Why do VC FUP their upload speeds?

Virgin Cable seems like a good idea. Like a kind of FTTH thing. But why do they cripple the upload speeds so much? Is there something in the technology that means they have to slow peoples uploads to get better download speeds? I'm not sure I understand.

Capacity on the upstream is quite limited as the networks were originally built for delivering cable TV and still have some of that heritage left over.

This will change as Virgin continue to evolve their network more towards broadband delivery.

Cable is a shared copper medium between several homes, as it was originally designed to operate like a shared antenna system - exactly the same way as one TV aerial used for multiple houses in a neighbourhood. In some areas, the split is very good (around 25 houses sharing one copper medium), in the worst cases, it's awful (over 1,000 houses sharing one copper medium).

That shared copper medium has (in current standards) around 80 MHz of spectrum reserved for data from the houses to the cable company, and around 900 MHz of spectrum reserved for data from the cable company to the houses. Granted, TV comes out of the 900 MHz of spectrum that's reserved for downstream, but that's still more than a 10:1 disparity between spectrum for upload and spectrum for download.

Plus, because all the download is originated at the same physical point on the cable, it's easier technically to use high bit rate modulations. Download peaks at a bit over 6 bits/s/Hz, whereas upstream is limited to around 4 bits/s/Hz. So, if VM got rid of TV completely, they could run around 5.5 Gbit/s split among all houses on a single medium downstream, but only 320 Mbit/s upstream.

Now, TV does take a bite out of downstream, so there's no way for VM to run that fast downstream today, but this means that in the best areas, they've got around 200M down, 12M up per house. In the worst areas, it's more like 5M down, 300k up per house; because this is shared dynamically, you can "borrow" from your neighbours to the limits of the available spectrum, and can thus get the full 152M even in the worst areas, just not when your neighbours are also trying to make heavy use of their connection.

VM thus have to manage things on the basis of expected congestion in a neighbourhood; while 1,000M down, 100M up is a great headline speed, in the best areas, VM would only need 4 customers saturating upload before they saw a slowdown, while 5 customers could saturate down before they saw a slowdown. 150M down, 15M up is lower contention, and thus you're less likely to see congestion effects (the nature of contention is such that 10000:100 contention is less visible than 100:1 contention, despite the ratios being the same).

interesting post, so it seems it comes down to a bit more than if in a student area or not then but rather luck of the draw on the network build in the particular area.

My question is why dont VM make all areas equal in terms of # of properties per shared cable, but I guess the answer to that is ££££.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

interesting post, so it seems it comes down to a bit more than if in a student area or not then but rather luck of the draw on the network build in the particular area.

My question is why dont VM make all areas equal in terms of # of properties per shared cable, but I guess the answer to that is ££££.

I believe VM have improved the split ratio as part of the DOCSIS 3.0 rollout, by exploiting the increased density of modern kit to fit multiple head ends into one active cab.

In the end, though, decreasing the share ratio is expensive - new fibre, more power, more cooling, possibly more active cabs out there (VM also have passive cabs, so that they can run a thick coax to a passive cab, and split it into per-household coax at a cabinet). Same sort of thing as GPON - yes, you could do home run fibre for everyone, but it's cheaper to run one fibre to a shared point and split it, and decreasing the split ratio costs money.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

My question is why dont VM make all areas equal in terms of # of properties per shared cable, but I guess the answer to that is ££££.

It's also worth remembering the basic economics of the telecoms business; a telco converts very large sums of capex into ongoing revenue streams. There's no point spending money in an area if it won't increase your revenue streams by enough to pay for the capex.

Thus, in areas where the split is awful, VM will only fix it if they think they'll make more money with a smaller split ratio than with the current large split; in turn, that depends on competition etc.

Thanks for the post farnz. Very insightful.

The only thing that really lets VM cable down is the FUP on upload speeds. If they didnt have those slowdown policy's then they would be a genuine alternative to BT based technologies.

If there is a gamer who streams content to twitch.tv he's not able to do that because of the restrictions placed on him (maybe they could introduce a gamers package?).

If there wasnt the uploaded FUP's in effect then as I say VM would be competing for DSL traffic on an even field.

