Cambridge CB5 UBR over utilised!

[DEADMAN_INC]

HI there Broadbandking/ other virgin media staff who post here,

The reason im contacting you is i understand your employees of Virgin, are you still?? great if you are and sorry if i have wasted your time otherwise.

But i need your help and would most appreciate it if you could. you see my local UBR in the CB5 8LP (Cambridge Area) is over subscribed, therefore causing problems with speeds, uploads and packet loss also! Now i have contacted the CEO, who has passed on my case to a <deleted> and he is dealing with it.
But im not getting anywhere! i need to have a date as to when the local UBR is going to be fixed? can you possibly look into this?
If you could i would most appreciate it! i just need an idea of where i stand as i have been suffering now for 3 months, its affecting my business and also the ability to play online gaming!!

If you require more information let me know
Many thanks again for your help

[Edit by Rob: Please do not give name Virgin Media Staff without their prior consent]

[Welshchris]

Errrmmm u really shouldnt be naming members of staff who are dealing with it at the chief execs office, they tend to get a little shirty.

I do hope everything is sorted tho i know how u feel.

[broadbandking]

Yes I am still employed by Virgin, if you click on connection at the top of the page and copy your UBR, sure some one can have a look for you, plus WelshChris is right can you remove the virgin media staff memebers name from your post.

Have you been in contact with the newsgroups, reason I ask as this issue gets passed to planning and capacity, which then arrange for a fix, this can take awhile due to resources, planning , parts, so if you area does need a upgrade it might not be a quick overnight job.

P.S make sure you remove any trace of IP/Mac address please

[DEADMAN_INC]

Sorry about adding the names in there oops! its my first post i should have been more careful! thanks for editing!

And yes i have posted in the newsgroups hence the reason for the letter to the CEO/director

3 months from November with a target date of January should have been more than ample time in my eyes, i think i gave them plenty of notice personally.

but ill try your idea in the meantime

[Welshchris]

DEADMAN INC, The BSR in Swansea still hasnt been repaired properly and people r still having issues here. Motorolla has put out 2 codes to try and solve the issue and it hasnt and this problem has been going on since August last year.

Some problems do take time to fix, BUT! what annoys me with Virgin is they dont admit to the issues they have and people get stressed. Towards the end before i switched back to a UBR on 20mb i was getting the same problems as over 20 people i knew of in Swansea on the same BSR and on the same card also. Virgin finally admitted there was an issue in October but said they didnt know how to fix it. Atleast the admittence give hope and u knew where u stand.

[Sephiroth]

DEADMAN INC, The BSR in Swansea still hasnt been repaired properly and people r still having issues here. Motorolla has put out 2 codes to try and solve the issue and it hasnt and this problem has been going on since August last year.

Some problems do take time to fix, BUT! what annoys me with Virgin is they dont admit to the issues they have and people get stressed. Towards the end before i switched back to a UBR on 20mb i was getting the same problems as over 20 people i knew of in Swansea on the same BSR and on the same card also. Virgin finally admitted there was an issue in October but said they didnt know how to fix it. Atleast the admittence give hope and u knew where u stand.

Well said.

Why can't they bite the bullet and rent some Cisco 10Ks and whack them in till Motorola solve their siht? Any self respecting company would not leave its customers in the lurch.

Have you contacted the Swansea local newspaper yet?

[DEADMAN_INC]

Ok guys i havent tried the connection thingy request that broadbandking asked me to do.
However yesterday i got a reply with the person who has been dealing with my case and he now confirms that it has been fixed, this is the reply i got from the virgin rep;

"The fix happened over the last couple of days, I've been checking your service over the last couple of days and you have been moved from port 1 to port 0 with less congestion. The one you were connected to previously was above 90% usage for over 10% of the time. The new port is well below this level Obviously we cant guarantee full speeds during peak times but you should have noticed an improvement since yesterday. Could you let me know as soon as you can if have noticed an improvement. As you mentioned this is taking much longer than expected and I am sincerely sorry. Also we would rather keep you as a customer than loose you to BT."

I havent had much time to test it thoroughly however the uploads are still being funny, although the packet loss problem seems to have gone away?
I was used to seeing uploads above 1mb not half which is still what i saw yesterday. is this ok for a 50mb package or does it need time to kick in.
The tests i did were around between 12am and 2pm last night.

Download speeds seem to be fine ranging from 40mb and above (it even reached 63mb a couple of times, that didnt seem right?)
the ping looked fine ranging between 15-30
The upload was the one that seemed to stick and take ages to get tested and when it did it would come with results ranging from 300 - 700kbps
Any ideas or should i give it a couple of days?

---------- Post added at 10:29 ---------- Previous post was at 10:26 ----------

Well said.

Why can't they bite the bullet and rent some Cisco 10Ks and whack them in till Motorola solve their siht? Any self respecting company would not leave its customers in the lurch.

Have you contacted the Swansea local newspaper yet?


Sephiroth you are the man, thank you for pointing me in the right direction by the way on the virgin forums it provided me with a very rapid response from the top guy!
Thanks:tu:

[Welshchris]

Deadman, try uploading a file of say 30mb to something like Rapidshare and see what u get.

