120M 152mb speed issues/ubr upgrade

scoobydoo[uk] · 07-07-2014, 21:36

My area (stoke on trent) is being upgraded in August. I signed up for 152mb last month and during the day i can get this speed no problem on speedtest.net.

Come the evening, anything after 6pm and speeds drop like a stone, down to 50-80mb/s ,
I believe this is down to over subscription on the UBR, although a cat c was done on the UBR last year.

When an areas getting upgraded do they put more capacity onto the ubr?, if not then speeds are going to get even worse once the upgrade is completed in August.

Im hoping the answer will be more capacity but does anyone know?.

Nedkelly · 07-07-2014, 22:17

The cat c would split the nodes down . In this area we have 1 laser feeding 2 500 home nodes . So these 2 nodes would share the downstream freqs and the upstream freqs .So the catc would be done first depending on area and build so each node is ready to be fed by one laser per node . So when the upgrade is done each node has its own feed it doesn't share it with a another node . Hope this explains it a bit

qasdfdsaq · 08-07-2014, 01:38

50-80? That's nearly 800 times faster than what I used to get when it was congested... -_-

Sephiroth · 08-07-2014, 08:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nedkelly

The cat c would split the nodes down . In this area we have 1 laser feeding 2 500 home nodes . So these 2 nodes would share the downstream freqs and the upstream freqs .So the catc would be done first depending on area and build so each node is ready to be fed by one laser per node . So when the upgrade is done each node has its own feed it doesn't share it with a another node . Hope this explains it a bit

To add to that lucid explanation, I was in exactly the same position as you, except that my peak time speed was between 8 and 25 megs.

VM said that on 23-May, the area capacity upgrade would be made and sure, that's what happened. Now 160/12 24x7.

ianch99 · 08-07-2014, 09:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

To add to that lucid explanation, I was in exactly the same position as you, except that my peak time speed was between 8 and 25 megs.

VM said that on 23-May, the area capacity upgrade would be made and sure, that's what happened. Now 160/12 24x7.

Not always the case, my area has been "upgraded" but my utilisation fault (2 years this month) is still there with < 10Mbps d/s on some evenings from a 152/12 service

Sephiroth · 08-07-2014, 19:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianch99

Not always the case, my area has been "upgraded" but my utilisation fault (2 years this month) is still there with < 10Mbps d/s on some evenings from a 152/12 service

How were you informed that your area had been upgraded? I was told (in forum) in direct response to the slow speed question I was asking.

ianch99 · 08-07-2014, 19:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

How were you informed that your area had been upgraded? I was told (in forum) in direct response to the slow speed question I was asking.

Richard told me:

Quote:

Your speed supercharge is ready!

Great news. We’ve upgraded our network in your area, so your speed supercharge is ready and waiting for you.

when I put in my post code in http://keepup.virginmedia.com/speedupgrade

"We’ve upgraded our network in your area" should possibly read "We’ve upgraded our network in your area except for those of you that we haven't"

AndyCalling · 08-07-2014, 19:45

What astonishes me re. 'oversubscription' is that it always seems to take VM by surprise, like they don't know how much capacity they have in an area until they have signed up too many people and it all falls over. Isn't there any way they can check if they have capacity before they sign up another customer? Thank goodness my landlord doesn't work like this! I would have to sleep standing up.

qasdfdsaq · 08-07-2014, 19:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyCalling

Isn't there any way they can check if they have capacity before they sign up another customer?

Yes but not all VM agents or departments pay attention to it.

ianch99 · 08-07-2014, 20:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyCalling

What astonishes me re. 'oversubscription' is that it always seems to take VM by surprise, like they don't know how much capacity they have in an area until they have signed up too many people and it all falls over. Isn't there any way they can check if they have capacity before they sign up another customer? Thank goodness my landlord doesn't work like this! I would have to sleep standing up.

The Network teams have access to the upstream & downstream utilisation metrics on the various CMTS "cables" and having this information, could identify when these start to get congested and so commission the necessary works to alleviate the problem before it becomes a chronic issue.

However, in the VM world this seems not to happen, at least not around these parts. They seem to have a strategy of only starting work when the CMTS is regularly running at 100% in peak times. The works would be only triggered when enough people ring in and complain about the poor service. The icing on the cake is the possibility that the work needed to fix the problem could take months, if not years to complete.

VM seems more of a postcode lottery than the FTTC solutions ...

---------- Post added at 19:21 ---------- Previous post was at 19:18 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Yes but not all VM agents or departments pay attention to it.

I don't believe for one minute that the CS agents have a system that correlates a (new) customer's postcode with their CMTS network segment utilisation metrics and so flags a capacity warning when adding a new service or upgrading an existing one.

qasdfdsaq · 08-07-2014, 21:28

That's because CS have nothing to do with new customers.

ianch99 · 08-07-2014, 21:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

That's because CS have nothing to do with new customers.

but they have everything to do with existing ones ... for sake of clarity, CS == "the people you speak to on the phone when you want to order or upgrade Virgin Media broadband"

qasdfdsaq · 08-07-2014, 21:36

I don't speak to people on the phone, but if I did, it would be sales not CS when wanting to order broadband.

When you want to upgrade broadband that's another matter, and those agents *do* have access to metrics that say whether an area is oversubscribed or not.

ianch99 · 08-07-2014, 21:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

When you want to upgrade broadband that's another matter, and those agents *do* have access to metrics that say whether an area is oversubscribed or not.

Don't believe it

Nedkelly · 08-07-2014, 23:13

The trigger level is over 70% for x amount of time . So some nodes can hit 80% for 30 mins in one day and thats the highest it will be for a whole week . Then there are the nodes that do it every day at set times these are the ones that go forward for a reseg