Virgin Media Suck!

[thecremeegg]

I get the full 20Mb all the time unless i've been naughty and downloaded too much in which case its throttled for a few hours. Other than that cant complain really.

It might be down to the fact i'm 15 metres from the exchange though

 

[pabloB]

Dumb question no 100 but how can you tell how far away you are from the exchange?

 

[thecremeegg]

Dumb question no 100 but how can you tell how far away you are from the exchange?

I can see it from my window


http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php

 

[Hyper]

i want to get a flight to india and punch every one of them in the ovaries

LMAO, dont we all

 

[VaderDSL]

Download a file from the Virgin FTP to begin with, as speed test sites can be inaccurate.

ftp://ftp.virginmedia.com

35kb/s yay

 

[tolien]

I can see it from my window


http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php

Unless it's Virgin Media ADSL you're on, that's not going to show your exchange (mainly because cable doesn't have an exchange per se, and the distance is irrelevant).

 

[Jimbeam3678]

Unless it's Virgin Media ADSL you're on, that's not going to show your exchange (mainly because cable doesn't have an exchange per se, and the distance is irrelevant).

Was just about to jump in and say that

 

[Phil99]

Ironically downgrading to 2meg from 20meg has actually increased our speed

Steam was updating at 1MB/s consistently and I've just been downloading consistently at 500kB/s from the nVidia site Firefox, DUMeter and the router all show roughly the same speed as well

20Mbps was so hit and miss it was untrue, though in the end we've decided that we don't actually need that much speed (not that we even got it most the time..)

 

[box]

The problem is that with such fast broadband available these days, the bandwidth that you are receiving, yes all 20Mbps of it, cannot necessarily be completely utilised by one download server. A while back it would be unheard of for the limit on your download speed to be the server itself, but now with such large amounts of bandwidth available to so many people, giving everyone their maximum bandwidth simply is not possible. The fact is, ruling out VM congestion, your connection probably never drops below 15Mbps. The problem is in the fact that you're unlikely to find ANY server giving you these speeds consistently. To do so would be very inefficient for those hosting the server. What needs to be understood is that when you download a file or run a speed test, the speed you are seeing is not necessarily the rate at which a file can be downloaded to your machine, but the rate at which the file is able to be uploaded from the server at that moment in time.

In this sense, you would be more likely to get an increase in speed by complaining to the hosts of the speedtest than to VM. (Although I don't suggest you try it).

If you're finding that hard to grasp, maybe here's a better answer...

Virgin Media have given us a silly statistic about downloading an MP3 in 2sec with 20Mb broadband. In reality this will never prove to be true. But this isn't because you're broadband is any slower than 20Mb. So here's a better example...

With 2Mb broadband you can download an MP3 in 30sec

...but with 20Mb broadband you can download 10 MP3s consecutively in 30secs.

Make more sense? Try it!

well finally gave up on the phone call to india

not bad only an hour of my life wasted on these idiots

To you sir, I suggest you first take a breather. Getting worked up will do no good whatsoever in the situation you have found yourself in. Make yourself a brew, chill out for a bit. Then come back and follow the steps I gave in my last post. pabloB seems to have done to great effect.

 

[thecremeegg]

Unless it's Virgin Media ADSL you're on, that's not going to show your exchange (mainly because cable doesn't have an exchange per se, and the distance is irrelevant).

Does have an exchange, has to start somewhere!
I know distance should be irrelevant for cable, but that doesnt seem to always be the case

 

[dbmzk1]

Does have an exchange, has to start somewhere!
I know distance should be irrelevant for cable, but that doesnt seem to always be the case

It doesn't have an exchange. There is what is called a Universal Broadband Router (or UBR) which is what is at the other end. While I guess it serves a similar purpose as an exchange, it is a more like a network switch or hub. There are few and far between when compared to POTS exchanges, as it does NOT matter how far away you are from them. Distance is not what causes speed problems on cable.

 

[Robert]

It doesn't have an exchange. There is what is called a Universal Broadband Router (or UBR) which is what is at the other end. While I guess it serves a similar purpose as an exchange, it is a more like a network switch or hub. There are few and far between when compared to POTS exchanges, as it does NOT matter how far away you are from them. Distance is not what causes speed problems on cable.

(Y)

 

[Chief Wiggum]

may I suggest the following:

on your VM connection subscribe to the following newsgroup virginmedia.support.broadband.cable - it's a VM held support group with VM staff on it who assist customers - beats hanging on the phone to the premium rate line - setup instructions are here:
http://www.virginmedia.com/customers/newsgroups/setting-up.php
and a full listing here:
http://www.virginmedia.com/customers/newsgroups/listings.php

 

[Dist]

The way i test my max connnection speed is to get several downloads going from decent sites all at the same time, then use the networking page in windows task manager to see my overall usage.

Personaly i recomend trying to download ubuntu linux, and something from the nvidia or microsoft site. That maxed my connection when i tried it (individuly though, none of them maxed my connection, although download ubunutu came quite close).

So just because you cant max your connection when downloading 1 file, doesnt mean you cant max your connection when downloading multiple files.

 

[pabloB]

k i'm on cable to exchange location would appear not to be so much of a factor.

Thanks for the replies though guys learning a fair bit here! lol

I guess going back to my original point I was also a little bit surprised at the range of results given. But reading here it seems that I should take these sorts of sites as a given rule for seeing what speeds are!! Novice mistake I guess!

 

[MumboJumbo]

For all those complaining...

Download this.

Then run it on this.

You will get 10+Mbps every time. Unless there is actually a problem with Virgin Media and your connection, which from 'speed' tests alone, you cannot ascertain.

i dont get how to run it on tht download manager nor do i really understand the download manager. is it bittornnet? but i got the right speed anyway off mozila lol.

 

[awaybreaktoday]

i dont get how to run it on tht download manager nor do i really understand the download manager. is it bittornnet? but i got the right speed anyway off mozila lol.

My virgin 20MB is lovely!!!

 

[ScoobyDoo]

My virgin 20MB is lovely!!!

That is rapid, i max out my 20mb connection but at 2.34mbs which i thought was the max you could get on 20mb.
My mistake 2.5mbs is the max, ive never hit that

 

[VaderDSL]

I ******* HATE students!!!!

In summer and over xmas I get good pings, brilliant speeds from sites etc.

At the moment it takes 3 minutes to start buffering any streaming videos, pings 100ms + and speeds under 100kb/s

Why do they cram so many onto a UBR?

 

[eth01]

Usually. Your property is connected to the cabinet round the corner, thus being connected to the local uBR. The uBR is in turn connected to the switch/hub.

If you've got any problems with your VM service, check the newsgroups.