I think in the next few years VM need to make some bold moves in either expanding their network reach and/or capacity, and removing the FUP effecting uploads in particular, or they are going to be slowly drifting behind.

I think its good for all companies, and especially consumers, to have competition so I'd hate to see VM drift in to the slow lane and not be able to maintain itself.

of course, they will do what they can get away with.

Cheaper for them to give complainers a discount than to do the split.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

of course, they will do what they can get away with.

Cheaper for them to give complainers a discount than to do the split.

Just like any telco. When splitting a node is going to cost you £30,000, get you £100/month in new business, and let you avoid £40/month in discounts to the affected parties, it's simply not worth doing; you're only looking at £150/month to pay it back with, or around 16 years.

FTTC partly escapes this calculation by reducing the cost of future G.fast (and eventually FTTP) deployment; you do 80% of the work of a full FTTP solution, pay 20% of the cost, get something you can sell now, and you can spend the other 80% of the cost later to go FTTP.

is amazing how things have changed.

It used to be VM could always outdo BT at speeds, and they only need flick a switch to roll out new configs to bump them up, but flip side heavily congested.

Now is new copper technologies vdsl2 is rolled out with g.fast planned, BT are now looking for the first time in ages to possibly be in a few years ahead at mass market speeds whilst having nowhere near the same amount of long term congestion issues.

Edited by Chrysalis (Mon 02-Feb-15 16:54:25)

If they decide to VM will be at 600Mb by 2016. There is a near unprecedented level of investment going into the network over the next 3 years precisely to ensure their lead.

Congestion isn't as widespread as forums make it appear and many of the issues seen will disappear pretty much overnight when new channels are deployed, which will in turn give VM more time to continue the network investment which will reduce nodal area sizes.

As Farnz alluded to some existing nodes could, by swapping out the node itself and deploying more fibre, be broken down into 4 nodes, however with the appetite for bandwidth ever-increasing even this isn't enough and on an ongoing basis VM have been having to push fibre deeper into the access network.

There is also a bit of a spike as getting those additional channels deployed can be problematic but the results are already being seen - congestion has been relieved in a few areas via going from 8 to 12 downstreams.

As far as upstream goes this is a focus, though not as much as downstream. The major issue here is that some areas are on an original DOCSIS subsplit still. However the same investment programme I mentioned will resolve these restrictions, improve return path performance, and permit a quadrupling and more of upstream capacity per cable modem through a combination of additional channels, higher order modulations and node splits.

VM's userbase is, on average, eating a fair chunk of bandwidth. VM are doing alright to confine the congestion to <3% of customers, though the aim is of course to get that down to 0%.

yeah to be fair I have not been a VM customer since the takeover, so I have no experience of VM under this new ownership.

But of course on the flipside my comments regarding congestion I can only speak from my own personal experience.

But from what you said it does sound like the investment in their network is much higher post takeover than pre takeover.

Does going to 12 downstreams require new modem hardware? My Superhub shows 8 downstream in use (it went up from 4 about 18 months ago) and room for no more. Just lately evening speeds have been no better than 50 Mbit on my 100 Mbit connection. In the day time there is no problem getting max speed so I guess it must be congestion.

Nah. 8 channel modems are load balanced across the 12 channels.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

If they decide to VM will be at 600Mb by 2016. There is a near unprecedented level of investment going into the network over the next 3 years precisely to ensure their lead.

Congestion isn't as widespread as forums make it appear and many of the issues seen will disappear pretty much overnight when new channels are deployed, which will in turn give VM more time to continue the network investment which will reduce nodal area sizes.

Well, 600mbps sounds like a load of........ as far as the congestion issues go, It is as bad as the forums say because the forums are showing posts from customers complaining about congestion, my areas has had lots of new downstream channels added, my SH has had a whole new bunch of them but still issues, and investment over the next 3 years is too late... They should of been doing it continuously to prevent the issues customers are faced with.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

VM's userbase is, on average, eating a fair chunk of bandwidth. VM are doing alright to confine the congestion to <3% of customers, though the aim is of course to get that down to 0%.