For some reason i only get 1.3mb up on 50mb service and it max's out at around 160k on any site.

[Sephiroth]

.......
Download speeds seem to be fine ranging from 40mb and above (it even reached 63mb a couple of times, that didnt seem right?)
the ping looked fine ranging between 15-30
The upload was the one that seemed to stick and take ages to get tested and when it did it would come with results ranging from 300 - 700kbps
Any ideas or should i give it a couple of days?[COLOR="Silver"]

...
Generally, if the downstream speed is fine and the upstream speed is reduced it means congestion. If they've moved you to another port, they need to monitor this for you to determine where this congestion comes from. If it comes from your trunk in the street, then there's nothing they can do because there's only one upstream channel on the 50 Mbps service at the moment.

I don't know if you're on an ex-Telewest or ex-MTL area. The difference is that former is lkely to have your own cable directly to the street box; the latter is likely to be a tap of a street trunk and is more susceptible to the guy next door hogging the upstream, although the bandwidth back to the CMTS might not be much higher. Others no more details of what capacity there is up to the CMTS.

HTH.

[DEADMAN_INC]

Generally, if the downstream speed is fine and the upstream speed is reduced it means congestion. If they've moved you to another port, they need to monitor this for you to determine where this congestion comes from. If it comes from your trunk in the street, then there's nothing they can do because there's only one upstream channel on the 50 Mbps service at the moment.

I don't know if you're on an ex-Telewest or ex-MTL area. The difference is that former is lkely to have your own cable directly to the street box; the latter is likely to be a tap of a street trunk and is more susceptible to the guy next door hogging the upstream, although the bandwidth back to the CMTS might not be much higher. Others no more details of what capacity there is up to the CMTS.

HTH.

Im not sure either as to whether it was ex ntl or telewest either? weve only been at the property for 3 years now.

Anyway i did a few tests tracerts, ping tests, and power levelchecks could someone interpret these for me as i dont understand what is good or bad etc.
Much appreciated and here they are.

Cable Modem Downstream
DS-1 DS-2 DS-3 DS-4
Frequency 315000000 299000000 307000000 N/A
Lock Status
(QAM Lock/FEC Sync/MPEG Lock) Y/Y/Y Y/Y/Y Y/Y/Y N/N/N
Channel Id 53 51 52 N/A
Modulation 256QAM 256QAM 256QAM N/A
Symbol Rate
(Msym/sec) 6.952 6.952 6.952 N/A
Interleave Depth I=12
J=17 I=12
J=17 I=12
J=17 N/A
Power Level
(dBmV) -6.09 -6.30 -6.16 N/A
RxMER
(dB) 37.09 36.84 37.09 N/A
Correctable
Codewords 0 3 0 N/A
Uncorrectable
Codewords 290 253 251 N/A


Cable Modem Upstream
US-1 US-2 US-3 US-4
Channel Type 1.0 N/A N/A N/A
Channel ID 2 N/A N/A N/A
Frequency
(Hz) 47400000 N/A N/A N/A
Ranging Status Success N/A N/A N/A
Modulation 16QAM N/A N/A N/A
Symbol Rate
(KSym/sec) 2560 N/A N/A N/A
Mini-Slot Size 2 N/A N/A N/A
Power Level
(dBmV) 53.25 N/A N/A N/A
T1 Timeouts 0
T2 Timeouts 0 0 0 0
T3 Timeouts 0 0 0 0
T4 Timeouts 0 0 0 0


Cable Modem Operation Configuration
General Configuration
Network Access : Allowed
Maximum Number of CPEs : 1
Baseline Privacy : Enabled
DOCSIS Mode : DOCSIS 3.0
Config File : 87dsfd;kfoA,.iyewrkl
Primary Downstream Service Flow
SFID : 1588
Max Traffic Rate : 53000000 bps
Max Traffic Burst : 3044 bytes
Min Traffic Rate : 0 bps
Primary Upstream Service Flow
SFID : 1587
Max Traffic Rate : 1750000 bps
Max Traffic Burst : 3044 bytes
Min Traffic Rate : 0 bps
Max Concatenated Burst : 1522 bytes
Scheduling Type : Best Effort


http://www.speedtest.net/result/713913009.png speedtest result

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\SHEILA & SURAJ>ping bbc.co.uk

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=119
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=119
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=119
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=119

Ping statistics for 212.58.224.138:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 12ms, Maximum = 31ms, Average = 22ms

C:\Documents and Settings\SHEILA & SURAJ>tracert bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 23 ms 21 ms 21 ms 10.27.140.1
2 8 ms 8 ms 16 ms cmbg-core-1b-ge-210-1189.network.virginmedia.net
[80.1.203.37]
3 33 ms 27 ms 27 ms nth-bb-b-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43.1
63.145]
4 21 ms 11 ms 31 ms tele-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
184.2]
5 40 ms 227 ms 232 ms pos6-1.rt0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.237]
6 130 ms 199 ms 203 ms 212.58.238.153
7 13 ms 76 ms 11 ms virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]

Trace complete.

