VM 100Mb issues. Advice.

Hello,

I've had this issue for a couple of months now with VM. Few months ago after years of being fine, my BB line seemed to bork up. I am an avid World of Warcraft player (Guild leader too so this really doesnt help) and would randomly start getting high ping times around 7:30pm onwards. Going well past 8kms.

I was upgraded to a superhub under advice of VM (which apprently would cure all my issues....sigh) and it didnt make the slightest bit of difference. At this point I have been in contact with their CS a few times either on their support forum or on the phone, both of which have conflicting advice. Forums report UBR issues, 2nd line support report no real issues.

I have had VM engineer visit me, test my internal network and basically "look" at their cabling and report its ok.

I have had a Monitor running for a month or so now. It seems to hold a pattern of being ok Tues-Thursday and sporadically rubbish for the rest of the week. An example is below, pinging my VM Superhub...

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-large/637d3...

During those "red" times Warcraft becomes unplayable. I cannot download from steam and using mumble is terrible.

Strangely playing BF3 seems to be fine but that could just be coincidence.

I dont understand whats going on here, can anyone share any advice. Could anything on my PC

Looks different to the usual Virgin Media peak time latency issues

Unless the engineer was testing when in a period of this packet loss they might not have seen it.

Can you leave a ping running all the time from your side to somewhere and see if the gaps coincide, pinging somewhere inside the virgin media network would rule out some of their current issues

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Looks different to the usual Virgin Media peak time latency issues

Unless the engineer was testing when in a period of this packet loss they might not have seen it.

Can you leave a ping running all the time from your side to somewhere and see if the gaps coincide, pinging somewhere inside the virgin media network would rule out some of their current issues

Thanks for your reply. Pinging while the connection is going nuts tends to be fine in the past, even though pages are taking a while to load depending on latency in games.... I have used http://www.pingtest.net/ while I have high latency to various servers and they all report fine. even though the latency is 5k ms+

I also did tracerts to both 8.8.8.8 and to various warcraft realms I was trying to connect to with the same results all expected ping times..

I will test this again tonight, perhaps pinging this website for the duration I am online. See if anything appears incase my previous test where just caught unlucky......or something.

We consider packets lost if latency is above 500ms (I think), so latency of 5000ms would explain things, though why its so sharp, i.e. OK then bad no idea

I was debating if some sort of traffic shaping could be causing this issue. (I really have no idea)

For instance, during the evening its not unusual to have steam download at 10MB, dropping per meg every 2-3 seconds until basically it stops. If I pause the download, restart it, it will resume for a few seconds and drop off again. I can do this indefinitely.

I Quizzed VM about this but didn't get much sense out of them the guy was more interested in fobbing me off with a "My manager will call you back in 20" which didn't happen.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/13/virgin_media...

"While it's true VM is testing a new network traffic management system in some areas of the country, such as Liverpool and Aldershot, a spokesman denied the latest issues affecting an unknown number of customers had anything to do with throttling the service."

Hi, my experience with VM has thus far been to be frank pants, but having no other fast internet provider in the local area i have no real choice as 10 Mbits is not enough for the 4 heavy users in my house.

The ONLY way to get these sort of issues resolved with VM is to message the CEO.

I had very similar issue when VM had a massive advertising campaign in the local area, which baiscly over saturated the local exchange with new customers. Once this had happened the internet became unusable after around 2pm through till about 2am. When speaking to VM they like to say the there is a slight problem with Over Utilization in the area, but not a level they can progress for work, and within the KPI (key performance indicators) Even to this day so year later, i still have days where i cant even google something because the ping and jitter are so terrible, but other days are amazing and everything is fine. So inconsistent, if there were another option localy i would happily move provider, but there are no infinity based products in my area.

Email the CEO of VM and tell them you are not happy, i had a good service with the the old VMG300 Modem, to be "upgraded" to the new "superhub" only to find my service went down hill. i also use the SuperHub in MODEM ONLY mode, with my own quality router, as the router in the superhub can not even support the full speed of VMs 100Mbit if more than 1 person is using the internet bother parties get bad performance.

To conclude, i use a EnGenius ESR6850 which has a 300Mbit Wan to Lan, and is amazing for the price in comparison to the well known brands such as ASUS and NETGEAR, who you are paying for the PRETTY box rather than the pure functionality, they are around £50 in comparison to the more expensive branded at £150 to £200.

Another unhappy VM customer. Check their forums for your area, i can almost certainly grantee that there are more issue that you in your area.

