Slightly disappointed with 20meg

laurenced · 12-09-2008, 15:30

Hi all

After being a VM cable customer for a year in my previous flat (4mb > 10mb) and being very happy with it, I decided to upgrade to 20meg when moving into a new place.

Although it's far from slow, it's certainly not 20meg. I've been using the speedtester at http://speedtest.bbmax.co.uk. Now I know these things are never totally accurate, but in my last flat (which is just 5 mins down the road) I would get the proper readings for both my 4meg connection and latterly my 10meg connection when it was upgraded.

Here, I'm lucky to hit 10. Usually it sits around 7-8, but can get as low as 1.5. The highest I ever saw it was 13 which was 24 hours after it was installed.

I have been testing with (legal) torrents to try and max the connection, and bizarrely, when I try the Ubuntu ISO I can max the connection (2.3mb/s down). I think this is probably because VM have an ubuntu mirror and therefore I was downloading from some peers/seeds within the VM network. Clearly the speed between my flat and the VM servers is fine.

I tried downloading OpenOffice, another open source torrent, and could only manage ~350kb/s. This isn't on any VM mirror that I'm aware of, so I thought it was a good comparison.

I usually use these two torrents as testers because they are among the healthiest torrents on the net. The OO one should have been maxing my connection too, but it wasn't.. so seemingly the problem is with external connections (i.e. outside VM's network).

There's no way we have downloaded more than the alotted limits, so capping should not be in effect.

Any thoughts? A lot of people seem to have trouble with the 20 meg product, and I'm wondering if I'm going to be yet another disgruntled customer.

12-09-2008, 15:35

First off if your getting 2.2Mb/s off a download your 20Mb connection is okay plus never ever use torrents to measure your speed too many factors can affect the speeds download from gamefiles.blueyonder.co.uk also try the tcp optimizer from http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php also try Microsoft.com, if you get 20Mb inside the VM network then its poor routing on VM part which has always been bad, and it wont get much better

laurenced · 12-09-2008, 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by darthlinux

First off if your getting 2.2Mb/s off a download your 20Mb connection is okay plus never ever use torrents to measure your speed too many factors can affect the speeds download from gamefiles.blueyonder.co.uk also try the tcp optimizer from http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php also try Microsoft.com, if you get 20Mb inside the VM network then its poor routing on VM part which has always been bad, and it wont get much better

Yes the 2.2 is within the VM network, i.e. from a mirror, so that is not a representative test. Presumably the same will be the case from Blueyonder because that's VM's network aswell, is it not?

As for torrents, I respectfully disagree because with a legal, well-seeded torrent I have always been able to max out my connections in the past. Because it is an example of real-world usage (unlike downloading from with VM's network) it provides a good test of whether the connection is working as it should.

Also, I only use Windows for gaming (not downloading anything) so TCP Optimiser is no use to me. In the past I've never had any problem maxing out my connection with the default network settings in Ubuntu.

v0id · 12-09-2008, 16:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by darthlinux

...plus never ever use torrents to measure your speed too many factors can affect the speeds...

If you can't get your full 20 Meg speed from most torrents, you're doing it wrong

laurenced · 12-09-2008, 16:49

I've just seen the sticky at the top of this forum about the modem's status -- here are my stats:

Downstream Status
Operational

Channel ID
0

Downstream Frequency
331000000 Hz

Modulation
256QAM

Bit Rate
20480000 bits/sec

Power Level
16.6 dBmV

Signal to Noise Ratio
43.9 dB

Upstream Status
Operational

Channel ID
1

Upstream Frequency
18800000 Hz

Modulation
QPSK

Bit Rate
768000 bits/sec

Power Level
39.5 dBmV

Any problems there?

piggy · 12-09-2008, 16:55

your signals are fine and imo you have a very normal virginmedia 20meg conx

12-09-2008, 17:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by laurenced

I've just seen the sticky at the top of this forum about the modem's status -- here are my stats:

Downstream Status
Operational

Channel ID
0

Downstream Frequency
331000000 Hz

Modulation
256QAM

Bit Rate
20480000 bits/sec

Power Level
16.6 dBmV

Signal to Noise Ratio
43.9 dB

Upstream Status
Operational

Channel ID
1

Upstream Frequency
18800000 Hz

Modulation
QPSK

Bit Rate
768000 bits/sec

Power Level
39.5 dBmV

Any problems there?

