500M : Woeful internet service during lockdown a deal breaker

[nialli]

Is it just me, or has VM's broadband service deteriorated into a slow and unreliable liability in recent weeks?
Actually, I know in my own neighbourhood in South East London I'm not alone in my frustrations with the service. TV and phone have been good but the broadband, when available (and it frequently isn't) has been unusable during the working day. For example, I've just tested my current connection and I'm seeing 45mbps download, 2.68 upload. Before lockdown I'd have daytime speeds of 200+ down and 35 up. I pay for 500mbps but don't get me started on that one. And I say 'when available' as, despite the VM app telling me that there are no problems in the area, my router is rebooting four or five times a day and struggling to reconnect.
For home working, that's unusable. For watching any on demand TV service, that's unusable. And all of the Virgin customers I know in neighbouring streets have the same complaint.
BT, Sky etc are rock solid. Virgin say in the press that they have more that enough capacity to provide a full broadband service to meet the demands of lockdown families and workers, but our experience suggests otherwise.
I can't get through to customer services on the phone but I have managed to book an engineer for tomorrow evening via the website. I'm not hopeful. I suspect there are over-populated street cabinets to blame and Virgin don't appear to be in any great hurry to resolve that issue. They just take our money.
My contract is up for renewal in August. I've been with NTL/Virgin since the 90s. I've run a blog on Virgin's TV services since 2007. We've come a long way since the old 'NTHell' days but this current issue is a deal breaker for me and my family. We're have to use our phones' personal hotspots instead of the broadband we pay for.
So, is it just me or are others having issues, too?

[pip08456]

Sounds like a local issue you should have reported long before now either by phone, website or Virgin community forum.

[Frazz]

I'm having no problems on the 500mb broadband.had the occasional slow down but overall has been very good. Getting 225 download wireless on my tablet

[nialli]

Originally Posted by pip08456

Sounds like a local issue you should have reported long before now either by phone, website or Virgin community forum.

Like I say, I have an engineer booked for tomorrow. Had to do it online as I’ve been calling 150 and waiting over an hour most afternoons for over a week but reached breaking point over the weekend.
I’m in SE London (area 21). It used to be fine. Something’s broken.

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by nialli

is it just me or are others having issues, too?

it's just you

Originally Posted by nialli

I can't get through to customer services on the phone

everywhere is like that as call centres are closed and people are working from home at reduced staffing levels.

Originally Posted by nialli

Something’s broken.

correct

Originally Posted by nialli

my router is rebooting four or five times a day and struggling to reconnect.

that tells me it isn't a congestion issue and there is a technical fault somewhere which is impacting your service. The fact that this has manifested during the lockdown is coincidental. Can you post the info from your downstream and upstream tab on the shub. To save me typing everything out have a quick scan of this thread to put things into context. The tech coming out tomorrow will know what to look for and be very thorough however in your case it will help to have a TBB graph up and running as well. The sooner you can get it up and running the better so it will have time to collect data and populate the graph.

[nialli]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

it's just you


everywhere is like that as call centres are closed and people are working from home at reduced staffing levels.


correct


that tells me it isn't a congestion issue and there is a technical fault somewhere which is impacting your service. The fact that this has manifested during the lockdown is coincidental. Can you post the info from your downstream and upstream tab on the shub. To save me typing everything out have a quick scan of this thread to put things into context. The tech coming out tomorrow will know what to look for and be very thorough however in your case it will help to have a TBB graph up and running as well. The sooner you can get it up and running the better so it will have time to collect data and populate the graph.

Thanks for the offer to help, but I've had a friend at Virgin confirm the following;
"you do have a signal fault. Poor SNR showing on some frequencies for both downstream and upstream. I checked a couple of your neighbours' modems and they don't show the same errors, so it does seem to be just your installation. Hopefully the tech will resolve it tomorrow. Your area is also flagged for a capacity upgrade"