Why I regret joining virgin media

[pabscars]

Originally Posted by speedfreak

As promised, an update.............there has been no update May now be an update on Monday.

Yep Im still on 1011 and I was told as Im ex telewest they do us last, they are doing ex NTL first though I may have the new firmware in the next few weeks. Obviously that wont solve the codewords and definitely not the power levels but hey Im not one to complain

Hay up speedy, I got the update a while ago now (via marc), and not wanting to urinate on your chips but it doesn't seem to have made much difference to me apart from less T3's, although they are starting to creep back up

However don't despair, my probs are completely different to yours (upstream congestion in a nutshell) and this patch might make a fair bit of difference to you, once your levels are sorted that is.

Funny thing I've noticed tonight after doing the usual barrage of test's, my ping is a little better than normal likewise the level of Jitter (either that or all the students are on the lash ).

I've also put my name forward for the closed trial of the next firmware release, but as yet don't know if I will be accepted, its supposed to help stabilise the upload somehow.

I don't have the foggiest how this is achieved but I,m all for progress so bring it on I say. You gotta admire the irony though as I was on the phone to $ky on Friday asking what offers they had on .

I,m gonna have a blast on MW2 at some point tonight, just to see how it behaves but having not played it much for the last few weeks I,m bound to be a bit rusty.

Keep us informed of your progress and I will keep my fingers crossed for you dude, its about time you turned the corner with this.

catch ya later homey

[speedfreak]

Originally Posted by pabscars

Keep us informed of your progress and I will keep my fingers crossed for you dude, its about time you turned the corner with this.

catch ya later homey

well heres the update. They didnt find anything wrong at the bsr, found very slight noise but they doubt that will affect anything. Codewords are exactly the same, they have now said its something local, from my cab to me round in circles anyone

Will be amusing if it turns out to be the section of the repull they couldnt be bothered to do Rather confusing as after all the visits I had they said everything local to me was 100% fine and it had to be a fault further up the network. They said the codewords were being caused before my cab, now after waiting over 3 weeks they are saying its local to me. Arse and elbow spring to mind.

Got a tech booked for friday to sort out the near -8 power levels. Even my contact seems to have conceded I might have to change provider if they cant find the fault as that was mentioned towards the end of the update. Im told to wait and see what happens on Friday but after 6months of this my optimism has gone

oh forgot to add it was mentioned there might be a faulty tap, dont know if thats to do with my power levels or my ongoing problems

If you google "joining virgin" this thread appears on the first search page so surely it suits vm if they pull out all the stops and just fix it, can someone (seph?) kindly PM me Neil B's email address I think its about time I sent him an email. I couldnt have a nicer bloke dealing with all this but he can only go off what he's told by networks, he couldnt do anymore than he has done for me or be more helpful but here we are back to square one

[Peter_]

The email address is not a secret because basically it just goes to the CEO's staff not him personally.

neil.berkett@virginmedia.co.uk

[speedfreak]

oh ffs lol does he not have a direct email, come on masque spill the beans or do I have to parade outside his house with scantily clad ladies with writing on their ass cheeks to get his attention? I thought he might have a personal one as it got deleted from VM's support site. You might want to edit your post I dont think the office will be too pleased about it being here but then again I dont quite care anymore. Masque if you can look direct in to my notes then let me know via pm, none of it makes any sense, its from one department to the other, Im not grey yet but Im deffo heading that way

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by speedfreak

oh ffs lol does he not have a direct email, come on masque spill the beans or do I have to parade outside his house with scantily clad ladies with writing on their ass cheeks to get his attention? I thought he might have a personal one as it used to get deleted from VM's support site. You might want to edit your post I dont think the office will be too pleased about it being here but then again I dont quite care anymore

It is an email address that can be found anywhere simply by googling it as per HERE.

The is no way that I can view your account as that would be a breach of DPA and I can be prosecuted and fined for it and no staff member on here would ever attempt such an act, also it leaves footprints in the account that anyone investigating your issue can see and would expect notes giving the reasons for accessing that account.

[speedfreak]

but it just goes to the ceo's office?

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by speedfreak

but it just goes to the ceo's office?

That is exactly what it is used for and why so many people use it.

[speedfreak]

I just give up surely if it was addressed to Neil it would be passed on, then again Im known for being naive

[Chrysalis]

I assumed there would be someone paid to sort the email and either trash (things like spam), forward complaints to CEO office and foward on email they feel the CEO should read to some private internal email address.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

I assumed there would be someone paid to sort the email and either trash (things like spam), forward complaints to CEO office and foward on email they feel the CEO should read to some private internal email address.

