Virgin Media Discussion Thread

[llamadal]

They gave me the sh3 when it was first released but it was an utter turd, engineer out as the brand new bit of kit couldn't possibly be a fault according to them.... 3 hubs later after saying they couldn't activate my old sh2, I said it goes back or I leave - funnily enough they found a way to re-activate within 30 seconds, not a single problem since.

 

[lltfdaniel]

I have the sh3, no problems for me here full download speed and pings like 40 or 50 ms here to a game server that is, maybe its a bit lower.

 

[ChrisD.]

40 or 50? Christ. I get 8ms.

 

[[HB]Rugrat]

Were you the avid gamer Dad?

Next step, SH3 issues!

Yes! Drinking out of the OCUK mug

 

[Swifty55]

40 or 50? Christ. I get 8ms.

FTTC?

If so, congratulations. You're one of the lucky ones!

 

[D3K]

50 is pretty bad. I had 16 on BT/Sky, now on 12 with Virgin.

 

[ChrisD.]

FTTC?

If so, congratulations. You're one of the lucky ones!

I'm with PlusNet. Why lucky? I've always had sub 10ms ping on FTTC.

[2.3.4-RELEASE][[email protected]]/home/chris: ping multiplay.co.uk
PING multiplay.co.uk (85.236.96.26): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 85.236.96.26: icmp_seq=0 ttl=57 time=8.253 ms
64 bytes from 85.236.96.26: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=8.285 ms
64 bytes from 85.236.96.26: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=8.682 ms
64 bytes from 85.236.96.26: icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=8.230 ms
^C
--- multiplay.co.uk ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 8.230/8.363/8.682/0.185 ms

 

[ChrisD.]

A good read:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news...performance-variations-virgin-media-users-see

Virgin Media generally beats VDSL2/FTTC hands down for download speeds, but we have seen people moving away and while they report yes their maximum speed is a lot lower they are now able to do Netflix and chill evenings without any buffering or gaming nights are not filled with frustration over how their broadband is impacting on their enjoyment.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7759-bbc-watchdog-takes-a-bite-out-of-virgin-media

Following up on our lengthy item that laid out analysis of how Virgin Media is performing in its different areas of the UK and how we are now poised to keep an eye on their performance more closely (and the other providers and technologies too) we felt it good to add a few more words around what was broadcast on BBC Watchdog on the evening of July 5th.

The issues with over utilisation and core network issues have been many and varied at Virgin Media, and the research gives some idea of the scale of the issue, and while there was a short period of time where we saw very few getting the best speeds things appear to be improving. The key now is whether these improvements are sustained and for those customers who have been affected in some cases for a couple of years how good will Virgin Media be at compensating customers and in the future being more upfront about issues rather than leading customers down the path of having to sit in for multiple engineer visits to fix things that are nothing to do with the final coax drop into the property.

For those affected as highlighted on the programme there is no automatic compensation path, and only by pestering individually will Virgin Media look at each case, in the first instance if the normal moans go unheaded people need to ask to escalate the complaint so that someone more senior in customer support is dealing with you and utilimately if you have the evidence to show prolonged periods with problems the Alternate Dispute Resolution scheme is the way to go, and given this costs providers money they are invariably keen to resolve things rather than go down the slow expensive ADR route.

Feedback from the audience on BBC Watchdog was that while £10/m price reductions were pretty common, when you are still paying £30 to £40 a month for the broadband service and finding you cannot use it as you want this is not that good a deal, there was even one told because they got such a good deal when they signed up no price reductions due to poor speeds would be given. A further comment that echo'd with others was that the what seem like twice a year price rises very quickly erode any of these savings to.

Compensation for faults is something that should eventually become automatic but that is for total loss of service, and while some have been seeing that with Virgin Media those with broadband speed problems would not be automatically compensated based on what we know about the changes on the way, clearly with the importance of broadband to our daily lives this may have to change rapidly.

Looking forward, we hope to be able to report in our analysis of July speed test results that the Virgin Media areas have seen further improvements and we will be keeping a close eye on the the FTTC, various FTTH providers and the emerging G.fast products.

The Virgin Media perhaps highlights a problem with the UK broadband scene, no single provider wants to push the boundaries too hard, but rather it is all about appearing slightly better than their competitors in adverts to gain customers, rather than being world leading in their own right. Virgin Media which is part of the much larger Liberty Global group has other providers already selling vastly faster speeds than are sold in the UK, so we say bring on the DOCSIS 3.1 network with upgrades and show what is possible.

I am glad that this seems to be gathering pace in mainstream media and I hope that it will give VM the kick that they clearly need and have done for many years. Whether anything will actually be done remains to be seen.

 

[Swifty55]

I'm with PlusNet. Why lucky? I've always had sub 10ms ping on FTTC.

