Speed issue in Swansea
 

Would anybody in the know have heard of anything going on in Swansea over the last fortnight or so?

My service is perfect between the hours of midnight and 7ish pm but for that 5 hours, every evening, between 7 and 12 my download speed drops to virtually dead on 5Mb when I pay for 152Mb. Upload and ping seem to be completely unaffected by what ever is going on.

I've been on the phone with TS and CS every day since the problem occurred and know as much as I did then. I no longer have any faith in 150 or 151, have been promised a multitude of callbacks to have received a grand total of 0 including a promised callback from an off-shore manager this evening. It took 8 days of calling in before a fault was even raised for me.

I'd really appreciate somebody telling me what's occurring with my line/account before I throw this service out of the window. :)

Thanks guys for any help with this

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

People trying out their trial 300Mb/s speeds?

Don't shoot the messenger. :Sprint:

See: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/10...b-page-13.html

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

I'm getting the same issue as you morrk soon as it hits about 8ish speed drops like a stone 7 or 8 meg at the most. Had a new 2AC router sent out but this has made no difference at all. I'm on 100meg this time of day on my LINUX hard wired PC I get 105meg wireless approx 80 to 90meg. Over the day the speed drops until the witching hour of 7pm
Just did a TALK TALK speedtest wirelessly on my laptop

The speed to your device is 86.8 Mbps Unfortunately our test is not returning enough data to pinpoint any problem.
If you're expecting faster speeds, our Top Tips may be able to help.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Swansea isn't part of the trials sadly. If the network is busy it's business as usual traffic.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

I received a callback from a manager this morning and having a new SH2 installed tomorrow night.

Don't see this resolving the issue to be honest but at this point I'm willing to try anything.

Networks have been involved and are unable to find an issue.

What I find quite intersting, and have mentioned this to VM. HTTP is getting battered, SSL usenet while not brilliant is a lot better. ( around 50Mb tops). For the first week I was reporting it the only answer I got was that a firmware upgrade had been pushed out in this area which was causing problems. Apparently only affecting SA6 too. I'm not sure if any of that is true now, as nobody there seems to know of any issue in SA6 and the fact it's been borked for a fortnight suggests an excuse.

About 6 years ago, I made a thread on here when shaping first reared it's head, on the back of that thread the media got involved. Something iffy is going on here my spider senses tell me. I'm sure it will come out in the wash.

---------- Post added at 11:21 ---------- Previous post was at 11:13 ----------

I don't believe traffic is causing this, my HTTP traffic is slow all eveing, there is no fluctuation and then at 12 somebody flicks a magic switch and I'm getting 160Mb. There is no gradient of speed that you'd expect with the network getting gradually busier and then quiter. It goes from black to white, or **** to impeccable!

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

It is traffic, i.e. too much traffic causing congestion on your local node IMHO.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

In that case, why are some protocols being affected worse than others?

And surely if it was a congestion issue somebody might have thought to mention that during the many calls I've made to 151 over the last fortnight?

The best anyone can suggest at the moment is a modem swap out. Networks have come back today and said they see no issue.

Everybody in my area must have timers to shut down all connections at midnight on the dot so I can resume proper service. :)

---------- Post added at 12:59 ---------- Previous post was at 12:31 ----------

Would others care to post what they have for min traffic rate please in the modem oeprational config.

Mine is 8448000 bps or 8Mb

I've googled the term and can see some people are stating the min and max values are the same for them (168960000 bps min and max)

I've never noticed the value before, I'm wondering if it might have changed recently.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Because some protocols are more sensitive than others? If all protocols worked the identically then there wouldn't be any point to having different protocols.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

My min traffic rate is zero for both download and upload. Works fine for me.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Well I've spoken to 151 again who have again confirmed with networks they see no issue and won't raise a fault as something isn't over 3%. I'm not sure what the 3% relates to but it is a network tech coming to my house tomorrow, they can often be a little straighter with answers in my experience so we shall see what he says.

Times like this make me wish I still worked there.

---------- Post added at 15:16 ---------- Previous post was at 15:15 ----------

Thank you for that. Guess I'll tick that one off the list. :)

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

I'm interested to know what the Min Traffic Rate on the downstream does too.
(I wonder if it relates to the Minimum Reserved Traffic Rate?)

I'm on 100Mb/s and have 112640000 as the Max Traffic Rate and 5632000 as the Min Traffic Rate. The ratio of the two is 0.05. What's your ratio morrk?

