Virgin - fast speed but unusable for gaming

I’ve been with Irgun for donkey’s years (back to the telewest days). In our neck of the woods ADSL is still stuck at 2mbps with no plans for Openreach to upgrade the area.

For several months my connection (and my next door neighbour’s) have got steadily worse and worse when gaming (on any game, any server). It is now 100% unusable. Given that’s pretty much all I need a broadband connection for, I’m pretty miffed.

We have both lodged complaints with Virgin and got nowhere. Engineers have been out, and fixed nothing. If anything it has got worse. We have no point of contact at Virgin and have to keep going through the call centre.

We get inept call handlers who have even tried telling me that 100mbps is not fast enough for gaming! We are repeatedly told “your speed test results are fine”, despite us explaining every time that down/up load speeds are not the issue - it is latency spikes and packet loss.

I really don’t know where to turn. I would just leave, but they have us over a barrel given the state of ADSL in the area. Any advice would be appreciated.

Setup a Broadband Quality Monitor if you haven't done so already, have you accessed the router to see if there are many errors and timeouts? the problem may be a local fault or a wider congestion issue.

That was my issue too, they let me leave inside of contact due to it.

Gladly jumped to BT FTTP and it's been night and day.

This is unfortunately the situation for many Virgin customers at some point when congestion takes effect.

As DG834MAN suggested, if you can get BQM to work it may be useful in demonstrating issues, but short of alternatives, time is probably the only thing you can do to work around it, unless a DSL based service gives you better performance for your application. I certainly had cable and DSL and didn't use cable for anything work/sensitive.

One of the downsides of cable being a very large broadcast network is that your modem has to wait it's turn to send return packets. In a busy area, that can be a fairly long wait (in gaming terms) and will cause jitter. If you want to send a packet every 1ms but can only 'talk' every 3ms, then the game servers get your updates in batches that might mean you get told you fired after someone else, even if you saw it and reacted faster on your screen.

Virgin were slapped about by the ASA (one of many times) for claiming they had the best broadband for gaming. The old Ofcom broadband report used to include jitter as a measure and always showed Virgin as miles behind everyone else. Them moving to FTTP should sort it out as long as they don't do stupid like layer RFOG on their shiny new optical equipment.

In reply to a post by Skie:

One of the downsides of cable being a very large broadcast network is that your modem has to wait it's turn to send return packets. In a busy area, that can be a fairly long wait (in gaming terms) and will cause jitter. If you want to send a packet every 1ms but can only 'talk' every 3ms, then the game servers get your updates in batches that might mean you get told you fired after someone else, even if you saw it and reacted faster on your screen.

Virgin were slapped about by the ASA (one of many times) for claiming they had the best broadband for gaming. The old Ofcom broadband report used to include jitter as a measure and always showed Virgin as miles behind everyone else. Them moving to FTTP should sort it out as long as they don't do stupid like layer RFOG on their shiny new optical equipment.

I spoke to one of the network infrastructure guys over at Virgin and they are planning RFOG for deployment in my area as part of the "FTTP roll out", I obviously wasn't very happy when i heard this and suggested they used XGSPon or anything alternative as its simply stupid fitting old tech for the sake of it. I don't see the point in moving from coax to RFOG, its all the same in the end, it might make marginal improvements but it won't solve the problems they have with congestion anyway.

I think it's so they can use existing engineers who are only trained on coaxial installs, and stick to a common set of cable modems and set-top boxes. I'd be very surprised if they weren't already testing different CPE hardware internally, as well as different ways to migrate from RFoG to PON.

RFoG solves any interference problems, and presumably fixes any localised congestion problems as they'd have been pretty daft not to build to a PON-style splitter topology. This puts congestion into the network where it's much easier to resolve than when cable modem areas had to be split up.

Edited by jpm (Sat 04-Jun-22 00:04:43)

New build FTTP is still being built with RFoG. The cable network overbuild, Project Mustang, is XGSPON for Internet access.

Mustang is supposed to get rid of DoCSIS not extend its life in the UK slightly.

Some trials have been done with RFoG, they were build trials, others with GPON, others XGSPON.

The Mustang products are still over 6 months away and will be XGSPON. I suppose there might be some weird edge cases here but Mustang isn't just putting fibre where the coax was, it's an entirely new backhaul and access network, too.

Perhaps he was referring to TV services while VMO2 get an IPTV offering mature? That could work.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Perhaps he was referring to TV services while VMO2 get an IPTV offering mature? That could work.

Nope, he said the build has started in my area (I know it has, people I know have been overbuilt (they have had endless issues as crews haven't been trained and took one month to find a basic fault with the fibre optics)

The cable wasn't connected the other end.

I'm sure you can see the issue here, if virgin don't teach the crews to check the fibre is connected then there is no hope.

