I was going over the christmas period with no internet. Times change eh?

Ignitionnet

19-01-2010, 08:20

Far from it my friend - yopu rather choose to misunderstand what I understand. The two go hand in hand. The MSAN at the cabinet needs the MSAN at the exchange and so on all the way up the tiers. 21CN is the enabler for FTTC. It doesn't matter which part of BT is doing what since it all bolts together for use by the various delivery or sales divisions of BT.

Anyway, can we stop arguing please?

Nah :p:

The MSAN at cabinet has nothing to do with the one in the exchange and they are not in any way interdependent. It connects, via fibre, to a switch for distribution to ISPs such as Be, Sky, and indeed BT Wholesale where it happens to be backhauled over the 21CN products WBC / WMBC. Not required for this to happen at all.

The copper from a home that takes FTTC goes via a BT Openreach supplied VDSL2 modem. It is split at the PCP / cabinet, where the voice goes straight to the exchange where it could connect to a 21CN MSAN, an LLU Operator MSAN, or a legacy SystemX POTS voice switch, it doesn't matter. The split off segment goes down tie cables to an MSAN either co-located in the cabinet or in a newly built one next door where the customer modem is authenticated and acquires its' VLAN IDs, one for provider and another customer specific on that MSAN.

After it's been VDSL'd up it is then backhauled over the cabinet's n x 10Gig backhauls to a switch where using the outer VLAN tag it is switched to the appropriate subscriber via an optical handoff. In the case of ISPs that use BT Wholesale products, yes, it goes via 21CN at this point as mentioned above but there is no dependency at all in place. This could be pushed down their 20CN IP over ATM / AAL5 network then to the 20CN Colossus IP backbone. In the case of LLU operators who also offer line rental and use MPF unbundling (the entire line) which include TalkTalk and newer Sky products it doesn't go near 21CN just as their non-FTTC products don't. No enabling at all.

You'll fine more information from Openreach regarding FTTC here (http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/products/nga/fttc/fttc.do) and FTTH/P (http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/products/nga/fttp/fttp.do) here.

indivisibleman

20-01-2010, 10:23

I've just got a bit of a refund on my bills from VM after calling them yesterday. I checked when my first call was (27th Nov) and the billing side did a refund from then until yesterday. But the group that deals with faults told me specifically the problem I had when I first called has been fixed (something to do with signal and noise), the later set of calls in mid December were to a different problem which has been fixed, and that my call yesterday was for a new problem which had only been "opened" the day before and will be fixed by the 31st of January. The whole time all these problems have been found by VM and fixed I have had the same intermittent connection (no gaps in that) and for the last few weeks the ready light flashes/does not flash at random times irrespective of the internet working. Are VM lying through their teeth to me when I talk to them? Do they understand that if I still have the same problems with my internet connection then what they have done is NOT fixing it?

Retrovertigo

20-01-2010, 13:02

It seems it depends on who you talk to. As far as the newsgroups go, they reckon it is the same ongoing problem from November.

I do wonder sometimes if they claim the have fixed something in order to just open a new ticket, so that the same fault number isn't open for months at a time.

Bluffdemon

21-01-2010, 09:23

They are lying bunch of nobodys as far as i am aware , all these " its a new problem " is utter garbage , i am really wanting to leave VM again and go with BT , infact when i do leave i will be ripping the brown box off the outside wall as i will never go with VM or any other company after them , since they took over from NTL is gone downhill fast , infact anything mr branson touches turns to Sh*t , sorry if any of you are offended by this but i bet most of manchester at the moment would agree

Retrovertigo

04-02-2010, 15:56

Sephiroth

04-02-2010, 16:08

Anyone having disconnection issues again? It seemed as though they had fixed it, but the last couple of days I have had quite a few outages and have had to reboot my modem each time to fix it.

Just curious if anyone else is suffering again. Not much point calling VM - but I have asked on the newsgroups.

