Virgin Cable Gone Bad

I have been using 120Mbps Virgin Cable Broadband near Portsmouth, UK for over a year now and been able to download files and updates from most servers at around 11 MB/sec, untill about 5 weeks ago.

Then suddenly over night, virtually all downloads & update speeds have drasticlly reduced to around 450 KB/sec when the download starts and within less than a minute has reduced to around 50KB/sec and then slows further stile to less than 56k modem speeds, sometimes in a few seconds, and more often than not stops halfway through, 0KB/sec. Even worse still some websites are unreachable. Just one of many for example http://www.freeview.co.uk/ . They eventually time out and I just get a blank page.

Also streaming video from youtube starts on default 480 resolution then sometimes drops to lower resolutions and buffers and stops. Audio from BBC iPlayer radio buffers constantly then stops.
iTunes updates start slow and stop before finishing, so unable to update. Mobile apps are the same so unable to update over wi-fi, only on 3G.

This all happens on all my devices while connected through Virgin cable, over ethernet cable with 1Gbps to superhub 2 connections with windows 7 x2 PC's ( with or without anti-virus installed) and 2x PC's with 1Gbps ethernet connections with Ubuntu Linux installed. Also happens iPhone & Android on 5GHz Wi-fi to Superhub2.

All devices work perfectly when connected to 3G internet, with faster download speeds, all downloads finish and all the websites I cannot get on virgin cable are availble over 3G mobile internet. Even on windows 7 PC's and Linux PC's when I conect to 3G internet via wi-fi to either of my phones using the built-in wireless hotspot feature. So I know all my devices are working correctly, and the only common failure is Virgin cable.

What is stranger still, is if I use OOKLA speednet's test, it says I have 128Mbps download speed (11Mbps upload)on all my ethernet connected devices and 80Mbps d/l (11mbps upload) on 5GHz wi-fi devices on virgin cable. But that is the only thing that does. It says 2.9Mbps TBBx1 & 23Mbps HTTPx6 on this sites test for example (11Mbps upload). All other speed tests i've tried say around 5Mbps download and 11Mbps upload.

Does anyone know why OOKLA's test is good and all other tests have half the download speed of the upload speed on all devices?

When the Virgin Media technician arrived and before I had a chance to say anything about my problems, the first thing he did was connected his mobile device over my 5GHz wi-fi and said "Theres is nothing wrong with it". And showed me his speed test result on OOKLA speedtest ( I thought it was bit strange that he would use that as his official test of my internet connection ).

When I demonstrated the actual problems, he blamed every single problem through the virgin cable connection as a problem with every site I was going to & that if his speedtest on OOKLA was good then theres nothing wrong.

When I demonstrated everything works fine over 3G internet including my 2 windows 7 PC's and 2 Linux PC's, he said "it's done differently on 3G" and his comparrison was "You will get some websites over 3G internet that you won't get on virgin cable internet. Just like you won't get Sky movies on freeview televison!" I was dumbfounded & almost speechless that he said that.

So after an argument that almost sounded like a Monty Python sketch from the point of view of anyone that might have been listening in, he fitted a brand new superhub 2, coax & splitter.

Guess what! It was still the same!

Any thoughts and ideas would be appreciated folks.

Thanks in advance.

Sounds like congestion and would guess that VM prioritise Ookla over their network.

Virgin Media is the biggest liars! They still using traffic management on download but will not telling you (their secret) to avoid ASA complaints even thought they say the traffic management is no longer on download. They still using it in secret.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 20-Nov-14 13:12:57)

Got proof of this?

Have you posted in their forum yet? http://community.virginmedia.com

In reply to a post by mrmarktigger:

"You will get some websites over 3G internet that you won't get on virgin cable internet. Just like you won't get Sky movies on freeview televison!" I was dumbfounded & almost speechless that he said that.

Classic. Made my day

Virgin Media appears to have certain peering links that are suffering congestion while others do not.

It has happened in the past and we have temporarily in the past forced traffic between Virgin Media and ourselves to go via other links to show this, and seeing what we do then we have no reason to suspect otherwise this time.

It is not just you, we have seen a downturn in Virgin Media cable speeds in the last few months.

Setting up a Broadband Quality Monitor from this site on your IP address is a good way to see if you are experiencing congestion. I can see from mine that the network gets busier between 4pm and 10pm as ping times are longer and this also coincides with a reduction in download speed from the nominal 100Mbit/s (also on Virgin). Upload, though slower at 6Mbit/s, seems to be less affected. That said, I have never seen the type of drastic reduction you are getting and the sudden onset is also surprising. The technician's comments are laughable but he may only be qualified to diagnose/setup your local connection and may be unaware of a fault or overload deeper in the network. I would try to escalate this fault again and also try the Virgin forums as has been suggested. Also Ookla speed test results seem to give similar results to thinkbroadband for me.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Virgin Media is the biggest liars! They still using traffic management on download but will not telling you (their secret) to avoid ASA complaints even thought they say the traffic management is no longer on download. They still using it in secret.

