Virgin Media M100 Area Slow

Hi All,
Virgin Media in my area (31) is awful my whole street is unable to get speeds above 10MBPS in the evening its like going back 10 years and being on ADSL.
Virgin Media tell me that the area is congested and then tell me an engineer is coming which never turns up and they also refused to follow Ofcom speed policies as they owed me money from the engineer that came and smashed a £50 lamp on the floor so would not let me out of contract.
I have contacted CEDR asking to claim back for the amount they owed and they came back and said yeah thats fair enough and then virgin say we will award 0 and they go yeah we will do that I feel like there is some bias there.

Am i the only one who feels like FTTP will be our savour, lucky Clive Selley (Openreach CEO) emailed me last week and told me that full fibre was coming in September 2022 as i am in St Neots and it is a Fibre First town and city.

I know i can get 80Mbps down and 20 UP on VDSL with Openreach as the cab is in view from my front windows, however that's simply too slow and expensive for what it is, especially considering the reason I changed to VM was because I was on ADSL and regardless of the technology the line going to the house needed replacing as it had degraded.
In france you can get 10 gig simetric for €30 a month and here some providers can do £20 for gigabit I know this as i have it with Orange and SFR.

Has anyone got any ideas what I and my area can do to get them to fix the issue as the fix date is simply an excuse for them to ignore complaints at the moment and my VM router is now having issues and signal levels are also out of spec as the last engineer replaced 100M of RG 11 and never celebrated it so I am hanging on 16dBmV Virgin Media seem to be getting more and more rubbish in my area as the guy next door would say.

I know when the contract ends I will be moving to FTTP if its in the area otherwise moving to 4G as there is a mast next to the house so speeds are even quicker than VDSL as my contract ends three months before however I was told by Clive that the date was an overestimate and it is planned this year but he said he wanted to give me a massive overestimate incase they could not deliver if you get what i mean. He basically said he prefers to leave 6-12 over in case of delays which in my area there shouldn't be as all the ducks are clear as FTTP to a village was run in the ducs and an upgrade to the FTTC cabs.


Downstream bonded channels
Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID
1 331000000 15.5 38 256 qam 25
2 267000000 15 38 256 qam 17
3 275000000 15 38 256 qam 18
4 283000000 15.1 38 256 qam 19
5 291000000 15 38 256 qam 20
6 299000000 15.3 38 256 qam 21
7 307000000 15.1 38 256 qam 22
8 315000000 15.1 38 256 qam 23
9 323000000 15.4 38 256 qam 24
10 371000000 14 38 256 qam 26
11 379000000 13.3 38 256 qam 27
12 387000000 13.9 38 256 qam 28
13 395000000 14.4 38 256 qam 29
14 403000000 14.5 40 256 qam 30
15 411000000 14.5 38 256 qam 31
16 419000000 14.5 38 256 qam 32
17 427000000 14.5 38 256 qam 33
18 435000000 14.3 38 256 qam 34
19 443000000 14.5 40 256 qam 35
20 451000000 14.8 38 256 qam 36
21 459000000 14.9 40 256 qam 37
22 467000000 14.6 38 256 qam 38
23 475000000 14.9 38 256 qam 39
24 483000000 15 40 256 qam 40


Downstream bonded channels
Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors
1 Locked 38.9 13 0
2 Locked 38.9 24 0
3 Locked 38.9 50 0
4 Locked 38.9 30 0
5 Locked 38.9 29 0
6 Locked 38.6 24 0
7 Locked 38.9 41 0
8 Locked 38.9 48 0
9 Locked 38.6 37 0
10 Locked 38.9 58 0
11 Locked 38.6 91 0
12 Locked 38.9 51 0
13 Locked 38.9 38 0
14 Locked 40.3 32 0
15 Locked 38.6 54 0
16 Locked 38.9 40 0
17 Locked 38.9 45 0
18 Locked 38.9 62 0
19 Locked 40.3 39 0
20 Locked 38.6 37 0
21 Locked 40.3 50 0
22 Locked 38.9 38 0
23 Locked 38.9 37 0
24 Locked 40.3 11 0



Upstream bonded channels
Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID
1 46200219 35.5 5120 64 qam 7
2 39400000 34.5 5120 32 qam 8
3 60299989 37 5120 64 qam 5
4 53700152 36.3 5120 64 qam 6


Upstream bonded channels
Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts
1 ATDMA 0 0 0 0
2 ATDMA 0 0 0 0
3 ATDMA 0 0 4 0
4 ATDMA 0 0 1 0



Many Thanks

As you say your power levels are far too high, no wonder the connection is rubbish.

VM Acceptable Range:
-6 to +10 dBmv

Virgin Media need to come out and fix that for you. They should know that, and should have checked this when replacing the coax. If they've upgraded the cable from RG6 then of course the loss will be lower so they need to move tap point or fit an attenuator

Tell me about it I am fed up at dealing with them they are refusing to deal with it they say "there is an area fault causing the issue you have" every time i hear them say that i'm thinking the guy down the street will make one if you don't get on and fix it for us two because its just appalling.

