Joining VM reluctantly - couple of questions :)

Hi folks

I've been a long time lurker and checker of info on the site, which has taken me from a frankly disgusting experience with Talk Talk (don't even get me started - had to write to the CEO to get out of that contract) to BT, then to Zen, then to Be and currently to BT Infinity. I've been very happy nearly the whole time thanks to tips and info from this site and these forums, so I'm calling on you now in a time of need

I've been living in fairly central parts of Plymouth for years now, but now my family's grown to another baby, I'm having to move out to the suburbs (Plympton if anyone knows it) to get more space. That means that my broadband supplier options are a lot more limited. I've gotten used to about 7.5 Mbps downloads with my BT Infinity connection and don't want to lose the speed, so VM is my only current option.

I'm a pretty constant but not extreme newsgroup user and I've heard of throttling on their network - any more info on that? Also, how are they for flexibility when installing/neatness etc? And how is the general reliability of VM? I'm not that bothered about the TV side of things and I'd go with Infinity if it was available, so I'd just like to know what I'm in for. Thanks!

When you say 7.5 you mean 7.5 Mega Bytes per second?

Yep, so about a 60 megabit download speed. I should probably add that I'm thinking of signing up for the 100mb VM service.

Edited by deleted (Sat 14-Feb-15 10:50:30)

Experience varies a LOT in my experience. Some people get the speeds they ordered pretty much the whole time. Others speeds' drop to the 20mbps (bits) mark during periods of high use on their nodes eg if there's a lot of very high users on your road/town, expect slower speeds.

Virgin's current traffic management only affects upload speeds. http://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic...

Edited by deleted (Sat 14-Feb-15 11:13:18)

In reply to a post by Pedrostech:

Experience varies a LOT in my experience. Some people get the speeds they ordered pretty much the whole time. Others speeds' drop to the 20mbps (bits) mark during periods of high use on their nodes eg if there's a lot of very high users on your road/town, expect slower speeds.

Virgin's current traffic management only affects upload speeds. http://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic...

Concur with that - I suggest you try to speak with some VM users in your new area.

I'm with VM at present on 100Mb/s and speeds are OK even at peak. I have no problem with streaming, games, browsing or reliability. Whilst download speed tests at peak show 107Mb/s, actual download speeds (single thread) are typically 30Mb/s. The ThinkBroadband speed test is a good measure of this effect.

Note that upload speed is only 6Mb/s on VM 100Mb/s so I guess a lot less than you have now.

Edited by Eeeps (Sat 14-Feb-15 11:28:05)

In reply to a post by Eeeps:

Whilst download speed tests at peak show 107Mb/s, actual download speeds (single thread) are typically 30Mb/s. The ThinkBroadband speed test is a good measure of this effect.

FYI that's something I would consider to be a fault or at least a poor service. I would never recommend an ISP that showed a significant disparity between single and multi-threaded downloads. My own ISP - Plusnet - is having a few issues at the moment but even so this is what I get at peak time:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14227...

The worst I've seen is this:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14223...

Multi-threaded downloading is a bit more efficient but that shouldn't account for more than a couple of percentage points faster. What you have described sounds like an ISP that is protecting its network by throttling on a per-thread basis. A bit like a restaurant operating an 'all you can eat' service then only providing small plates.

Edited by Andrue (Sat 14-Feb-15 19:03:35)

"A bit like a restaurant operating an 'all you can eat' service then only providing small plates. "

Absolutely true at Flavours in Oldbury but if you had a big plate and filled it up to start with then how do you eat the second plateful?

Small plate and many trips to sample many different foods is the better way to go!

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by Eeeps:

Whilst download speed tests at peak show 107Mb/s, actual download speeds (single thread) are typically 30Mb/s. The ThinkBroadband speed test is a good measure of this effect.

FYI that's something I would consider to be a fault or at least a poor service. I would never recommend an ISP that showed a significant disparity between single and multi-threaded downloads. My own ISP - Plusnet - is having a few issues at the moment but even so this is what I get at peak time:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14227...

The worst I've seen is this:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14223...

Multi-threaded downloading is a bit more efficient but that shouldn't account for more than a couple of percentage points faster. What you have described sounds like an ISP that is protecting its network by throttling on a per-thread basis. A bit like a restaurant operating an 'all you can eat' service then only providing small plates.

This is what I get early morning.

This is what I typically get in an evening.

Interestingly, even at peak times the ping jitter stays quite low.

I think VM implement some sort of packet priority scheme on a CPE IP port basis. Low rate packets being prioritised over high rate streams.

I too am also considering the 100 meg service as with the current deal it'll cost the same as my Xilo 20 meg TTB LLU service. There's nothing wrong with my current connection in fact it's been very reliable, but now my kids are using a significant chunk of the bandwidth together with the low upload speed of 0.7 meg, I am tempted.

I can't help thinking I might regret it, goodness knows what the customer service would be like compared to Xilo's which is excellent.

Any comments of reassurance or words of warning?