Jonas

P.S there is no traffic shaping or control on the 100Mbit service, the reason i took the 100Mbit is can DL/UL 20-60GB a day and their lower packages are pathetic.

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 14:58:13)

Thanks, I have already tryed the superhub in modem mode. Didn't make a difference.

I've pointed the QM to my external wan IP and enabled my Superhub to respond to ping. I never used the internet after 10pm last night, and no one has used it since then and wont do till later and early hours it looked a right mess.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-large/637d3...

Ive had my monitor up n down for almost 2 years, ive never seen such neat lag spikes, they look like someone is downloading/uploading at the connection speed limit for a very short burst (like speed tests) the parts between the spikes look level, run some TRACERT's with command prompt to bbc.co.uk see if there are any spikes in ping along the route. as its a UK based host it should be pretty consistent low pings across all the jumps.

Here is my QM
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-large/cab34...

And a friend on 100Mbits on a different exchange.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-large/eb826...

As you can see by these not brilliant at all.

This is my copy paste TRACERT.

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.241.131]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 6 ms 7 ms 7 ms 10.7.104.1
3 10 ms 10 ms 11 ms wolv-core-2b-ae9-713.network.virginmedia.net [80
.3.146.85]
4 8 ms 9 ms 28 ms brhm-bb-1b-ae7-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.10
5.159.145]
5 16 ms 17 ms 16 ms nrth-bb-1a-as4-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253
.185.105]
6 14 ms 19 ms 15 ms nrth-bb-1b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253
.185.118]
7 20 ms 78 ms 18 ms tele-ic-4-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
174.18]
8 18 ms 17 ms 34 ms pos6-1.rt0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.237]
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 20 ms 17 ms 25 ms ae1.er01.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.46]
11 18 ms 23 ms 18 ms 132.185.255.60
12 20 ms 17 ms 20 ms 212.58.241.131

Trace complete.

As you can see, some of the jumps time out some of the jumps have massive difference in each successive ping reading. This explains my lag in BF3 and other data intensive FPS games, and other data intensive MMOs such as EVE online. it may seem pretty stable, and only every now and then that it happens, but this is what causes the massive spikes. Jitter is the killer for VM connections.

When i was on Landline ADSL2+ i never had a jitter over ZERO, even when i was having internet problems. my average jitter at LOW USAGE TIMES like 4.30am is about 5ms jitter to 30ms ping to UK based tests, at peak times 2pm to 10pm 50-100ms ping and 10-30ms jitter.

Over saturated network running on 7-10 year old technology = all round terrible service.

P.S

Note that both you and my friend have the EXACT SAME double red line packet loss, at the EXACT same time, are you in Birmingham? i have a similar spike, that isnt exactly the same, but is at the correct time. This is TYPICAL of VM issues showing on one connection tend to show on MANY connections.

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 16:31:07)

Interesting, I received a spike of a very similar pattern slightly earlier in the evening too. I live in Wolves and started using the monitor service yesterday:

My Broadband Ping

Wonder what that was then? I was actually up and browsing at that time and experienced lots of timeouts loading websites. I assumed that it was just the sites themselves until I looked at the monitor and saw that, then I assumed it was my router being funny. Apparently not...

Hmmm, a common theme, but if you contacted VM about this, it is not classed as evidence. They say, its a problem with TBB and how they monitor. amusing that we both had the same "lump" and we go through the same exchange, my friends didnt have that same lump from what i can tell. He goes thru another exchange.

Can we get a TBB staff member to clarify if the double red spikes or the "lump" we talk of are Monitor side or ISP side, this could strengthen my argument that promising me "double" speeds is not good, i want a consistent service not a peak time unusable connection.

Raw speed means nothing if you can only download with it, as a gamer i need stability, and with the rest of my house being avid video streamers, they need the speed so they can all stream their programs.

VirginMedia, should be in the oxford English dictionary with the definition being, Unstable, Unreliable, Untrustworthy, Deceptive. You can speak to 2 different people on the same day within an hour and get 2 different stories. You can call to report a problem and be told they know of the problem and to wait a few days, this is a ploy they use to allow for excessive usage to drop off a little. I gave a JOB number to the CEO and he told me in a reply no such job existed in this area, and was infact a JOB in a London exchange. The most amusing thing is that there is 2 green street cabinets (UBR as they call them) within a quarter mile of my house one less than 200 feet away. Most of my bad lag comes when my ping to the end of my street is higher than my ping to the east coast of Australia, which i find confusing. The days where i get bad response in the UK like Birmingham(12 miles away) gives me a ping of 250ms, yet EAST COAST US gets me 149ms. Totally pathetic system they run.

http://craigswebsites.co.uk/ping/ a selection of VM monitors, and at bottom of page Other links so you can see what is unique to Virgin Media i.e. rule out problem on our end

A Sky graph notice how there is not the red that seems to affect most VM customers My Broadband Ping

That shows it was not our ping box.

