Virgin Media Discussion Thread

MartinPrince · 5 Apr 2019 at 20:56

z10m said:
They should concentrate on delivering the speeds they advertise rather than increasing it.
I've had vivid 350 for a few days and as the download was as promised the upload was all over the place.
It could drop as low as 3mbps at times making services like game streaming completely unusable...
Not that game streaming would work anyway with the latencies they have .
Their service is good for downloads but that's about it...

Yep, if you took a poll of VM customers and asked if they wanted more download or more upload the vast majority would say upload. We can but hope that with the 500Mb/s that they increase the upload, though if it does knowing VM it will probably go from 20Mb/s to 25Mb/s. :rolleyes:

I'm hoping that the uploads people are getting with BT's G.fast (typically more than 40Mb/s) might prompt VM to pull their finger out but...

Mariusz · 5 Apr 2019 at 21:14

@z10m had the opposite experience, I'm also on vivid 350, at first it was get syncing around 385 down and 21 up, still getting 21 up but "only" getting 220 down. Checked on there website they only guarantee 180 down on vivid 350

z10m · 5 Apr 2019 at 21:30

Mariusz said:
@z10m had the opposite experience, I'm also on vivid 350, at first it was get syncing around 385 down and 21 up, still getting 21 up but "only" getting 220 down. Checked on there website they only guarantee 180 down on vivid 350

In my case the speedtest would always show upload at about 21mbps but when transferring files it would start fluctuating during peak hours.
Download was never affected but then again I have only had it few days..

Cromulent · 5 Apr 2019 at 21:38

My speed test results are all over the place. I just did one now and got 370 down and 20 up but in the past, I've done them and got 200 down and 20 up. I'm not sure what is causing that as I don't think I'm in an area with a lot of contention. I never turn off my router.

MartinPrince · 5 Apr 2019 at 21:58

Thinkbroadband's quality meter can be a good way of gauging what is really going on with your internet outside of Speedtest's seemingly 'rigged' results.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

Cromulent · 5 Apr 2019 at 22:09

MartinPrince said:
Thinkbroadband's quality meter can be a good way of gauging what is really going on with your internet outside of Speedtest's seemingly 'rigged' results.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

Awesome. Thank you. I've just signed up. It'll be interesting to see what it looks like after a couple of weeks.

benjii · 6 Apr 2019 at 00:00

MartinPrince said:
Yep, if you took a poll of VM customers and asked if they wanted more download or more upload the vast majority would say upload. We can but hope that with the 500Mb/s that they increase the upload, though if it does knowing VM it will probably go from 20Mb/s to 25Mb/s.
I'm hoping that the uploads people are getting with BT's G.fast (typically more than 40Mb/s) might prompt VM to pull their finger out but...

Apparently the router config will be 575mbit down, 35mbit up.

xb8browney · 6 Apr 2019 at 08:29

MartinPrince said:
Yep, if you took a poll of VM customers and asked if they wanted more download or more upload the vast majority would say upload. We can but hope that with the 500Mb/s that they increase the upload, though if it does knowing VM it will probably go from 20Mb/s to 25Mb/s.
I'm hoping that the uploads people are getting with BT's G.fast (typically more than 40Mb/s) might prompt VM to pull their finger out but...

Most customers wouldn't know the difference.

MartinPrince · 6 Apr 2019 at 09:08

xb8browney said:
Most customers wouldn't know the difference.

Haha, indeed.

benjii · 6 Apr 2019 at 11:20

As much as I'd advocate for better upload speeds or even full duplex, I realise that I barely make use of what I have. Looking at my router stats for the last 30 days, I have 1.7TB down and only 32GB up. What do you lot use upload for?

z10m · 6 Apr 2019 at 11:33

benjii said:
What do you lot use upload for?

Backups, private trackers, game streaming, media streaming just to name few....
the last two especially require stable and not fluctuating upload speed.

Dave85 · 6 Apr 2019 at 11:35

The nest hello can use up to 600GB a month so I certainly hope we get some decent upload speeds soon.

benjii · 6 Apr 2019 at 11:37

z10m said:
Backups, private trackers, game streaming, media streaming just to name few....
the last two especially require stable and not fluctuating upload speed.

That's a fair point, if I had better upload speed I'd do full backups nightly. As it stands, I only backup key files.

xb8browney · 6 Apr 2019 at 12:22

Same as above really, cloud CCTV storage.

MartinPrince · 6 Apr 2019 at 12:40

z10m said:
Backups, private trackers, game streaming, media streaming just to name few....
the last two especially require stable and not fluctuating upload speed.

Yes, backups for me are the key thing.

Cromulent · 6 Apr 2019 at 12:56

benjii said:
What do you lot use upload for?

Uploading 4k videos to YouTube.

Cromulent · 7 Apr 2019 at 12:46

MartinPrince said:
Thinkbroadband's quality meter can be a good way of gauging what is really going on with your internet outside of Speedtest's seemingly 'rigged' results.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

I set this up and these are the results for today. They seem OK to me but I'd value your (and anyone else's) feedback.

My Broadband Ping

z10m · 7 Apr 2019 at 13:16

Cromulent said:
I set this up and these are the results for today. They seem OK to me but I'd value your (and anyone else's) feedback.

My Broadband Ping

Yeah they do look normal for virgin media connection.
That's what mine looked like when I had vivid 350
My pings are slightly lower tho.

Your Shared Graph

This is what sky connection looks like in comparison.

Your Shared Graph

Cromulent · 7 Apr 2019 at 13:33

z10m said:
Yeah they do look normal for virgin media connection.
That's what mine looked like when I had vivid 350
My pings are slightly lower tho.

Your Shared Graph

This is what sky connection looks like in comparison.

Your Shared Graph

Thanks for the reply. Interesting. I had a horrible time when I was on Sky broadband. VM was the only broadband that seemed to work properly but that could just be because I live in an old house and the copper telephone line is terrible. When I finish my VM contract I might look around at the other options but I'm happy for the time being.

Edit: Getting another telephone line installed might be an option in the future. At least that way I'd know that I had a decent connection.

dulcificum · 11 Apr 2019 at 22:32

bremen1874 said:
You should be able to, although Virgin probably wouldn't like you doing it.

You could extend the existing cable, but it would make more sense to replace it entirely. If you did want to join two cables you'd use a female to female joiner such as this.

Dang. So I bought the cable recommended here:

Caged said:
Trying to find something but not having much luck. A cable assembled from HD100 cable and compression F connectors will be ideal.

This on the face of it looks fine https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/183683204595

It's completely different. Seems much shorter connectors:

And they won't correctly "clip on" and stay attached to either the modem/router or the input socket on the wall. Even if you manually stand there holding them in, it won't be able to connect. So that's £15 wasted

Anyone else have first-hand recommendations for extension cables that will actually work for Virgin Media?