3% and these figure come from where exactly? about 3% of the city I live in is actually getting steady speeds above 100Mb/s at all times of day, and I know of a big chunk of Birmingham suffering terribly to and has done for years, also Dudley's ongoing issues.... That's more than 3% right there.. It must be... and I know there's more areas also suffering

I know how you feel, it may be a small % assuming ignition's info is accurate, but it doesnt mean its a small problem as those in that % are probably suffering congestion long term as it always seems to be the same areas.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

3% and these figure come from where exactly? about 3% of the city I live in is actually getting steady speeds above 100Mb/s at all times of day, and I know of a big chunk of Birmingham suffering terribly to and has done for years, also Dudley's ongoing issues.... That's more than 3% right there.. It must be... and I know there's more areas also suffering

The figures come from VM's own, which I take more seriously than anecdotal evidence on forums.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I know how you feel, it may be a small % assuming ignition's info is accurate, but it doesnt mean its a small problem as those in that % are probably suffering congestion long term as it always seems to be the same areas.

I know that, but it's just impossible for the figure to be that small considering Virgin's footprint in the UK compared to the utilization issues "They have admitted too"

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

The figures come from VM's own, which I take more seriously than anecdotal evidence on forums.

So what says that Virgin's figures are correct also what's to say they aren't biased... wouldn't make sense to advertise your own product as "rubbish" now would it?

GOV need to step in a get some "proper" regulations on Telecoms ASAP... It's starting to get out of hand....

PS. I heard a rumor that Liberty Global where going to sell!

Maybe explains why they are offering unbeatable and amazing offers to new customers.... Make the books look good for the big sale day.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

So what says that Virgin's figures are correct also what's to say they aren't biased... wouldn't make sense to advertise your own product as "rubbish" now would it?

I'm not entirely convinced their own internal figures would be biased in order to advertise the product to their engineering staff.

Believe what you will.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

I'm not entirely convinced their own internal figures would be biased in order to advertise the product to their engineering staff.

Believe what you will.

Now I wasn't aware that you worked for Vrgin Media!

If what your saying regarding the 3% is true, what does it include?

By that I mean, what percentage of utilisation on a UBR is classed as over-utilised?

I know from what Virgin Forum Staff have said the level at which utilisation is considered over-utilised is pretty high, so maybe this is my mistake as most utilisation related issues arn't yet considered over-utilised!

that is a good question actually.

Do VM only count areas that have breached their utilisation threshold as congested, or they do count all areas where customers are reporting congestion but may not have breached VM's threshold?

When I was on VM, their utilisation threshold was basically a **** take.

Of course if the 3% of some 4 million customers is a lot of people and if just 1% of those are vocal online it can easily look like a massive problem.

We did see VM speeds dip from the summer onwards, but they seem to have recovered. Why no massive shouting from us, because you cannot be 100% sure it is congestion based without spending a few weeks analysing the patterns and verifying data.

The dip was just getting to the point where we would have taken that time, but then we started to see a recovery.

3% 4m is 120k

I would still say more are affected by utilisation issues, though they may not be classified as utilisation issues "yet" due to the stupidly high thresholds...

The results you receive are from the speed checker and that is not as popular as you might hope, where Ookla is widely known... Also Virgin Media technical department don't even know who TBB are or even that it has a speed checker.

I was going to recommend it to customers who I'm currently in contact with to monitor not just HTTP x6 but also x1 but I noticed these results aren't available to those who aren't subscribed to the website.

Both versions are available to anonymous users

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/speedtest2.html the flash for those that still dare keep flash installed.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html

Utilisation issues should still be visible on the HTTPx6 tests particularly if getting to the point of people noticing.

As for Virgin Media not being aware of who we are, then obviously I have not have the various conversations of the last few months and previous years with them.

NOTE: You CANNOT rely on Ookla NetIndex to give you speeds for towns in the UK, it is seriously broken, they even only can claim three providers with results in Crawley and Dorking has none.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Both versions are available to anonymous users

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/speedtest2.html the flash for those that still dare keep flash installed.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html

My apologies your right!

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Utilisation issues should still be visible on the HTTPx6 tests particularly if getting to the point of people noticing.

Yes they are visible at the worst times of day but if the HTTP x1 test is low throughout the day even when HTTPx6 is or high or can even acheive the full speed advertised..

