Virgin gaming advert - fact or fiction?

[Skie]

This was in the recent PC Gamer. Two page advert extolling the virtues of 50 meg. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not they are being less than honest when it comes to their well known high jitter and always present packetloss. But you can have a good laugh at the irony of the line "someone's crappy router lags everyone else" appearing in an advert for a product that comes with the Superhub.

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/9313/vmgaming1.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/35/vmgaming1.jpg/)http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/580/vmgaming2.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/24/vmgaming2.jpg/)

"Best Gaming broadband" my posterior!

[webrosc]

Download Failed (1) (http://www.pingtest.net)
i have the superhub

[dave6x]

Download Failed (1) (http://www.pingtest.net)
i have the superhub

I note that was mid afternoon, what's it like mid-evening?

I may only be on 10Mb its great during the day but it's rubbish from about 6pm to 11pm most days!

[pip08456]

http://www.pingtest.net/result/38734181.png (http://www.pingtest.net)
i have the superhub

And you're bragging about that!

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2015/12/3.gif

[webrosc]

unfortunatly i work evenings so never tested then
Download Failed (1) (http://www.pingtest.net)
thats a test i ran just before, but there is a problem in my area atm

[pip08456]

unfortunatly i work evenings so never tested then
http://www.pingtest.net/result/41471021.png (http://www.pingtest.net)
thats a test i ran just before, but there is a problem in my area atm

How co-incidental!

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2015/12/3.gif

[borrissey]

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41471421.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

That's mine through wireless.

[dave6x]

And you're bragging about that!

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2015/12/3.gif

I see you're on BT Infinity, what sort of result you getting?

[borrissey]

I don't think 100meg is perfect in my area yet, mate told me that works for VM that there doing work on the 100meg network soon. New things often take a while to settle and have teething problems...

[pip08456]

I see you're on BT Infinity, what sort of result you getting?

Won't deny it doesn't fluctuate a bit but OK for me. Some staff here may point you to the BT forum to try to show that uses have as many or more problems that VM ones.

As I drop in on the BT Infinity forum on a regular basis I can assure you it is quieter than the VM 50Mb one. (nearest comparison).

As with any company, if someone has a serious problem it gets blown out of all proportion, the BT support guys take 3-4 days to reply to threads (the same as VM).

I'm more than happy with it.

I have to add I'm not an online gamer but ping, latency are considerably lower which is what gamers need.

[craigj2k12]

as you will see from the attached screenshot that VM sent out an email today with this virgin media electric, one of the advertising points was gaming

edit: attachment not showing up for some reason
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/attachments/12/attachment-22307d1307141146-vm-game-advert.jpg

[pip08456]

Funny they aren't pushing the 100Mb for it don't you think?!

[craigj2k12]

Funny they aren't pushing the 100Mb for it don't you think?!

i think they are planning something at the moment, something big with regards to the 100mbit

[pip08456]

Gamers don't need 100Mb, they don't need 50Mb. They're just being conned into it!

[craigj2k12]

Gamers don't need 100Mb, they don't need 50Mb. They're just being conned into it!

i find that although running the actual games only require less than 2mbit or even 1, when downloading updates etc its still seems to take ages if an update takes 10 minutes, sitting there waiting for it seems like forever, but compared to my mates BT 5mbit which takes him hours its a lot better.

[JonM1988]

This is mines at the minute:
http://www.pingtest.net/result/41472896.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

Would that be considered acceptable for a 100mb connection?

[AaronCooper]

I remember about 5 years ago i could get a steady 5ping to in an online game to my friend who lived a few miles away. My brother lives a few miles away, were both on virgin and the lowest ping i've had to him is between 20-25.

[pip08456]

i find that although running the actual games only require less than 2mbit or even 1, when downloading updates etc its still seems to take ages if an update takes 10 minutes, sitting there waiting for it seems like forever, but compared to my mates BT 5mbit which takes him hours its a lot better.

But my Infinity would have a similar performance to VM's 50Mb (it does actually) but I was referring to gameplay which VM seem to be pushing, not updates or downloading.

[craigj2k12]

But my Infinity would have a similar performance to VM's 50Mb (it does actually) but I was referring to gameplay which VM seem to be pushing, not updates or downloading.

oh i agree on that, when talking about an ISP for online gaming, your after ping etc

anyway, this just made me sick:

It might even give you the edge in Call of Duty: Black Ops

after the [Mod Edit] up with the p2p management, which is still on going, how the hell can they justify putting that in the advert!!!!!!!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

[MovedGoalPosts]

If the content of an advert is incorrect or misleading then complain to the ASA/OFCOM. That might be the implication of anything impliying P2P systems interfere with game patches and updates if indeed they do interfere. On my 20 meg VM Black Ops Escalation downloaded quite happily in a few minutes

As for do you need 50 or even 100 meg for gaming, the answer at least for now must be NO. I'm on 20 meg and for computer based connection to remote servers I have no issues. But, for those who want to home host, perhaps including the console players, then the more bandwidth the better. A few years ago we did attempt on even 10 meg connections hosting a home serve3r for PC CoD4. It worked but only for say 12 players after which things became laggy. Realistically it comes down to how many users are you tryingt to support.

