Virgin Media problems

Hi,

I’m trying to get our Virgin Media contract terminated - there is a severe latency problem and the reliability of the service. I have Autism, so am struggling because I am unable to play the video games I like and also a lot of the time I struggling to be able to access other content.

We’ve tried complaining to the executive team (using the lutz.schueler email address accessible online) but with no result. There is Openreach FTTP (that could theoretically be installed alongside the VM) but we’d appreciate being able to get out of the contract. We’ve had 3 engineer visits and a cable pull is scheduled for tomorrow but I doubt this will change much/anything.

Does anyone know how to get a deadlock letter from them - it’s been suggested on the VM forums that we send a letter to ask for this to be done (hopefully at least sooner than the 56 days), but I can genuinely see us having to wait the whole 56 days until we can complain to the ombudsman - as VM CS is so poor.

Thanks for any help.

If you have a cable pull scheduled, you really must give them a fair chance to see if the problem is fixed before looking to leave the contract.

Autism might make the personal skills more difficult, but if you want out of the contract and the service remains bad, then cutting the 56 days short is most easily achieved by continuing to put VM on the spot about what they are going to do to the extent that losing you as a customer makes the technical problem go away, but you need to do this without yourself becoming the problem

It also entirely depends on what this severe latency and reliability problem is. If the OP hasn't set up a BQM then now would be the best time to start.

If for example you escalate a complaint to the ombudsman about how you find a 30ms ping unreasonable and the connection issues you are having are on a client connected by Wi-Fi then I would expect them to take no action at all.

Hi,

Have tested on both - the latency issue is present on both WiFi and Ethernet, the ping spikes are somehow worse on Ethernet, reaching 150-200ms. The reliability issues with the connection are meaning that the connection is dropping multiple times a day. To be honest, I have no idea why the cable pull is happening (or even if it’s just the current cable being rerouted) - as the engineer came across as not knowing what he was doing - checked the cables outside but didn’t seem to do anything with his device.

Latest BQM:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...

There’s another recent BQM that shows significant packet loss at peak times as well - I can share this one if requested.

The stats from the router appear to suggest that the power levels are fine, but there are a lot of Pre and PostRS errors. There’s also a few T3 (errors?) - I’m happy to share these too.

Adding some router logs:











Refresh data
Downstream bonded channels
Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID
1 331000000 5 40 256 qam 25
2 203000000 3.7 40 256 qam 9
3 211000000 4 40 256 qam 10
4 219000000 4 40 256 qam 11
5 227000000 4.3 40 256 qam 12
6 235000000 4.5 40 256 qam 13
7 243000000 4.4 40 256 qam 14
8 251000000 4.6 40 256 qam 15
9 259000000 4.5 40 256 qam 16
10 267000000 4.5 40 256 qam 17
11 275000000 4.6 40 256 qam 18
12 283000000 4.5 40 256 qam 19
13 291000000 4.9 40 256 qam 20
14 299000000 5 40 256 qam 21
15 307000000 5 40 256 qam 22
16 315000000 5.3 40 256 qam 23
17 323000000 4.6 40 256 qam 24
18 339000000 5 38 256 qam 26
19 347000000 4.5 40 256 qam 27
20 355000000 4.9 40 256 qam 28
21 363000000 4.4 38 256 qam 29
22 371000000 4.6 40 256 qam 30
23 379000000 4.5 40 256 qam 31
24 387000000 4 40 256 qam 32


Downstream bonded channels
Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors
1 Locked 40.9 11579 3714
2 Locked 40.3 13511 9379
3 Locked 40.3 13127 7836
4 Locked 40.3 12583 6715
5 Locked 40.3 11138 5968
6 Locked 40.3 10340 5707
7 Locked 40.3 11157 5902
8 Locked 40.3 12028 6450
9 Locked 40.3 11667 5972
10 Locked 40.3 11710 6645
11 Locked 40.3 10876 6199
12 Locked 40.3 11849 6584
13 Locked 40.9 10780 5758
14 Locked 40.3 10276 5103
15 Locked 40.9 6209 4136
16 Locked 40.9 10003 3789
17 Locked 40.3 10784 3725
18 Locked 38.9 10603 2830
19 Locked 40.9 11699 2983
20 Locked 40.3 12353 2595
21 Locked 38.9 12555 2623
22 Locked 40.3 12259 2412
23 Locked 40.3 12035 2313
24 Locked 40.3 10677 2126

Upstream bonded channels
Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID
1 36600000 41.5 5120 64 qam 3
2 23600000 41 5120 64 qam 5
3 30100000 40.5 5120 64 qam 4
4 43100000 42 5120 64 qam 2
5 49600151 43.5 5120 64 qam 1