I just got http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14230...
and you will notice that the HTTPx1 is low.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

As for Virgin Media not being aware of who we are, then obviously I have not have the various conversations of the last few months and previous years with them.

I'm not saying they don't know who you are, I know that the staff who know what they are doing, know who TBB is, I'm saying the Technical Support (via the phone) don't know who you are and are not recommending your test to customers with issue, they tell them to test on speedtest.net

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

NOTE: You CANNOT rely on Ookla NetIndex to give you speeds for towns in the UK, it is seriously broken, they even only can claim three providers with results in Crawley and Dorking has none.

I didn't say it could be, and agree that it is a bit off, I was just pointing out that very few people understand broadband and even now I have many customers in Crawley telling me their broadband is fine and then when they test and get 20mbps of their 100mbps service they're stumped.

I will be recommending your speedtest to Crawley customers using the local social network Streetlife, so hopefully some will do a test and even input their postcode so it can be mapped.

I feel this could benefit us both as I will get results to see if anything is improving or if customers are being taken for a joyride and you can expand your results for Crawley and maybe beyond.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

I'm not saying they don't know who you are, I know that the staff who know what they are doing, know who TBB is, I'm saying the Technical Support (via the phone) don't know who you are and are not recommending your test to customers with issue, they tell them to test on speedtest.net

Virgin host Ookla test servers on their network, nothing more to this point than that.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Virgin host Ookla test servers on their network, nothing more to this point than that.

Your point being?

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Now I wasn't aware that you worked for Vrgin Media!

If what your saying regarding the 3% is true, what does it include?

By that I mean, what percentage of utilisation on a UBR is classed as over-utilised?

I know from what Virgin Forum Staff have said the level at which utilisation is considered over-utilised is pretty high, so maybe this is my mistake as most utilisation related issues arn't yet considered over-utilised!

I don't work for Virgin Media, I am a former staffer of one of its constituent companies.

The 3% is the number of ports that have reached the planning thresholds.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that 'most' utilisation related issues aren't yet considered over-utilised. You describe yourself as a perfection junkie which frames your opinion. A loss of speed over peak period is normal on broadband networks, no customer on a mass market ISP in the UK is paying enough to assure line rate all the time.

A quick look at the VM forums actually suggests that most of the issues raised there either already have plans in place for capacity relief or are at thresholds. I'm aware you can't post there as both the accounts you used have met the ban hammer but you should be able to both read and search posts okay.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Virgin host Ookla test servers on their network, nothing more to this point than that.

Your point being?

Should be obvious. It eliminates the possibility of results being affected by 3rd party issues, such as connectivity problems to external speed tests or issues with those speed tests.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Of course if the 3% of some 4 million customers is a lot of people and if just 1% of those are vocal online it can easily look like a massive problem.

We did see VM speeds dip from the summer onwards, but they seem to have recovered. Why no massive shouting from us, because you cannot be 100% sure it is congestion based without spending a few weeks analysing the patterns and verifying data.

The dip was just getting to the point where we would have taken that time, but then we started to see a recovery.

The dip and recovery would make sense - VM have been very busy in the background on what are, as I mentioned earlier, programmes that take a while before their impact is seen.

Replacing a CMTS isn't a rapid exercise even if there are no issues, splitting nodes much the same if there's no spare fibres and it's an easy split of an existing multi-output node.

The growth of utilisation was also considerably faster than expected which is more of a problem for VM than it generally is for BT Wholesale as the upgrade process is more protracted so being late starting means a considerable drag time.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

You describe yourself as a perfection junkie which frames your opinion. A loss of speed over peak period is normal on broadband networks, no customer on a mass market ISP in the UK is paying enough to assure line rate all the time.

Customers and myself aren't asking for an assured rate, specially at peak times of day, however going from 150Mb/s to 5Mb/s is simply unacceptable!

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

A quick look at the VM forums actually suggests that most of the issues raised there either already have plans in place for capacity relief or are at thresholds.

Plans are no good, actions are what makes a difference and my area has had "plans" in place for nearly 12 months (*for this fault) and were about to be delayed again for the 4/5th time!

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

I'm aware you can't post there as both the accounts you used have met the ban hammer

Yes that's right, my account was closed a year or two ago and my fathers was closed recently because they thought it was me and then when confronted by my father where corrected that it was actually him but I was supplying information on his behalf...

