Virgin Media Hub 3 & 5 ping issues!

Hi all! I've posted this on the Virgin Media forums but thought I'd post here as well as the responses are 10x better quality here!

I had Virgin Media installed at the start of the month with a Hub 3. Speeds were fine, but there was frequent packet loss, disconnections and constant ping spikes (confirmed via BQM).

I managed to get an engineer visit booked via the VM forums after troubleshooting for days via the phone. The engineer came and noted that the person who installed the service managed to knock out 2 upstream channels. Power levels were fine and no other issues were noted. He said it was a head scratcher on why I was experiencing issues I was, but admitted that there definitely were issues somewhere. He did what he could (no idea what he did) but it ended up sorting it.

After the engineer visit, the problem arose again. I was offered a replacement Hub 5 which arrived today. I installed the hub this morning, making sure all connections are tight and making sure the hub is positioned properly. I started up a BQM to monitor the connection.

Since having the Hub 5 installed, all I have been doing is using my work laptop via ethernet.

I've checked the BQM and I'm noticing the minimum latency is very shaky (this section was always a flat line with the Hub 3), along with shaky average latency and the occasional spike of maximum latency. The minimum latency is fluctuating and the average latency is higher compared to the Hub 3.

I decided to open up a couple of games on my PC to see how the pings were looking on there. With my PC, I use a powerline adapter. I have used this same powerline adapter whilst with Sky and will provide the results I previously captured for comparison.

Overwatch (EU server - London // Training ground, no other players)
Virgin Media (Hub 3 and Hub 5): 40ms-48ms (this number fluctuates constantly)
Sky: 25ms-30ms

CS:GO (EU West - Frankfurt // Deathmatch, full lobby)
Virgin Media (Hub 3 and Hub 5): 52ms-57ms (this number fluctuates constantly)
Sky: 15ms-30ms

On top of this, myself and my partner often play online games together. If both of us are loading into an online game, our pings both skyrocket to 100ms+ and the inernet slows to a crawl. If one of us is downloading a file (of any size whatsoever), both our pings skyrocket to 100ms and again the internet slows to a crawl until the file finishes downloading. I'm yet to test this on the Hub 5, however I assume it'll be the same story as before given that changing the Hub hasn't done much at all.

Live link to new Hub 5 BQM:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...
(Coax)


Interestingly (this may not have any relation to anything at all), the online service status checker for Virgin Media, along with the service checker phoneline, the VM Twitter support team and 2 engineers have all said that there's no problems in the area at all. Whenever I call the Virgin Media technical team, I am always told that there is an issue in the area and that it'll be resolved within 24-48 hours (every single day). Friends who live in the area with Virgin Media internet have not been told this and are not experiencing my issue.

Not really too sure what to make of this. Should I leave the new Hub for a bit and see if things sort themselves out? Any tips? Any ideas? Again, I didn't experience anything like this with my old provider. Unfortunately, powerline adapters are the only way for us to get an ethernet connection (renting) but it has never been an issue before.

Edited by rockywashboard (Mon 20-Mar-23 19:38:54)

So I would say there is two primary issues here.

The shaky latency been a problem for you, this is an inherit thing of docsis, might be possibly improved in future with something called low latency docsis.

The other one being whilst downloading latency sky rockets. Upgrading your package or shaping downstream traffic might help here.

Which VM package are you on?

Also please keep the tbb monitor going so we can see a clearer picture over a 24 hour period.

Also just noticed you said you using a powerline adaptor, I think you need to test on ethernet no matter how inconvenient it may be.

Edited by Chrysalis (Mon 20-Mar-23 18:11:04)

Hi there, thanks for the response!

Yeah I recently found that out about docsis. A bit annoying because the whole point of Virgin replacing the hub was to help aleviate latency issues so I've actually not noticed the slightest bit of difference due to how the Hub 5 works! Haha

I'm on the M125 package. It doesn't matter how big the download is (it could be a song that would take a couple of seconds!), the connection will go haywire until it's finished. Do Virgin Media hubs not have any bwm?

