Upgrade from 2Mb to 10Mb (Virgin Media)

danyjr · 4 Aug 2009 at 16:40

Hi there,

My mom got a free promotion from Virgin Media and upgraded her house's broadband from 2Mb to 10Mb. I came today and ran this test:

Well, this isn't looking good. She is using a 3-4 year old modem (ntl250, E08C007) connected to the PC via an Ethernet cable. I can't find anything wrong with the setup so I was wondering what I should do to get it working.

(I have reset the modem a couple of times, no success)

Thanks in advance.

danyjr · 4 Aug 2009 at 20:56

Just an update:

Speed · 4 Aug 2009 at 21:00

I assume you've actually submitted the request for the upgrade?

If so when did you do it?

Tried other speedtest websites?

Skidilliplop · 5 Aug 2009 at 09:15

Try www.thinkbrodband.com/speedtest.html and check the box that makes it use port 80. Virgin throttle certain ports and do 'funk' traffic shaping. I've had teleworkers get weird and very variable results on speedtest.net from VirginMedia. One has actually just done the 2-10meg jump.
Also be aware that immediately after the upgrade they do a period of testing uner which they say the speed can range from 1-10mbit (specific eh.) depending on the tests they're running. Give it a few days to settle down and try again with a speed test using a common port. e.g 80,443, 8080.

PistolPete · 5 Aug 2009 at 09:32

Skidilliplop said:
Virgin throttle certain ports and do 'funk' traffic shaping.

Since when?? Other than the STM they don't throttle any ports or do any other traffic shaping

Skidilliplop · 5 Aug 2009 at 09:34

I'm at least 98% certain they throttle P2P traffic and associated ports in addition to STM.

Daegan · 5 Aug 2009 at 09:38

I'd probably want to make sure the upgrade has gone through first of all.

http://192.168.100.1 root/root and look for the downstream data rate. Should be 10240000 for 10mb.

PistolPete · 5 Aug 2009 at 09:52

Skidilliplop said:
I'm at least 98% certain they throttle P2P traffic and associated ports in addition to STM.

I read the hoo har about this in 2008, but I understood they dropped that idea. I recently downloaded a few Linux ISO's via torrent and it hit full 20Mb.

Skidilliplop · 5 Aug 2009 at 09:56

PistolPete said:
I read the hoo har about this in 2008, but I understood they dropped that idea. I recently downloaded a few Linux ISO's via torrent and it hit full 20Mb.

It may only be at certain times now but I do have several acquaintances that have virgin media 10mbit and 20mbit services and both don't get close to FTP/HTTP speeds using torrents. They've even contacted VM support who admitted they do throttle it. What their criteria for doing it is I'm not sure but they do still do it on some services at least.

Speed · 5 Aug 2009 at 10:03

Daegan said:
I'd probably want to make sure the upgrade has gone through first of all.

http://192.168.100.1 root/root and look for the downstream data rate. Should be 10240000 for 10mb.

Or just click signal... lol

Check what it says under "Bit Rate" for downstream danyjr.