Still not quiet sure why I/He was banned... maybe because I highlighted an issues that they don't know about or are not at liberty to disclose to the public...

I've since got a direct point of contact regarding the issues and have a manager visiting tomorrow morning.

Just shows how close you are with Virgin Media considering a ban is not made public and the last post I posted was confirming that I would no longer discuss the issues with anyone else other then Virgin Media employee's at least a week before the ban was put into action...

The ban might of been put in place when a journalist started contacting them regarding the issues.. It was 24 hours after she submitted information to Virgin for info about issues and why customers where being "screwed" over

Either way the issues has now been highlighted locally and the customers are fighting back.....

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Virgin host Ookla test servers on their network, nothing more to this point than that.

Your point being?

Should be obvious. It eliminates the possibility of results being affected by 3rd party issues, such as connectivity problems to external speed tests or issues with those speed tests.

Whats to say Virgin's servers are more reliable than others... I tend to use Leicester Rapidswitch... very consistent testing.... funny how it shows better results than the one's in Croydon and Brentford and my connection is routed through both of them!

if the server is on the core Virgin Media network then it can help to identify external issues and peering congestion has been an issue for Virgin Media at various times. As we run our own large network we can tweak routing and prove issues like certain links being congested, but that is expensive in terms of our time, i.e. same reason you do not get to speak to a core network geek at Virgin when phoning up as a consumer usually.

Also the ookla algorithm tends to give a more peak figure, and some servers and the mobile app appears configured to give a peak rather than an average result, i.e. it can vary from server to service with no visibility to the end-user as to which it is.

Nothing stopping Virgin Media from hosting our locked down speed test appliances if that is what they want, one of various options that providers can discuss with us.

As for the support people, if its the front line phone people then I do not expect them to know every nuance, if you look at what they are paid it is only enough to ensure they follow the scripts and fault finding as permitted by call centre manager.

I've said it before on here. I got VM P&B last August and I should have done it years ago. I came from a flaky 7Mb ADSL connection to 161Mb up, 12Mb down in less than an hour. Sure its been off a couple of times but it comes back on after a hour or so back to full speed. On ADSL I couldn't get a connection for more than 24hrs without a drop.

H

This is result from automatic testing over the last few months...

http://tinypic.com/r/2i07io9/8

In December things got better... and then they dived at the beginning of the year

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Yes that's right, my account was closed a year or two ago and my fathers was closed recently because they thought it was me and then when confronted by my father where corrected that it was actually him but I was supplying information on his behalf...

Still not quiet sure why I/He was banned... maybe because I highlighted an issues that they don't know about or are not at liberty to disclose to the public...

I've since got a direct point of contact regarding the issues and have a manager visiting tomorrow morning.

Just shows how close you are with Virgin Media considering a ban is not made public and the last post I posted was confirming that I would no longer discuss the issues with anyone else other then Virgin Media employee's at least a week before the ban was put into action...

The ban might of been put in place when a journalist started contacting them regarding the issues.. It was 24 hours after she submitted information to Virgin for info about issues and why customers where being "screwed" over

Either way the issues has now been highlighted locally and the customers are fighting back.....

I agree with you regarding the performance of 5Mb being unacceptable. As do people in Virgin which is why, as I mentioned, they pushed back and resisted the temptation to push the network harder without spending a lot of money upgrading it prior to the next uplift.

Plans are just that and can go wrong. Virgin's capacity planning turned out to be insufficient for demand, they weren't the only ones caught by surprise by usage increases.

Your forum ban - you posted here and on Twitter about it, and I'm not convinced you were merely passing your father information.

As a general rule posting on 2 different forums on exactly the same topic with the exact same latency graphs, the two posts paraphrasing one another, within 7 minutes of each other is a pretty good hint that it's the same person. This ignoring that both contain the same grammar mistakes, the English is in general very similar, and that both have the same non-working TBB BQM in the signature.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/virgin_cable/t/4381...
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-152Mb/Why-...