[Chrysalis]

I would say we got more than jitter.

The advert also claims the superhub is fully featured.

What planet does VM's marketing team live on.

[Stratoc]

my connection is great for gaming.... between the hours of one and five in the morning.
but it's ok, because if it gets worse they will tell the network team...
Shocking service great download speed but that really is not what i need. I had a stable 8 meg down my phone line, it's a bit hit and miss now, mainly miss + havnt even been able to get onto my games forums for the last 2 days.
tv's great the phones more expensive than my mobile, the broadband is pityfull.

[kalleh]

Download Failed (1) (http://www.pingtest.net)

[7031]

Eh, is that ad really that bad? I find it seems to focus on download speeds more than anything - and yeah, when it comes to patch day that's quite nice.

To be honest though, I find there's not many games which will actually download the patches at full speed - most servers seem to limit download speeds to around 20-30Mbit, although I play RIFT and on there I manage to max out my connection quite happily, which is good as the updates for RIFT tend to be quite big.

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41484822.png (http://www.pingtest.net)
Normally I'd expect to have a far better ping, but I suspect this is related to the nationwide fault, as I normally get around 19ms ping with 0-3ms jitter.

Here's one from last month:
http://www.pingtest.net/result/39252492.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

[Chrysalis]

yeah it doesnt actually say much about gaming at all other than the missing a shot so I think that advert isnt enough to get VM for gaming performance. Its a blatant mislead on the superhub tho.

[Skie]

Ironically the latest issue arrived this morning. Near the front is another one.

This time they mention lag specifically.

Download Failed (1) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/692/vmgaming3.jpg/)

Can a mod please stick that image into the first post please? :)

---------- Post added at 11:31 ---------- Previous post was at 11:30 ----------

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41479849.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

That is great! Except its at 2am in the morning so hardly representative.

[Chrysalis]

yeah that ad is stronger in my view, if you find anymore please post thanks.

I dont even need to send ASA any custom data as can simply use ofcom data which shows VM have 4-8x higher jitter than other isps.

[Skie]

For info, the first two images are from issue 227 of PC Gamer UK and the third is from issue 228.

Just had a browse through that ofcom report. The better than/worse than bit for jitter is quite a humorous read.

[carlwaring]

yeah it doesnt actually say much about gaming at all other than the missing a shot so I think that advert isnt enough to get VM for gaming performance. Its a blatant mislead on the superhub tho.
So this (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33676964-superhub-nowhere-near-bad-people-say.html?highlight=not+as+bad) thread is a lie then? ie it is as bad as some people like to make out; even though there seem to be others for whom it is actually okay? :confused:

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41495385.png

Okay, that's on 10MB, not 50 ;)

[kalleh]

Ironically the latest issue arrived this morning. Near the front is another one.

This time they mention lag specifically.

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/5204/vmgaming3.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/692/vmgaming3.jpg/)

Can a mod please stick that image into the first post please? :)

---------- Post added at 11:31 ---------- Previous post was at 11:30 ----------



That is great! Except its at 2am in the morning so hardly representative.


http://www.pingtest.net/result/41504960.png (http://www.pingtest.net)


http://www.pingtest.net/result/41504990.png (http://www.pingtest.net)



http://www.pingtest.net/result/41505014.png (http://www.pingtest.net)


http://www.pingtest.net/result/41505041.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

Your move?

[gazzae]

I see you're on BT Infinity, what sort of result you getting?

This is from my BT Infinity

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41506083.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

[The Installer]

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41506442.png (http://www.pingtest.net)
Here is my 50 meg result.

Stays pretty much like this 24/7 too according to my Samknows Box results.
Can't say that we've had any issues Xbox360 gaming, even at peak times ;)

[Chrysalis]

are people trying to suggest because "some" customers get good jitter VM are fine ;)

with an average of 4-8ms its obviously a significant amount above that.

Hopefully when my samknows arrives I will mysteriously get moved to keep better results been logged.

[The Installer]

are people trying to suggest because "some" customers get good jitter VM are fine ;)

with an average of 4-8ms its obviously a significant amount above that.