All the crews that the person I know had broke more stuff and cost virgin over £500 in lost revenue and account credits.

So one crew changed the RFOG power supply to the wrong one, then one changed the coax but didn't crimp it correctly, the next one said the fibre was the problem, next said the fibre was working it was the power supply. In the end he got a manager and he was astonished with all the problems created, he gave a credit before he walked out the door and spent over an hour fixing everything all the previous techs broke.

I don't have much hope for any fibre at Virgin, not if the crews couldn't find that the fibre wasn't plugged in and caused more issues then there were to start with.
Tell me its not common sense to check a cable is plugged in. I thought it was normal to check things were connected.

The guy I spoke to said its RFOG "FTTP" deployment, words I didn't want to hear, I made it clear to him that if its the case, I will make sure that I and the neighbours leave for openreach FTTP. They already want to leave them because of faults, this has just scaled the deal as far as I see it.
But yeah its all broadband everything over coax. Virgin already use IPTV with their new TV box, its internet based, they even offered me one for free. Don't see why they need coax at all, seems to cause more problems.

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

Virgin already use IPTV with their new TV box, its internet based, they even offered me one for free.

They must be struggling with trying to provide a set of national products, whilst having different street infrastructure. My friends just left VM completely for freesat and streaming over FTTC due the TV6 box being upgraded to instead of recording what you select on the planner (as per Sky+ decades ago); to being a marker that sends you into the app for the broadcaster. In some cases the programme is not actually available. Why Virgin have done this is unclear, especially over legacy coax.

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Perhaps he was referring to TV services while VMO2 get an IPTV offering mature? That could work.

The guy I spoke to said its RFOG "FTTP" deployment, words I didn't want to hear, I made it clear to him that if its the case, I will make sure that I and the neighbours leave for openreach FTTP. They already want to leave them because of faults, this has just scaled the deal as far as I see it.

You wouldn't have come across well with that. Just doing his job and electing yourself broadband purchaser for the neighbourhood gives a bad impression. However much you stamp your feet they can't get the hardware they need into the country faster.

You're evidently a special case where they're using the RFoG to resolve noise, HFC actives issues and capacity issues. You mentioned faults and one of those would have been noise.

I suppose it makes sense as they've taken care of getting the fibre to a property getting into onto RFoG but must be pretty desperate to be overlaying and installing the ONUs already. Can use a pass through on them to get XGSPON to another ONU, which is nice.

Every day is a school day. Thanks for the education.

mine is RFoG and its no better than my friends down the road on Coax for gaming in fact he gets a slightly less ping than me. Virgin is rubbish for gaming period and you can't polish a t*rd..

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

You wouldn't have come across well with that. Just doing his job and electing yourself broadband purchaser for the neighbourhood gives a bad impression. However much you stamp your feet they can't get the hardware they need into the country faster.

You say it gives a bad impression, all those served by the Virgin cab area, directly contact me when there is a fault to check if its localised or area.
They also ask me for advice on what to get, either by price (which is not often a problem since the average contract price for those around here is over £55, or needs I know I am on the cheapest package in the street, both of those directly next to me are on £100+ one with BT the other with Virgin.
I am on £29 for M500, there's a reason they get me to renegotiate.

We had a discussion as a street recently and came to the conclusion that the best thing we could all do is go for FTTP with either netnomia (being built at the min) and Openreach, we also said that a few of us should migrate to openreach around the same time so if there is an area fault it is quicker to isolate instead of one person on the PON. I know those both sides of me said they would as the contracts end right around the time of build completion.


As a street we also have a website (login and access has to be granted by the IT guy down the street) which has all sorts of info that I have nothing to do with, but the basic idea is it advises which households have which ISP so if there is an outage they can post on our dedicated forum to find out more, that and they can post links to third party forums e.g. Virgin Media community so we can troubleshoot on there with the ticket.

I did openly say to the engineer, If FTTP is available and I am in contract I will take it as it might help a bit but was very insistent that long term for my to stay there should be an ONT indoors with an ethernet port or the option to use your own SFP router. To be honest he did agree with what I said, and even said his colleagues were so fed up in the lockdown with Virgin Media they have all left the team for openreach and Cityfibre. He is one of the five engineers I know and see regularly. (He is the most experienced one who knows what he's talking about, the others just look at me when i talk about the network faults like if its not their problem.

He said they were fed up with congestion issues and management not listening on solutions (money).
He said he's still annoyed as everything he does is pointless, since the core network is the majority of the problem.
I know he said not to repeat this, but even the techs are leaving their jobs because of the spend no money culture, causing the staff get abused by customers.