Obviously if it came to it and you carried out your threat of seeking compensation, presumably through the courts, Virgin would have the source IP addresses of all posts from that account and could cross-reference against their DHCP database, which would show both the source cable modem and the source router being used if in modem mode. In addition Virgin could seek the IP addresses you post on TBB from, via a court order before you start thinking TBB will just hand it over, they won't, and cross-reference them with the source IP addresses on their own forum.

Of course if those 2 posts weren't you, and neither were the subsequent ones you've nothing to fear from this.

Edited by deleted (Wed 04-Feb-15 14:10:12)

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Whats to say Virgin's servers are more reliable than others... I tend to use Leicester Rapidswitch... very consistent testing.... funny how it shows better results than the one's in Croydon and Brentford and my connection is routed through both of them!

Basic diagnostics Mr Network - you eliminate as many factors outside of your control from testing as possible. Virgin control the servers and the network between their customers and those servers hence have full visibility of the test end to end apart from the end user's kit.

All this is irrelevant as both me and my father share the same connection.

Anyway, I'm done talking about this now, I just realized I'm wasting my time chatting nonsense about something others can't understand without being affected themselves.... and I'm not talking about the utilization..

I'm obviously making sense to somebody as this matter is being handled in a more professional manner..

My plan was to publicize the problem and get people making demands, I've done that and will continue to also..

Virgin are the only people who can prove me wrong and they are yet to have done that...

This will be my final post on the matter, may no hard feelings come from any of the previous posts as we are both relying on relayed information and the truth is none of us know the truth and those who think they do might of been mislead also..

What I do know is that customer's aren't getting what was/is promised and that is my concern here.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

All this is irrelevant as both me and my father share the same connection.

Anyway, I'm done talking about this now, I just realized I'm wasting my time chatting nonsense about something others can't understand without being affected themselves.... and I'm not talking about the utilization..

I'm obviously making sense to somebody as this matter is being handled in a more professional manner..

My plan was to publicize the problem and get people making demands, I've done that and will continue to also..

Virgin are the only people who can prove me wrong and they are yet to have done that...

This will be my final post on the matter, may no hard feelings come from any of the previous posts as we are both relying on relayed information and the truth is none of us know the truth and those who think they do might of been mislead also..

What I do know is that customer's aren't getting what was/is promised and that is my concern here.

I am indeed surprised at the courtesy VM are giving you given the manner in which you treat their social media team. I guess companies in this social media age really don't like bad publicity. As a general rule telling people to 'do one' and calling them 'useless prats' isn't conducive to a constructive relationship.

You are also extremely presumptuous in thinking that no-one else can understand the issues. I have had issues with VM which were in one case resolved through my leaving and returning to ADSL, and in the other case I involved the local MP and the VM CEO's office. This ignoring my long and distinguished history with Openreach

I'll ask a few questions about Crawley and see what I can find out about why the first round of upgrades were inadequate and what the next steps are.

In reply to a post by bowdon:

Virgin Cable seems like a good idea. Like a kind of FTTH thing. But why do they cripple the upload speeds so much? Is there something in the technology that means they have to slow peoples uploads to get better download speeds? I'm not sure I understand.

Because they are very stingy with their bandwidth allocation across their network. Their network is also a lot more restrictive than a Copper Local Loop despite what people may think.
The restrictions being that every area shares a number of channels and every customer uses a certain number of channels which other customers use as-well. E.g. Upstream; last time I checked these are set at 20Mbps for each channel at Virgin Media and each customer (At least on the 30Mbps package) has two channels allocated to them which are bonded at the router.

These two channels will also be used by dozens of other customers in the area so if too many people swamp the channels, other people will suffer.

But then again the same applies to the downstream except the channels are wider and more are allocated at once.

Then you have the added backhaul contention like you do with the Copper Local Loop system if a provider inadequately provides enough backhaul.

In either case Virgin Media COULD (and really should) increase Upstream Bandwidth allocations for their products which is why I've labelled them "stingy" in regards to it. The network could definitely support a higher upload speed than what they currently use.

12Mbps on a 152Mbps package is absolutely pathetic.

I can't remember the last time I heard someone complain about Upload speed congestion. Plenty complain about Downstream congestion though.

So in conclusion; Because they are very stingy with their product download:upload ratio.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

I'll ask a few questions about Crawley and see what I can find out about why the first round of upgrades were inadequate and what the next steps are.

