1gig yay or nay

The virgin media website cant make up its mind.

One one page it says yes I can have it but when I go to order it says no.

I spoke to someone on the phone and they put the order through and the system let them do it.

Will find out tomorrow with some luck as the new Hub 5 is due to be delivered.


The one thing about faster internet I don't get is other peoples attitude towards it.
People will see posts like this from others that have gone and gotten 1gig or whatever and be all you don't need that and that's so expensive

Why?

At the end of the day, it's that person money and choice. So why does it matter? Answer, It does not.

Personally, £59 a month up from £45 is a bit of a jump but well within my ability to pay and as for the speed, No. I do not NEED 1GIG by any means. I am currently on 500mb and that's somewhat overkill but it allows me to download things quickly and that's what is important to me.

Anywho, Hoping I get it tomorrow and looking forward to the speed. It would be nice if VM can also get on with upgrading the upload as well. I'd love to host my own web/game server(s) vs paying for them xD

Good on you. I, like you, think it's one's own prerogative as to how you spend your money...and on what. We all have our own wants / needs, and if faster broadband makes you happier, then do it.

However, my experience with VirginMedia has jaded my opinion on their service, so I wouldn't give them £10 a month, let alone £59 😀

I'm interested to know what sort of latency and jitter values you get with the connection?

When I was on their 200/20 package (12 months ago), the ping times were hugely variable (up to 50ms) and jitter was also horrendous (sometimes showing as 150ms via SpeedTest.net).

" I'd love to host my own web/game server(s) vs paying for them xD"

Pay for a leased line then.

In reply to a post by MilesR:

However, my experience with VirginMedia has jaded my opinion on their service, so I wouldn't give them £10 a month, let alone £59 😀

I couldn't agree more, they failed to deliver the advertised service to me until DOCSIS 3.1 was enabled in my area and new CPEs issued. Promises to resolve stretching back months were consistently broken, compensation offered and then the offer withdrawn, the list goes on.

I strongly encourage anyone who has faced similar failures and who have the evidence to back it up to consider the small claims court.

On another note, VM 1100 / 50 became available here (at £62 per month) around the same time that Community Fibre started offering 1000/1000 for £49, but frequently discounted to £39 or a bit less. At the more typical speeds, VM are almost never competitive on price either - the resident's group chat is full of people gleefully ditching Virgin.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

" I'd love to host my own web/game server(s) vs paying for them xD"

Pay for a leased line then.

I don't think hosting one game server should be considered an exceptional expectation for a domestic Internet connection, especially if it's just spun up for personal use when required. Likewise for a personal web server, the actual traffic will be negligible so I wouldn't expect an ISP to care.

I agree, I'm on the M600 package but I will be upgrading when I can.
Most of the time I don't need the speed I have now but there is the odd occasion I do.

Thanks
Dan

For me, it was all fine until lockdown kicked in last year, then the over-selling of our area became very apparent.

Previously I'd been getting decent speeds and acceptable latency & jitter rates.

Then, when everyone started using their connections in anger it just ground to a halt.
On a Friday afternoon at 4pm I would sometimes get 0.5Mbps of my supposed 200Mbps service.

VM acknowledged there was a "fault" identified in April...and by November had then promised 4 times that it would be fixed "next month".
I ended up getting a second connection (FTTC), which worked brilliantly.

I then set up an automated speedtest job to run every 15 minutes from my NAS (which was the only thing connected to the VirginMedia service), and tracked the results.
It showed how the 'peak' work times (8am to 6pm) had huge issues in terms of capacity.

I also found that I had to raise a formal complaint before they would take it seriously.
They agreed (after 30 days) that they could not resolve the issues and released me from the contract. I didn't bother pursuing any compensation because at that point I was just pleased to be shot of them.

In reply to a post by MilesR:

For me, it was all fine until lockdown kicked in last year, then the over-selling of our area became very apparent.

Agree, I think they had been sailing quite close to the wind in that regard.

Your point on getting released from the contract is a good one, if you have an alternative the sooner you can be rid of them the better.

