200M : When you don't get your speed

[Gavin78]

So I'm on 200mb with hub 3.0 - moving from 152meg with hub 1 and my own router.

Ever since I moved to 200mb the very first day I've noticed my speeds drop to the point by 8pm on a night the internet is almost unusable. not every night but at least 5 out of 7.

I've posted on the VM forums (trial) ones and had responses (thanks horseman)

They have had a look at my modem, power levels and area everything is fine other than their suggestion was that a load of people might have moved over to 200mb in my area but haven't yet breached the threshold. they noted I was on 8 down stream channels and said that there is an upgrade planned but couldn't say when that would take place.

so I've done a few speed tests tonight and they are all coming up the same roughly give or take 10mb no more than about 50mb.

20-03-2016 20:06:45 (GMT) 28.4 Mbps 10.9 Mbps Virgin Media
20-03-2016 20:06:17 (GMT) 53.1 Mbps 11.8 Mbps Virgin Media
20-03-2016 20:05:41 (GMT) 21.8 Mbps 8.2 Mbps Virgin Media

What should I do in this situation? call VM? will offshore really give a damn and I can't be bothered with the whole can you please turn off your modem now switch it back on crap. like I haven't already done that.

I'm already on a package deal £55 should be £97 for 9 months so could I ask for a reduction on my bill as I do get 200mb during the day usually 10am-4/5pm so dropping down wouldn't change the outcome of slow speeds.

[Taf]

I got caught out by still using Vista and a speed upgrade appeared to be a speed downgrade. Then a visiting tech ran a freeware program (XP TCPIP) and it was then full speed ahead.

More modern versions of Windows do this tweaking automatically....

[General Maximus]

I was thinking congestion before you said it dude. You won't have been the only person to have upgraded to 200mbits and during peak time (evenings and weekends) there are probably too many of you hammering it at the same time. If it hasn't breached the "threshold" yet then there won't be a fault reference for it and there won't be any upgrade work planned. I can guarantee at some point you'll ring up and speak to somebody who will sense you are ****ed off and will make a date up for next month or the month after just to get you stop ringing up. The thing which they don't realise is that you end up even more ****ed off when the date comes and goes and you ring up to find out what is going on only to find out that the date never existed.
The only thing you can do is either drop down to 70mbits or leave. I don't know what the difference in price is these days but usually it is only a few £££ difference between the tiers so you need to decide if what you are currently getting is work it or would you prefer to switch to Infinity and have a slower connection with guaranteed speed 24/7.

[RobboEdin]

You can't drop down to 70Mb. It would have to be 50Mb.

[General Maximus]

I feel like i have been in a coma and missed out on something. I thought the new tiers were 70, 150 and 209?. The VM site says 50, 100 and 200.

[Gavin78]

Originally Posted by Taf

I got caught out by still using Vista and a speed upgrade appeared to be a speed downgrade. Then a visiting tech ran a freeware program (XP TCPIP) and it was then full speed ahead.

More modern versions of Windows do this tweaking automatically....

Not in my case I'm using windows 10 but I have tried it on windows 7 and mobiles and they are all getting the same response.

My laptop is pretty new only about 2 years old

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

I feel like i have been in a coma and missed out on something. I thought the new tiers were 70, 150 and 209?. The VM site says 50, 100 and 200.

70 and 150 are for existing customers only, upgrades from 50 and 100. New customers are sold 50 and 100.

HTH.

[Gavin78]

My latest results after midnight

21-03-2016 00:20:23 (GMT) 180.1 Mbps 12.1 Mbps Virgin Media
21-03-2016 00:19:55 (GMT) 183.4 Mbps 13.2 Mbps Virgin Media
21-03-2016 00:19:31 (GMT) 194.6 Mbps 12.0 Mbps Virgin Media

I think for now I'll tolerate it and hope it will get fixed soon. up until now I've never really had a problem with VM so I'll see how it goes.

[Kushan]

Phone them up and report it, get some money off your bill. They'll only fix it when enough people report it.

[Gobble]

I certainly noticed that my line started to have more of a peak time issue a couple of months after the 200Mbit speeds was announced and gradually it's starting to get worse. It's not been as bad as other congested areas I've read, but I'm not getting the full speed, or even half of it at the worst times.

To add fuel to the fire, our area was showing as ready on the on the virgin speed upgrade site back in February and let me update mine without any issue. I can probably assume that like me, a few eager people did the same. So with new contracts, plus some upgrades they've given out more speed than the network can handle.

The site then updated about a week later to show that the speed upgrade for our area is currently the end of April (that's probably the 6th time it's changed from my counting). So whilst it's as easy as changing a config to give us the speed, the new Arris CMTS have either not been installed as of yet, or they haven't moved modems onto them. So I'm hoping that the end of April is indeed this change and hopefully by June time we should be in a much better position!

Especially since I'm doing a 3 months trial of a game streaming service currently!

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by Taf

I got caught out by still using Vista and a speed upgrade appeared to be a speed downgrade. Then a visiting tech ran a freeware program (XP TCPIP) and it was then full speed ahead.

More modern versions of Windows do this tweaking automatically....

Vista also does it but you didn't point out to the OP that you'd previously tried optimising your connection yourself with a different program.

All the VM tech really did was correct your screw up.

[Gavin78]

My speeds seem to be ok now peak times they moved me to 12 channels on the modem and it has fixed all the issues of crappy 45mb speeds during peak time

[Gobble]

Well I moved onto a new CMTS, so would think that you may have as well. Is your upstream now showing 64 QAM?

[Gavin78]

this is what it now shows in modem status

4 25800000 ATDMA 55 16 qam 6400000 5120
3 32600000 ATDMA 55 16 qam 6400000 5120


01 250750000 -1.2 37.3 256 qam 7
02 290750000 -1.7 36.6 256 qam 12
03 282750000 -1.5 36.6 256 qam 11
04 274750000 -1.7 37.3 256 qam 10
05 266750000 -1.7 37.3 256 qam 9
06 258750000 -1.5 37.3 256 qam 8
07 242750000 -1 37.6 256 qam 6
08 234750000 -1 37.3 256 qam 5
09 226750000 -0.7 37.6 256 qam 4
10 218750000 -0.5 37.6 256 qam 3
11 210750000 -0.5 37.6 256 qam 2
12 202750000 -0.5 37.6 256 qam 1

[General Maximus]

There aint nuffin rong wiv dem