Hopefully when my samknows arrives I will mysteriously get moved to keep better results been logged.

The same question could be turned around and you could say that because "some" customers who don't have a good jitter (who are likely to be very vocal) does that mean that VM is bad?

[Skie]

The same question could be turned around and you could say that because "some" customers who don't have a good jitter (who are likely to be very vocal) does that mean that VM is bad?

The Ofcom results show VM has the worst Jitter. This isnt assumptions being made based on a few forum posts. Heck, the same Ofcom report that contains the jitter figures also contains the average download speeds that VM are happily rubbing in everyones faces currently.

---------- Post added at 18:24 ---------- Previous post was at 18:23 ----------



Your move?

*shrugs* Lucky you I guess.

[Chrysalis]

The same question could be turned around and you could say that because "some" customers who don't have a good jitter (who are likely to be very vocal) does that mean that VM is bad?

the answer is yes because they advertise it as such.

I will give you 2 scenarios.

1 - if VM had occasional jitter issues but then treated tham as a fault and fixed them so only ever temporary, then that would be fine.
2 - the actual scenario is areas with jitter issues are left like that unless there is other problems such as very low speeds or packet loss. So VM dont actively consider broken gaming as a fault yet they advertise their service as ideal for it.

So it all comes down to what they advertising and claiming.

However I am not using my own connection or anyone else's on here as data, I am using ofcom data which shows an average of 4-8ms jitter for VM compared to an average of 1-2ms across adsl isp's.

Today the vmng300 with its shortened queue delays is giving me this, flattering the real situation for my port. With that result I am still on the better side of VM's national average. (ignore isp as was done via proxy)

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41506979.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

[kalleh]

I'd like to point out until i was given a VMNG300 i was getting upto 30ms jitter at peak times my area isnt crowded or very popular on the 50mb package so i get good results i sympathise with people that are getting high jitter as i went through years of hell with 10 and 20mb with oversubscription.

[Chrysalis]

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41510596.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

is upwards now, likely break 10ms this evening.

last night I did hit over 20ms with the superhub.

[spankysmagicpian]

Mines pretty good normally

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41511278.png

[markie1966]

why are u all relying on pingtest.net to show lag??

its not a true reflection on anyones lag at all

if i use pingtest it says "no lost packets"...but if im gaming theres mods that say im laggy

so they suggested using winmtr to do a proper packetloss report

seriously any gamer should download it....then pop in their game servers ip address to really see how many packets get lost

and i have screenshots if u like to see

[pip08456]

I see you're on BT Infinity, what sort of result you getting?

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41519607.png

[Chrysalis]

why are u all relying on pingtest.net to show lag??

its not a true reflection on anyones lag at all

if i use pingtest it says "no lost packets"...but if im gaming theres mods that say im laggy

so they suggested using winmtr to do a proper packetloss report

seriously any gamer should download it....then pop in their game servers ip address to really see how many packets get lost

and i have screenshots if u like to see

depends on what you measuring. pingtest.net takes a very quick snapshot, whilst mtr will typically run longer. I have found pingtest.net to give a reasonable reflection on the state of affairs, it gives a higher number when I am noticing lag in real time use and always gave a low number when I was on adsl. So seems quite reliable from my own experience. However because it runs at a very small snapshot it can be generous to the isp as it only needs about 2-3 seconds of non jittered time to get a good result.

[markie1966]

i was referring to gaming chrysalis

take ur point on board of it being a snapshot....but if ur gaming the lag needs to be as low as possible....something we all know it isnt on vm

u gotta laugh at their claims for gaming tho

[*sloman*]

Wired (not super hub)

VM Modem > TP-Link 1Gbit switch > PC

I guess i could shave 1-2ms my removing router and switch

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/06/125.png

[qasdfdsaq]

Funny how 3G mobile phone connections now have lower jitter and peak time congestion than VM cable broadband.

And that's on a nationwide level.

[7031]

Funny how 3G mobile phone connections now have lower jitter and peak time congestion than VM cable broadband.

And that's on a nationwide level.
Eh, is VM really that bad? Recently I did have a lot of problems with my connection due to the fault, but now I get 11ms pings.

[qasdfdsaq]

Jitter, not pings.

[tweetiepooh]

As mentioned elsewhere, why do people rely on ICMP for "useful" work? It's low priority traffic and legitimately dropped/delayed if things get busy.

Not trying to excuse bad service. Packet loss should be zero but ICMP is not reliable, it's a test protocol. Should test using other data types which I believe the Sam Knows boxes do.

[Chrysalis]

"if things get busy", you mean as in high utilisation.

