Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

I live in Bristol and I and a few friends suffer a similar problem. I am gathering additional information to present to VM to get it resolved.

Do you need to do a Power Off and restart to get your service back?
Have you looked at the modem error file? if so could you post it to my thread CPE (Cable Modems) Crash.

Thanks
Rick

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

Yeah but its usually just a lot of T3 errors the modem log shows.

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

He is using a VMNG300 modem on 50Mb which runs with 4 downstreams and on a completely different Docsis to you so his fault is in no way similar to yours at all.

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

Maldova, I am not suggesting that his and my problem are the same, I am suggesting that no one seems to collect this fault data and attempts to use it to assist in resolving the issues that exist.

What does confuse me is your negativity...

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

No be at all negative as what happens is that you collate all this data from seemingly similar issues from opposite ends of the country that cannot be in anyway related.

You need to collate data say from your neighbours or from other people in your area and if the fault is the same then you have a better argument to put across to your ISP.

You start hitting them with a mishmash of unrelated data then they will have nothing to base any real investigation of your issue.

If you read what I have said above you know it makes sense.:)

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

What would make sense would be for VM to set up a database with some predefined fields for CUSTOMERS (The people that pay the wages) to fill in a fault report. Then intelligent engineers could use that to look for similar
issues like same modem firmware on same ubr port for example.

Maybe the blinkered view is why VM can't see the wood for the trees and why issues take so long (if ever) to get resolved.

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

That would be customers raising faults via technical support, automated systems note when there have been a certain amount of reports and raise an area fault which is then investigated. VM have access to every modem on the network and can derive any data that they think may assist with troubleshooting from there. All modems of each type are identifiable by OID and should be on whichever firmware VM are most recently offering.

Allowing customers to start randomly pumping data into a database would just throw more trees into the mix.

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

SQL is a wonderful thing, it allows you to sort and filter lots of raw data very quickly given that you have collected the raw data in the first place and therein lies the problem.
As you have stated above VM have the ability to access all their modems and get all the raw data they require, I guess the real question is why don't they seem to?

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

Because people paying between 12 and 38 pounds a month for service aren't really profitable to serve if you start throwing proactive and ongoing monitoring of every modem into the mix.

SQL is used to sort data when looking at multiple customer fault reports. It is not up to customers to report this information it can be derived from their original fault reports and account information anyway.

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

Ignitionnet,
I guess you are also aware of snmp and wondered if you know if VM network management is centralised or regional?

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

Centralised.

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

So let me get this straight in my mind, -
1) Broadband services are not profitable if they work faultlessly.

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

You could gget a job as a Spin Doctor twisting words like this!:D

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

Well what is not spin is the realisation that I have been overcharged for my XL service for goodness knows how long and than VM won't say for how long and won't refund any overcharges.


BBC Oneshow here I come

Re: Problems in Neath South Wales
 

Excess formatting removed.

No, ensuring that broadband services work faultlessly isn't profitable which is why the services are not advertised with an SLA. Reasonable steps are taken to ensure they work as close to flawlessly as reasonably possible within the business model to provide them.

To try and give you a faultless service would involve having sufficient staff to monitor the status of every cable modem on the network and then have engineers respond to each and every single user fault, having resilient cable feeds into every home, resilient coaxial and fibre optic lines with battery and generator backed up active components throughout connecting to two different resilient headends with an optical switch to a secondary feed should the primary fail.

Do you really think your subscription comes even close to covering that?

You may wish to try Watchdog instead of the One Show regarding the billing issues, or mail the CEO's office. Before you do just make sure that you are reading the bill appropriately as VM's bills aren't the clearest.