Questions answered - whole bunch of stuff going on which I'm sure you'll be informed about tomorrow. Capacity being delivered in 2 major ways, both of which need new kit.

Edited by deleted (Wed 04-Feb-15 15:52:37)

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

3% and these figure come from where exactly? about 3% of the city I live in is actually getting steady speeds above 100Mb/s at all times of day, and I know of a big chunk of Birmingham suffering terribly to and has done for years, also Dudley's ongoing issues.... That's more than 3% right there.. It must be... and I know there's more areas also suffering

The issues affecting parts of Dudley and neighbouring areas are partly sorted now. They were delayed by the need to upgrade the environmental control in the head end but nodes are now being split onto the newly installed capacity alongside additional channels being brought online.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

my areas has had lots of new downstream channels added, my SH has had a whole new bunch of them but still issues, and investment over the next 3 years is too late... They should of been doing it continuously to prevent the issues customers are faced with.

Crawley had some nodes split. This is not the same as additional downstream channels though, that's a different upgrade and would show as something different than new channel IDs. Those don't actually mean much in the grand scheme.

Crawley has some quite odd network topology which makes it time consuming and expensive to upgrade it past the current state. It's being done but it does take time. Usage increased more rapidly than forecast and upgrades couldn't be done as quickly as would've been liked.

Edited by deleted (Wed 04-Feb-15 22:51:06)

I'd be interested to know how you run the automatic tests and how you manage to ensure no other use of the connection while the test is running.

can I ask you one question? (sorry two questions)

Why do isp's repeatedly under estimate utilisation increases? I keep hearing the same thing again and again, utilisation catching them out. Its as if they stick to the weird myth that if you increase end user speeds, they wont use more bandwidth, even tho it gets proven wrong time and time again.

Thanks for answering my question regarding what VM count as congestion tho, do you know if they have changed the thresholds since change of ownership, or do they still require extreme utilisation to qualify for a upgrade?

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 05-Feb-15 22:41:19)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

can I ask you one question? (sorry two questions)

Why do isp's repeatedly under estimate utilisation increases? I keep hearing the same thing again and again, utilisation catching them out. Its as if they stick to the weird myth that if you increase end user speeds, they wont use more bandwidth, even tho it gets proven wrong time and time again.

Thanks for answering my question regarding what VM count as congestion tho, do you know if they have changed the thresholds since change of ownership, or do they still require extreme utilisation to qualify for a upgrade?

Sure.

1) It's not the end user speed increases that are the issue, it's the increasing usage of streaming services, alongside increased usage of digital media over physical media that's the issue. I can't go further into detail on the how / where / why than that.

2) VM adopting LGI planning guidelines? Quite the opposite if anything. Those are not the points at which network is considered congested but the points at which it qualifies for escalation for upgrade. Ideally this would never happen but obviously ideal and real are very different.

VM do use Samknows data as well as customer reports and their own KPI utilisation reports to assist with capacity planning. Most of the time the reason there are issues is because of delays in installing new capacity. When a port is escalated there usually were actually already plans to upgrade it, along with many others, as part of a programme that has been delayed.

As mentioned, in the case of Dudley this was due to the environmental control needing upgrade to allow new install of kit. In some other cases it's been things like the hubsite literally having no room left and VM having to build an extension to house more equipment, or rearrange things while trying to minimise disruption.

Things like power needing upgrading, far from trivial, or even vendors having problems with production of equipment and hence it being unavailable for a time can also stall things.

Capacity planning know the status of every port on the network as a general routine. They obviously don't treat the upgrade of every port as an individual project, they will have many projects running consecutively, however a single port can certainly be escalated and have a fault raised against it.

Things have come a very, very long way.

No comfort, of course, to people affected by issues sadly.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Why do isp's repeatedly under estimate utilisation increases?

Because they want to save money, despite getting more from as many customers as they can cram onto their links.

Apart from that it's poor planning. ISPs will make out they have dedicated teams for those kind of faults/upgrades but those teams are not very effective.

Not quite sure on the other question. I do know though that there are some areas around the country, especially Bristol, where congestion is huge (Or was a year or two ago). I've never seen them be very fast when upgrading the capacity of a congested area though.