Might be useful to hit the CONNECTION link each time you reset the modem and see which CMTS serves you.

bigitup_j

04-02-2010, 19:17

we've had a few disconnections, especially in the evening. but nothing as major as before. so i'm hoping it's just a wee hiccup!

Dexstroyer

09-02-2010, 18:23

I've had issues since Saturday 6th. Service just keeps dropping for no reason

bthodgson

09-02-2010, 23:00

I've had issues since Saturday 6th. Service just keeps dropping for no reason

Which UBR are you on?

HardyRexion

10-02-2010, 07:30

I've had issues since Saturday 6th. Service just keeps dropping for no reason

Recently, i've had a lot of connection issues. This may apply to some others on here too.

I have the 50mb connection and I use wireless for all but 1 of the computers in my home (3 lap tops and an Xbox 360)

I was experiencing random VERY slow connection and disconnections. Virgin sent 2 engineers out after phone support found 'problems' with my connection, and the engineers just came round and scratched their heads (as you can imagine the connection was perfect while they were visiting)

To cut a long story shorter, I hard reset my router to factory settings using the tiny button at the back of my Netgear router, set all the settings exactly as they were before and the problem is solved :confused:

I have set my router to stop looking for latest firmware as all is good.

Might be worth trying if your connection speed alters randomly like mine did

spankysmagicpian

10-02-2010, 10:07

Anyone having disconnection issues again? It seemed as though they had fixed it, but the last couple of days I have had quite a few outages and have had to reboot my modem each time to fix it.

Just curious if anyone else is suffering again. Not much point calling VM - but I have asked on the newsgroups.

I keep getting them - still almost daily but after some valuable advice on here, I posted on the support newsgroups and an engineer is coming out due to high levels on my modem. (M32 area)

Dexstroyer

10-02-2010, 14:49

Which UBR are you on?

Hi,

Erm... what is an UBR?

Thanks,

fatassmichael

10-02-2010, 15:22

Hi,

Erm... what is an UBR?

Thanks,

Its a Universal Broadband Router, if you click "connection" at the top of this page and post the info from where it says host, remove the cust number though, that will tell people where you connect too.

Dexstroyer

10-02-2010, 17:18

Thanks,

I'll do it as soon as Im home and post back,

---------- Post added at 17:18 ---------- Previous post was at 15:53 ----------

Its a Universal Broadband Router, if you click "connection" at the top of this page and post the info from where it says host, remove the cust number though, that will tell people where you connect too.

Connection Information
You appear to be on a Virgin Media Connection
Host cpc1-asht6-2-0-cust****.10-1.cable.virginmedia.com

Is this right?

fatassmichael

10-02-2010, 17:23

Dextroyer, yeah, but edit out you ip address, no one needs that.

Dexstroyer

10-02-2010, 17:31

Ok so what does this information tell us, which hub/exchange my connection routes via?

bthodgson

10-02-2010, 17:35

Thanks,

I'll do it as soon as Im home and post back,

---------- Post added at 17:18 ---------- Previous post was at 15:53 ----------

Connection Information
You appear to be on a Virgin Media Connection
Host cpc1-asht6-2-0-cust****.10-1.cable.virginmedia.com

Is this right?

apologies, I made assumptions as to your level of knowledge. Most of the issues that have been chatted about on here have been about the with5 UBR which has had an issue which Motorola were supposed to be fixing. I don't know if there is an issue with the asht6 UBR but could be a related fault I suppose.

Dexstroyer

10-02-2010, 17:44

bthodgson

10-02-2010, 19:15

My knowledge of this is as you say....none. I just expect to turn on & it works!
But that problem you mention on the other is what the engineer tried to say was wrong with my connection that they were waiting for someone to fly over from Seattle with a Motorola part, so either it affects me too or he just said it for the sake of not knowing.

