Virgin Media Discussion Thread
- Thread starter macca40
- Start date
Could be worse. I spent an hour on the phone today, being transferred three times between retentions, TSC and back to retentions. They insisted we were still in contract, then eventually agreed we weren't. I asked about adding Homeworks+ to the account if we stay, but doing something about the overall cost because of an ongoing fault in our area (for which I have a VM fault ref).
They'd never heard of Homeworks or Homeworks+, told me it wasn't a thing, then after some argument they Googled it and said 'Oh yeah'. They then said we could indeed sign a new contract, but they'd want more money than we pay now without a contract (WTF?). I couldn't believe my ears, so asked him to repeat. He said yep, if you want a new contract I'll have to put the price up, and then you can add the Homeworks on top, but we can't give you Homeworks+ cos we don't know how to do it.
This is a senior department at VM(!).
After a full hour he told me to check my options with Sky and that was the end of the conversation. I think I'll do just that. Sky original + Zen unlimited looks good about now. The guy did tell me 'But they only do FTTC whereas we're fibre optic'. I asked him to clarify and asked what connected the VM cab to our house, and he went quiet. He eventually replied, 'Yeah but we're faster'. Yup, for about 10 minutes at 4am. Other than that I see 1-2Mbps (megabits, not bytes) single threaded and about 30Mbps overall, because the network here is borked and packet loss is rife.
He just said to ring Sky then. What awesome customer service.
Up and running, wasn't smooth though I got the quick setup kit and plugged in left for 30 min, logged onto the Hub and could see it had finished downloading etc.
Network Access = disabled and couldn't get on line, spent 30 min on hold with Tech Support and he gave up in the end and booked an engineer to come out Monday, 5 minute after getting off the phone with him it all started working.
Speed last night was a lot higher than it used to be, hopefully they have indeed fixed the over utilization in my area. Will be testing for the next few days as I've got till Friday to cancel if it plays up.
Network Access = disabled and couldn't get on line, spent 30 min on hold with Tech Support and he gave up in the end and booked an engineer to come out Monday, 5 minute after getting off the phone with him it all started working.
Speed last night was a lot higher than it used to be, hopefully they have indeed fixed the over utilization in my area. Will be testing for the next few days as I've got till Friday to cancel if it plays up.
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I think they shape port 563, but not 443 as it's also all https traffic. So use secure usenet 443 and you should escape shaping.
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Never noticed any usenet throttling, though its on a server so I dont really pay attention to it. That and I cap it myself anyway to 10MB/s on a schedule between 8 and 12 and use port 443. 
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Though I am "only" getting 17.8MB/s at the moment. 
mrk I had 0 problems on those ports via newsgroups. Never throttled on the downloads even during peak hours. Always maxed my connection (200meg)
My usenet account is shared throughout the household who also grab what they want whenever.
Also upgraded to the gamer package and the Hub3 bug has being fixed and modem mode is working perfect. (Still other bugs but no noticed any problems from them)
I upload probably 20-30GB daily on the gamer package and have not been capped yet.
Speed last night was a lot higher than it used to be, hopefully they have indeed fixed the over utilization in my area. Will be testing for the next few days as I've got till Friday to cancel if it plays up.
Another VM customer suffering the single connection vs multiple issue. Having 200Mbps over 6+ connections is all well and good, but too many protocols and applications only use one (streaming, VPN, download etc) and then in this case its 15Mbps.
I do miss FTTC where you get pretty much the same speed no matter how you use the connections. The latest figures on TBB http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7580-uk-broadband-speed-test-results-for-november-2016.html show how VM suffers more than other ISPs both for contention at peak time and single versus multiple connections.
Up and running, wasn't smooth though I got the quick setup kit and plugged in left for 30 min, logged onto the Hub and could see it had finished downloading etc.
Network Access = disabled and couldn't get on line, spent 30 min on hold with Tech Support and he gave up in the end and booked an engineer to come out Monday, 5 minute after getting off the phone with him it all started working.
Speed last night was a lot higher than it used to be, hopefully they have indeed fixed the over utilization in my area. Will be testing for the next few days as I've got till Friday to cancel if it plays up.
So all good then?
I basically cant game now at peak times and Virgin have ignored my thread on their own forums for a week meaning i'm going to have to resort to ringing them up.
My Broadband Ping
My Broadband Ping
Can take up to a week for a reply. Do not bump it.
Called up about my 0.5Mbps yesterday, which is now up to 1.8Mbps! Wohoo! (It should be 200)
They ran some line tests, made me do a hard reset on my router, and the next step is to send out an engineer to my house.
For real?!
I find it hard to believe they'll find a physical fault between my place and the street.
Still, might get a free new router out of it I suppose.
For now I get to watch netflix in 240p
They ran some line tests, made me do a hard reset on my router, and the next step is to send out an engineer to my house.
For real?!
I find it hard to believe they'll find a physical fault between my place and the street.
Still, might get a free new router out of it I suppose.
For now I get to watch netflix in 240p
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Have you had a read of this on the register Why your gigabit broadband lags like hell – blame Intel's chipset
The issue affects VM's SH3's from what I've read so far and looking at the comparison graphs the jitter/lag looks bad when it happens.
It was flagged to VM a while ago but maybe now the media have run the story it will get sorted.
Firmware update by intel is being worked on with a Beta possibly already being trialled.
The issue affects VM's SH3's from what I've read so far and looking at the comparison graphs the jitter/lag looks bad when it happens.
It was flagged to VM a while ago but maybe now the media have run the story it will get sorted.
Firmware update by intel is being worked on with a Beta possibly already being trialled.
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So far, not slowed down at all in 'peak times' as yet.
Only annoyance I've got so far is remembering how many sites VM actively block that requires using work around sites to get on.
Noticed a VM engineer was doing something at the green cabinet over the road on Friday, since he left I've no internet, TV or phone 
Phoned VM who went through the usual troubleshooting, then arranged an engineer for the earliest appointment - 12 days!?! Seriously VM, 12 days wait for a total outage?
Phoned VM who went through the usual troubleshooting, then arranged an engineer for the earliest appointment - 12 days!?! Seriously VM, 12 days wait for a total outage?