Another on different ISP
My Broadband Ping

O2/Be, BT, TalkTalk graphs all look normal.

All Virgin Media graphs appear to have a red bar at 1am and 1.15am, suggesting a peering link went off line or was switched around

Edited by MrSaffron (Tue 13-Nov-12 20:21:18)

Looking at 95% of the end user graphs that are not virgin, seem much better on average. There are some spikes, but they probably link to downloading or uploading. Where as VirginMedia 95% of graphs ive seen show this constantly fluctuating ping always with a reasonably thick yellow average ping band, most other "fiber" products have none or extremely thin intermittent average yellow bands.

Thank you MrSaffron for giving us that link.

May i ask another question, you dont have to answer i know you are an impartial broadband news and info site.

Basically do you think i would be able to use such result graphs as evidence that their network is basically terribly over saturated. Would i be able to negate their nonsense "KPI" rubbish that they always spout, the fact that no other products that are seen in these graphs show anything near similar?

I do understand that the other products are not the same as Virgin Media Fiber BB, but surely this is evidence that their system is broken or at a minimum needs to be seriously overhauled.

VIrgin by nature of the cable network has more jitter (yellow area) so only if the blue and green or packet loss are bad is there really an issue.

I am from the Ashford, Kent area. I took a trace of bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.241.131]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 15 ms 16 ms 11 ms cpc18-asfd3-2-0-gw.1-2.cable.virginmedia.com [82
.27.123.1]
2 12 ms 7 ms 7 ms asfd-core-1a-ge-114-1752.network.virginmedia.net
[80.3.98.145]
3 16 ms 11 ms 14 ms popl-bb-1a-xe-603-0.network.virginmedia.net [212
.43.163.30]
4 15 ms 38 ms 22 ms nrth-bb-1b-as3-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.10
5.172.13]
5 18 ms 15 ms 23 ms tele-ic-4-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
174.18]
6 19 ms 23 ms 27 ms pos6-1.rt0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.237]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 14 ms 25 ms 15 ms ae1.er01.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.46]
9 24 ms 15 ms 12 ms 132.185.255.60
10 15 ms 16 ms 14 ms 212.58.241.131

Trace complete.

I have a continuous ping to bbc.co.uk at the moment but I do tend to find that tues-thursday it rarely happens. A snap shot of this

Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=30ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=30ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=245


I've been purposely on Warcraft tonight all night its been fine which has I said is typical. If I look over my BBQM on a weekly basis, those red spikes tend to be Friday-Monday.

I think If I am not going to get anywhere with VM with this, I will have to have a serious thought on where to go, it cant stay like this.

That route suggest virgin has a direct peer with the BBC, what you need to do is look at the routes for things like WoW and where its servers are

In reply to a post by JonasTone:

Hmmm, a common theme, but if you contacted VM about this, it is not classed as evidence. They say, its a problem with TBB and how they monitor. amusing that we both had the same "lump" and we go through the same exchange, my friends didnt have that same lump from what i can tell. He goes thru another exchange.

Oh they come up with all sorts of claims as to why you're having problems, doing their level best to shift the blame. Having known a couple of people who worked for them, some of it is ignorance. Not in a malicious way, just in that the people answering the phones simply do not have the technical background to understand the problems, and are given a checklist sheet of questions to ask that's as formulaeic as they come. Some of it is intentional though, even now a lot of people are not computer savvy and they do their best to palm off problems so people don't decide to switch.

They can claim anything they want about that pattern of red spikes, I know (as I was browsing) that it was them and not this monitoring site because I could not reach websites during those spikes. TBB didn't cause that. My router and/or modem didn't cause that, otherwise it wouldn't be the exact same spikes on other peoples graphs. That's them pure and simple, regardless of what exactly caused it.

Thanks, I'll set some pings off to some servers, mumble, wow, BF3 etc tonight.


Why do I get the feeling that I will be shifting providers before this is fixed...

Here's a typical Sky one with 6 users. I have Fibre service

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/e12f5038102...

I always had a much much experience in terms of packet loss etc with VM.