Appreciate this in advance thank you

[Sephiroth]

We could do with the event log (CM-MAC address to be obfuscated) so that we can assess the effect of your poor downstream power level.

You speed test suggests your problem lies with the downstream side and this is supported by the low downstream power. Has your power always been at this level? Are you located a long way from the street cabinet?

Is there an attenuator on the back of your cable modem and if so, what value attenuation?

[DEADMAN_INC]

We could do with the event log (CM-MAC address to be obfuscated) so that we can assess the effect of your poor downstream power level.

You speed test suggests your problem lies with the downstream side and this is supported by the low downstream power. Has your power always been at this level? Are you located a long way from the street cabinet?

Is there an attenuator on the back of your cable modem and if so, what value attenuation?

ill get the event log for you this evening when i get a chance i hope lol.....

Im not sure i usually get speed of 40-50mb down so it was weird that that was doing this last night?? i dont know how far away i am from the street cabinet is their a way to check this out?

The attenuator on the back of the modem is a 6db and there is another at the end of the splitter which is also a 6db is this normal to have 2 of those???

Appreciate your help again

What about the upstream did that look ok to you?

[Welshchris]

try taking the one off on the back of the modem.

Up stream also is a little high but within tollerence as most engineers dont like to see it go above 55dBmv.

[Sephiroth]

Welshchris is right in principle to suggest removing one attenuator although it might not help the upstream situation. Do check that the one remaining is a forward path attemuator (and indeed the one you removed) and confirm back. Is there a history that you can recall that might have led to the attenuators being put on?

I would expect the upstream power to fall slightly. If it doesn't, then there has to be a reason why the CMTS needs to demand such a power level to push through.

Looking at your stats, the UBR is a Cisco 10K not Motorola so I doubt it's a UBR fault. Congestion could in any case be a contributory factor in your user experience.

I should point out that the modem ought to be able to cope with the lowish power level. There are very few codeword errors and I don't think removing the attenuator will make much/any difference.

I'd still like to see the event log, please. It helps solidify the opinions.

[DEADMAN_INC]

Ok here it is been away for a bit so couldnt get this for you, but heres the event log seems very long i took out the cmts log i hope this is what you mean if not apologies i dont know what this stuff means really.
In regards to the attenuator theyre both 6db forward path attenuators.
If you need more information please let me know!

thanks for your help and advice

Cable Modem Event Log
First Time Last Time Priority Description
Sat Feb 13 02:54:32 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:54:32 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:54:38 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:54:46 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:55:03 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:55:03 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:55:11 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:55:28 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:55:53 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:55:53 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:56:00 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:56:07 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:56:25 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:56:25 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:56:32 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:56:44 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 02:57:02 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:57:02 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:57:08 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:57:16 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 02:57:33 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:57:33 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:57:41 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:57:57 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 02:58:32 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:58:32 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:58:38 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:58:48 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 02:59:16 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:59:16 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:59:24 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:59:31 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:59:49 2010 Sat Feb 13 02:59:49 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 02:59:56 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:00:03 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 03:00:21 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:00:21 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 03:00:28 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:00:35 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 03:00:53 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:00:53 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 03:00:59 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:01:07 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 03:01:25 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:01:25 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 03:01:32 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:01:50 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 03:02:14 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:02:14 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 03:02:19 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:02:27 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 03:02:44 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:02:44 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 03:02:53 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:03:06 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 03:03:33 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:03:33 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 03:03:39 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:03:54 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 03:04:29 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:04:29 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 03:04:37 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:04:44 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 03:05:02 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:05:02 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Sat Feb 13 03:05:09 2010 Sat Feb 13 03:05:22 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Sat Feb 13 03:05:51 2010 Sat Feb 13 09:51:31 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Mon Feb 15 11:33:47 2010 Mon Feb 15 11:33:47 2010 Notice (6) DHCP Renew - lease parameters tftp file-Pcaa1a92007a50b13.cm modifie;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Mon Feb 15 13:09:43 2010 Wed Feb 17 10:38:41 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0
Wed Feb 17 10:38:42 2010 Wed Feb 17 10:38:42 2010 Critical (3) Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Thu Feb 18 09:26:16 2010 Thu Feb 18 09:26:16 2010 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0

[Sephiroth]

The event log tells us that overnight on 13-Feb, something happened on the network. Maybe VM working on it.

The sporadic T3 timeouts are consistent with moments of extreme upstream congestion, IMO. So you do need to be chasing the CEO's office if they're committed to your case.

[DEADMAN_INC]

Ok guys the matter has now been resolved from moving me over to a new port it has helped but that has only been on the basis of them moving me only over to a different port apparently the rest of the 125 or so in the area are still suffering as the fix date for the over capacitised port is not until June2010 very far away!!

Again i want to thank you guys for your advice and help i appreciate it but most of all a big thankyou to Sephiroth who directed in the right direction by advising me to go to the CEO dept on the virgin forums, i would not have gotten a quicker response even though that in itself was a slow one too but not as bad as the others in my area who are probably screaming at their broadband right now.

If only virgin would not oversell but then again who am i kidding lol!

Thanks again everybody

PEACE!