Also what speed test are you using to measure?

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

I live in Swansea center and have no issues.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Latest wireless speed test

The speed to your device is 78.4 Mbps Unfortunately our test is not returning enough data to pinpoint any problem.
If you're expecting faster speeds, our Top Tips may be able to help.

Not bad for this time of night but as morrk said earlier about 7ish it starts to go pear shaped

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Funnily enough I came here to post the same thing. I've been testing this every evening for the last 12 days and this is the first night, at this time I'm getting good speed (93Mb).

Just got back from my parents in SA5 and their TV/BB was off most of the afternoon and came back on at 5.

Coincidence or possibly related? Don't really care as long I get to watch the footy tonight. :)

---------- Post added at 19:43 ---------- Previous post was at 19:38 ----------

Mine is about 0.05 too funnily enough.

Weird how different people have different values. Some min and max are the same and some min are 0.

I first noticed my issue downloading some apps for an android TV box, have done numerous tests since but usually use speedtest.net website.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Latest test done now

The speed to your device is 77.6 Mbps Unfortunately our test is not returning enough data to pinpoint any problem.
If you're expecting faster speeds, our Top Tips may be able to help.

Strange it seems to have corrected itself.......................

The speed to your device is 82.3 Mbps Unfortunately our test is not returning enough data to pinpoint any problem.
If you're expecting faster speeds, our Top Tips may be able to help. Test done at 9:55pm

Strange since this thread was raised all of a sudden the speeds have improved.......mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

My service has been solid all night. Fingers crossed that's the end of that!

---------- Post added at 22:13 ---------- Previous post was at 22:05 ----------

;)

lets hope it stays like this. I'm going to let the network tech visit tomorrow still and will update here if I find out whats been going on mate.

Are you in SA6 by the way?

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Yes morrk no problems normally but I've been having a few issues with my TIVO as well

Has frozen and rebooted for no reason and as mentioned could be the two are related

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Virgin don't monitor this forum, they have their own for that. It's entirely possible there is/was an issue in your area and was only picked up when enough people called in about it.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

While I'm sure that Cable Forum would be happy to take credit for bringing attention to things, they do not supply your details to VM so VM would've had no way of knowing who you are and where you are to focus efforts on a fault, and there are dozens of potential places for issues in Swansea.

Still it makes a nice thought :)

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Engineer just left, didn't bother with the modem swap out.

Not sure what the exact problem is but could be related to hub work to do with the upcoming speed upgrades. Despite the lack of replies in this thread, there are apparently very similar speed issues happening all over the Swansea area.

Hopefully service should be back to normal by the end of September.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Here we go again

The speed to your device is 15.0 Mbps Unfortunately our test is not returning enough data to pinpoint any problem. Done at 7:10pm


Cabled PC is just a bit below 11 meg thought it was too good to be true last night

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Same here mate.

Getting 7Mb at the moment.

---------- Post added at 20:02 ---------- Previous post was at 19:26 ----------

On the phone with 151 now.
My fault has been closed and everything is showing normal at the moment.
Upstream utilisation for me peaks out at 100% at random points during the day but no like they can see that affecting this for extended periods every evening.
I just want this resolved now, spoken to retentions who advised it has to be 30 days interrupted service before a free cancellation of contract can be arranged. Roll on 30 days at this rate

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Strange it wasn't a problem last night

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

I've been on the phone with one of the level 2's in Swansea. He advised to make a post on the official forums, you recon you could post there too mate? The more of us with an issue will be more likely to make them sit up and listen. They raised my fault to networks as a single person fault and that was closed as no info included!

The URL to the thread is :

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...6/td-p/2904491

Had it confirmed tonight that the utilisation for me this evening is currently at 27% and has peaked at 57%, they wouldn't raise a fault on utilisation unless it goes above 80%.

He did mention that the network has been showing un-correctable errors tonight, and the night before last, but none last night! Thought we might have cracked it, but these issues come and go, usually lasting 20-30 mins and certainly not the ~5 hours we seem to be affected for at the moment. While I was on the phone things looked perfect and speed should have been fine but only got just over 5Mb.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Done morrk have just posted to the forum. Let's see what it's like over the weekend

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Thanks Bayonet, most appreciated.