Edited by deleted (Sun 15-Feb-15 19:59:09)

As I've said before on here, I changed to 152MB Virgin last August, came from a pretty crummy BT 9MB.

Never regret it for one minute.

H

Sounds like you've had a good experience, I've just read a lot of recent reviews which haven't filled me with confidence I have to say

People moan on the internet... that's the reviews you read.

People don't complain/post when everything is peachy.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Multi-threaded downloading is a bit more efficient but that shouldn't account for more than a couple of percentage points faster.

I'm not entirely sure how the tbb speed test actually does the 'HTTPx6 speed test but I doubt it is actually multi-threaded. More likely it is what it says and it uses 6 separate http connections which, given buffer management on a per-connection basis on the client operating system, can have a very significant impact - that's why they do it. A disparity is most likely to show up problems with local os or router configuration. Higher latency connections will also show a disparity since tcp window scaling is latency dependant again on a per-connection basis.

NOTE: Multi-threading would only be more efficient if each received packet required a lot of processing and for speed tests that is simply not the case.

In reply to a post by Hamster1962:

As I've said before on here, I changed to 152MB Virgin last August, came from a pretty crummy BT 9MB.

Never regret it for one minute.

H

I went from 5mb ADSL with Zen to VM's 50mb service - to be honest the youtube buffering was a joke so I cancelled and stayed on ADSL - I've since learnt it was probably my fault for using VM's rubbish DNS servers

Now waiting for Openreach to make a decision about my under review cab

In reply to a post by Daemon66:

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Multi-threaded downloading is a bit more efficient but that shouldn't account for more than a couple of percentage points faster.

I'm not entirely sure how the tbb speed test actually does the 'HTTPx6 speed test but I doubt it is actually multi-threaded.

It is six simultaneous downloads that's what I believe most people refer to as 'multi-threaded download'. What do you mean by that term?

which, given buffer management on a per-connection basis on the client operating system, can have a very significant impact - that's why they do it.

They only do it for one reason - to show up network problems. There are a lot of potential causes and some could be on the LAN but having gone through several routers over the last couple of years(*) I don't think LAN is likely (at least with later Windows versions. Perhaps Apple or Linux might have RWIN problems).

Edit: Actually I suppose it could be the fault of the VM router since I've never tried one of those. So I guess all I can say is that modern versions of Windows using a wired LAN and a typical off-the shelf domestic router should not exhibit this behaviour in my opinion

http://superuser.com/questions/261663/why-is-multi-t...
and from the TBB FAQ:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/flash-spe...

Anyway I think it's safe to say that the speed test result I was talking about is not a good one. Whether it's the poster's computer, their LAN, their router or the WAN. Something somewhere is not working as it should

(*)My previous ISP started to offer IPv6 and it took a while to find a router than offered dual-stack and was stable. Ironically two months after finally finding out I had to switch ISPs. C'est la via.

Edited by Andrue (Mon 16-Feb-15 14:55:32)

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

In reply to a post by Hamster1962:

As I've said before on here, I changed to 152MB Virgin last August, came from a pretty crummy BT 9MB.

Never regret it for one minute.

H

I went from 5mb ADSL with Zen to VM's 50mb service - to be honest the youtube buffering was a joke so I cancelled and stayed on ADSL - I've since learnt it was probably my fault for using VM's rubbish DNS servers

That is very unlikely. DNS requests are not sent very often. DNS is the internet equivalent of a telephone book and much as humans only look a telephone number up once before dialling computers only look a name up once before opening the connection. A slow DNS server could cause a delay(*) before a video started playing but once the stream is running there will be no need for any more DNS requests. Not unless YouTube is really, really badly written.

(*)And even then probably only the first video you play. Most OSes and some routers cache DNS queries and depending on the domain might not need to repeat the request again for several hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_live#DNS_records

In reply to a post by bernado:

Sounds like you've had a good experience, I've just read a lot of recent reviews which haven't filled me with confidence I have to say

I think that as with most ISPs most people most of the time have a perfectly satisfactory experience. For every moaner there are probably a hundred people happily doing what they want without a care in the world. In addition with the high speeds of a modern connection things have to be pretty bad before anyone would really notice. For instance the message I replied to - someone with a 152Mb/s service only getting 30Mb/s on a single-threaded download - would probably not be noticed by most people as it's more than enough for most services available today.

The only persistent rumours about VM that I've heard are that the network can suffer from jitter which upsets gamers and the customer service is horrible (which is hardly peculiar to VM, sadly). At least with VM you should get the headline connection speed they promise. It's a bit of a lottery with anything using BT's local loop.

Edited by Andrue (Mon 16-Feb-15 15:09:06)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by bernado:

Sounds like you've had a good experience, I've just read a lot of recent reviews which haven't filled me with confidence I have to say

I think that as with most ISPs most people most of the time have a perfectly satisfactory experience. For every moaner there are probably a hundred people happily doing what they want without a care in the world. ....

