Business Line

[neoapple]

I have been having an issue since the great Virgin Media Outage.

Basically I'm noticing that the Business Line is dropping packets randomly.

I was speaking to a guy called Bob over in their Business Department. Let's just say I find VM's Home Support better than their Business Support.
I would currently much rather deal with BT Business than VM Business!

Before however I was dealing with a nice guy who was ex Telco, who said I can't see anything wrong but will pass over to the cable guys.

First of all I was basically rudely asked by bob how I can be getting all the signal info etc as apparently I should not have access to it.... Yet it's from the cable modem directly (192.168.100.1) he was like thats the wrong IP, so I then gave him the IP that apparently VM can see. (10.xx.xx.xx)

Then went on and said well I'm not seeing the signal levels your seeing on there. Then was like well I can ping it just fine.
I then said well if it's using upstream then surely latency would be high, except I was getting a good response time back around 30ms to 40ms but just random dropouts.

Then proceeded to blame my onsite equipment.
I have had the cable modem restarted the the Checkpoint Firewall is working fine.

He then went on to say well your apparently maxing out the upstream and that would cause the dropouts..........
So I tested this when no one was in the Office and still dropped.

Funny thing is this issue arose after the great outage.
Also as the cable modem refrshes it's self to update the live stats sometimes this timesout on the actual cable modem.

Cable Modem - WebSTAR EPC2100R2

On the System Info of the Cable Modem I see
Hardware Version
2.1
Software Version
v2.0.2r1256-070601
Receive Power Level
-1.4 dBmV
Transmit Power Level
51.0 dBmV
Cable Modem Status
Operational

Downstream Channel
The data shown in the table below provides information about the signal coming from the network to your cable modem.

Downstream Status
Operational
Channel ID
0
Downstream Frequency
586750000 Hz
Modulation
64QAM
Bit Rate
10241000 bits/sec
Power Level
-1.6 dBmV
Signal to Noise Ratio
34.1 dB


Upstream Channel
The data shown in the table below provides information about the signal being transmitted to the network from your cable modem.

Upstream Status
Operational
Channel ID
2
Upstream Frequency
22192000 Hz
Modulation
QPSK
Symbol Rate
769000 bits/sec
Power Level
51.0 dBmV

[qasdfdsaq]

Given how much VM brag about their dedicated 24/7 business support, I'm quite surprised at your experience here - did you only speak to one person or try again? From their website:

We’re as good as our word. And we won’t charge you for help. All Business Broadband customers get a Freephone 0800 number to call that puts you straight through to our dedicated UK-based Business Support Team available 24/7, 365 days a year. What’s more, there’ll be a two hour response time to your call and we aim to fix problems within 24 hours*. We’ll always keep you in the loop, so you aren’t left guessing.

Apparently they have a 24-hour SLA.


Have you done any traceroutes? Your power levels are borderline both ways (well, DS SNR not DS RxLev but same difference) and the guy you spoke to certainly sounds like he doesn't have a clue... But nevertheless

[neoapple]

I asked for a copy of the logs etc he was getting his end and he was like i can't send them to you as the customer does not pay enough or something along those lines!
Quite rude and abrupt and was more interested in closing the ticket than helping me resolve the issue.
Was basically like I can't see an issue and will close the call.

The tracerts are fine, nothings being dropped my network end.
Passing through the firewall and out via cable modem.

I spoke to two people
One ex telco who was really helpful, and nice, and ran loads of tests and said he could not see an issue etc and said everything looked fine but said as he's not majorly experienced with cable stuff he forwarded me to the dedicated cable team. He arranged a call back for me for someone at the cable team to call me and thats when I got Bob.........
Then yer you know the rest........

[ccarmock]

I have had simiar messges in the past when had power level issues and reported them to VMB support. Got told I must have hacked into the modem!

I think there are one of two out there that ust don't get this. Most of the VMB support people I have spoken to have been excellent.

From looking at your stats here you might have noise on the circuit -SNR downstream is a bit low, but still in spec I think. Also I see 64QAM d/s and QPSK up.

As has also been said your power levels look a bit borderline

[qasdfdsaq]

Oh I hadn't noticed the modulation. Yeah, 64QAM down is bad - though it requires a lower SNR. Same applies to QPSK up - well spotted. I'd definitely say noise/line fault somewhere, though oddly why that would be triggered by the national outage I haven't a clue.

[Sephiroth]

It'll be your QPSK that is likely to be causing the dropouts. Also it's possible that the 51 dBmv upstream was just a snapshot and it rises to 55 dBmv. If your modem (ancient) will give you an event log (copy & paste) it will help diagnosis.

The 64QAM isn't bad at 34 dB SNR.

[neoapple]

Thu Jan 19 08:38:58 2012 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Wed Jan 18 16:17:30 2012 Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Wed Jan 18 16:17:24 2012 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Jan 18 16:16:21 2012 Critical (3) No UCD's Received - Timeout
Wed Jan 18 16:16:10 2012 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un...
Wed Jan 18 16:15:39 2012 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to receive MAC S...
Wed Jan 18 16:12:32 2012 Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Wed Jan 18 16:12:26 2012 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Jan 18 16:11:00 2012 Critical (3) Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted
Wed Jan 18 16:11:00 2012 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Jan 18 16:17:17 2012 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire FEC f...
Wed Jan 18 16:10:24 2012 Critical (3) Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted
Wed Jan 18 16:10:24 2012 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Jan 18 16:09:18 2012 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un...
Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Wed Dec 14 07:06:36 2011 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Wed Dec 14 02:01:25 2011 Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Wed Dec 14 02:01:16 2011 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Jan 18 16:11:03 2012 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/Q...
Wed Dec 14 01:58:26 2011 Critical (3) Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted
Wed Dec 14 01:58:26 2011 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Dec 14 01:58:19 2011 Critical (3) Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted
Wed Dec 14 01:58:19 2011 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Dec 14 01:58:10 2011 Critical (3) Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted
Wed Dec 14 01:58:10 2011 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Dec 14 01:58:02 2011 Critical (3) Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted
Wed Dec 14 01:58:02 2011 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Dec 14 01:57:00 2011 Critical (3) Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted
Wed Dec 14 01:57:00 2011 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Dec 14 01:56:51 2011 Critical (3) Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted
Wed Dec 14 01:56:51 2011 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Wed Dec 14 01:56:44 2011 Critical (3) Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted

[Sephiroth]

A consecutive series of T3 timeouts indicates an upstream issue (like poor SNR). Can you recall what was going on yesterday afternoon?

it looks to me that it was rebooting. There don't seem to be in-life entries in the log.

Whatever it is, you were given the runaround by the agent you spoke to. You can't rule out the aged modem being a problem either.

[neoapple]

Well spoke to virgin media again, and they are saying the results im getting from the cable modem are apparently wrong to what they are seeing.

They are blaming something on the network, but i'm less inclined to believe that!
Apparently said my signal levels are all correct.

Also that I should unplug everything on the network and leave one device plugged in. This is far from ideal!

[ccarmock]

Neoapple you don't happen to be fed from New Malden by any chance do you? I ask since I had probs with the 50 Mb/s business service yesterday and am off the New Malden node. It looks like work was underway for the upstream upgrades

I had no service and only one d/s lock. Power for that d/s was 40 dBmV

I rebooted and all was fine and my upstream modulation was now ATDMA. Still on a 10 meg raw u/s channel though