Article about Virgin Media Broadband in Brighton Argus

[Rao Vantika]

Hi,

Just seen this on the website of the local paper here, the Argus, about problems in the Brighton area of BN2.

I thought it may be of interest to readers here.

=== Quote ===

Broadband users in part of Sussex face having to wait at least one month for their service to be upgraded.

Customers in the BN2 area of Brighton have complained of problems with their Virgin Media internet connections.

One man said he had issues with the service for months and was told this week it would not be complete until September.

The company said the difficulties have been caused by “abnormally high network usage” affecting the area.

Ian Gutsell, of Coolham Drive, Brighton, said: “I have had nothing but issues.

“Finally they told me that they have been having problems for a long long time. They said they don’t expect to have it fixed until September.

“I told them they had been lying to me for months, telling me it was my PC.”

A Virgin Media spokeswoman said: “Like most other ISPs we operate a traffic management policy at peak times to ensure the top 5% of customers don’t spoil the experience for others by temporarily reducing their speeds during peak times – in most cases this automatically helps protect the experience for 95% of users.

“However we are aware of a recent internet speed issue affecting a small number of customers in the BN2 area of Brighton.

“This is the result of abnormally high network usage from a handful of customers which is affecting the broadband performance for others in the area.

“We automatically upgrade areas according to usage patterns and the necessary upgrade work is already under way. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

=== End Quote ===

Source: http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9158459.Month_long_delay_in_upgrade_to_Virgin_broa dband/

[Ignitionnet]

It would be really interesting to know how abnormal the usage actually is in Brighton. Most things about the area are out of the ordinary so it wouldn't surprise but I'd be interested to know.

[vmfriend]

Brighton University ;)

[qasdfdsaq]

If a university makes a city have abnormal usage then just about all cities in Scotland are abnormal for sure.

[horseman]

It would be really interesting to know how abnormal the usage actually is in Brighton. Most things about the area are out of the ordinary so it wouldn't surprise but I'd be interested to know.
Even though my own meagre L tier (in a BN3 segment to brig16) has so far not been impacted by any significant congestion impact since Dec2010 migration, my stepson's XL tier (BN3 diff sub code segment to brig16) sporadically suffers from (what I believe to be) utilisation/noise combinational degradation.
Trying to quantify the "reasons" without any direct active involvement of VM is of course an exercise in futility and just becomes largely a collection of speculative anecdotes! :(

A brief list of items that I have pondered over last 10 years of being domiciled in Brighton may promote further discussion on their validity/applicability. If anyone has found any sources/links or practical suggestions on how to survey it will no doubt be most welcome:

1. History of C&W/NTL/VM original rollout by BN area and timeline for improvements since.

2. BN street plans - particularly with regard to demographics of large Victorian/Edwardian 3+story town houses, hire rise apartments, newer build estates.

3. University catchment areas and student population residential demographics.

4. Seasonal/migratory worker demographics.

5. Business/Commercial demographics by BN code.


These apparently disparate topics are (probably obviously to many readers) related in varying degrees but enormously time consuming to correlate and often remain just as intangibles from a practical survey pov.

Substantiated facts are even more rare such as Ofcoms report:
Brighton and Hove had the highest take-up of broadband services with 80% of residents connected.

which doesn't appear to identify by ISP and therefore even that snippet is inconclusive when mapped to VM in BN environs…. :(

I did half heartedly create a private facebook group a year or so back with a vague notion of inviting BN users to map Fault codes to CMTS and postcode and then correlate this with a walking survey of house types passed per street cab in their street/road in order to attempt to correlate some of the above. Of course that also needed CMTS/uBR,cable/port info…. etc etc
However a quick walking survey pilot myself quickly reveals the enormity of categorising this sufficiently to even present as a statistically viable model given the effort expended!

The problems of DPA/privacy also mean any worthwhile data required is a non-starter! Not to mention that any usefull correlation of pop's/aggregation points/oe nodes/fibre penetration details(inc dark fibre percentages) would be helpfull indicator for any terrorist group seeking soft targets to cause maximum disruption during say an annual political conference! :(

To answer your "implied" question as to what makes Brighton Broadband unique(or at least interesting) then I'd suggest that its mainly it's geographic placement (seaside resort) and as popular venue within London commuting belt raises it's per capita wealth distribution in conjunction with the other items. (No doubt someone will mention it's "drug problems" and it's liberal "arty" cultural attractions as well)
This is both a business driver for VM to attract subscribers but also a problem in a volatile financial climate to react to network planning upgrades that require a far greater relative timescale(versus marketing campaigns) to plan/implement with considerable additional "planning" obstacles from District/County gov planners.

While other UK conurbation's share some of the items mentioned to varying degrees not many perhaps have all the listed drivers for this (admittedly vague and woolly) "model" to the same extent!

You made a comment some time ago based on your considerable experience when explaining the CMTS population/layout and that Brighton's infrastructure was more than adequate to cater for area population average HPPN but perhaps on hindsight was a little too conservative in it's averaging? ;)
Unless you catch your golfing buddy Brighton Area operations manager at a particularly loosed mouth moment at the 19th tee I doubt you would have had any in depth awareness of various Brighton "degradation hotspot's" inferred within the above? ;)

Still there'll be many here just as interested as you and I (and your other student! ;) ) in any quantifiable data…..

[vmfriend]

If a university makes a city have abnormal usage then just about all cities in Scotland are abnormal for sure.

Some would argue that all cities in Scotland are abnormal irrespective of universities or broadband usage, but that's a different conversation :D

My comment was merely a stab in the dark but I suspect not too far from the truth.

Lets be honest, in reality the only people who know the real reason are VM and I doubt they are about to tell.

[horseman]

It would be really interesting to know how abnormal the usage actually is in Brighton. Most things about the area are out of the ordinary so it wouldn't surprise but I'd be interested to know.

OK - We're both interested but it took me a while to remember where I saw this a lifetime/career or so ago…. ;)

This is from NDT stats off M-Lab site which I'm sure you've already encountered and probably dis-regarded for statistical reasons?

I've selected those Brighton ISP's (no it only shows those with a significant sample base so o2 and some/many others are'nt shown…)

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/07/13.png

Enjoy…….

EDIT: Sorry I'm assuming the rest is self explanatory - it certainly will to Igni but ideally what we need is as a minimum is VM median graph and Standard deviation to it. The search is on…. ;)