Re: Upstream congestion
 

Maybe not, I would look at it as there is finite amount of upstream capacity which keeps everyone going normally during the day but when you get all the children online at the weekend twittering, facebooking, gaming and families streaming Netflix etc etc there just isn't enough juice to go around to sustain full speed. Tbh, because I can get full speed all the time and can achieve what I want to during the day, unless there was something specific I needed to do at a set time on a Saturday evening, it wouldn't bother me at all even if my upstream dropped to 25% (5mbits) as long as it went back to normal a couple of hours later (which yours does).

Re: Upstream congestion
 

It's more that it affects the latency that is the real concern for me. I'm not too fussed that the upload speed drops, but when it does, the average latency always rises. So anything latency sensitive, gaming etc. is just, well, crap.

Which has got me thinking, do I really need 350Mb? I don't generally tend to download loads, it's nice to have when I need to download a game or another large file but latency is more important to me now. If it is was more consistent then I'd be happy with it, as I have been for the last 10 years, until recently. I could downgrade to say a 100Mb but then I'll be tied into another 12 month contract, which with how the connection is at the moment, I don't particularly wish to do.

A FTTC/VDSL2 connection is looking more appealing at the moment, just for the potentially more consistent latency. But then there'll be the cost of getting out of the current contract with VM, which I don't think has too much longer to run.

Oh and whilst I'm having a mini rant, I did eventually get a reply from the complaints team. Completely ignored what I wrote in the email I sent to the CEO and focused solely on the SNR fault. Which wasn't even present at the time I sent the email.

Re: Upstream congestion
 

give sky a buzz and see what deal they'll do you for tv and internet.

Re: Upstream congestion
 

Although they will do a good deal - I think there fastest broadband will be <100Mbps

Re: Upstream congestion
 

Yeah, definitely will be. Max that I could get with FTTC is 56Mb supposedly. BT seem to be the cheapest with their Infinity 1, after activation fees etc.

Re: Upstream congestion
 

Latest reply on the thread on the VM forum.
A little bit confused by this. I thought if there was a higher order modulation on the upstream channels, this would increase the capacity of each channel? That coupled with further bonding of channels would increase the free capacity of the network?

Re: Upstream congestion
 

Ish. Bonding channels doesnt add more capacity to the network, it just makes more of the existing capacity available to you and potentially screws someone else over. As an example, there are 3 upstream channels in my area which are going to provide a finite amount of capacity/throughput. At the moment there are only 2 channels in a bonding group so if i was having issues with congestion adding the third channel may help providing it wasnt being over utilised. The same capacity is still there, it is just being more widely distributed to a greater number of customers.

What will help is the increased modulation and adding more channels to the network as opposed to bonding existing channels. Going back to my previous example, there are 3 upstream channels in my area so adding a forth and then increasin the size of the bonding group which be increasing capacity.

Re: Upstream congestion
 

Utterly amazing this evening.
https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2018/02/17.png

Re: Upstream congestion
 

I can beat that. My congestion is unusable atm. I was playing a game and barely made it through. I gave up for the night and thought I would watch a couple of vids on youtube before I settle down and nothing would load and just constantly buffers. I thought I would run a speed test and although it took forever to load it came back okay. My graph tells a different story though and explains why my game was spazzing.

https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2018/02/19.png

Re: Upstream congestion
 

I’d say yours is more likely to be a fault somewhere (hopefully). Mine is more because Virgin don’t give a **** about the quality of the network around here.

Re: Upstream congestion
 

https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2018/03/16.png

Been ok for the last couple of weeks and then off we go again. Literally like flicking a switch with the way it starts, no gradual build up.

Re: Upstream congestion
 

Got perhaps a bit of an odd question. I swapped out my Asus AC88u yesterday for a Netgear XR500. Ignoring the fact it's branded as a "gaming" router. Mainly bought it as DumaOS looks potentially a interesting router software. It may just be a coincidence, but the TBB graph seems more consistent.

Asus from last Saturday:
https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2018/03/18.png

Netgear so far:
https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2018/03/19.png

There's perhaps a bit more yellow on the graph but it seems consistent. The odd tiny speck of packet loss every now and then but that could be noise on the connection (it happens every now and then). There isn't as many spikes in the average and max latency. So could it just be that there is something wrong with the Asus router? It seemed to work ok otherwise. Would kind of tie in with the forum staff telling me that the traffic is low on the connection despite the connection going cack every so often. Probably need more time to see if it was just the router.

Re: Upstream congestion
 

I wouldn't use last Saturdays graph to make an accurate comparison, especially given all your troubles in the past. As you have got a reasonable picture of what your latency is like atm (regardless of router) I would swap them over now (if you really want to know) so you can do a side by side comparison in the same day where you can keep the conditions/variables the same as much as you can. I think that apart from the red bar you are going to get for the disconnect, I think they'll look the same.

Re: Upstream congestion
 

I’ll give that a try but it’ll probably be sometime during the week. The last few Saturdays have been like the Asus graph though, so it’s possibly representative of what it was like using the Asus router, but certainly not conclusive.

I’m just as skeptical that a simple swap of a router would solve it. Unless for some reason it was intermittently faulty or something was triggering it to go to pot.

Re: Upstream congestion
 

Just had it confirmed on live chat, that the contract period has now finished. Probably going to get a VDSL connection installed and just cancel Virgin. Don't see the point in giving Virgin any more money if they can't be bothered/interested in sorting the issue. Thinking of going with AAISP, expensive but seeing as I'm paying £57 a month at the moment for a mediocre service, it's not too bad.