Engineers Working-alternative ways of finding out

[da_vone]

Hi just got my BB upgraded from 10 meg to 20 meg after doing many speed tests on the the virgin games site http://gamefiles.virginmedia.com/blueyondergames/demos/
which ever download speed is shown multiply that by 8 to see your total speed i.e 1.17 MB/sec x 8 = 9.36 megs

I have found that im getting no where near 20meg. The speeds that i am getting is even below 10 megs. After calling Vm up and after a long wait whilst listening to JLS, The Saturdays, Pink, Taio Cruze, JLS, The Saturdays etc... And after being put through 2 people The guy said that there were engineers working in my area (Birmingham) and apologised for the loss of service and would credit £5, which is fair play. But is there any other way of finding this kind of information instead of calling VM i.e. from a website, so that we wouldn't have to wait so long and listen to repetitive songs.

P.S. is my method of working out the speed correct?

[Sephiroth]

Reading this forum,. you'll see that there are national speed issues where e.g. 20 Mbps crashes to below 1 Mbps. So your 10 Mbps looks good in that light.

I'm on 20 Mbps and rarely get that - hovering between 8Mbps and 15 during the day and 3Mbps and 7 at peak time. I'm not complaining.

I always multiply by Bytes by 10 to allow for the red tape that accompanies packet transmission. The Windows calculation doesn't take the overhead into account but it is part of the capacity you are using.

So, IMO you ought to sit it out and watch the forums. The problems you'll really hit are to do with uploading and gaming (if that's what you do). There are upstream difficulties that spill over into reduced downstream behaviour.

Does that make sense?

[da_vone]

Thanks for your reply Sephiroth

Yeah the main reason i wanted to jump on the 20meg band wagon is that even with traffic management i hope to get around 5 megs (if i had a aggressive internet session) plus the thresholds are higher on the 20 than they are on the 10. After my post i had realised that many were having a speeding problem (i should have read before i posted. i might hit my head against the wall after my cold is gone lol)

I still haven't unboxed the wireless router that arrived. My intention is to get my PS3 hooked up as well as another PC and hopefully a laptop in the new year (waiting for the January sales). But i didn't realise that intensive upstream activities would have a negative effect upon the downstream.

What did you mean by the "red tape that accompanies packet transmission" and "The Windows calculation doesn't take the overhead into account but it is part of the capacity you are using"

[Sephiroth]

I've given a detailed explanation in one of the other threads as to how upstream could get into trouble (you can search for it as well as I can - sorry!) yet downstream looks OK. Thus your PS3 in current circumstances may hot the problem.

Try it by all means because you haven't yet commented on a gaming experience. For gaming, 10 or 20 Mbps makes very little difference given the types of packets being sent/received and their content.

Let us know.

As regards "red tape" - it's old mainframe speak in this case for overheads suchas headers, checksums and so on that occur in a packet. 10 might be a bit high but it's damn convenient. And the factor it varies by MTU size (which you can also look up)!

[Peter_]

Post what modem you have and your power levels from your config pages of your modem. The should be a sticker on the bottom saying what model.

If using an Ambit modem please click here
http://root:root@192.168.100.1/CmOpConfig.asp

If using any other modem click here
http://192.168.100.1/

What I want you to post is the Downstream power levels including the SNR and the Upstream power levels for me thanks.

DO NOT POST YOUR MAC ADDRESS OR SERIAL NUMBER

[da_vone]

Hi Moldova below are the down stream and up stream as you mentioned. My modem is a Scientific Atlanta WebSTAR. I hope the SNR you are refereing to is the Signal to Noise Ratio.

Downstream Status: Operational
Channel ID: 6
Downstream Frequency: 331000000 Hz
Modulation: 256QAM
Bit Rate: 20480000 bits/sec
Power Level: 0.9 dBmV
Signal to Noise Ratio: 37.9 dB


Upstream Status: Operational
Channel ID: 4
Upstream Frequency: 34000000 Hz
Modulation: 16QAM
Symbol Rate: 768000 bits/sec
Power Level: 36.0 dBmV

[Peter_]

Which model do you have as anything prior to the EPC2100 should have been replaced by Tech support such as the DPX100 and DPX110 if you have one of these it needs replacing ASAP.

[da_vone]

Hi Moldova i have checked my Modem model and it is the EPC2100

[Peter_]

Hi Moldova i have checked my Modem model and it is the EPC2100
Your power levels are fine so you may need to call support if you are still having issues.

You need to call Tech Support which is open 24/7 on 151 from your Virgin Media Phone.

It's absolutely free.

Or call 0845 454 1111 from any other phone line.