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

Network Log
Time Priority Description
15/04/2024 12:43:30 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
15/04/2024 12:43:14 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
15/04/2024 10:29:14 critical No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/04/2024 17:44:34 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/04/2024 17:30:26 critical No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/04/2024 12:43:32 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/04/2024 12:17:23 critical No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/04/2024 05:19:59 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/04/2024 03:38:31 critical No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 20:58:12 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 18:41:2 critical No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 15:23:39 notice LAN login Success;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 12:47:56 critical No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 12:36:50 critical Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 12:34:18 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 12:34:18 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 12:34:18 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 12:34:17 Warning! RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 12:34:16 critical SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/04/2024 12:33:22 critical Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=c0:05:c2:10:e0:c3;CMTS-MAC=00:a2:89:d0:e9:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

In reply to a post by RT123:

Hi,

Have tested on both - the latency issue is present on both WiFi and Ethernet, the ping spikes are somehow worse on Ethernet, reaching 150-200ms. The reliability issues with the connection are meaning that the connection is dropping multiple times a day. To be honest, I have no idea why the cable pull is happening (or even if it’s just the current cable being rerouted) - as the engineer came across as not knowing what he was doing - checked the cables outside but didn’t seem to do anything with his device.

Latest BQM:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...

There’s another recent BQM that shows significant packet loss at peak times as well - I can share this one if requested.

The stats from the router appear to suggest that the power levels are fine, but there are a lot of Pre and PostRS errors. There’s also a few T3 (errors?) - I’m happy to share these too.

Just wanted to ask, are you running a ping monitor from an endpoint onsite as well?

If not, try ping info view by NirSoft
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/multiple_ping_tool.html

It's a personal favourite of mine, while a little old, it does the trick in commercial settings.
You can add a list of IPs so I personally add the router, / firewall, if you have a dedicated Wi-Fi system those individual IP addresses, google.com, 8.8.8.8, 1.1.1.1, and a few other sites and if you see spikes in there it generally means there is something funny going on, to be honest, your graph looks like what mine did on a good day when I used to have VM, I left because of congestion which caused more severe issues.

Do you by any chance happen to have a spare router / firewall kicking about, It might be worth putting the HUB in bridge mode to see how the stats look, its worth noting that your DHCP assigned IP from VM will change as most of their IPs don't change due to their routers being "sticky" and reassign the same dynamic.

Those spikes look like SamKnows spikes to me to be honest which would be caused by low usage or a incorrect parameter on Virgin's SamKnows settings.

Thanks for your reply.

I'm a home user - definitely don't have any routers around although I could get one if you think it would help things.

I downloaded PingInfoView - I tried pinging google.com, as well as the DNS servers you mentioned and the pings are very inconsistent - with some spikes as well. I can see that the highest spike was around 270ms.

I'm a bit confused about the SamKnows bit - I know VM use this for some of their testing but don't understand how this would impact the BQM

Edited by RT123 (Mon 15-Apr-24 18:07:40)

In reply to a post by RT123:

Hi,

Have tested on both - the latency issue is present on both WiFi and Ethernet, the ping spikes are somehow worse on Ethernet, reaching 150-200ms. The reliability issues with the connection are meaning that the connection is dropping multiple times a day. To be honest, I have no idea why the cable pull is happening (or even if it’s just the current cable being rerouted) - as the engineer came across as not knowing what he was doing - checked the cables outside but didn’t seem to do anything with his device.

Latest BQM:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...

There’s another recent BQM that shows significant packet loss at peak times as well - I can share this one if requested.

The stats from the router appear to suggest that the power levels are fine, but there are a lot of Pre and PostRS errors. There’s also a few T3 (errors?) - I’m happy to share these too.

I dont think thats particularly bad for a cable broadband graph, I have seen worse graphs, some far worse.

Of course you are a gamer, and gamers can be extremely sensitive to deviation.

I would be surprise if it gets significantly improved, but I echo the others, that now you have a plan with VM to try and remedy it, you have to let that plan go through its motions. After that if you not happy see what you can do about exiting, but contracts are contracts so you might have to grit teeth and pay for two connections for a while. VM dont have an SLA assuring top tier latency.

Thanks.

I think the latency issue is just a VM network issue and could be made worse by the Hub3 - but not holding out much hope for the stability issue being resolved either. (They are useless)

The CS has been awful - second and third engineer visits (had the same useless tech as the first one) had to be arranged through X - so I think I will probably have to pay for the OR connection and hope for the best.

Just before the tech visit this afternoon, there was a call from VM - the executive team finally responded! They insisted the CP would fix things, but said that if it didn't they would waive the ETF. However, the complaint is now marked as "resolved" with the result being along the lines of "internal feedback given"

As I thought, the engineer this afternoon confirmed the fault was not in fact with the cables. He replaced the Hub3 with a Hub5.

Any suggestions on what I can do at this point? The issue remains unresolved and I am unable to reopen it!

Thanks.