Warning Speedtester and RPGs blocked!!

[VirginOnInsaniy]

I know this is a ADSL issue but I have been asked to make a post because it might be coming to Virgin cable customers sometime soon.

My Kids online RPGs stopped working on Friday (Fly for fun and Fiesta) The service has been real poor lately so I usually reboot my router till i get a better bam show up on "Ping Plotter". None of the other bams fixed the problem despite getting some better than usual pings.

I have had good pings before with really poor download speeds, so I ran the "Thinkbroadband" speed tester. But It wouldnt complete the test! unless port 80 was selected.

I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what was going on I even dug out my old Speedtouch modem just in case my router was playing up.

Around 2 AM the games and the speed tester started working again. It looked like Virgin ADSL was port blocking at peak times.

Next day the block was back on, so I rang Virgin to have it sorted. A very nice guy checked my account and confirmed there was no restrictions on it. But did say a new filtering system started on Friday and "NO" there's nothing he could do about it. A least I knew the problem was not on my end.

That night at 1AM all started working again.

I have been with Virgin ADSL broadband since they started and used to get a 4 meg download speeds when ADSL max was enabled. This year its been going slowly downhill, sometimes getting 100k connections to some servers! Rebooting can usually get a quicker connection, most of the time.

This filtering is a real disturbing turn. I have two autistic kids who live for their online games and miss the friends they have made on them. They can't stay up till 1AM.

I'm so disgusted I'm changing ISP but I'm stuck with Virgin for the next 9 days. Any ideas on how to get round this? any suggestions are more that welcome.

Again I know its only affecting ADSL customers at the moment! But I might be saving someone that premium rate call to Virgin with this post.

Thanks in advance.

[Stuart]

I'd be surprised if they were blocking online games and speedtest sites. I think it's another issue (although I don't know what) and the Customer Service person just said it was being filtered so he/she could clear the call.

[punky]

to the forum

[EvilJeff]

I agree with the original post, I usually play Flyff (Online RPG) with my brother most evenings, but since Friday he has been unable to connect with his Virgin ADSL connection, while I can connect fine on cable.

Looks like the thin end of the wedge !!!!

[VirginOnInsaniy]

I totally agree. It looks like its not a deliberate mistake on Virgins side. But implementing a new filtering system late on a Friday when senor staff will probably have the weekend off! sounds like grossly bad working practice.

Not having a fall back for call center staff to help out in the event of problems is real poor forward planing too.

I could be real cynical and wonder how much Virgin has made on premium rate calls for help.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by VirginOnInsaniy

I totally agree. It looks like its not a deliberate mistake on Virgins side. But implementing a new filtering system late on a Friday when senor staff will probably have the weekend off! sounds like grossly bad working practice.

It is something that Virgin tend not to do. I can't speak for ADSL, but any major changes to the cable network are scheduled for when they are likely to have more staff in (this is why they don't tend to schedule major upgrades for weekends, bank holidays or for a couple of weeks around Christmas).

I am not denying that there is some sort of issue (clearly, there is), but I doubt they would introduce a major system change (which filtering would be) on a Friday afternoon, and we have had reports of many occassions when a CSR says the wrong thing (sometimes to get you off the phone, and their call rates up, and sometimes because they either don't know or have been given wrong information).

Also, didn't mean to be rude. As Gavin said, to the forum.

[VirginOnInsaniy]

Thanks for the welcome no offense taken I'm happy to get a response this late in the day.

It took me a while to realize that was going on. I have spent hours trying to resolve the problem thinking it was at my end.

Clearly something is going on and its not just me. There are reports on the Thinkbroadband forums of problems starting on Friday with other games not working and webcams running real slow despite better than usual ping times!

I just hope its resolved real soon.

Without knowing the cause of the problem resolving it is highly unlikely.

I had hoped that there might be hack or work around to get the kids back online.


Just to show its not just me. check out these links from other Virgin customers

link one

link 2

There are a lot more with the same problems I'm having, so I'm not the only one.

Even knowing how to get in contact with someone at Virgin who can fix it but is unaware as the support staff don't think there is a problem might help?

Thanks again for the prompt reply

[Nilrem]

Given how little data tends to be needed for online RPG's i'd guess the problem is more likely a problem in the routing at some point.

I've been playing Ultima Online for about 7 years and at various times there have been major issues affecting players in certain areas/isp's that turned out to be due to routing issues outside the ISP's network (from memory in one case many players using popular european isp's were being routed to the US and back to London, and another time one of the routers along the way wasn't able to make the connection to one set of servers, resulting in players being unable to connect).
Depending on the game you might be able to force it to try using another port, UO for example has multiple possible ports it can use, and changing them can work at times.