They still shape traffic on downloads and have not made any secret of that.

There is no traffic management on downloads.

Of course if you have proof, rather than libeling...

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

They still shape traffic on downloads and have not made any secret of that.

There is no traffic management on downloads.

Of course if you have proof, rather than libeling...

Those to statements are incompatible. If they are shaping traffic then that is management.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Virgin Media is the biggest liars! They still using traffic management on download but will not telling you (their secret) to avoid ASA complaints even thought they say the traffic management is no longer on download. They still using it in secret.

Virgin Media don't use Traffic Management on Download any more, However they have told me that in the worst situations (very bad over-utilization areas) they do use a Traffic management profile between 4pm and Midnight so that everyone can get some sort of connection.

I know this because I'm currently affected by very bad congestion in Crawley area and traffic management has been used to keep people connected and browsing (at least) then when midnight hits and traffic management drops off the connections end up at a standstill.

Information from Virgin Media Technicians & Engineers.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Virgin Media don't use Traffic Management on Download any more, However they have told me that in the worst situations (very bad over-utilization areas) they do use a Traffic management profile between 4pm and Midnight so that everyone can get some sort of connection.

I know this because I'm currently affected by very bad congestion in Crawley area and traffic management has been used to keep people connected and browsing (at least) then when midnight hits and traffic management drops off the connections end up at a standstill.

Information from Virgin Media Technicians & Engineers.

Will forward that ASA. Still lied from virgin media!

Edited by adslmax (Fri 21-Nov-14 00:30:17)

Yes, I believe this to be the case MrSaffron.... Thank you for your feedback MrSaffron...

I think the guy at virgin's call centre may have given the game away when I first called them about this 4 weeks ago.
He said that they had recently installed a new 4G mobile mast near my location, and he was wondering if that may have had an effect & causing some kind of congestion. When he asked me when my issue first happened and when I told him about a week ago, he said that the new 4G mast went live around the same time. So now I think about more, unless this is just a complete coincidence, I believe this to be the problem.

Thanks again MrSaffron...

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by mrmarktigger:

"You will get some websites over 3G internet that you won't get on virgin cable internet. Just like you won't get Sky movies on freeview televison!" I was dumbfounded & almost speechless that he said that.

Classic. Made my day

Yes indeed Andrue. It makes me chuckle every time I think about him saying that hehehe

In reply to a post by ian72:

Sounds like congestion and would guess that VM prioritise Ookla over their network.

I believe this to be the case too ian72. Thanks for your feedback.

I tried OOKLA again the this morning. My first test gave 6.2 Mbps d/l and 11Mbps upload.
So I clicked retest after and got 128Mbps d/l on same VM server. Almost like it went oops! better show him a good one since he's a customer of ours! hehehe

In reply to a post by glasspath:

Setting up a Broadband Quality Monitor from this site on your IP address is a good way to see if you are experiencing congestion. I can see from mine that the network gets busier between 4pm and 10pm as ping times are longer and this also coincides with a reduction in download speed from the nominal 100Mbit/s (also on Virgin). Upload, though slower at 6Mbit/s, seems to be less affected. That said, I have never seen the type of drastic reduction you are getting and the sudden onset is also surprising. The technician's comments are laughable but he may only be qualified to diagnose/setup your local connection and may be unaware of a fault or overload deeper in the network. I would try to escalate this fault again and also try the Virgin forums as has been suggested. Also Ookla speed test results seem to give similar results to thinkbroadband for me.

Thank you for your feedback glasspath. I will try Setting up a Broadband Quality Monitor from this site and see what happens.

what I am getting does not seem like traffic management though. It's exactly the same 24/7 I tried downloads & updates in the middle of the night at 3am for example and it's exactly the same.
itunes updates & sony android updates never finish. Dozens of uk websites (freeview.co.uk, parcel2go just to mention 2) are totally unavailable 24/7.

I have never experienced any kind of traffic management before & never seen any kind of slowdown in the 6 years total i've been with VM . I had 60Meg with them for 5 years before this 120Meg, which has been over a year. It's never missed a beat until 5 weeks ago, and has now gone from all, to almost nothing. A 56k modem would be better.

Thanks once again for your feedback, I will give it a go.

I see no reason why a new 4G mast locally should affect you on a cable broadband service.

The masts use their own dedicated backhaul and do not use the Virgin Media cable network, and Virgin Media make big noise about how their service is not affected by distance and noise like the telephone based services.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Will forward that ASA. Still lied from virgin media!

Well I would much rather a slowed down connection than none at all!!

Bearing in mind I said in the worst situation, you are implying they enforce traffic management in the best situations too (which is incorrect, Trust me I would know the amount of traffic I throw through the Virgin Network on average)

Also I don't think my case would be looked at as traffic management as it is manually enforced on all connections after 4PM where traffic management is enforced once users hit a set limit. "Repeatedly"

Mine is more of a bandwidth limitation with prioritisation so more of a QOS profile than Traffic Management.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I see no reason why a new 4G mast locally should affect you on a cable broadband service.