They did both cables and the service they provide is beyond a joke, i currently also have SFR cable (€15 for 500Mbps down 50UP) and the speeds are bang on and never drop I don't see why VM blame anything for no reason because I know when they are lying to my face (basically every time i speak to them) I can't wait to leave them and go for an FTTP operator next year as that will make my life so much easier all being everything working and the FTTP being run to my area, Clive Selley thinks it will be here in September 2022 so there is some hope.

VM are going to lose the whole of my locality thats for sure with the high prices and con artists working there I knew when i was on TalkTalk ADSL 2 it was slow but virgin media is slower and has been for months, all for the best provider for speed in the UK more like the quickest for symmetric ADSL speeds on cable.

Streaming is a thing of the past at the moment loading any site is an ask and my samknows whitebox shows it at 0.5Mbps in the evening. A congested mess that's what the streets whatsapp group says.

I love how you say "they should know that" because they are like the problem will go away once we deal with an issue that's been "delayed" for months more like they can't be bothered to connect the fibre in the Node i had a look and its literally sitting there disconnected and some strands cut. (Virgin say there is no issue all looks good).

Anyway no point complaining its not like if they are going to do anything about it, squeeze as much money out of them and don't let them out of contract by Ofcom rules that's the clear policy there.
I know one thing Clive Selley is my savour when he emailed back telling me that my street was getting full fibre by september 2022 you can guess how i felt, all i can get on Openreach is 80 Down 20UP so it's simply too slow to be on especially when i can get that on 4G well it varies which room i am in but still its better than virgin media at times.

Have you got any suggestions to what i could say to them to get them to fix it?

" He basically said he prefers to leave 6-12 over in case of delays which in my area there shouldn't be as all the ducks are clear as FTTP to a village was run in the ducs and an upgrade to the FTTC cabs."

It'll be an issue with the ducks and their constant quacking.

Yeah sorry about that we also have those ducks and some ducts as we have a park opposite its a bit of both

The ducks seem to end up in the ducts when they leave the covers open when they go to the van for a few secs it's quite fun to watch i'm sure you can imagine.

Hi again
Just gone some good news, VM were just in my node and told me that they did not know of the problem however they are upgrading capacity and might be suppling the Gig1 service in my area if they are able to.

They told me it will be upgraded on the 19th and 20th 100% by that particular engineer. He said he did not know of an issue in the area however I can tell you what he said he was doing the problem should be fixed and will bring newer and quicker services for the future if they are doing a full upgrade.

Let's hope it helps with half the issue. then they might let me get an engineer to fix the other issue.

Phone up Virgin Media and don't mention speed, just tell them your connection keeps freezing and not responding (don't mention it's only peak time). Reset the router at some point before phoning (as they know if you've done that, and if you haven't they will just give you the run around). Mention that you've been on the VM forums and someone has checked power levels and they say it high ,then ask them if they check that for you on the call.

You have to act a bit dumb with their support else they seem to do the opposite to what most companies do and try and fob you off even more.

Edited by gary333 (Wed 24-Mar-21 20:46:06)

I'm not going to lie, I tried doing that before and they said to me we can't send engineer as there is an area fault causing the issue.


The virgin media woman on the forum has been helpful and tried to send an engineer but she said the system would not let her as it could not be overwritten. She did book one but then they just did not turn up and i could see the booked appointment on the customer portal, so i feel some of it is true, she told me once the area fault is cleared she will try again and to be fair she has done a lot already to help for example upgrading phone data plan which is great with a phone mast next door.

The thing that confuses me is what you say, I have never heard of a company that does not want help it literally feels like if they are the ones that don't understand.

I can tell you that when i restarted, turned off and on again, reset they still ask you to.

Do you think if i say the router is hissing (which it does under load) and making weird noises and keeps freezing randomly they will listen?

I know they listened the first time when my Hub 3 caught fire they were like let us call you back as we are not sure. 10 mins later the area manager calls and goes an engineer will be outside your house in 30 mins with a new router, so that was good service even amazon cannot beat that.

What i'll do is i will wait till the date the VM Van Man gave me as he was sure it would be done as he said he was checking the fibre had been pulled which it had and in 3 weeks it would be operational so I would rather wait till half the problem is fixed then deal with the other half of the issue if you get me. The main reason for this is because I will be on holiday and contacting virgin media is classed as major works as it is such a waste of time having to reboot all the 40 devices on the network, switches, access points, router, printers, pcs, lights, the list is endless well only what the subnet mast i'm using supports client wise however if required i can use 255.0.0.0 although a bit overkill for average use in a house.

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

if required i can use 255.0.0.0 although a bit overkill for average use in a house.

Remind me again why you would want to use a 255.0.0.0 subnet mask? what IP range are you using with it?

I was just thinking the same thing....a /8 is 16.7 million odd addresses, and only if you're on 10.x.x.x. A /8 it will break 192.168.x.x which is limited to /16.

Hopefully he's learnt the basics about private Ip ranges subnetting at college...or maybe thats next term.