Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

Very weird activity going on with my business line here in Surrey as have received four planned outage notices:

C00906745 - 13/03
C00906533 - 14/03
C00898275 - 21/03
C00905905 - 27/03 to 02/04

Must be something major going on to require all of those! Line is still stable but no reboots on the Hitron as of yet. Shame they don't give details of what is happening, apart from saying it'll impact the Cable Modem itself - doesn't appear to be firmware related as still on 4.5.10.142-SIP-UPC with an uptime of 66 days :confused:

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

could be local work that will affect your connection. I have had that at times when they moved me to a new CMTS.
I believe the new firmware roll out has completed now - maybe your Hitron didn't get the reboot it needed to load new firmware. You may find if you restart it you will get the new firmware, which appears stable.

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

Cheers CCarmock. Kinda had my hand forced by a power outage but even upon reboot and another reboot, just to confirm, no new firmware downloaded.

Hey ho, one of the later outages will probably get it to me

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

Have they sorted out the packet fragmentation yet?

About a year ago I discovered that that MTU on VM Business is 1300 when using static IP with the Hitron.

Now that in itself might be OK and any packets larger than this with the DF (don't fragment) bit set result in an ICMP "Fragmentation Needed but DF is set" error.

The real problem is that it appears the Hitron silently discards packets larger than 1300 bytes when the DF bit is not set.

The only "solution" I was offered was switching to dynamic IP, which I did. But then port forwarding doesn't work and they were not able to fix that.

This was a year ago. Are things any better now?

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

Pretty much nothing has changed in that aspect. The firmware they are testing for the static IP has minor improvements for some people but it seems to depend on your location and what GRE Tunnel you are on.

As for the SH3 the general BQM issue they are releasing a firmware that makes the BQM look nice and pretty but doesn't actually fix the latency spiking issue.


I've had to go through a formal complaint to get out of the 12month contract with VM Business as static can't perform more than 20mbit's for me at most times and dynamic really isn't an option.


I still find it puzzling that they are still selling this Static IP GRE Tunnel product which is not fit for purpose..

I now have 2 VDSL lines one with Uno and one with AAISP incase of a failure.


Probably look into geting a router that can load balance to multi threaded downloads can reach the 160Mbit.

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

I was having issues with static IP's and the GRE Tunnel in 2014, that really is unacceptable it's still not fit for purpose in 2018.

The only real saving grace is Virgins dynamic IP's can go years without changing. I've had one IP change since getting rid of the static ip block 2014.

I've set our pfSense firewall to update a DNS record if the WAN ip changes. That's fine for our VPN, however certainly not viable for all usage scenarios I know.

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

So as a necro bump (as it's been a while), whats the opinion on the static IP option? Is it still recommended to stay away?

Only ask as my first year is up with VMB so looking to renew for another 2 years and wondering whether selecting the static (especially as I'm a high bandwidth user) is a good option or to stick with dynamic

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Oh, you're serious.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Stick with dynamic. The GRE tunnels they use for static seem to kill performance. This hasn't changed. Dynamic is pretty static in reality anyway.

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

interesting - as the changes they made have completely fixed the static IP issues for me. Initially I wasn't affected and then performance took a huge dive, but now I get great performance....

https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2018/08/13.png

This is with the 5 static IP routed subnet option, using a DrayTek 2960 behind the Hitron

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

cheers for the feedback guys. Shall give static another go and if not switch back to Dynamic.

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

Please do report back with your findings. My contract is coming up for renewal!

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

Hi guys, Sephiroth asked me to move my post over here, so here I am!

Here is my post from the Virgin forums, to save me from typing it all again:

Sephiroth also asked me to post my power levels (apologies if this is incorrect):

Downstream Overview
Port Frequency (Hz) Modulation Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Channel
1 298750000 256QAM 0.200 38.605 21
2 170750000 256QAM 0.800 38.983 5
3 178750000 256QAM 0.700 40.366 6
4 186750000 256QAM 0.700 40.366 7
5 194750000 256QAM 0.700 40.366 8
6 202750000 256QAM 0.300 40.366 9
7 210750000 256QAM 0.600 40.366 10
8 218750000 256QAM 0.100 40.366 11
9 226750000 256QAM 0.500 40.366 12
10 234750000 256QAM 0.500 40.366 13
11 242750000 256QAM 0.300 40.946 14
12 250750000 256QAM 0.000 38.983 15
13 258750000 256QAM 0.000 40.366 16
14 266750000 256QAM 0.100 40.366 17
15 274750000 256QAM -1.300 38.983 18
16 282750000 256QAM -0.100 40.946 19
17 290750000 256QAM -0.100 38.983 20
18 306750000 256QAM 0.000 40.366 22
19 314750000 256QAM 0.600 40.366 23
20 322750000 256QAM 0.900 40.366 24
21 402750000 256QAM 0.700 40.946 25
22 410750000 256QAM 0.800 40.946 26
23 418750000 256QAM -0.100 40.366 27
24 426750000 256QAM 0.300 40.366 28
Upstream Overview
Port Frequency (Hz) BandWidth Modulation Power (dBmV) Channel
1 25799985 6400000 ATDMA 41.000 4
2 32600015 6400000 ATDMA 41.000 3
3 46200000 6400000 ATDMA 42.750 1
4 39400000 6400000 ATDMA 42.000 2

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

Just to say that on the basis of the power levels, the dropouts you are experiencing are not down to the dynamic part of your circuit (the bit between the Hitron and the local VM hub site).

For what my opinion is worth, your problem may lie in both your router and the Hitron firmware in not being robust enough to handle multiple routable IP addresses in modem mode.

I hope one of the gurus in this thread can help you better than I.

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

I have the 5 static setup that you have with a DrayTek router behind the Hitron. I do not suffer performance issues any longer - though did when those problems were prevalent.

The connection has been very stable on the whole and performs well. As you say in multi static mode the Hitron performs no NAT, so is close to modem mode while still supporting the muti-static IP routing.

Interestingly recently I have had a few instances where the cable connection is stable, the GRE tunnel is marked 'Connected' but no traffic passes and requires a restart of the Hitron to restore service. It's rare that that happens, but it does happen.

Suggest when you get this situation connect tot he Hitron Web interface - check under Status -> DOCSIS WAN to see that you are connected. And then under Admin -> VMB IP Service to see that the GRE tunnel is Connected. If both check out OK but you cannot pass traffic then you have the same situation I have.

I am going to drop my contact in VMB a note about that.

Re: New VM Business service - 350Mb
 

I am only using one of my five static IPs, I should probably mention that.

Sometimes I run into an issue where I simply cannot get a connection, no matter how many reboots, though this is rare. I can usually fix this by switching to a different IP in my pool (which defeats the purpose of having a static).

But today is one of those rare occasions. (they seem to be getting more frequent).

I have just tested this again now, and I am still unable to get any internet via my usual static, but switching to a different one via my MikroTik's settings gets me back online.

I called Virgin tech support this morning, and they told me there was as issues in the last few days with static IPs, but this should have been fixed.

I am pretty confident is does happen while both the WAN and GRE tunnel are connected. I went to check again now while trying my usual IP, but alas, the Hitron GUI refuses to load. (another issue I frequently experience, I was told by a Virgin engineer that this is quite common?).