someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

sorry to sound thick, what do you mean when people refer to over subscription of UBR.

Re: someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

Every VM internet subscriber in your local area sends and receives their internet data to and from a Universal Broadband Router. The UBR represents a single connection onto the Virgin Media network, and thence onwards to the internet itself.

VM, along with all other ISPs, is a 'contended' service. The contention ratio is the number of people sharing one single connection to the VM network. AFAIK VM operates a contention of 50:1, which means there should be no more than 50 customers sharing any one chunk of bandwidth (I'm not sure how many chunks of bandwidth each UBR administers - it may well be more than one).

The actual number of people connected to the same UBR as you will fluctuate as people take up or cancel their service. But if they have a persistently good few months and sign up a lot more people, your UBR can end up as 'oversubscribed' - i.e. there will be a lot more people connected to it than the UBR has bandwidth available to share at the desired contention ratio.

When your UBR is oversubscribed, you're more likely to suffer a slow service as at any given time, more people are liable to be trying to use the connection along with you.

The solution is to 'resegment' the UBRs in your area, splitting customers more evenly between them or possibly installing additional ones.

This is a quick and dirty explanation from a non-techie - perhaps one of our VM tech members can offer a fuller, more accurate version. :D

Re: someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

Thats actually one of the best explanations I have read in my life :)

Thanks Chris

Re: someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

A good clear non- technical explanation and easy to understand.:)

Re: someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

Ditto :)

Re: someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

Having made many phone calls about my slow speeds (never faster than about 12000kbps and around 1,000kbps in the evening - when I am home from work and want to use it!) I have been told that there is too much usage on my UBR and that this has been escalated.

Over a week later and I am still waiting for something to be done. Another phone call and I was told it would take up to 3 weeks (not the 48 hours I had been told in the previous call). I was offered a whopping £5 compensation for my troubles. 6 months of useless speeds and I get compensated. All I have to do is work out what to spend my fortune on :)

Re: someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

My Neighbour is on the 20 meg package and apparently only gets 2, i hope this is a general problem and not a over subscribed UBR because im getting cable 2moro:(

Re: someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

Oversubscriped UBR's can take longer than three weeks normally try 12 month

Re: someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

I'll keep bitching and moaning until I either get a reduced bill or they fix the problem....

Re: someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

I had the same happen to me, the guy in tech support said my local set up was unusual as he said something like there was only X number of people that could be connected to my UBR but somehow I was one of a few extra on top of that number, sort of like being the 6th person connected to a 4 port hub...
Not sure if anything came of it...sounds like it's not that unusual then...

Re: someone explain this over subscription of UBR
 

Been told that I am also losing packets - got an engineer coming on Saturday...