Upgrading from 30 to 50mbit and rep says this..

[Efour]

Firstly im already on 30mbit with a superhub. To sort out my upstream packetloss a VIRGIN Employee suggested i upgrade to 50mbit. Firstly i laughed at him, but he insisted it will work because its fibre optic... I started to feel a bit sorry for him then.. Who trains these guys.

"As its 5mbit upstream ill get MORE bandwidth allocated to me and ill have no packetloss"

"Next step is he needs to book an engineer to install the service and run a fibre optic cable from my cabinet to my house.. they wont need to drill any new holes it will run along side the copper coax i already have. it uses light so there is less interference and `noise` that will fix your issue"

At this point im actually starting to get confused - is this guy for real?
I ask him again, as i already have the hub, can u just change the config file to 50mbit? I can have it for 7 days no quibble, and it was only 5 quid more than i pay anyway... might keep it....we will see. Can honestly not see it changing a damn thing. Why would it ? ? *Will it ?* :angel:

So now im sat here more confused than ever, ive never heard of such BS but he is so sure of it, if it is true then VM please you need to train your staff better if not im getting a private fibre optic cable into my office/spare room.!!! nice.

Im quite sure that a 30 to 50 upgrade wont fix upstream issues on VOIP and Internet gaming. Y/N?

There will be no new cabling will there, no new hardware... its just a case of a change on a screen in an office somewhere. Y/N? Making sure power levels are ok for it... which obviously i think they will be....?

The real issue is that we are on QPSK modulation and its not working very well at all. :td:

[TheDon]

The real issue is that we are on QPSK modulation and its not working very well at all. :td:

QPSK is a symptom, not the problem. The underlying issue will be causing packet loss and the fall back to QPSK, afaik that could be power levels or noise on the network.

But yes, everything the guy said was BS, an upgrade could fix it, but only because the engineer should sort the power levels out if that was the problem.

[Efour]

Connection

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Startup Procedure
Procedure Status Comment
Acquire Downstream Channel 298750000 Hz Locked
Connectivity State OK Operational
Boot State OK Operational
Configuration File OK
Security Enabled BPI+


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Downstream Channels
Lock Status Modulation Channel ID Max Raw Bit Rate Frequency Power SNR Docsis/EuroDocsis locked
Locked QAM256 75 55616000 Kbits/sec 298750000 Hz 0.0 dBmV 34.5 dB Hybrid
Locked QAM256 76 55616000 Kbits/sec 306750000 Hz 0.1 dBmV 36.3 dB Hybrid
Locked QAM256 77 55616000 Kbits/sec 314750000 Hz 0.2 dBmV 36.8 dB Hybrid
Unlocked Unknown 0 0 Ksym/sec 0 Hz 0.0 dBmV 0.0 dB Unknown
Unlocked Unknown 0 0 Ksym/sec 0 Hz 0.0 dBmV 0.0 dB Unknown
Unlocked Unknown 0 0 Ksym/sec 0 Hz 0.0 dBmV 0.0 dB Unknown
Unlocked Unknown 0 0 Ksym/sec 0 Hz 0.0 dBmV 0.0 dB Unknown
Unlocked Unknown 0 0 Ksym/sec 0 Hz 0.0 dBmV 0.0 dB Unknown


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upstream Channels
Lock Status Modulation Channel ID Max Raw Bit Rate Frequency Power
Locked ATDMA 3 20480 Kbits/sec 45800000 Hz 45.4 dBmV
Unlocked Unknown 0 0 Ksym/sec 0 Hz 0.0 dBmV
Unlocked Unknown 0 0 Ksym/sec 0 Hz 0.0 dBmV
Unlocked Unknown 0 0 Ksym/sec 0 Hz 0.0 dBmV



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Primary Downstream Service Flow
Downstream(0)
SFID 16273
Max Traffic Rate 33330000 bps
Max Traffic Burst 3044 bytes
Mix Traffic Rate 0 bps


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Primary Upstream Service Flow
Upstream(0)
SFID 16272
Max Traffic Rate 3333000 bps
Max Traffic Burst 8160 bytes
Mix Traffic Rate 0 bps
Max Concatenated Burst 8160 bytes
Scheduling Type Best Effort


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Current System Time:Thu Jul 28 23:57:29 2011

I've had 2 tech visits to adjust power levels and replace superhubs, neither visit fixed a thing. VM L2 support identified upstream noise issues. Fixed them? and the ticket is now closed. Nothing changed, thats when they sent the 2nd tech out to change the hub... redo power levels.... which were fine from previous..

Every further call to VM results in them saying its all ok and covering their ears. My area isnt scheduled to get 100mbit for a while as i assume its an epic effort, old Cable and wireless NTL area and densely residential. Every contact with them says the utilisation is way below 70%. Yet every evening gaming and VOIP suffers from the 5-10% packet loss.

Coincidently this whole fiasco with packet loss began shortly after we all got the upload upgrade.

Im at my wits end i don't know what to do any more, even the official VM forum seems like a waste of time now. I feel this will just drag on until they do the upgrades again, then be fine for another year or so..


http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/236e0a1b0e2f65fd44a867fb71ff6c31-29-07-2011.png

the 12pm spike is torrent downloading the rest is just "normal" it is consistently this bad for weeks

[qasdfdsaq]

Locked ATDMA 3 20480 Kbits/sec 45800000 Hz 45.4 dBmV


... That's not QPSK

[Nopanic]

I died a little inside when I read that .. in the agents defence he .. er.. well they .. ok I've got nothing .. this guy is completely clueless about how everything works ..

I do like the idea of them pushing the fibre up the current cable housing, that's imaginative .. you sure you called VM and didn't just speak to some homeless guy ?

[Efour]

Phoned to cancel the upgrade. Might persue this a bit more, if the sales reps and 1st line support are missleading the customers this much? Would would ofcom say ?

[Nopanic]

Phoned to cancel the upgrade. Might persue this a bit more, if the sales reps and 1st line support are missleading the customers this much? Would would ofcom say ?

One agent .. dont assume they are all the same ..

[AndyCalling]

One agent .. dont assume they are all the same ..

They couldn't possibly be, or we would probably have a network that was expected to magic the broadband signal through the mains water supply using wave machines or some such.

We've all met them in work places everywhere and we've all wondered how they got employed in the first place, or for that matter how they manage to tie their shoe laces in the morning.

The really worrying thing is that so many people like this seem to end up as cabinet ministers. Perhaps this support chap would do better going in to politics?

[GrimUpNorth]

I wonder if he was the same guy who told me that I could download some software from Microsoft and change my 802.11g laptop into an 802.11n laptop - and this would fix my superhub issues once and for all.

I invited him to a meeting early the following week, sometime between Monday and Wednesday (think about it.... <admin deleted - inappropriate>). Went straight over his head so I thanked him saying I had to rush as I was about to open an 802.11n adaptor card factory and hung up.

Cheers
Grim