The masts use their own dedicated backhaul and do not use the Virgin Media cable network, and Virgin Media make big noise about how their service is not affected by distance and noise like the telephone based services.

Thank you for your feedback MrSaffon.
Maybe it's a coincidence. But it did flag up when he entered my account number. I forget his exact wording but it did sound like that it was somehow connected and not a dedicated connection from the mast.
I guess I'll never know for sure

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I see no reason why a new 4G mast locally should affect you on a cable broadband service.

The masts use their own dedicated backhaul and do not use the Virgin Media cable network, and Virgin Media make big noise about how their service is not affected by distance and noise like the telephone based services.

P.S. Just to clarify, he seemed indicate the the broadband from the mast was not a dedicated service and somehow connected. Not that the mast it's self or any kind of radio / telephony was interfering.

Masts should have dedicated business grade connectivity that is separate from the cable network, that is assuming the mast in your area is even using the virgin network for its backhaul.

Another reason it won't be DOCSIS is on 4G masts speeds are a lot faster in the upload than the standard cable products.

Basically support are telling porkies

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Masts should have dedicated business grade connectivity that is separate from the cable network, that is assuming the mast in your area is even using the virgin network for its backhaul.

Another reason it won't be DOCSIS is on 4G masts speeds are a lot faster in the upload than the standard cable products.

Basically support are telling porkies

Maybe it's pure coincidence then. Seems strange he mentioned it though and asked to see if it happened at the same time.
It was 4 weeks ago but I'm sure he said 'we' installed a new 4G mast too. The conversation was in that context. He wasn't blaming anyone else. That's what it all sounded like. I'm sure he mentioned possibility of congestion. That's the way I read it. He was talking in context that it could that and there fault. I think he said more than he should of done to honest and was kinda thinking aloud if you know what I mean. He was trying to help, i'll give him his due.
From all that was said, and the way he was talking, none of it would of made any sense if was on dedicated connection. I'm sure I was on the same wavelength as him & that's what he meant. Not unless I totally misread the whole conversation. In which case I dunno what he was trying to say or suggest

Just a quick follow up to say, I have now dumped virgin media.

I ended up having to get a brand new phone line installed & get Fibre-to-the-Cabinet installed, both from another provider, which has fixed every single problem I had.

So I am now a happy chappy

I would like to thank everyone for their input and information given to my post.

In reply to a post by MHC:

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

They still shape traffic on downloads and have not made any secret of that.

There is no traffic management on downloads.

Of course if you have proof, rather than libeling...

yeah I think ignition needs to clarify what he means as shaping is a form of traffic management.

Those to statements are incompatible. If they are shaping traffic then that is management.

I'm aware of the issues recently. They lasted for 48 hours about 2 weeks ago. My speeds dropped by about 20%. I found that doing a hard reboot of the modem solved the problem once the network problem resolved. I've been back to normal latency and speeds ever since.
It appears you have switched ISPs. Fair enough. I'm sticking with VM because of their long term reliability and speeds better than the headline figure. I get 160Mb/12Mb 24/7, not to mention superior TV. I have never been traffic shaped or managed.

Traffic shaping is where certain sorts of data get restricted to allow better movement for other types of data. VM is known for restricting peer to peer data because torrents can take up unfair amounts of
bandwidth. The advantage of having 160Mb means I am in and out really quickly even with a 3Gb file. This takes slightly less than 3 minutes. Perhaps that is why my torrents have never suffered from shaping.

Why do VM shape at all? This is because their network architecture is different than Openreach. VM using NTL legacy networks provides for a number of households from a single length of coax. A heavy user on this coax can affect the others. BT uses the existing individual premises copper from the street box so doesn't have to protect other users. Although Openreach and VM both use a fibre hybrid, the BT architecture is less problematic.

VM doesn't traffic manage, by restricting bandwidth on users connections. This is a thing of the past, since Virgin has upgraded much of its network hardware to allow more traffic along the same cable. Their plan is to upgrade technology further to increase potential speeds.

Hi roughbeast, Thank you for your comments.

For 6 years I used to get more than the stated download speeds 24/7 & never once experienced traffic shaping or management. I don't use torrents either.

But in my case it just went faulty over night & even a new superhub 2 didn't fix it. Virgin said nothing was wrong because OOKLA gave 128Mbps, even though I demonstrated to them downloads & updates would not finish. The technician just blamed all my devices at fault and or the sites I went to.

Even itunes updates, a small 39 M/byte file or mobile system updates & apps from sony would not download. Not to mentions dozens of uk websites unavailable. I have a Plusnet 38Mbps fibre package now & it's perfect so far.

So as you can see, that's not traffic shaping, it's just faulty. I would of said congestion to begin with but it seems more like some kind of network error to me.

I just wish virgin could of fixed it and would of stayed with them.