10 months of slow speeds on 20mb

[Risco]

OK long story short, been having slow speeds on my internet for something like 10 months. I fired off loads of emails and and lots of phone calls. I finally seem to be getting somewhere with a very helpful engineer. I live in the ME16 Maidstone area if it helps. I have been getting horrible slow browsing and download speeds of less than 100kb/s at times.

I have this guys phone number, and he sent some top level engineers to check the pot outside. Also previously he fitted one of those powered connectors to improved my signal. Here is a quick summary of my readings from my modem.

Before anything had been done:

Downstream Lock : Locked
Downstream Channel Id : 6
Downstream Frequency : 331000000 Hz
Downstream Modulation : QAM256
Downstream Symbol Rate : 5360.537 Ksym/sec
Downstream Interleave Depth : taps32Increment4
Downstream Receive Power Level : -6.0 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 36.3 dB

Upstream Lock : Locked
Upstream Channel ID : 2
Upstream Frequency : 25800000 Hz
Upstream Modulation : QAM16
Upstream Symbol Rate : 2560 Ksym/sec
Upstream transmit Power Level : 59.0 dBmV
Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 4

After signal booster fitted

Downstream Lock : Locked
Downstream Channel Id : 6
Downstream Frequency : 331000000 Hz
Downstream Modulation : QAM256
Downstream Symbol Rate : 5360.537 Ksym/sec
Downstream Interleave Depth : taps32Increment4
Downstream Receive Power Level : 0.0 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 36.8 dB

Upstream Lock : Locked
Upstream Channel ID : 2
Upstream Frequency : 25800000 Hz
Upstream Modulation : QAM16
Upstream Symbol Rate : 2560 Ksym/sec
Upstream transmit Power Level : 52.0 dBmV
Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 4

After top level engineer visit

Upstream Lock : Locked
Upstream Channel ID : 4
Upstream Frequency : 34000000 Hz
Upstream Modulation : QAM16
Upstream Symbol Rate : 2560 Ksym/sec
Upstream transmit Power Level : 44.5 dBmV
Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 2

Downstream Lock : Locked
Downstream Channel Id : 6
Downstream Frequency : 331000000 Hz
Downstream Modulation : QAM256
Downstream Symbol Rate : 5360.537 Ksym/sec
Downstream Interleave Depth : taps32Increment4
Downstream Receive Power Level : 0.5 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 36.5 dB

As you can see there has been a dramatic improvement in my downstream SNR. However I am still suffering slow speeds, just now from http://gamefiles.virginmedia.com/blueyondergames/demos/ I was getting 200kb/s speeds!

Is there a way I can request to be moved to a 1.1 DOCIS where 50mb resides? I am currently registering with a 1.0 DOCIS. Also what is causing my dramatic speed drops as my SNR from what I have read is pretty much perfect now?!

[Turkey Machine]

You're on a likely oversubscribed UBR, and requesting to be moved to a DOCSIS 1.1 UBR won't happen until they do it on their head. You are entitled to part refunds for the crap service you've had though.

[Risco]

You're on a likely oversubscribed UBR, and requesting to be moved to a DOCSIS 1.1 UBR won't happen until they do it on their head. You are entitled to part refunds for the crap service you've had though.


Do it on their head? Little bit lost to what you mean there? :P

Just took a screenshot of my download speeds just a minute ago. Would moving to 50mb solve my issues?
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2910/capturefd.th.jpg (http://img5.imageshack.us/i/capturefd.jpg/)

[adzii_nufc]

Nah Simply Moving To 50mb wont resolve anything,

When i was On 20mb I Used NTL's Old 250 modems, I recieved on average 19.87mbps.. Average and Upload 750kb's

Heard some crap about people not bieng able to recieve 20mb... in areas of Britian Dunno If this is true or not and also some ***** about Not getting good Speeds if your far from the cable exchange

[Ignitionnet]

Nah Simply Moving To 50mb wont resolve anything,

When i was On 20mb I Used NTL's Old 250 modems, I recieved on average 19.87mbps.. Average and Upload 750kb's

Heard some crap about people not bieng able to recieve 20mb... in areas of Britian Dunno If this is true or not and also some ***** about Not getting good Speeds if your far from the cable exchange

Adzii please don't speculate.

50Mbit uses a different network and may resolve the issues, depending if they are related to signal problems or capacity, and in any event the installing engineer should make sure that the 50Mbit service is working well before he leaves.

There are no issues with distance on the VM network, all the powered amplifiers and the fibre to the neighbourhood is there to make sure that distance isn't an issue.

Some people in some parts of the UK cannot get full speed at peak times, this is due to capacity issues. It should not cause slow speeds all of the time though, that is something else if it's the case.

Risco do your speeds fluctuate throughout the day or are they always rubbish? Have you noted any packet loss on the connection and how are the pings?

The earlier issue was related to upstream, not downstream by the way :)

[Risco]

Hi, sorry for the late reply. It seems that Jamie and Andy have sorted my problems after 9months! Jamie had got some engineers to look at my pit outside and he said that there was a corroded connection! This is what had been causing my issues. Speeds seem to be very zippy now!

I have now taken it to higher level complaints, who are calling me tmoz. The first guy said he could only give me 1 months, but these people would be able to give me a much larger sum.

I will post back with the result of what happens with my compensation. :D

[horrorwood]

Nice one gamergod :angel:

docsis 1.1 is not 50mb btw, docsis 3.0 is 50mb which is why you need a new modem for it.

[Sephiroth]

Yeah - that's one of the nasties that is not deduceable from the modem stats. For ADSL modems (like Draytek) you're told the Loop Attentuation, which is the loss of signal strength with distance of the copper link (in this case the attenuation would seem to be due to the corroded connexion).

If the SNR is measured at the cable modem, then attenuation won't be able to take the corroded connexion into account. At least that's how it seems to me.

[Ignitionnet]

Worth remembering that the attenuation on a DSL circuit is easy to deduce, take the transmit power at the MSAN on a certain frequency then check the received signal, 300 and 400kHz are good candidate frequencies, take one away from the other and there you go. With the intermediate amplification on a cable circuit there expressly to overcome the attenuation of the network it's a fairly worthless number on a cable modem as if the amps are doing their job power should be close to 0dBmV regardless of attenuation.

The other real nasty thing was that the corrosion didn't affect the downstream SNR and the power was within spec too. Only things to go by would have been the upstream SNR and how the modem responded to a DOCSIS ping.

Gotta love this stuff, guess that's why the guys who work on the network spend a while learning their trade while nubcakes like me can only guess!

[Sephiroth]

...The other real nasty thing was that the corrosion didn't affect the downstream SNR and the power was within spec too. Only things to go by would have been the upstream SNR and how the modem responded to a DOCSIS ping.

Gotta love this stuff, guess that's why the guys who work on the network spend a while learning their trade while nubcakes like me can only guess!
Where's the upstream SNR, then? Isn't that measured at the CM termination end? Hence not displayed. It might be quasi-deduceable from the transmit power level and the "norm" for the QAM value. A few variables there because there is a range.

[Risco]

Is there a way I can get a big thanks to the engineers ( especially Jamie ) who helped resolve the issue? I would like them to get a personal recognition!