Looking at our locations, and the other guy from vicarage road this appears to be covering a large spread of SA6. Strangely the other guys next door neighbour was fine, I'm not aware of any of my neigbours having virgin or I'd ask them.

Hopefully somebody on the official forum can get our posting IP's and put a correlation together as to what is happening with us specifically.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Any reply on the forum to our posts?

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Nothing yet, not from a VM employee anyway.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

It may take 2-4 working days for a reply

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Before i was moved to a different CMTS in Swansea a few weeks ago i was getting random uncorrectable errors and they amitted it was to do with my SNR dropping randomly but they couldnt pin point where and why.

Thankfully touch wood all is good now.

BTW im in SA1 area in Central Swansea.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

That's fair enough, the person who advised me to make to thread is calling me back at 11 on Monday anyway. I'm just hoping that it can attract others to report the fault, so it is taken seriously to be honest.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2015/09/34.png

Time is 1 hour out, actual time 19:53

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Something is different tonight.

I've had this since not long after 8. I've left it until now to post in case things changed.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2015/09/33.png

Again, actual time is 1 hour slow.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Here's my wireless just now

he speed to your device is 11.3 Mbps Unfortunately our test is not returning enough data to pinpoint any problem.
If you're expecting faster speeds, our Top Tips may be able to help.
Cabled test was 9.38 download

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Yeah, same again tonight mate.

Maybe our problems were alleviated by women wearing daffodils on their heads at the rugby. :)

Over usenet SSL I am currently getting 100Mb/s

To the poster that mentioned about protocols earlier in the thread, do you really thing that HTTP is 5 times less robust than SSL traffic on 563?

Thought not.

Either our HTTP traffic is being shaped, or somebody made a proper bollock when implementing protocol shaping for this area

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Loads on here (the VM fan boys) will jump in and tell you that it's your equipment, that VM is perfect, sunshines out etc.

The reality is the network is creaking at the seams and they plan to attempt to double it again.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

I'm fully aware of what's going on mate. I was a level 2 in Swansea for 5 years and have worked as an infrastructure consultant for about 10 since leaving them.

I don't deal with mega fat pipes anymore but do deal with virgin as a business sense and something really don't add up here.

Never mind anyway, I'll be off for free after 30 days and will be glad to go after the shower I've experienced over the last few weeks.

My opinion regarding the forthcoming upgrades:

Give me what I pay for 24/7 before begging for more customers with a speed increase you cannot possibly deliver!

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Off my wired connection

The speed to your device is 106.3 Mbps Unfortunately our test is not returning enough data to pinpoint any problem.
If you're expecting faster speeds, our Top Tips may be able to help.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Show them the part of your contract that indicates you're paying for 152Mb 24x7 and I'm sure they'll reconsider.

Your public domain content Usenet usage, as everyone's binary usenet usage is always entirely legit :), is probably using more download threads than the speed test, hence gets a bigger share of bandwidth during congestion conditions, and/or was set up with different parameters.

With your experience I've no doubt you're very aware of TCP congestion control and how multiple flows can influence perceived performance.

57% utilisation of the downstream channels should leave you easily able to max out your 152Mb so if the numbers you were given were correct this shouldn't be causing your issues.

For traffic management to just affect one small section of Swansea while leaving the rest untouched is unlikely. Most of the intelligence is deeper into the network.

---------- Post added at 13:22 ---------- Previous post was at 13:17 ----------

I'm far from that but changing the record would be good. There are clearly performance issues in some areas, this is well known, however you're no better than 'the fanboys' with sweeping generalisations about how the entire network is in bits.

Not exactly peak but not exactly off-peak either:

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2015/09/32.png

I appreciate that in your world that person is the only person out of the 4 million who is actually receiving decent speeds and the rest of the customers are masochistic idiots putting up with abysmal service because you are.

If you're so unhappy vote with your wallet. It's what I always do and indeed did as recently as a fortnight ago. Far more constructive, rewarding, and effective than sitting on online forums ranting and raving.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

No change I see

The speed to your device is 8.7 Mbps Unfortunately our test is not returning enough data to pinpoint any problem.

Think Broadband was a little better at 20 meg...........whoopee

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

I should remember to stay away from my keyboard after beer to be fair, apologies for the rant. VM have just really been pushing my buttons this last couple of weeks.

I received an email over the weekend to provide feedback on the service I've received, filling that in relieved the stress no end :)

I was due a call back at 11 today but I'm in Kent with the misses and got no phone signal. Typical!!

