General : "We're doing some important maintenance work in your area" Letter

[ianch99]

Our street cab was upgraded not too long ago (2 years?). When they did this, they replaced the tap board from memory ..

[japitts]

Is it only particular cabworks that get notified by letter in advance? Last time there was networks changes going on around here, the first I officially heard was the modem going offline and the status-page & IVR giving the change details.

[vm_tech]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

It's not how the peops will see it, though. Sure, eliminating the splitters that are fitted into some cabinets is a big plus.

I've seen inside many cabs - I'm nerd enough to photograph them. Incidentally the 16 way banks don't have different attenuation vallues from what I've seen. DO the replacements have these?

The build I work on is below ground so doesn't use tap banks (apart from the new build stuff). If I remember rightly from working in different areas on service, if there are 2 16way tap banks in a cab, it will come from the amp into a unbalanced splitter, around 8db one way and 1-2 the other, giving more attenuation on one bank than the other. Some areas use 8 way tap banks with loop throughs.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by ileikcaek

I'm guessing the cab cleanup work was carried out here the other day after getting that letter, at least from the result I have.

My power levels have gone up to 12dBmV and decrease to 6dBmV with the 6dB wideband attenuator I was given to originally take my power levels from 6 - 7 down to 3 ish. Thankfully so far it seems stable though.

Whjat did the wideband attenuator do to your upstream?

[ileikcaek]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Whjat did the wideband attenuator do to your upstream?

It raised the levels slightly. they are sitting at 34 and 32dBmV without it. I used to have just a forward path one but the last time I had issues with low upstream and high downstream, instead of correcting whatever it was at the cab he just fitted the wideband attenuator, took the forward path one and left.

I find my power levels to vary throughout the year, which although is normal, mine seem to swing more wildly. Nice and low in the summer and through the roof in winter but whatever they did in the cab during the downtime has doubled the downstream again. It's working fine at the moment though I had a bunch of T3's at 9:20 this morning.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by ileikcaek

It raised the levels slightly. they are sitting at 34 and 32dBmV without it. I used to have just a forward path one but the last time I had issues with low upstream and high downstream, instead of correcting whatever it was at the cab he just fitted the wideband attenuator, took the forward path one and left.

I find my power levels to vary throughout the year, which although is normal, mine seem to swing more wildly. Nice and low in the summer and through the roof in winter but whatever they did in the cab during the downtime has doubled the downstream again. It's working fine at the moment though I had a bunch of T3's at 9:20 this morning.

Well, that's just it. High upstream in a well performing circuit goes hand in hand with low upstream power. In other words you're either close to the cabinet, and/or on a low attenuation tap point. In that case the upstream doesn't need so much power to send data correctly to the VM end.

Som putting a wideband attenuator on raises the upstream power which is immediately attenuated by the attenuator. Thus it goes to the VM end the same or even lower power than before! I knew that VM's field service policy had changed - I've seen the explanatory Powerpoint - but that aspect of the policy is not considered.

[olisun]

Last Friday there was an outage in my area and when I called the helpline I was greeted with a "scheduled maintentance" message.

I had a go at the support person because I was not informed in advance of the maintenance considering I WFH on Tuesday's and Friday's.

The support person shameless told me she could not do anything about it other than apologise.

Fortunately the internet came back after 30 mins.

[japitts]

Originally Posted by olisun

Last Friday there was an outage in my area and when I called the helpline I was greeted with a "scheduled maintentance" message.

I had a go at the support person because I was not informed in advance of the maintenance considering I WFH on Tuesday's and Friday's.

The support person shameless told me she could not do anything about it other than apologise.

Fortunately the internet came back after 30 mins.

I've had the exact same thing happen to me twice. The first time I had been advised of the date of work by unofficial means so half-expected it. The second time it was a total surprise, fortunately I used my mobile as a hotspot for the hour it took for service to resume.

Not ideal, but in VM's defence it's a residential service and the vast majority of customers won't mind the 11am-3pm change window that I believe they work to.

[Jon22]

How long do these CCU's take to do? Only reason I ask is that the cabinets along our road (or atleast the ones I can see) were having some work done to them on Wednesday. Seemed to be swapping out equipment? They spent about a couple of hours in each one.

[DJSADERS]

Originally Posted by Jon22

How long do these CCU's take to do? Only reason I ask is that the cabinets along our road (or atleast the ones I can see) were having some work done to them on Wednesday. Seemed to be swapping out equipment? They spent about a couple of hours in each one.

yeah thats about right... all depends on how bad they are inside

[v0id]

I received this letter on the day they were doing maintainence

[ianch99]

Well 5th November 2015 came and went with no service interruption or change in segment utilisation:



Oh well ..

[Sephiroth]

Presumably you'll ask on the VM forum for a status update (and link the thread back here please).

[snowey]

Originally Posted by ianch99

I am crossing my fingers

Me 2

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Presumably you'll ask on the VM forum for a status update (and link the thread back here please).

Well I have asked http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...d/td-p/2960068