I get concerned if something is busy enough that it has to be dropping low priority packets, icmp is even more useful now days considering that so many isps mess with tcp traffic.

but anyway, pingtest.net tests jitter over tcp not icmp I think.

also I test with udp primarily not icmp.

[driz]

It's a pity they don't appear to be too bothered to improve this aspect of their service - I gave Virgin a go when I moved house in March (30meg with a superhub in SW15) and quite liked the speed in both directions (upload was 3meg!) but it was not good enough for gaming :(

[borrissey]

There's a VM 50meg BB on PlayStation interactive downloadable magazine First play.

Download Failed (1) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/685/img0307hd.jpg/)

There's a feature on there video.

[Chrysalis]

funny they got a vmng300 on that picture.

[borrissey]

funny they got a vmng300 on that picture.

Yeah lol on the video feature they show the superhub.

[swoop101]

50meg here
Download Failed (1)

and that is with both my lads gaming upstairs at the same time

[roughbeast]

Although my TBB ping monitor shows that I do get a few packet loss and latency spikes during a 24 hour day, especially around 11.00 pm, I have never had a ping test worse than this one. Yes, I probably am bragging.

Download Failed (1) (http://www.pingtest.net)


Here's my live line quality graph. I guess I must have been lucky every time I ran a snapshot ping test. I have not noticed any problems with on line games.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/06/108.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/164b802135370abefbd96dfc23ac570a.html)


Perhaps I should try gaming around 11.00 pm more often.

[Charliedontsurf]

50meg here
http://www.pingtest.net/result/41766780.png

and that is with both my lads gaming upstairs at the same time

Can I just ask are they on xboxes?

---------- Post added at 19:55 ---------- Previous post was at 19:52 ----------

Oh and this is my 50mb Virginmedia great for gaming connection right now
Download Failed (1) (http://www.pingtest.net)

Phoned Virginmedia and therre is no problem with my line, Because me powerlevels are ok lol.

[swoop101]

1 xbox 1 pc and the wife was on her laptop as well

oh and don't use the manchester server, it quite often shows problems with speed and other tests.

[roughbeast]

Can I just ask are they on xboxes?

---------- Post added at 19:55 ---------- Previous post was at 19:52 ----------

Oh and this is my 50mb Virginmedia great for gaming connection right now
http://www.pingtest.net/result/41769622.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

Phoned Virginmedia and therre is no problem with my line, Because me powerlevels are ok lol.

Interesting. I have looked for a pattern of results depending upon distance from server and server used. I can't see a pattern, but do wonder if folk get different results from different servers from tests taken approximately at the same time. The point being: Are ping tests accurate enough to be relied upon to make some of the positive and negative comments made here? Do folk always go with the default 'best' server or do they choose them manually?

Although I said I had never had a bad test result maybe this is because I always select the same server, the one that works well for me, Milton Keynes. I did have a bad 'C' test once though when the test defaulted to Poznan! :rolleyes:

Funnily enough here is Poznan just now.

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41771793.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

[Chrysalis]

Although my TBB ping monitor shows that I do get a few packet loss and latency spikes during a 24 hour day, especially around 11.00 pm, I have never had a ping test worse than this one. Yes, I probably am bragging.

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41769071.png (http://www.pingtest.net)


Here's my live line quality graph. I guess I must have been lucky every time I ran a snapshot ping test. I have not noticed any problems with on line games.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/06/108.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/164b802135370abefbd96dfc23ac570a.html)


Perhaps I should try gaming around 11.00 pm more often.

maybe they left you on the trial ubr which has hardly anyone on it :p

I finally got more info on whats going on for me. Is ongoing reseg work and will get a call back tommorow on it with more info.

Today I noticed 2 significant drops of jitter at 6am and 10am.

here is current pingtest.

http://www.pingtest.net/result/41773487.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

its still all over place at times but not so bad as previous days. Not done any speedtests today.

[roughbeast]

maybe they left you on the trial ubr which has hardly anyone on it ...............

Sadly not. My trial ended prematurely because of work on 100Mb in my area. This produced interference, enough to ruin my connection. Mind you I haven't checked recently. You gave me an idea. I still have the trial routers. :naughty:

[Charliedontsurf]

An now everyone has stopped downloading.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/06/106.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[Chrysalis]

copy of my report if anyone interested in cloning it.

