General : Oversubscribed areas?

[Chrysalis]

well yeah the page would be quite long if they did

I remember in the ntl days they used to show rebalancing maintenance which was about 2-3 times a month in Leicester.

[broadbandking]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

They are often logged, they just don't show up on the status checkers as a rule.

Not from what I used to see, also the checker online goes by postcodes and the tickets are logged via nodes so sometimes the system will think your not in that node because your postcode is just outside it.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by broadbandking

Not from what I used to see

Have you not seen the dozens of posts on this forum with people quoting fault references logged for utilisation issues (including my own)?

[broadbandking]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Have you not seen the dozens of posts on this forum with people quoting fault references logged for utilisation issues (including my own)?

Yes but I have also seen the amount that haven't been logged

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by broadbandking

Not from what I used to see, also the checker online goes by postcodes and the tickets are logged via nodes so sometimes the system will think your not in that node because your postcode is just outside it.

Only higher-priority issues go on the status page. Utilisation and noise don't often count, as you still have "some" connectivity, even if it's useless.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Kushan

Only higher-priority issues go on the status page. Utilisation and noise don't often count, as you still have "some" connectivity, even if it's useless.

then it is a pretty useless status page then ..

it's like the Motorway traffic reports only reporting when the road is blocked and not when it is stop-start

Of course, the real reason is that it is not commercially viable to admit that your network has performance problems when you are selling the product based solely on it's performance.

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by ianch99

then it is a pretty useless status page then ..

it's like the Motorway traffic reports only reporting when the road is blocked and not when it is stop-start

Of course, the real reason is that it is not commercially viable to admit that your network has performance problems when you are selling the product based solely on it's performance.

The real reason is that most people simply don't notice when their connection has gone to **** as long as google still loads up.

[Ignitionnet]

Congestion issues affect a relatively small number of broadband customers per issue so don't merit entry onto service status.

Loss of TV or phone are more likely to appear there.

---------- Post added at 14:00 ---------- Previous post was at 13:58 ----------

Originally Posted by ianch99

then it is a pretty useless status page then ..

it's like the Motorway traffic reports only reporting when the road is blocked and not when it is stop-start

If it were to have every local fault on the page it would be pretty useless too. That's the nature of cable for better or worse, no large provider goes into that kind of granularity on general status pages.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Congestion issues affect a relatively small number of broadband customers per issue so don't merit entry onto service status

I do not agree that utilisation faults are always so fine grained

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by ianch99

I do not agree that utilisation faults are always so fine grained

Unfortunately whether you agree or not doesn't affect reality. These issues can certainly come in bunches, such as when a new CMTS is late to be delivered to a site and is needed to relieve a number of areas, however each congested port is its own issue and each individual fault affects a relatively small area and number of customers.

There is no geographical mapping to speak of between areas and CMTS which complicates things too. To take in an issue such as a late CMTS enablement in Southampton causing some ports to congest would need an active fault covering a pretty large area well in excess of that actually affected.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Unfortunately whether you agree or not doesn't affect reality. These issues can certainly come in bunches, such as when a new CMTS is late to be delivered to a site and is needed to relieve a number of areas, however each congested port is its own issue and each individual fault affects a relatively small area and number of customers.

There is no geographical mapping to speak of between areas and CMTS which complicates things too. To take in an issue such as a late CMTS enablement in Southampton causing some ports to congest would need an active fault covering a pretty large area well in excess of that actually affected.

Define a "relatively small number of broadband customers"? How many customers can one CMTS line card support?

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by ianch99

I do not agree that utilisation faults are always so fine grained

It's actually not such a bad thing that Virgin don't list the issues.

Here's what happens, someone has a connection problem/glitch. Let's say it's due to congestion. They go and look at the status page - now, if the fault was listed, quite a lot of people would stop there. "They're working on it, ok" they will say.
However, if the fault isn't listed, then most people will phone in to report the fault. This costs Virgin money. Virgin has to pay for that agent to answer the phone, they also have to pay for the good will credit that agent will probably give to the customer. It's in Virgin's best interests to keep calls as low as possible.
So when lots of people phone in, the issue's priority gets raised. As the priority gets raised, so does the urge to fix it, as it's assumed more people are affected (and thus more phone in, costing Virgin more money). You see?

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Define a "relatively small number of broadband customers"? How many customers can one CMTS line card support?

Quite a few, however one line card serves many distinct sets of customers. With decoupled CMTS congestion is at a fibre node level, not at line card or even port level. There will be a very few hundred customers on each node generally.

Obviously not always the case; some will have way more on them, some for whatever reason less than 100.

[JoelTheSuperior]

To be honest I've been a bit disappointed in Virgin Media lately - for years I've been getting the full speed without issues but recently I've been lucky to get above 10Mbps on my 150Mbps connection. Pings are often pretty high in the evenings too.

Perhaps the constant speed increases haven't helped? I should mention it was fine up until recently but I've noticed some posts from a bit of googling on other forums where people have said it's gone downhill since the merger.

To be perfectly honest there's a part of me that's now tempted by BT's offerings, but equally if VM is working on DOCSIS 3.1 I wonder if it's worth just waiting.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by JoelTheSuperior

To be perfectly honest there's a part of me that's now tempted by BT's offerings, but equally if VM is working on DOCSIS 3.1 I wonder if it's worth just waiting.

It's never worth waiting. Either they'll do it, at which point you can just move back, or they won't, at which point you'll just miss out by waiting.