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

As the moderators and any long time members here can attest I have done way worse :)

All good, and I entirely appreciate the frustration having been there myself a couple of times.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Thanks mate, appreciated. I usually have a 2 beer rule but that seemed to go out the window :dozey:

To make matters better, my phone magically came to life and I got my call back. Wanted to know about changes since Friday night as the line cards were restarted. Reported my findings and also Bayonets from last night as I wasn't at home.

The incident has gone back to networks and I'm getting another call back on Wednesday with any available updates.

Looks like the train has left the station choo choo :monkey:

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Time is perfectly correct. You forgot to read the timezone.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

some areas?

B36, BN2, WA9, TS19, NG9, Croydon, Woking, BS6, NG7, GU21, GU2

That's a pretty good nationwide sample, all taken from the front page of

VM's own forums, that's just the ones that mention an area.

In those areas lie a considerable % of the installed user base.

Don't know why you just keep on denying that the problems are widespread, when the evidence is right before your eyes.

I did vote with my wallet, dropped internet to bottom tier, cancelled tv completely and when my wife's mobile is up for renewal will be ditching the phone completely as well.

Retentions rang on Friday offering me a 50p/month saving if I didn't cancel the tv :LOL:

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Not everyone in those post codes are affected and your "nationwide sample" is nothing more than a smattering of post codes. Virgin has literally millions of customers, congestion by its very nature on the network is localised. Of course you're going to see congestion in different parts of the country, but that doesn't mean the problem is "nation wide".

You're basically doing the equivalent of seeing 4 roads closed in different parts of the country and declaring that there's a nationwide epidemic of road closures. It just isn't representative at all.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Well well hello

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedt...7879727255.png

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

I'll have ice cream with my humble pie.

Got another call back today that I arranged with CS last week but totally forgot about. Was with the CS BB guru.

He spotted straight away that the upstream utilisation excluding last night, and last Thursday has been going up to 120% and staying there for hours. Seems to be the hours we're affected to be fair and tallies up with what the engineer said last week. There has been some work done during the last couple of days but he was unsure as to whether it's fixed or not. Could have been the line card reboot that was mentioned yesterday. If the problem occurs again over the next couple of nights, it would seem the issue could be quite a long term fix but he's calling back tomorrow morning for another update anyway.

At least the problem seems to close to diagnosis now but it's taken almost 3 weeks, 3 L2's and around 30 TS staff to get to this point. When I said the engineer had told me that there were issues, he was basically made out to be full of ****. It's little wonder people get frustrated.

Anyway, I'll get on with my pie and apologise to anyone I doubted when it seems you might have been right all along.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedt...9343184555.png http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedt...3875430155.png

Not bad wireless compared to the 5 to 6 meg we were getting.

Only problem now is my TIVO went south this morning got a tech out tomorrow

Stuck with a very poor indoor aerial signal and my android box is playing up as well

Wired is pretty good as well

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Got another 2 callbacks this morning, fingers crossed these problems are now sorted and maybe it wasn't what I posted yesterday.

It looks as if a change was made a few weeks ago that halved the available downstream to this part of the network from 8GB to 4GB. The issue was found and reversed on Monday so hopefully this should make us good again.

There does appear to be a lot of this going on at the moment in different post code areas so it's going to be investigated across the board. Could be something like an update to the Motorola kit that caused this to occur in the first place. It was confirmed the fix was software based.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

This was posted on the official forum yesterday, didn't notice it till now. That's 3 different reasons, VM is more secretive than MI5!! :)

Hi morrk, Ishy, nedofwales & saspland,



Really sorry that we've not picked up on this thread sooner.



It would seem that faulty hardware in one of the Cabs was the cause of your intermittent (and quite severe) speed losses.

A Network engineer located the faulty equipment yesterday (fault ref: F003883325) and my tests of the network segment show that there has been no recurrence of the problem since.



Sincere apologies to you all as I know that the speed problem was affecting you for some considerable time before this issue was resolved. But thanks for your patience and please let us know if things are back to normal for you.



Take care Smiley Happy



Jen

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

I would be interested to know what CMTS u r on in Swansea.

Im on CMTS10 and touch wood all is ok.

Re: Speed issue in Swansea
 

Mine seems to have settled as well and tech replaced my TIVO box today seems a lot quicker.