Virgin Media are advertising their service as perfect for gaming, as a superior service to the competition by specifically mentioning it has no lag in games. In addition on their own website they describe it as "perfect for gaming" in the magazine some quotes "you will never miss another shot"
http://imageshack.us/f/24/vmgaming2.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/f/35/vmgaming1.jpg/
Magazine is pc gamer.
http://imageshack.us/f/692/vmgaming3.jpg/
"out manoeuvre with lower lag times"
Last one was 4 June.
Here is some evidence these claims are wrong.
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33675644-think-broadband-ping-monitor-results-post-page-39.html
In that page is graphs from Virgin Media customers showing latency and jitter, the green is the base latency, the blue is the average latency and the yellow is the peak latency, what’s important as far as gaming goes is the blue and yellow on those graphs. These customers may have had these issues ongoing for months.
On Virgin Media's own support forums here.
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Fibre-optic-broadband-cable/bd-p/Fibre
Staff are telling customers with high pings/jitter that it is not a faulty service and within performance thresholds, so in other words high unstable pings are not considered a fault in the service unless other criteria is also met.
Finally for some hard evidence ofcom released a report detailing performance across the major UK broadband providers, this report shows Virgin Media to have much higher jitter than its competitors, by a significant margin, this is a report done by the ofcom regulator themselves alongside samknows.
Report can be got from here.
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/telecoms-research/broadband-speeds/broadband-speeds-2010/
Direct download link.
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/telecoms-research/bbspeeds2010/bbspeeds2010.pdf
Pages 83 and 84 are where the information is at.
Virgin Media is a fairly decent service for speeds but for latency/jitter it is highly variable and it is evident a high proportion of customers suffer from suboptimal performance that would affect gaming alongside other latency sensitive apps, with the recent new services they sell with higher speeds this problem has got worse as they push the boundaries of their claims further.

---------- Post added at 15:49 ---------- Previous post was at 15:43 ----------

I have decided to do one about the superhub as well as I find the claim of it been "fully featured" laughable.

[_wtf_]

Been playing since 8 this morning absolutely loving my new BT broadband :D

I can tell you for definite VM is not the best ISP in my house for gaming, in fact I tried the BT connection wireless this morning and even that was better than my VM connection :confused:

The broadband monitor tends to go off for some reason, the 10 day training period perhaps?

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/1d404533ca0e58ded69989cf3c33253f-11-06-2011.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/1d404533ca0e58ded69989cf3c33253f-11-06-2011.html)

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/26c03f612137660b925120cea1318792-11-06-2011.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/26c03f612137660b925120cea1318792-11-06-2011.html)

[damien c]

I don't have any issues with my connection when gaming either on my pc or my xbox.

The only lag I get is when the servers play up for the games on my pc or, I play Modern Warfare 2 and I am not picked as the host and it turn's out the host has a bad connection, and the other time I get lag is on Xbox when again I don't host the game but when I do host I never get anyone saying there is lag.

Doesn't matter what time of day it is I get a perfect 20-40ms ping in Blop's and I also get a 60ms ping in MW2 as not many people play that anymore, and on the xbox 90% of the time I have 4 green bars.

[AndyCalling]

Is this bad? I don't seem to have any problems playing games.

http://www.pingtest.net/result/44613325.png

Sometimes DOW2 gets laggy, but it usually seems to be someone else bringing the rest of us down. If it turns out it's me I shall have to have words with VM, and some people here seem less than impressed with such results as mine, but PingTest gives it an A? Can this really be as poor as some suggest?

[Robertus]

And you're bragging about that!

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2015/12/3.gif

The mods should ban posters like you, seriously.

Moronic.

Anyway here's my 100Mbit

http://www.pingtest.net/result/44617293.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

[driz]

For comparison, my Be connection:

http://www.pingtest.net/result/44623397.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

[Zanny]

I wonder if they paid blizzard and valve for use of those images? or are VM guilty of copyright infringement lol.

[Efour]

http://www.pingtest.net/result/44652702.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

this is at 2pm on a weekday... That is just about acceptable to play with giving a highly fluctuating 40-70 latency to a real server.

Double this and start to add 5-10%packetloss and you have my everyday connection between 7pm and midnight.. Worse now cos its school holidays too.....

I had a better gaming experiance on 64k ISDN

[Skie]

Mines gotten progressively worse the past week. Had constant ping spikes last night, so much so I got fed up of firing a rocket in TF2 only to see my ammo count increase and find the rocket didn't even fire. Fun!

---------- Post added at 20:28 ---------- Previous post was at 20:27 ----------

I wonder if they paid blizzard and valve for use of those images? or are VM guilty of copyright infringement lol.

They didn't even credit the ownership of the images!

[Efour]

http://www.pingtest.net/result/44677856.png (http://www.pingtest.net)

and this is peak times ( on the cool down side when its getting better)

---------- Post added at 22:21 ---------- Previous post was at 22:21 ----------

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/monitors/graph/a05a643d02b3bcba3d54de84db16029e.png