Terrible speeds, Virgin won't do anything about it. Any suggestions?

[wolfkaiser]

I can confirm graf_von_anonym's verdict: not all is lost.

I've been on the XL package since October. My bt line didn't support more than 3.5mbits due to distance to exchange that's why I switched to cable.

Initially my speeds were all over the place, often around 12mbits during day but going down in the evenings to between 2 and 7 mbits. Average was 5mbits. After contacting the very responsive newsgroup support team they confirmed that it was due to high load on UBR. Two network engineer dates came and went but at the beginning of December it happened. The improvement was noticeable but not as dramatic as I've hoped for: now I got between 5 and 12 mbits in the evening. To tell you the truth I was actually reasonably happy with that given my previous adsl situation.

Then the 50mbit service was introduced. Initially my area, SE15, didn't offer it but as of around middle of January it does and what do you know? I now get 18-20 mbits during the day and between 13 and 20 (but mostly 17-19) in the evening. I don't know the first thing about cable technology but from what I've read about the 50mbit roll-out I'm assuming that I've been switched onto their new DOCSIS3 network.

One happy customer.

[qasdfdsaq]

Glad to see you got an improvement wolfkaiser, unfortunately I didn't.

10 months on, VM claim to have "fixed" their load problem several times, and sent engineers and replacement modems round, then continue to admit an "intermittent issue" which "will be investigated". My original network fault ticket was closed as resolved (yeah right). The 50mbit rollout has completed but I'm still seeing the same crappy old speeds, no improvement whatsoever.

I've finally bitten the bullet and left VM, this is just unacceptable. I'm now a more than happy O2 ADSL2+ customer.

Ten months ago vs. Now on Virgin Media (10 meg £24/month):


And on O2 (20 meg, £9.79/month)


What a difference, eh? Just to express that more visually, with a little download graph:


Just to clarify, same file, same server, same time, same PC, same cable(s). No tricks here.

Moral of the story... If your VM connection is slow cause of network load, they're probably not going to do anything about it. If you have an alternative, grasp it now.

Also for anyone else thinking of switching, BT Wholesale will give you an estimate based on phone number or postcode of what your line is likely to support. This estimate is very conservative, as some sites have mentioned.

I was told I'd get "5.5Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max, 6Mbps or greater via ADSL2+", yet I'm happily synching at 16.5Mbps on ADSL2+ right now. If you use the checker(s) on O2 or Be's site(s) they are far closer to the truth (they estimated 14 meg, I got 13.5 on the default profile before tweaking things a bit to get the final 16.5), but require a live phone number to work and won't work on postcode alone.

VM have the technology to do far better than this and easily beat ADSL2+, especially on a noisy 2.5km long line, but for some reason can't find it to pull it out of their lazy oversubscribed and overpriced *bleep* to provide any sane level of service. If ADSL2+ can beat "super fast fibre-optic broadband" by this much without even having to cap people to 1/4 their rated speed, they must be doing something seriously wrong at VM...

Well that concludes this mini rant/story.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

They gave me F000883601 but said there's no ETA as it's still being investigated and it requires a capacity upgrade. I'm hoping maybe the 50mbit rollout will introduce some extra capacity, it seems to me that the UBR is overloaded rather than the backhaul, the extra DS2.0/a channels might help......

Capacity upgrade --> Motorway effect <-- Students.

[bomber_g]

Moral of the story... If your VM connection is slow cause of network load, they're probably not going to do anything about it.

This is wrong

the network is constantly being upgraded. Granted you might be in an area that is not due to be done until next week or even next year, but hey that's how these things work.

If you have an alternative, grasp it now.

this is right =D

I would say there are a lot more people on BT that are being affected by long cables / high contention ratio's / old cabling etcetc than their are people being affected by oversubsrciption on NTL - but that's why we have a choice of providers, to keep competition in the market and hopefully force the big companies to keep upgrading their kit and to try and provide a better service than each other.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by bomber_g

This is wrong

the network is constantly being upgraded. Granted you might be in an area that is not due to be done until next week or even next year, but hey that's how these things work.

This may not be universally true, but it's what I was told by several people at the beginning. People on the newsgroups said I had pretty much no hope of them doing anything about it, after nine months of painful personal experience that has been shown to be true. As I've mentioned, my area has supposedly been upgraded already, more than once since my initial complaint. Whether or not they've really done that, I've experienced no appreciable improvement.

That said, I'm lucky to live in a city like this, where the POTS exchanges are close enough together that you're rarely over 1km from an exchange and will next to never have a line longer than 3km.

As for the motorway effect... I don't buy it. O2/Be are cheaper, and with almost everyone synching at >10 meg around here, they're probably having to provide more bandwidth per person than VM are. Yet they've managed to keep on top of capacity and contention perfectly well since the exchange first went live three or four years ago - and that's without any traffic management or download caps.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

.....

As for the motorway effect... I don't buy it. O2/Be are cheaper, and with almost everyone synching at >10 meg around here, they're probably having to provide more bandwidth per person than VM are. Yet they've managed to keep on top of capacity and contention perfectly well since the exchange first went live three or four years ago - and that's without any traffic management or download caps.

It's really simples.

If the students are suffering at, say 1 mbps on their 50 Mbps contracts, as soon as you increase the capacity, they'll use it all the way up to 50. This is a universal rule for anything involving traffic (let alone students).

You mention syncing at > 10 Mbps on O2/Be (through a BT line all the way to the ISP Gateway). Syncing is one thing, download is another. Your 50 Mbps VM circuit will sync at the nominal speed. But downloads are subject to contention at nodes and hubs at least.

[bomber_g]

I'd say if you feel that you get a better connection from an ADSL circuit in your area, than get it.

It's pretty obvious BT are going to have a better network set up, more capacity etc in some areas, and Virgin will provide a better service in others. So far Virgin are doing a pretty good job of delivering what they say they can - even Ofcom agree with this

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

You mention syncing at > 10 Mbps on O2/Be (through a BT line all the way to the ISP Gateway). Syncing is one thing, download is another. Your 50 Mbps VM circuit will sync at the nominal speed. But downloads are subject to contention at nodes and hubs at least.

My point is on O2/Be I (and everyone else I know) sync at 10 megs+ and get 10 megs+ download. As my graph earlier shows, at 16.5 meg sync I'm getting 15 meg actual download. That's about as good as it gets - and thats during the height of the peak period. Most of the dips are actually due to the server, not my ISP. Their contention is low enough that even the fast(er) lines can get full speed, pretty much all the time.

Virgin Media will 'sync' at 2/10/20/50 meg. And you'll get 1.5 meg download speed. On a good day. Not even the slowest lines will get full speed at peak times; sure it's fine at 6am though... But that's not when I need to use it.

O2/Be have kept capacity and contention well under control, without needing any traffic management. Virgin Media have failed miserably - in this area at least.