The management are so distanced they have no clue what their employees even have to deal with, if they realised how much money could be saved by not needing to send engineers to my house 10 times a month then they might make a profit. (obviously not every month but last year it was at least 12 techs in January)

I mean how much money would be saved if they invested in the first place, its like the guy was saying to me, my area doesn't support HUB 5's but he keeps having to do hub swaps because they fail after 24 hours when the system kicks them off.

He said this is agents not doing their job properly checking the availability system forcing orders.

The core network isn't the cause of the majority of problems, it's the access network that they are replacing. Amplifiers are passed their useful age and noise ingress can't be managed.

Apart from transit and peering going weird periodically, not managed by VMO2, everything else is fine.

Not aware of any particular staff turnover, a bunch of the older players lost staff as newer ones splashed the cash but that was across the board.

I won't comment on the rest as I wouldn't dream of slagging off my employer to customers, super unprofessional, and while word of mouth is of course important and neighbours talk having a street website with forum and knowledge base to log and track tickets with ISPs is weird.

In reply to a post by lockyatlrg:

mine is RFoG and its no better than my friends down the road on Coax for gaming in fact he gets a slightly less ping than me. Virgin is rubbish for gaming period and you can't polish a t*rd..

You were a new build not Mustang.

Are you sure everything you post is true? It just smells a bit off to me - 12 techs in a month is three a week. And are you sure that everybody in a VM cabinet area comes to you and you negotiate the contract on their behalf? Or is it maybe the case that you speak to a handful of people and you're exaggerating slightly?

The issues can be discussed and the gist of what you're saying is accurate but it gets slightly into "uncle works at Nintendo" territory sometimes.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

talk having a street website with forum and knowledge base to log and track tickets with ISPs is weird.

In all fairness I only suggested a shared space to a few of them, a place to upload screenshots with evidence that its affecting a few of us not just one person. The person who made it took the words a shared space and turned it into a website.

Put it this way I m not complaining it was only done in the first place because we had a massive area fault lasting over a month and we all wanted to collate and share evidence to use it against them with CIAS. (more on this in my next post)
In all fairness it worked and we all got compensation for the months of issues.

I was just gonna ask them to send it over whatsapp or email me proof that it wasn't just me having an fault. I honestly didn't expect to get a whatsapp message going, here is the new website you asked for. I was a bit surprised with that one.

Screenshot of part of site
I would show more but It's a bit risky as there is personal info so I'm not going any further than the about page. That and the copyright so I'm not willing to do that.

After the fault was fixed we sort of forgot about it. I know I did, I only remembered it because I had booked marked it in an obscure bookmark folder that I happen to go in this week as my chrome bookmarks stopped syncing correctly and duplicated.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Are you sure everything you post is true? It just smells a bit off to me - 12 techs in a month is three a week. And are you sure that everybody in a VM cabinet area comes to you and you negotiate the contract on their behalf? Or is it maybe the case that you speak to a handful of people and you're exaggerating slightly?

The issues can be discussed and the gist of what you're saying is accurate but it gets slightly into "uncle works at Nintendo" territory sometimes.

Well I never said there weren't any two man crews.
I have had three two man crews in January 2021 most of which kelleys. the ones after came to fix what the kellys broke.
I will list why
1st came to replace outdoor cable
2nd replaced router
3rd replaced indoor cable and ordered a new RG11 from the cab.
4th and 5th kellys came to do an "assessment" for a cable pull
6th and 7th then did a cable pull
8th and 9th another Kelly crew then came to adjust the signal levels
10th the signal levels were still well out of spec so another crew VM guy came to deal with that.
11th router burnt out
12th slow speeds so an angry manager came asking me what the problem was, (congestion and slow speed)

I will admit this did drag slightly over into February but it happened and the moment the problem came back (basically every day) I was on the phone (even if it was for hours) booking the next tech, in a polite way, it is not acceptable to leave me with sub 10Mbps speeds in the evening when I am on a 100Mbps package (at the time)


Well obviously not everyone comes to me to negotiate, but they sure come to me when there's a problem (over whatsapp) and I basically give them a pre written list of things to try and if none of the things work call the ISP. If its Virgin I recommend they mention ofcom (if its a relevant issue)

It's worth noting that my VM cab only serves one road in my area, the rest is openreach only for a KM down the road. The area only has 18 houses so its hardly anyone.

Like you said about the amps and access network issues, however much I know they are an issue locally, I am also conscious that the data centre I am connected to also has issues, a friend who lives in another town locally who lives next to the VM data centre had issues at the exact time as I had the sub 10Mbps issue, virgin eventually admitted that they didn't know there was a core network failure at the papworth data centre but they did fix it.

I know I do exaggerate at times but I wasn't when it came to the "how many electricians does it take to change a lightbulb" analogy.
I best leave it there, but as a whole all has been good in the last month since I got given a HUB 4.