Virgin Media..who is having problem with consoles?

The thing is though, some people from the test said it was better, whilst others didn't notice much improvement.

It all points to one thing though......

.... a very broken implementation of P2P management.
 
Ahhh so they have implemented something to check for high uploads on a P2P network and tried to what..stifle it?

I dont have a superhub..jsut the normal VM box with it connected to my Linksys router, and that has been my setup for a coupe of years.
 
My guess is as I am uploading/downloading data to all the people connected to me, this looks like high torrent usage (think 11 people all connected to me) and it throttles how many connections/how much I upload, this then screws with all the info being sent back and forwards, the game throws a hissy fit, doesn't know what it's doing, some packets get through others don't, game goes all laggy, then it sorts itself, game on, this keeps happening, the coding in the game thinks I am a naff host and kicks me.

Rinse and repeat, that is what I think is happening.
 
Seems logical

just unfortunate that some people in the control group threw a spanner in the works by saying it didnt fix their problem throwing VM off their track.
 
Yep, Superhub has it's own issues and they are working on a new version of the firmware. Firmware updates for the hub are pumped out by Virgin and they update themselves.

The latest traffic management was "Upstream P2P" and is effectively aimed at stopping or severely crippling torrent/newsgroup (P2P) traffic that will hog a lot of bandwidth, this was implemented on the 17th March and is when all the Xbox/PS3/PC online gaming issues began.

The problem is Xbox Live and PlayStation Network implements P2P for a lot of multiplayer games (Black Ops, Bad Company 2, Fifa etc etc) and the host is picked each lobby based on their available upstream bandwidth (which, with Virgin Media, tends to be quite high and thus you get picked).


It would seem (just from a semi-educated viewpoint) that Virgin haven't done enough to separate the P2P generated by Xbox and PSN (which all run over the same ports as defined by Microsoft/Sony) from other P2P traffic. I'm fairly certain it can be fixed/rectified in good time, I just don't think there was enough of an uproar at first due to the laggy nature of Black Ops in the first place.




The 5 testers from the Virgin forum last weekend had their traffic management turned off, two of whom posted in the topic and said their experience was a hell of a lot better for this. However the admin of the board came back and stated the problems were still there. So either those on the forum were unable to relay accurate information and skewed the results away from P2P traf/man being the cause, or indeed the traffic management isn't the cause.

I believe the former, and I've got myself in the fortunate position of relaying accurate info (through packet dumps etc.) back to their head offices of my playing experiences tonight. Hopefully I can provide them with an accurate timeline and enough data that I've gathered (various websites providing ports that the services use and any packet captures at my end that Virgin wish to use) to do my bit to help quickly resolve the issues.


As a disclaimer, I do not work for, nor am I associated with, Virgin Media in any way; I'm just a customer who was unhappy with the sub-par service and pushed the issue as high up as I could.
 
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So do I, as when you think about it, it's not just Virgin customers who are effected,all players of Black Ops/every other game are victims as well, as Virgin users get given host, then bang, these problems surface.
 
Good to read Karlbbb, just how much huffing and puffing did you have to do get the top brass to take notice I wonder?
 
In an ideal world Dook, you'd be right. ;)


I had a couple of rants on the forum but guessed they were either being ignored or just read and no feedback given.

A single email to the CEO of VM was enough to get wheels in motion, however it would seem Virgin did had a squad already in place looking at the issue. It is however gaining notoriety around the net and is bad PR for VM; one would presume they've stepped it up a notch.
 
Call me crazy, but can they just not turn off the P2P adjustments they have made, revert back to the way it was till they sort it?......

........or is that some kinda crazy commen sence thing?
 
I have noticed my Vm 10 mb has been funny too when playing on live, also for anybody who plays wow, there are loads people on vm complaining, its really laggy, getting kicked etc i know this is the console forum however these issues aren't limited to just live it seems.
 
No its a range of services for me..now I cant say its because of all of teh same reason, but for instance I cannot stream DI.FM via iTines as its cuts the stream, Youtube has been INCREDIBLY slow, that kinda stuff.
 
Youtube is fine, pc gaming (from what mine can manage) is fine, xbox live is just knackered :(

Good excuse to get a new rig sorted me thinks, been far too long anyhow. Can't see VM sorting this anytime soon. Just aswell there are no real games of interest out at the minute, otherwise I would have been very annoyed.
 
Right well thats good to read, as its not maybe just another problem, but COULD be related to the same thing.

Problem for me is I can be sporatic when I can get on Live for any real time due to work, but their can be 3 weeks bursts where im wanting to be on BC2 all the time..so my time scale isnt exact.

But I have noticed those other problems with general use/ browsing for some time now.
 
Dannyb01y said:
Yeah I have problems with youtube aswell. Normal resolution videos take ages to download or stop after the first chunk.
Click to expand...

Exactly as you describe, the first bit (the red bar) loads quick like normal..then its just stops, this has been in FF and IE9 I have found this.
 
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