I hope you don't run into any of the issues I had, was fine on Virgin for a few years, 350 then 500meg.

As soon as I went over to 1Gig, I had nothing but issues with packetloss - freezing videos/lag in games, but it wasn't all the time, just random.

3 engineers cleared the line but still it kept happening.

They let me out of the contract and been with BT 500/75 since, and touch wood it's been running since install without a hitch

In reply to a post by Seansmit17:

Will find out tomorrow with some luck as the new Hub 5 is due to be delivered.

Surely you mean the Hub 4 and not the Hub 5?

The Virgin Hub 4 is pretty new and supports DOCSIS 3.1.
I'd be surprised if they released a 5th version already.

Personally, £59 a month up from £45 is a bit of a jump but well within my ability to pay and as for the speed, No. I do not NEED 1GIG by any means. I am currently on 500mb and that's somewhat overkill but it allows me to download things quickly and that's what is important to me.

What you seem to be saying is 500mb does all you want, but you intend to pay an extra £14 a month for something which is OTT, also don't forget you will need equipment capable of using this speed.
I could easily afford to pay for 1GB connection, but I see little point in paying for something I have little need of, my largest downloads are for updating TomTom several times a year, but longest part of that is transferring by USB from pute to TomTom.

There's always one.
Just because you never need or want that speed doesn't mean someone else will feel the same

Thanks
Dan

Regarding equipment, unless you have something really, really old that's limited to 100mb/s, everything should be capable of gigabit speeds by now. If you have a high-end desktop it may even do speeds in excess of a gigabit (e.g 2.5gigabit or 10gigabit) not that you can use those speeds with the most popular ISPs current plans capping out at 1gig.

I wonder if anyone has figured out how to aggregate gigabit ports on the VM routers to achieve 1.1Gbit. More as an academic exercise than for any practical benefit.

I do. I got a head of my self there 😂

I've actually had a flawless 500mb service from VM
for almost 2 years now. But recently I have been seeming
Packet loss on the TBB monitor I have set up.

The only time I notice it is on Discord where I and other
People's voices lag out here and there. Makes streaming on Discord impossible as well.

I've put it down to VM doing work in Peterborough for the 1gig upgrade.

My hub 4 has been delivered but I won't be able to test it till tonight when I get home from work.

I hope the packet loss stops. It's also random when it happens. It's happened at 4pm when im at work or 3
Am when I'm in bed.

In reply to a post by BuckleZ:

I hope you don't run into any of the issues I had, was fine on Virgin for a few years, 350 then 500meg.

As soon as I went over to 1Gig, I had nothing but issues with packetloss - freezing videos/lag in games, but it wasn't all the time, just random.

3 engineers cleared the line but still it kept happening.

They let me out of the contract and been with BT 500/75 since, and touch wood it's been running since install without a hitch

Snap my bro has the same issues with 1Gig. Pretty awful. He left VM to join BT FTTP 1000/115 and rock solid. VM are rubbish and SHOULDN'T SOLD 1GIG if it can't cope!

I would advise you NOT to upgrade to 1Gig because you will be shocking how badly is it. My brother get rid of it. VM are worse on 1Gig as his speed never get pass 450/42 all day. VM is lying you won't getting full 1Gig. He is now very happy with BT full fibre 1000/115 as he getting 900/115 all day via ethernet 2.5Gbps lan port.

VM speed policy here: https://i.postimg.cc/YCBpcmNH/Broadband-Speeds-Compa...

Edited by adslmax (Tue 12-Oct-21 19:20:51)

This is my ping graph for today, I have been at work most of the day and done nothing with the connection since 2am when I went to bed.

Look at that packet loss... Again, This is a new thing over the past few weeks.

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

Ill post again with one for my 1gig connection, which is up and running.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/12175692095

I am supprised the Hub 4 does not have WiFi 6 (ax) or at least a 2.5Gb lan port.

