Virgin Media Discussion Thread

londonbairn · 5 Jan 2017 at 08:50

I left VM for BT (sync at 79999), VM was great and then for the last year went completely downhill. Some evenings could barely do 1mbit. People I know in my area on VM report that there are still throttling issues.

Meanwhile on BTI, in the 1.5 years, I have noticed 10 minutes of downtime and never seen the speed drop

Swifty55 · 5 Jan 2017 at 08:58

It's all good and well when you can get full speeds on FTTC, otherwise there aren't many options.

Distance to the cabinet is like playing the lottery. You're either a lucky winner, or a loser like 80-90% of the population!

Like me, I got 13Mbps on FTTC due to distance. I had congestion issues on VM, but VM still beat my FTTC connection!

Spikey · 5 Jan 2017 at 12:16

Great so I had virgin media out today as my SH2 was showing high power levels so the engineer shows up and says it's crap and installed a SH3. Says leave it 30 mins to update and it refuses to connect to the internet. Network access on the settings says it's blocked and initially they fobbed me off saying it's an IT issue which is total Bs. Now sat waiting for said engineer to come back at some point today as they think the hub is faulty. Anyone had similar issues? Internet worked okay on SH2 bar the higher power level issue. The SH3 appears to be stuck in a loop trying to register it constantly. Not impressed with it at all!

vanandjuanunited · 5 Jan 2017 at 12:25

Getting close to calling it a day with Virgin

Have to reset my hub now every week or less. Keep getting told there is no problem and my discount ends next month. Speed fluctuates badly from 5pm onwards. Anything before that is fine.
Kids have a new xbox one and downloading games /updates is painful. Only really been an issue in the last couple of months so don't know whether to risk moving. BT Fibre doing a good deal the moment so tempted. Will call later and see if virgin can do anything

ChrisD. · 5 Jan 2017 at 12:36

BT BTTC would be miles better if you're in a congested area.

Swifty55 · 5 Jan 2017 at 12:38

Spikey said:
Great so I had virgin media out today as my SH2 was showing high power levels so the engineer shows up and says it's crap and installed a SH3. Says leave it 30 mins to update and it refuses to connect to the internet. Network access on the settings says it's blocked and initially they fobbed me off saying it's an IT issue which is total Bs. Now sat waiting for said engineer to come back at some point today as they think the hub is faulty. Anyone had similar issues? Internet worked okay on SH2 bar the higher power level issue. The SH3 appears to be stuck in a loop trying to register it constantly. Not impressed with it at all!

Get your SH2 back and installed. SH3 have current problems regarding pings and packetloss.

Power levels are easily sorted, you've been fobbed off.

Swifty55 · 5 Jan 2017 at 12:40

vanandjuanunited said:
Getting close to calling it a day with Virgin

Have to reset my hub now every week or less. Keep getting told there is no problem and my discount ends next month. Speed fluctuates badly from 5pm onwards. Anything before that is fine.
Kids have a new xbox one and downloading games /updates is painful. Only really been an issue in the last couple of months so don't know whether to risk moving. BT Fibre doing a good deal the moment so tempted. Will call later and see if virgin can do anything

ChrisD. said:
BT BTTC would be miles better if you're in a congested area.

Depends on the speed he can achieve...

Spikey · 5 Jan 2017 at 13:06

Swifty55 said:
Get your SH2 back and installed. SH3 have current problems regarding pings and packetloss.

Power levels are easily sorted, you've been fobbed off.

Got an engineer coming back today allegedly, believe it when I see it.

Berserker · 5 Jan 2017 at 13:14

It can take a few hours (or days) for a new hub to connect. This is especially true of the SH3. I got one after going through 6 SH2 and if anything it made my situation worse, so I agree - go back if you can.

I just hope you didn't get charged £10 for the upgrade 'privilege'.

Spikey · 5 Jan 2017 at 13:21

Nope no charge to be honest the engineer couldn't wait to leave he should have stayed to check it was working correctly. It was installed at 0845 and it's still not working. The wifi light is lit and the two green arrows are constantly flashing which I'm not sure if it's normal or not.