Exactly as otherwise he would be inundated with emails that he would never have time to read, the staff sort the wheat from the chaff and are then able to respond to emails that truly require attention.

[speedfreak]

I dont need to email Neil, I was just venting my anger, we all have to now and then

Well had my visit. Was glad it was the helpful tech, nice bloke he his

The bits I can remember are he'd expect 18db signal loss along the run but I have 30db loss. My power levels showing on the modem were -7 but on his meter they were actually -13 or -16. Hes sorted the power levels and got it at -6 on his meter, zero on my modem page.

Now, some may remember the nearly there repull, i.e they didnt bother doing the garden. Im now having a full repull done (did you see that coming?) he couldnt find where they had spliced the cables to connect the old with the new and couldnt understand why they didnt do a full repull. Im 100% the power levels only dropped after heavy rain and they have stayed that low even after a couple of drier days. They shouldnt have spliced, thats just for temp repairs apparently

So he's getting it rushed through for a repull again Im in a good mood now, I thought Id just get someone turn up, set the power levels and leave me to it

forgot to mention, my upstream is Power Level (dBmV) 38.50

[Sephiroth]

Unless I'm mistaken (and someone will quickly tell me if I am), they pull from the cabinet to your drop point. Then they dig your garden up (first time), put a plastic sheathe with more coax up to your outside wall point, the other end goes into your drop point where there's a connector. Are they going to do both this time?

And what did he do to get DS power up?

P.S. I'm in WA7 tonight.

[speedfreak]

I've been told it should just be one run of cable from the cab to my house and thats how the repull will be done, so yep through the garden aswell this time. He got the power up by moving me up a tap at the cab though my upstream has gone from 42 to 38, no idea if thats ok or not but I guess it will be sorted with the repull. Dont know if you remember but the last repull did more harm than good, dropping my snr by a couple of db's

[Sephiroth]

When they do another re-pull, do get the power level checked again as you've been moved up to overcome some attenuation. DS should be between -3 dBmv & +6 dBmv; US should be between 35 dBmv and 50 dBmv. IMO 33 dBmv is OK (others disagree); Over 50 dBmv is usually OK but should be below 55 dBmv. I'm always suspicious of anything that has to push hard i.e. above 50 dBmv.

Upstream needs to be checked by refreshing the screen every 5 seconds to ensure it's stable within ½ dBmv.

Finally, there should be no uncorrectables after downloading data.

[speedfreak]

Originally Posted by Masque

Exactly as otherwise he would be inundated with emails that he would never have time to read, the staff sort the wheat from the chaff and are then able to respond to emails that truly require attention.

This isn't true,check your sources lol

Just an update and should be the last. I had the repull done last Wednesday, Tuesdays was cancelled due to the crew apparently ringing in sick

Anyway, this crew were great, no moaning about the garden etc like the guys who did the half repull in May. I told them what had happened and then they uncovered a grid in the street. In May they connected old to new cable worse still they had just cut the cable and joined it wrapping it in insulation tape, no gel pack used. Lo and behold we find a grid full of water with my cable sat in it (should have checked the grids when you said Seph, you were spot on) The guys that came last week were laughing at the last crews attempt which said it all to me. I really appreciated their honesty though and went off to work and left them to it. Came back home to a full repull and an extremely neat job through the garden. Top blokes and Ive asked this to be fed back to their manager. Ive now had two runs through the garden, both really neat so the stories you hear about messy installs dont seem to be the norm.

Since the full repull I still have the correctables climbing as they always have and now only get about 2 t3's per day. I've also had the firmware update AND my service now seems fine. I went on the ps3 and no lag at all, not tried downloading but Im not fussed about that, gaming is more my thing than piracy (got toy story 3 on disc for £1 so who needs the hassle of being caught lol) I even managed to kill pabs a few times so a definite improvement

So as Im now happy with my service Im just going to ignore the codewords etc and see how I go, I dont think we will ever get to the bottom of them. I've closed the complaint down now and just need to send NB an email praising my contact at VM for sticking through all this and not fobbing me off. Theres no doubt whatsoever Id no longer be a VM customer if it wasnt for him so praise where praise is due.

Finally an ending to the story, didnt think Id ever get there! I know the codewords arent sorted and thats a shame, more to know whats causing them but as the line is now OK its time to enjoy it, watch out Pabs, Im coming to get you

down

Power Level
(dBmV) 1.78 1.68 1.34 2.12
RxMER
(dB) 36.39 35.97 35.97 36.84
Correctable
Codewords 12266111 19752829 19902292 15500238
Uncorrectable
Codewords 290 262 251 269

up

Mini-Slot Size 2 N/A N/A N/A
Power Level
(dBmV) 44.50

Thanks for listening!