[VirginOnInsaniy]

Thanks for your thoughts on rerouting. I have been closely watching the connection speeds on Monday from 8AM. Flyff played fine and I was pleased to be getting a 4Mb connection.

When I returned from picking up the kids from school at around 4:14PM Flyff had started to lag so bad it became unplayable. The "ThinkBroadband" Speed tester (on port 8095) showed a connection speed of just 84k! rerunning the test several showed top speed of 100k. Rerunning it again on port 80 showed a speed of 4Mb.

At this point I could still log into the game, it was just too laggy to play. Later the connection failed and I was no longer able to get back into the game. The speed tester stopped working on port 8095 at the same time. This went on till about 1:05 am well past peak time, and the kids bedtimes.

To me this looks like port 8095 is being throttled late afternoon and choked to death around tea time. Flyff must be on the same group of ports VM had take a dislike to.

So far I have not been able to find away to change the port the game works on. Their website states that ISPS blocking their site is a known issue but has no advice to resolving this.

Thats me out of ideas.All suggestions welcome

[Goddeh]

Hi, I play a Eve-Online (MMORPG) and noticed a thread on the game's forum that might be related to your problem.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingamebo...hreadID=645596

Being having serious high latencies in EVE for the past few days. however my broadband speeds were good.

I got in touch with my ISP Virgin Media and explained the problem. What i heard was shocking and I will be interested to see if anyone else on Virgin ADSL has been effected.

Basically Virgin have introduced what they call a 'Developer Prioritising System' and programs that are not set for high priorities by developer will come down the line really slow to make way for more important traffic.

Virgin say that they have only introduced it recently and it is only active on ADSL. They also told me that it was upto the developers of certain programmes to set their applications priorities as high to avoid being throttled by this new system.

They say the system has only been implemented in the east of england so far but will be implemented on the rest of the network within the coming weeks.

I'm on VM Cable myself and haven't had any issues like this, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before this rolls out on cable too.

[snazzy]

We play War Craft online, and for months we have had two times in the day when it can go to pot. 1:30 in the afternoon, and about 6:30 at night. The connection is slow slow at times I can't even get my email. Tech support is nigh on useless. I'm giving it until the new year, then I'll write a few strong words to them. If I can't get satisfaction of some degree I'll pull all three services.

I have had three box changes, that I never asked for and a load of messing about with TS and changing settings. It never gets fix and always goes back to the same fault. Major slowdowns.

[VirginOnInsaniy]

I got sick waiting for Virgin to resolve My port blocking issue, so I gave the Remote Assistance a try. Guess what its not working, maybe they're blocking that port too.

I tried the email help, not expecting too much. How wrong I was! The reply said I was a heavy user who had been capped, strange as my account was fine when I rang up customer support on Saturday. I'm not heavy downloader, one podcast a day and a game demo once in a blue moon is about my limit, Oh and lots of online gaming.

Thats me totally cheesed off with Virgin ADSL. Everybody makes mistakes, thats when the good companys shine. But reducing my service, forcing me to ring premium rate numbers to fix it and then bulshiting me is just too much.

They're no longer fit to be an ISP. They have shown zero interest in serving their longstanding customers from my experience. I'm moving to an ISP with free phone support and leave Virgin too commit Commercial suicide.

Thinking about sticking with Virgin check out my request for help and answer


YOU are port throttling/blocking the online game "Fly for fun" between the hours of approximately 16.00 and midnight weekdays and all of last weekend. This started last Friday

You are also blocking the "ThinkBroadband" speed tester at the same time, fortunately this has an option to use port 80 when you are blocking port 8095.

I understand you are trying to improve the service but you have stopped my autistic son playing his MMRPG in the evenings and weekends. He lives for this and the friends he has made in the game.

I rang your customer support on Saturday, but was unable to help during the weekend. It is now Wednesday and the problem persists.

Let me be crystal clear on this, the game works perfectly fine during off peak hours.

Also if I get an automated reply I will be getting in touch with OFCOM and Watchdog in that order.

As a long term Virgin customer I am very disappointed with your service in resolving the matter so far.

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

Mr **********


Virgins automated reply

Dear Customer

The issues you are having is in regard to our fair usage policy, between the hours of 4pm and midnight you have had the speed of your connection reduced, as a result of the amount you are downloading.

