richardc1983
03-09-2009, 18:21
Hello everyone, had 50mb installed a week ago, new modem and netgear router etc and a wireless N dongle. Was previously on 20mb but sick of the throttling and traffic management policies at least we got the full 20mb outside of the the management times.
Well have done several speed tests on various sites and also ran the optimiser program despite this not being needed for windows 7. Speeds fluctuate constantly particulary with downloads... sometimes as low as 8mb.
This affects us if we use wireless, wired via ethernet or directly connected to the modem.
I may do a speedtest 1minute and get 34mb then the next it drops to 18mb if I repeat the same test or from diff sites etc.
Complained to virgin media, they have checked all signals and modem and I have spent around 5hours on the phone to them and they say there is not a problem as they say the levels are fine etc and modem signal is perfect for 50mb. We even had an engineer attend and he said he couldnt find a problem either.
The behaviour we see is almost as if after we start downloading it is slowed down. We use news groups to download and pay a premium to do this and we thought maybe it was the newsgroup servers slowing us down after a bit so we disconnect it and try to download files from microsoft and guess what slow speeds on there.
Websites will be slow to load as well sometimes getting page cannot be displayed. The modem lights are all as normal and looks fine. It will stay like this for a while then slowly start creeping back up again as if they have stopped throttling us, however were told theres no traffic management.
We downloaded several files at once from http://gamefiles.virginmedia.com/blueyondergames/demos/ as directed by faults to see the true download speeds, and these were also affected by it.
When the engineer attended though he saw it fluctuate once or twice on the 50mb speed test that is on the internal intranet at virgin media. It of course gave good results the rest of the time!!!
However start downloading and wait half an hour then you see the problems!!
Never had this on 20mb the service was consistent apart from the traffic management which is why we opted for 50mb.
Im told the service is only 10% utilised in my area LEEDS LS15 and the 50mb is on its own platform so wont be prone to the peak slow downs etc. We did a speedtest while on line to the overseas tech support call centre and we got 35mb, and she says that is good enough and that they only have to provide between 35 and 45mb and its "upto" not 50mb!!! Not a good enough response I think as its cable it should be constant speed in the area of 50 so maybe 47-50 but not below.
This is becoming really annoying we have 3 laptops and 1 wired computer and its affects them all. No we dont have spyware or antivirus slowing it down. Its purely when we seem to download that we slow down.
Im technical minded and work in IT so will not put up where we seem that VM want to pull the wool over our eyes, it was the same with 10meg when that was first launched it took us nearlly 8 months to get it sorted!
The bandwith monitor shows waves of fluctuation rather than nice consistent line... Got another engineer coming on Friday but feel this will be a wasted journey as they already say levels and that are perfect and there is no drop outs or packet loss, which I have seen myself!
Can anyone help as were seriously considering going back to 20meg, for a premium service it is very poor and the fluctuations are simply not good enough for the price we are paying!
Kind regards
Richard.
Well have done several speed tests on various sites and also ran the optimiser program despite this not being needed for windows 7. Speeds fluctuate constantly particulary with downloads... sometimes as low as 8mb.
This affects us if we use wireless, wired via ethernet or directly connected to the modem.
I may do a speedtest 1minute and get 34mb then the next it drops to 18mb if I repeat the same test or from diff sites etc.
Complained to virgin media, they have checked all signals and modem and I have spent around 5hours on the phone to them and they say there is not a problem as they say the levels are fine etc and modem signal is perfect for 50mb. We even had an engineer attend and he said he couldnt find a problem either.
The behaviour we see is almost as if after we start downloading it is slowed down. We use news groups to download and pay a premium to do this and we thought maybe it was the newsgroup servers slowing us down after a bit so we disconnect it and try to download files from microsoft and guess what slow speeds on there.
Websites will be slow to load as well sometimes getting page cannot be displayed. The modem lights are all as normal and looks fine. It will stay like this for a while then slowly start creeping back up again as if they have stopped throttling us, however were told theres no traffic management.
We downloaded several files at once from http://gamefiles.virginmedia.com/blueyondergames/demos/ as directed by faults to see the true download speeds, and these were also affected by it.
When the engineer attended though he saw it fluctuate once or twice on the 50mb speed test that is on the internal intranet at virgin media. It of course gave good results the rest of the time!!!
However start downloading and wait half an hour then you see the problems!!
Never had this on 20mb the service was consistent apart from the traffic management which is why we opted for 50mb.
Im told the service is only 10% utilised in my area LEEDS LS15 and the 50mb is on its own platform so wont be prone to the peak slow downs etc. We did a speedtest while on line to the overseas tech support call centre and we got 35mb, and she says that is good enough and that they only have to provide between 35 and 45mb and its "upto" not 50mb!!! Not a good enough response I think as its cable it should be constant speed in the area of 50 so maybe 47-50 but not below.
This is becoming really annoying we have 3 laptops and 1 wired computer and its affects them all. No we dont have spyware or antivirus slowing it down. Its purely when we seem to download that we slow down.
Im technical minded and work in IT so will not put up where we seem that VM want to pull the wool over our eyes, it was the same with 10meg when that was first launched it took us nearlly 8 months to get it sorted!
The bandwith monitor shows waves of fluctuation rather than nice consistent line... Got another engineer coming on Friday but feel this will be a wasted journey as they already say levels and that are perfect and there is no drop outs or packet loss, which I have seen myself!
Can anyone help as were seriously considering going back to 20meg, for a premium service it is very poor and the fluctuations are simply not good enough for the price we are paying!
Kind regards
Richard.