[2.3.4-RELEASE][[email protected]]/home/chris: ping multiplay.co.uk
PING multiplay.co.uk (85.236.96.26): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 85.236.96.26: icmp_seq=0 ttl=57 time=8.253 ms
64 bytes from 85.236.96.26: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=8.285 ms
64 bytes from 85.236.96.26: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=8.682 ms
64 bytes from 85.236.96.26: icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=8.230 ms
^C
--- multiplay.co.uk ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 8.230/8.363/8.682/0.185 ms

Lucky, because not everyone gets a sub 10ms ping or great speeds on FTTC because they aren't lucky enough to live close to their cabinet or have decent copper wire...

What speed do you get?

Also, having a sub 10ms ping doesnt make you any better than someone with 40ms.

 

[ChrisD.]

Lucky, because not everyone gets a sub 10ms ping or great speeds on FTTC because they aren't lucky enough to live close to their cabinet or have decent copper wire...

What speed do you get?

Also, having a sub 10ms ping doesnt make you any better than someone with 40ms.

I get 47/19 all day every day.

Sub 10ms ping compared to 40ms will make browsing appear snappier and has other benefits. But I agree, it doesn't make me any better.

The main issue is jitter, which VM suffers heavily on.

 

[lltfdaniel]

This is my actual ping.
C:\Users\Dan>ping www.google.co.uk

Pinging www.google.co.uk [216.58.201.35] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 216.58.201.35: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=51
Reply from 216.58.201.35: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=51
Reply from 216.58.201.35: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=51
Reply from 216.58.201.35: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=51

Ping statistics for 216.58.201.35:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 24ms, Maximum = 26ms, Average = 25ms

C:\Users\Dan>ping www.bbc.co.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.246.92] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.246.92: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=53
Reply from 212.58.246.92: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=53
Reply from 212.58.246.92: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=53
Reply from 212.58.246.92: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 212.58.246.92:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 26ms, Maximum = 32ms, Average = 28ms

sorry about the 40 to 50 ms ping but that is what i get from certain game server.

C:\Users\Dan>ping multiplay.co.uk

Pinging multiplay.co.uk [85.236.96.26] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 85.236.96.26: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=56
Reply from 85.236.96.26: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=56
Reply from 85.236.96.26: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=57
Reply from 85.236.96.26: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=56

Ping statistics for 85.236.96.26:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 26ms, Average = 20ms

C:\Users\Dan>ping multiplay.co.uk

Pinging multiplay.co.uk [85.236.96.26] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 85.236.96.26: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=56
Reply from 85.236.96.26: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=57
Reply from 85.236.96.26: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=56
Reply from 85.236.96.26: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=56

Ping statistics for 85.236.96.26:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 16ms, Maximum = 26ms, Average = 21ms

 

[D3K]

^ Almost identical to mine.

Anyone know if the 300mb/s package needs different infrastructure/hardware to the 200? Just had this installed at 200 as there was a kickback deal on that particular package. I'd like to go to 300 when possible.

 

[r7slayer]

On average i got from pinging:

google.co.uk -16ms
bbc.co.uk - 23ms
multiplay.co.uk - 15ms (same ping on average on my TS server too which is same company.)

I'm with TalkTalk FFTC btw. So i guess FTTC has slightly better pings but slower speeds.

I could have better pings a i think because pinging my router i get on average 1-3 ms because of using powerlines.

Should be the <1ms ping with ethernet if it was connected that way.

 

[Nexus18]

My results:

multiplay - 19-20ms
google - 19-23
bbc - 24-25ms

Not too shabby and combined with a constant 220MB with no traffic management, it is bliss

 

[TheMightyTen]

I think rather than peoples Ping latency, Jitter would be far more telling for quality of connection.

 

[D3K]

I think rather than peoples Ping latency, Jitter would be far more telling for quality of connection.

I used this site. I have no idea what jitter is, but its not a problem for me according to them!

 

[Madeddie]

I may be wrong but for you to have the virgin 300mb package I believe you need fibre running from the cabinet to your home.

200mb is coax from the cab to your home.

Virgin are expanding their network so would expect any areas previously that can't get any virgin broadband who are on their rollout plan will get cabs and fibre to their home resulting in 300mb.
Then after the expansion they will look are revamping existing network.

Is anyone able to confirm that please.

^ Almost identical to mine.

Anyone know if the 300mb/s package needs different infrastructure/hardware to the 200? Just had this installed at 200 as there was a kickback deal on that particular package. I'd like to go to 300 when possible.

 

[ChrisD.]

It's still over coax.

 

[Steampunk]

I may be wrong but for you to have the virgin 300mb package I believe you need fibre running from the cabinet to your home.

200mb is coax from the cab to your home.

Virgin are expanding their network so would expect any areas previously that can't get any virgin broadband who are on their rollout plan will get cabs and fibre to their home resulting in 300mb.
Then after the expansion they will look are revamping existing network.

Is anyone able to confirm that please.

Nope, it's all coax from the cabinet. All they do for the higher speeds is give you a superhub 3 and bond more channels for you.

 

[TheMightyTen]

All they do for the higher speeds is give you a superhub 3 and bond more channels for you.

And stress and confuse the poor Puma chipset even further