Below i have enclosed a copy of the traffic management details, which you agreed to when taking out the service.

Here at Virgin Media, we want all our customers to get the best service possible from their broadband.

When someone is downloading a particularly large amount of information over a long period of time, it can slow down the Internet speed for other users who might just be checking their email or browsing online.

So to make sure our service is fair for everybody, we sometimes moderate the speeds during peak times (4pm till midnight) for customers who are downloading an unusually large amount at these times. It is a method for identifying our heaviest users and temporarily reducing their download speeds during our peak (busiest) periods. We'll start moderating the heaviest users' service from mid-July.

This ensures that the service doesn't get blocked up with people using more than their fair share - which means a lot fewer traffic jams on the information superhighway.

We have provided some answers below to the questions that we feel some of our customers may have.

Will there be any change to the cost of my service?

No, there will be no change in the cost of your broadband service what so ever.


How exactly does this improve my connection speeds and download speeds?

Traffic management is all about making better services available at great value to the average customer.

Around 5% of our customers use up to 70% of our bandwidth during busy periods. By managing this traffic we can limit the impact of heavy usage by limiting the speeds at peak times for this select minority that really hit the network hard when it's at its busiest.

This will have a positive affect, helping to improve download speeds for the average customer by reducing the congestion in the network and enable us to deliver better quality services at much better value to the vast majority of our customers.


Will my download speed be affected?

We run a weekly report to determine the top 5% of our heaviest peak time users. These users are then Traffic Managed for 7 days. Every 7 days we refresh the list of heavy users to ensure we are only addressing those people who are placing the heaviest demand on the network during busy periods.

Your speed won't be moderated unless you're in the top 5% of downloaders. Our boffins recently ran a trial to see how much our service was being affected. They discovered that, in certain areas, just 5% of customers were downloading such a large amount of content that it was affecting the service for other users in these areas.
And we're not talking about just a few video clips. In some cases the top 5% of users were downloading as much as 3GB, just during peak times. That's around 750 music tracks in the space of a few hours.

So, unless you're downloading an unusually large amount of information at peak times, we won't restrict your service and you can download to your heart's content.


You can view the updated terms & conditions by visitng the following address:

http://www.virgin.net/terms/bb_bundle_tc.html


If you would like further information on Traffic Management please visit our FAQ's page by visiting the following address:

http://www.virgin.net/allyours/faqs/traffic_faqs.html


If you need any further assistance please contact us again, or visit the following address:

http://www.virgin.net/helpme/

Many Thanks

Alex

Virgin Media Customer Support


My reply so far

When I rang customer support on Saturday 23rd I was informed by your
representative that NO RESTRICTIONS where on my account!

If you have restricted my account why was I not informed?
I am not a heavy user! I am massively under your fair use policy.
You have not reduced the speed of my connection, it runs fine on port 80 you
have TOTAL BLOCKED port 8095.

HAVE YOU ACTUALLY CHECKED MY ACCOUNT

I demand you remove any restriction on my account NOW!!!!

You are severely upsetting my autistic son by your actions. I am disgusted at
Virgins inability resolve what is probably a simple mistake for a long
standing customer.

I looking forward to you reply

Mr *******

I'm afraid that sending demands like that is not likely to get you vey far.

[VirginOnInsaniy]

Your right, who am I to demand the service I have paid for?
Asking real nice an being patient has worked out real well so far.

All I ask is the service I have paid for, nothing more! All I have received from Virgin is lies and bullshit.

I have spent a fortune on the premium rate support line trying to resolve this only to hear a different story every time I ring up.

If you know the magic words to get Virgin to act like an ISP that gives a dam PLEASE share them with me.

I do feel real sorry for the support staff, I know they are under paid, poorly trained and have a high staff turnover (I have family who worked for NTL) BUT thats not helping me resolve what is probably a simple problem or misunderstanding.

Sorry for the rant but its been like banging your head against a brick wall getting this issue resolved.

And Thanks to the Virgin CABLE guys for trying to help out.

I'm moving ISP on Monday

[VirginOnInsaniy]

The seven days of punishment for the being an alleged heavy user passed on Friday. The service was unchanged Friday and Saturday but has improved slightly today, Sunday. I can now get dial up speeds on the problem ports.
I found the speedtester at http://myspeed.visualware.com/vr/index.htmlbest for such a slow connection. Ping is 60 ms and port 80 speed 1.1Mb

When my new ISP takes over on Monday I'll Post a comparison.