I think that's right, people are far more inclined to report bad service than good, however plenty of people took the time to give my current provider Xilo good reviews so it can work both ways.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

I think that as with most ISPs most people most of the time have a perfectly satisfactory experience. For every moaner there are probably a hundred people happily doing what they want without a care in the world. In addition with the high speeds of a modern connection things have to be pretty bad before anyone would really notice. For instance the message I replied to - someone with a 152Mb/s service only getting 30Mb/s on a single-threaded download - would probably not be noticed by most people as it's more than enough for most services available today.

The only persistent rumours about VM that I've heard are that the network can suffer from jitter which upsets gamers and the customer service is horrible (which is hardly peculiar to VM, sadly). At least with VM you should get the headline connection speed they promise. It's a bit of a lottery with anything using BT's local loop.

I agree with your point about 30Mb/s being fine for most purposes. In normal use (extensive HD streaming on multiple devices + PC and X-Box game play - all concurrent) I have no issue with the service.
Steam downloads do take longer during peak.

The evidence definitely points to the VM network since I get full rate single thread early morning and 30Mb/s in the evening.
I believe this is by design (from a VM perspective) to allow a reasonable experience even when the local segment is pushed to the limit.

In reply to a post by Eeeps:

I believe this is by design (from a VM perspective) to allow a reasonable experience even when the local segment is pushed to the limit.

Seems reasonable. My ISP (Plusnet) claim to be able to do something similar but that they only do it under 'abnormal' conditions:

http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/ab...

But they've also said that they can throttle certain protocols in order to protect your own experience which sounds more like QoS:

"For example, when a broadband connection has reached bandwith capacity, Plusnet give streaming games and video high priority on that particular connection to ensure they don't buffer or lag. Downloading has the lowest priority because it isn't as time-sensitive and can still be performed with less bandwidth, even though it slows the process down."

Which is odd.

A regular slow down at busy times is understandable in a residential product. I complained about PN's recent issues simply because for the previous ten months they had been perfect. As an engineer a change in performance is more concerning than a service that was merely 'okay' to start with

Edited by Andrue (Mon 16-Feb-15 18:47:30)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

In reply to a post by Hamster1962:

As I've said before on here, I changed to 152MB Virgin last August, came from a pretty crummy BT 9MB.

Never regret it for one minute.

H

I went from 5mb ADSL with Zen to VM's 50mb service - to be honest the youtube buffering was a joke so I cancelled and stayed on ADSL - I've since learnt it was probably my fault for using VM's rubbish DNS servers

That is very unlikely. DNS requests are not sent very often. DNS is the internet equivalent of a telephone book and much as humans only look a telephone number up once before dialling computers only look a name up once before opening the connection. A slow DNS server could cause a delay(*) before a video started playing but once the stream is running there will be no need for any more DNS requests. Not unless YouTube is really, really badly written.

(*)And even then probably only the first video you play. Most OSes and some routers cache DNS queries and depending on the domain might not need to repeat the request again for several hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_live#DNS_records

The issue isn't (normally) the speed of name resolution it is more to do with the CDN redirects (which are done by DNS) that send clients to VM's own under-equipped caches. FYI, many name entries have very short TTLs these days to enable CDNs to work better.

VM have also been known to mess up their DNS more often than others. If you also add in their 'parental control' content filtering it always makes sense to use an alternate DNS.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by Daemon66:

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Multi-threaded downloading is a bit more efficient but that shouldn't account for more than a couple of percentage points faster.

I'm not entirely sure how the tbb speed test actually does the 'HTTPx6 speed test but I doubt it is actually multi-threaded.

It is six simultaneous downloads that's what I believe most people refer to as 'multi-threaded download'. What do you mean by that term?

I mean it is not 6 parallel streams of processing which would be pointless because very few users of the test would have access to hardware or connections that could send packets in parallel rather than one at a time.

Many consumer, cheap, off-the-shelf routers and almost certainly the VM superhub do often struggle to manage multiple tcp connections. This is why most people who want good performance from VM throw the hub into modem mode and use a decent router instead.

Add in the fact that many people are still using Windows XP and there are a lot of problems, as you rightly say, that this test will highlight, not all of them are VM's fault though.

if was a RWIN isue on the LAN side, then it would show up 24/7, not just at peak.

Also as you said modern versions of windows auto tune to large RWIN values, so unless the end user has turned off autotuning it should be fine.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sat 21-Feb-15 17:30:49)

My parents have VM and I did for the 3 years I was a student, never had any issues. Always got the headline speed and the occasions we did have a problem support were alright. Not going to pretend that they are perfect in every area but I've personally had a good run.

I signed up to Virgin's 152MB service for 4 months now and have seen congestion issues for three of those months during peak periods. A fault has been raised but the review date has slipped 3 times. I have been getting credits applied to my account but I expect this won't be fixed anytime soon. I still have my Plusnet FTTC service to fallback on but I reckon I will cancel the Virgin service at the end of the 12 month period.

If your thinking of signing up checkout the forums to see if anyone has raised any complaints in your area also I think they may still do a 28 day trial where you can cancel no questions asked, may be worth testing it out then making a decision.