Regarding powerline adapter, I somehow forgot I had a personal laptop! I hooked it up to the hub directly via ethernet and still experienced the same issues unfortunately. With the BQM, do you know what could be causing the sudden high spikes of maximum latency? The most recent spike, at about 17:30 is very odd as nobody was in the house and all internet connected devices were turned off/in a different location. I understand the occasional maximum latency spike, however I don't believe it's common to consistently and randomly have spikes that max out the graph on BQM. This issue is something that has followed from the Hub 3.

In reply to a post by rockywashboard:

I'm on the M125 package.

which has a 20 mbps upload.

I'm on M250 product with 25 Mbps upload on a Hub 3 in a traditional coax area, not RFoG. My live BQM is in my signature. My connection is not used for gaming, and I don't care about ping. My Hub 3 is in modem mode and a I use a third party router as I want more features.

C:\Users\James>ping bbc.co.uk

Pinging bbc.co.uk [151.101.0.81] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 151.101.0.81: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=58
Reply from 151.101.0.81: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=58
Reply from 151.101.0.81: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=58
Reply from 151.101.0.81: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=58

for gaming you will need to put it in modem mode and use any other router
this is what we had to do when using them, on top oif that their new hubs had some hardware fault that cause high pings/packet loss, we had many new hubs they sent us but still used the superhub2, dont know if this is still a thing but wouldnt surprise me

also wouldnt surprise me if its just their network being [censored]

i used them for a long time, trust me they dont care about ping times or network quality so only call them if you feel like wasting a little time or outsourcing some anger

In reply to a post by bibiyui:

for gaming you will need to put it in modem mode and use any other router

Why? You can game just fine on the Hub 4 and Hub 5.

Using modem mode with your own router will give access to additional features but not sure why you think it's needed for gaming.

on top oif that their new hubs had some hardware fault that cause high pings/packet loss

What hub and what hardware fault? You use the word had, suggesting it has been fixed.
Sounds like you might be talking about a 2-3 year old issue that affected the hub 3?

In reply to a post by bibiyui:

trust me they dont care about ping times or network quality

They care a lot about network quality and ping time, but their network is cable, as most of the US, and not the same as the VDSL that Openreach provide for other ISPs to utilise. They have quite different properties.

Here is mine, VM been this stable on pings is a new experience for me, luckily now on a pretty good node.

Pinging bbc.co.uk [151.101.0.81] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 151.101.0.81: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=58
Reply from 151.101.0.81: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=58
Reply from 151.101.0.81: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=58
Reply from 151.101.0.81: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=58

Ping statistics for 151.101.0.81:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 14ms, Maximum = 15ms, Average = 14ms

M125 isnt a lot of downstream bandwidth in this age, however been affected just from downloading a small file seems a little excessive.

Does it also go crazy e.g. if you watching a low res video or doing anything that doesnt saturate the speed of the connection, such as streaming music instead of downloading it.

The reason I said upgrading may help is you may be suffering from user side contention when downloading, and when that happens something has to give.

It could be as simple as not downloading stuff whilst gaming, otherwise upgrading your connection capacity, or adding some form of QoS on your router (likely daunting the first time).

Spikes when idle could be one of a number of things, also remember tbb is one destination on the internet, spikes on there may not necessarily happen on other services.

DSL or FTTP will very likely give you more stable idle pings, but might still be prone to spikes or packet loss when the connection is saturated with downloads, when I was on VDSL I had pretty big issues when downloading at line capacity.

Looking at your graph, there is some visible VM contention there, around 5-6pm then around 8pm to midnight where the average latency goes a bit higher. But doesnt look extreme.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 21-Mar-23 20:22:37)

Hi All,
Just took a look at your post and the latancy looks very good considering its on Virgin's cable (Dociss network)

Look at mine to get an idea (and thats with a QOS enterprise router throtteling to 450 - 500 Mbps down and 30 Mbps up to help with latancy struggles)

2023/03/21 TBB

2023/03/06

2023/03/14 TBB