To cut a long story short, the UBR is where everyone connects into to get their connection onto Virgin's network, thus if there is an issue with a particular UBR, it affects all those connected to it. Now I don't know too much about the way Broadband works and there are many on here who know much more than me on BB matters. The issue with the Motorola UBR's I think (and please correct me if i'm wrong all of you!) is that there was an update or something for some or all of these last October-ish and this resulted in the UBR's rebooting several times a day leaving you with no connection for around 15-30 mins or so at a time, however, people have had bigger issues than this with no connection for entire evenings (of which i'm one) and to the major extreme of no connection for several days. Now Virgin insist that this is an issue that Motorola have been looking into fixing and have given several dates for it to be fixed. Recently it seems to have been better for some people (I include myself in this) so I don't know if the aforementioned fix has been applied finally. I hope so!

Sorry for waffling but I hope this has been helpful! :D

Sephiroth

10-02-2010, 20:43

apologies, I made assumptions as to your level of knowledge. Most of the issues that have been chatted about on here have been about the with5 UBR which has had an issue which Motorola were supposed to be fixing. I don't know if there is an issue with the asht6 UBR but could be a related fault I suppose.
If I'm not mistaken (and I'l be instantly cut down if I am!), you can "exose" a Motorola BSR by doing a Pathping or a Traceroute. The first VM hop will start off with the string "CMTS".

Dexstroyer

11-02-2010, 19:37

Ive done the traceroute &

1 - 6 just gives me 3 *'s and request timed out

7 gives me 19ms/20ms/25ms www.virginmedia.com

Does this tell you anything?

Sephiroth

11-02-2010, 20:01

Ive done the traceroute &

1 - 6 just gives me 3 *'s and request timed out

7 gives me 19ms/20ms/25ms www.virginmedia.com

Does this tell you anything?

Not if you don't paste the result in this thread. To expose the CMTS if it's there we need to see the resolved device names that tracert or pathping provide. If you're in the command window and want to capture this information, the easiest way is to issue the command
tracert www.bbc.co.uk > c:\fred.txt (or to some other location).

Then in Windows, you open C:\fred.txt in notepad then copy/paste the contents into your post.

Cheers

Dexstroyer

11-02-2010, 20:28

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.251.195]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.

2 * * * Request timed out.

3 * * * Request timed out.

4 * * * Request timed out.

5 * * * Request timed out.

6 * * * Request timed out.

7 * * * Request timed out.

8 * * * Request timed out.

9 * * * Request timed out.

10 19 ms 34 ms 17 ms www-vip.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.251.195]

Trace complete.

Retrovertigo

25-02-2010, 00:04

Anyone Manchester folk having poor browsing speeds today?

Download speeds seem to be fine, but browsing is painful. As an example, this page took maybe 10 seconds to load. Cheers

RyuKokoro

25-02-2010, 00:13

Yeah, at the moment, I'm struggling to get 1mbps. That's in M14 which is on Rusholme exchange so as soon as BT roll out FTTC for Residential customers, I'm leaving VM behind.

eth01

26-02-2010, 11:39

Retrovertigo

14-03-2010, 00:27

Right, this is beyond a joke now. They seem to have stabilised the connection when surfing the net. But as soon as I put any load on my connection and try downloaing something, I inevitably get disconnected altogether. I then have to reboot my modem to get my connection up and running again.

I can surf all day now with no problems. But there is little point having a 50meg line when as soon as I try to grab anything off the net, I lose my connection.

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that they are cutting off people downloading in the manchester area in order to give the illusion that speeds are ok for everyone :P

I am downloading a video off gamespot that is just over a gig. It has taken me over 30 minutes so far because I keep losing my connection and have to restart everything.

I posted on the newsgroups about it and "the problem has been passed on to the network team" - the network team who haven't given this area a decent working stable connection since last November. Bravo boys - great job you are doing whoever you are.

What shred of patience I had, is pretty much gone now. I'd say what I really thought of them, but I know this forums policy on bad language. And I'd use enough to get me banned for ten lifetimes.

Re: eth01, no idea what you are getting at I'm afraid?