ME16 - Maidstone - Intermitent loss of cable and poor speeds?

[Risco]

Getting fed up with this, had my modem swapped twice and two engineers. I keep losing my internet, I am only able to post now by using my mobile phone as a wifi hotspot...Speeds have been pretty crap, and my ping and latency have been horrible. There was an area issue on Friday, which was fixed. Yet last night and tonight, offhshore deny there is a problem in this area?

I am supposed to be getting a "principal" technician come out, are these actually any better than the ones that have already been sent? When I do get a connection, my signal levels are spot on. This is confirmed by checking on the virgin forums, here and the engineers who have come out.

It usually goes out at night, when of course there is high load. So any of you techies out there such as Sepiroth want to shed some light?

Modem Stats ( My internet just DIED AGAIN as I was editing this in,FFS!!!!! )

Startup Procedure ProcedureStatusComment Acquire Downstream Channel299000000 HzLocked Connectivity StateOKOperational Boot StateOKOperational Configuration FileOK SecurityEnabledBPI+
Downstream Channels Lock StatusModulationChannel IDMax Raw Bit RateFrequencyPowerSNRDocsis/EuroDocsis locked LockedQAM2565955616000 Kbits/sec299000000 Hz-1.4 dBmV39.4 dBHybrid LockedQAM2565755616000 Kbits/sec283000000 Hz-1.2 dBmV39.9 dBHybrid LockedQAM2565855616000 Kbits/sec291000000 Hz-1.6 dBmV39.3 dBHybrid LockedQAM2566155616000 Kbits/sec307000000 Hz-1.7 dBmV39.0 dBHybrid LockedQAM2566255616000 Kbits/sec315000000 Hz 0.0 dBmV39.1 dBHybrid LockedQAM2566355616000 Kbits/sec323000000 Hz-0.5 dBmV39.0 dBHybrid UnlockedUnknown00 Ksym/sec0 Hz 0.0 dBmV 0.0 dBUnknown UnlockedUnknown00 Ksym/sec0 Hz 0.0 dBmV 0.0 dBUnknown
Upstream Channels Lock StatusModulationChannel IDMax Raw Bit Rate FrequencyPower LockedATDMA120480 Kbits/sec35800000 Hz47.8 dBmV UnlockedUnknown00 Ksym/sec0 Hz 0.0 dBmV UnlockedUnknown00 Ksym/sec0 Hz 0.0 dBmV UnlockedUnknown00 Ksym/sec0 Hz 0.0 dBmV
Primary Downstream Service Flow Downstream(0) SFID1766 Max Traffic Rate53000000 bps Max Traffic Burst3044 bytes Mix Traffic Rate0 bps
Primary Upstream Service Flow Upstream(0) SFID1765 Max Traffic Rate5140000 bps Max Traffic Burst8160 bytes Mix Traffic Rate0 bps Max Concatenated Burst8160 bytes Scheduling TypeBest Effort

Latest graph

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2012/03/14.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/8098cef93bab9eb38b19dae3a3584056.html)

Friday night / Saturday

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/0fd6e24e715cebf3beaa25d99eb1cbad-17-03-2012.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/0fd6e24e715cebf3beaa25d99eb1cbad-17-03-2012.html)

Friday

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/6f6df876ce268e7598c437afd5320036-16-03-2012.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/6f6df876ce268e7598c437afd5320036-16-03-2012.html)

[General Maximus]

Your power levels are fine. The principal technician will be the head dude for the area but to be honest I am not sure how much he is going to be able to do because it sounds more like a network fault than a problem at your end. The important thing is to ask if other people in your street/area have been reporting a similar problem (giving him a hint it is a network issue and not your modem)

[thenry]

my minimum latency has dropped like the OPs? my live monitor is below

[Risco]

Your power levels are fine. The principal technician will be the head dude for the area but to be honest I am not sure how much he is going to be able to do because it sounds more like a network fault than a problem at your end. The important thing is to ask if other people in your street/area have been reporting a similar problem (giving him a hint it is a network issue and not your modem)

Yeah, I just rang them again to be sure and it is a network issue. They are fixing it by the 22nd. My speeds seem ok as I type, but not sure how long my connection will hold up for!