Swifty55 · 5 Jan 2017 at 13:22

Spikey said:
Nope no charge to be honest the engineer couldn't wait to leave he should have stayed to check it was working correctly. It was installed at 0845 and it's still not working. The wifi light is lit and the two green arrows are constantly flashing which I'm not sure if it's normal or not.

Sounds like it's not been activated on their side.

Berserker · 5 Jan 2017 at 13:28

Spikey said:
Nope no charge to be honest the engineer couldn't wait to leave he should have stayed to check it was working correctly.

This is normal. They have a schedule to keep (at least the junior techs do).

I had one better - engineers turning up at my front door, saying 'I can't help you', and leaving again, though that was partly because they kept insisting on sending the same junior engineer who actually couldn't help me! (despite being friendly, they weren't doing the right checks)

Steampunk · 5 Jan 2017 at 13:32

A new hub should connect straight away. The only thing that takes time is for the people in the call centre to provision it to the network, but they should do it then and there for the engineer who phones up at the installation. It certainly shouldn't take hours or days.

The only reason a SH3 will take time is the way it connects via Docsis 1 on one channel to see what it should be doing, then reboots to (up to) twenty bonded channels on Docsis 3. If it has to download new firmware on installation, it will update, and reboot into the above cycle again, but it shouldn't take more than about ten minutes.

Berserker · 5 Jan 2017 at 13:48

Steampunk said:
A new hub should connect straight away. The only thing that takes time is for the people in the call centre to provision it to the network, but they should do it then and there for the engineer who phones up at the installation. It certainly shouldn't take hours or days.

Assuming the provisioning systems are working as they should - which isn't always the case. My SH3 did actually take a day to provision, but that may have been because half the time I couldn't connect anyway.

Spikey · 5 Jan 2017 at 13:59

Will keep you updated once the engineer has been.

Spikey · 5 Jan 2017 at 17:07

So just to update, no engineer showed so I've just called to ask what's going on. They are now saying it's an IT issue with the Mac addrsss not being assigned correctly and it has to be manually assigned which can take up to four days. Complete joke, I've made a complaint. They didn't even have the deceny to call me to let me know and just change their story everytime I phone. Utter shambles if you ask me.

asim18 · 5 Jan 2017 at 19:27

Spikey said:
So just to update, no engineer showed so I've just called to ask what's going on. They are now saying it's an IT issue with the Mac addrsss not being assigned correctly and it has to be manually assigned which can take up to four days. Complete joke, I've made a complaint. They didn't even have the deceny to call me to let me know and just change their story everytime I phone. Utter shambles if you ask me.

Sounds like a lie. How can a mac address be manually assigned? A mac is a permanent ID number for each modem they give to customers, the mac is assigned at the factory by Netgear, when they send out a modem they record the mac address of the modem they're sending you, the mac address is probably printed on the superhub itself lol, it is on my sh1.

If u see the mac adress on the modem ring them back and ask them why theyre lying.

Spikey · 5 Jan 2017 at 19:32

I rang them back and their words are that it's not "locking on" to the network so IT department need to resolve it, I've rang 3 times now and that's all I get told and that even if I got another modem it won't resolve the issue as it's at their end. I've got £8.50 credit and it's usually resolved within 48 hours I'm being told, it could be Monday though as the weekend aren't classed as working days. I'm inclined to tell them to shove it if it's not back on by then and get ADSL but I can only get 30mb where I live where as virgin give me 150mb.

Rainmaker · 5 Jan 2017 at 19:53

They'll mean the MAC isn't whitelisted on their system. It happened to me once, as well. No modem will connect to VM unless the MAC is white listed at their end. Sounds like someone made a boo boo and they need a higher up to fix it.

Spikey · 5 Jan 2017 at 20:02

Yep, I'm seriously miffed. They need to get it resolved asap, I'm not coping my well with no internet! Lol