Yes you have a problem, everything is not OK your Downstream power level is way out you need to call Tech Support ASAP as that should be between -12 and +12.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tech Support is open 24/7 on the numbers below.

For help with your TV or Phone and for Broadband Technical Support:

Call Product Support/Faults on 151 option 3 from your Virgin Media Phone. It's absolutely free.

Or call 0845 454 1111 from any other phone line.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

piggy · 12-09-2008, 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by whydoIneedatech

Yes you have a problem, everything is not OK your Downstream power level is way out you need to call Tech Support ASAP as that should be between -12 and +12.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tech Support is open 24/7 on the numbers below.

For help with your TV or Phone and for Broadband Technical Support:

Call Product Support/Faults on 151 option 3 from your Virgin Media Phone. It's absolutely free.

Or call 0845 454 1111 from any other phone line.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

ok then when the levels are back in spec what will the o/p gain? he is downloading at 2.3mbs what improvement will he see?
i will say it again in a real life situation the levels are fine and the 20mb conx is acting as normal.

carl2k2 · 12-09-2008, 18:02

is that megabits or megabytes?, because if its megabytes then that is standard for 20mb service, someone I know is on it gets 2400kb/s(2.4megabytes)

12-09-2008, 18:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by piggy

ok then when the levels are back in spec what will the o/p gain? he is downloading at 2.3mbs what improvement will he see?
i will say it again in a real life situation the levels are fine and the 20mb conx is acting as normal.

He is unhappy with his speeds and having a Tech go out and fit an attenuator or tweak the power in the cab may bring his speed up rather than cause potential problems further down the line.

piggy · 12-09-2008, 18:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by whydoIneedatech

He is unhappy with his speeds and having a Tech go out and fit an attenuator or tweak the power in the cab may bring his speed up rather than cause potential problems further down the line.

but read his post again his speeds are ok when downloading off a virgin mirror site so while he maybe unhappy with other speeds its a routing issue rather than a level issue

12-09-2008, 18:52

Well I am on 20mb and have just ran a speedtest from gamefiles.virginmedia.comwhere I got 3.1mb per second downloading 8 files at once, and here is a www.speedtest.net link, and I have just finished downloading some music so not bad speeds for a 20mb connection, if the OP can emulate that then he is getting a good connection.

leftcheats · 12-09-2008, 18:54

Hi, silly question but your not using a router are you?

Some routers are unable to reach 20mb (older linksys etc...) as i found out when i got 20mb service.

If you are then remove it from your setup and try again.

Also the best speed test is too use VM's newsgroups as they nearly always D/L at top whack.

12-09-2008, 18:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by leftcheats

Hi, silly question but your not using a router are you?

Some routers are unable to reach 20mb (older linksys etc...) as i found out when i got 20mb service.

If you are then remove it from your setup and try again.

Also the best speed test is too use VM's newsgroups as they nearly always D/L at top whack.

I am running through a D-Link 524, hard cabled not wireless I get faster with a direct link.

laurenced · 21-09-2008, 15:37

Thanks for the responses guys.

I am indeed using a router, a brand new Linksys WRT54GR. The speeds are actually okay now, I was downloading from Steam at 1.3mb/s this morning, but they aren't what they could be (I never get anywhere near a reported 20mb connection a speedtest.net).

Still, it's a reasonably service which is acceptable at the moment. I'll keep monitoring it to see how it goes.