Thanks for the speedy reply mate. When the broadband works, it is great and incredibly fast. It just seems that every 12 months or so I have to bitch at them, almost as if they flip a switch to give me a crappy connection!

[craigj2k12]

my minimum latency has dropped like the OPs? my live monitor is below

probably taking a different route to TBB

[thenry]

does that come about after getting a help in hand?

[Risco]

I meant to mention, I have been told it is an SNR issue with my area. So which part has gone wrong at teh cabinet to cause this?

[Risco]

Principal engineer finally came out. Very nice chap, he was able to find out that my UBR was @ 80% utilisation in otherwords oversubscribed. He said they are supposed to send someone out to fix it and reconfigure.

Can this really be fixed?

[General Maximus]

yup, it will take them a while to do. They love over subscribing and arent going to cough the dosh up to fix it any time soon

[Risco]

yup, it will take them a while to do. They love over subscribing and arent going to cough the dosh up to fix it any time soon

Mmm, well the engineer said he would let me know when they fix it via phonecall. What exactly do they reconfigure?

[General Maximus]

that's the point, they don't (well I am lieing, I think they can move you to a different card as a stop gap). They have to do physical work replacing line cards, splitting fibre and replacing lasers etc etc. Although they are working their way round doing work atm it isnt to add extra capacity to relieve congestion, it is to add extra capacity for the speed upgrades. It is all relative, they double the capacity to double everyone's speed and it stays the same. If it is really bad they might do a bit more than is needed but I can see them investing the money and time to make a significant difference to the congestion.

If he does ring you and whatever he has done works them you'll have to ask him out of curiocity what he has managed to do in such a short space of time but I want to know.

[Risco]

Well, still heard nothing. I don't know what they are playing at, but I have had issues with my TV On Demand, my broadband and now even my frickin voicemail is broken!

I rang them up again, and breathed fire in the direction of the poor customer service guy. I demanded they get their top guy to call me by Thursday at the very latest and before 10am as I have work. I also said I did not want to pay for any of my services, considering these issues have affected all bloody three! I took his name, and the time and threatened that if they did not resolve my issues I would take it to the highest possible point. So that means ofcom and CEO office. I will also be forwarding all this information to Watchdog.

I have been monitoring my connection with thinkbroadband for two weeks solid now, and have sufficient evidence of these issues. I did look in to moving to Bt, who offered me £36 a month for Infinity, although I would need to wait until enabled and it would be a free upgrade when it is. Sky on the other hand had £73.50 for the same package + the BT Infinity cost so the same as my current VIP. However the kicker is the £199 for second recording box, and is the only reason I have not left.

Someone really needs to stand up to Virgin and stop them over selling areas and invest in their network instead....

Current stats.....

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/1face1774da8d6f90553e0bee95fabe1-03-04-2012.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/1face1774da8d6f90553e0bee95fabe1-03-04-2012.html)

[Risco]

that's the point, they don't (well I am lieing, I think they can move you to a different card as a stop gap). They have to do physical work replacing line cards, splitting fibre and replacing lasers etc etc. Although they are working their way round doing work atm it isnt to add extra capacity to relieve congestion, it is to add extra capacity for the speed upgrades. It is all relative, they double the capacity to double everyone's speed and it stays the same. If it is really bad they might do a bit more than is needed but I can see them investing the money and time to make a significant difference to the congestion.

If he does ring you and whatever he has done works them you'll have to ask him out of curiocity what he has managed to do in such a short space of time but I want to know.

Well you wanted to know how it went. I think it is finally fixed, but only after I lost internet totally the other day, which turned out to be low SNR on the network ( 11.5, should be over 20 )

Anyway, here is what it has been like. I did not get a phonecall, but I think it is pretty damn good for a shub!

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/ec1c0d80912c43d5df48ac7bcaead08b-13-04-2012.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/ec1c0d80912c43d5df48ac7bcaead08b-13-04-2012.html)