In reply to a post by ft247:

I wonder if anyone has figured out how to aggregate gigabit ports on the VM routers to achieve 1.1Gbit. More as an academic exercise than for any practical benefit.

yes they have im saying up for the equipment at the mo over kill expense like but if im paying for something i want access to it anod not just via usng extra wifi devices as VM like to say as i dont like to use the SH in router mode

Link

But isn't that like buying a sports car for the odd occasion when you want to out accelerate someone at the traffic lights?

In reply to a post by broadband66:

But isn't that like buying a sports car for the odd occasion when you want to out accelerate someone at the traffic lights?

The same goes for travelling business/first class when economy gets you there just as quickly, staying in the Ritz instead of a Travelodge, drinking the beverage you enjoy rather than the cheapest option available.

All get you to the same place but some journeys are more enjoyable.

I enjoyed ADSL just as much as FTTC.

In reply to a post by danielhyde:

There's always one.
Just because you never need or want that speed doesn't mean someone else will feel the same

Thanks
Dan

The OP wishes to pay for something he himself says is unneeded, I never posted that he shouldn't, I said I wouldn't.

In reply to a post by burble:

Personally, £59 a month up from £45 is a bit of a jump but well within my ability to pay and as for the speed, No. I do not NEED 1GIG by any means. I am currently on 500mb and that's somewhat overkill but it allows me to download things quickly and that's what is important to me.

What you seem to be saying is 500mb does all you want, but you intend to pay an extra £14 a month for something which is OTT, also don't forget you will need equipment capable of using this speed.
I could easily afford to pay for 1GB connection, but I see little point in paying for something I have little need of, my largest downloads are for updating TomTom several times a year, but longest part of that is transferring by USB from pute to TomTom.

And thats where we differ. I am a gamer at heart. And with games like Warezone sucking up over 100gb of disk space it can take a good while to download and its not the only game like that.

For me, thats the main reason I decided to go for it. It helps with every thing else as well, I can download stuff and still watch 4k netflix etc

And as for being able to "use" it. My PC is more than able to use it and even my phone can download at 600mbps+ not that my phone needs the speed that is.

In other news, the packet loss I was getting back on 500mb everyday seems to have stopped but it's only been a day so far.

Edited by Seansmit17 (Thu 14-Oct-21 07:17:14)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I would advise you NOT to upgrade to 1Gig because you will be shocking how badly is it. My brother get rid of it. VM are worse on 1Gig as his speed never get pass 450/42 all day. VM is lying you won't getting full 1Gig. He is now very happy with BT full fibre 1000/115 as he getting 900/115 all day via ethernet 2.5Gbps lan port.

VM speed policy here: https://i.postimg.cc/YCBpcmNH/Broadband-Speeds-Compa...

VM are not lying to you.......

Yes, some areas are oversubscribed, but if your in a decent area you will be fine.

You cannot say VM is lying to you, just because of one bad experience.

I have had the full 1GB from VM and I am more than happy with it.

My 1Gb VM speed

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I would advise you NOT to upgrade to 1Gig because you will be shocking how badly is it.

Remember VM's is not one network, congestion effects can vary street to street, but some regions are more affected than others. Each region is numbered and on the VM bill. My area is ex-NTL/CableTel and seems to be okay in terms of congestion. Some other areas, have had issues with student homes saturating a shared segment and affecting people in nearby roads.

ADSL was point to point (each home to exchange)
VDSL/FTTC is similar with point to cabinet DSLAM
FTTP is approx 32 way split on the PON
Cable / DOCSIS is variable number of splits on the coax before the fibre

In my road its either 30-35 Mbps FTTC, or upto 1Gig with VM, not really a choice.

My (very local) problem with VM is their 30 year old street infrastructure is falling apart, so on hot/sunny days my connection keeps disconnecting. Not an issue in the winter.

I have a fingbox (https://fing.io) monitoring my connection, so I am notified of outages, but it also does regular speed tests and gives me a graph. 99% of the time I am getting my full 200 megabit.

Edited by jchamier (Thu 14-Oct-21 10:50:49)

Might be worth chancing your arm:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/10/broadb...

The 2.5Gbps port has no effect on that as the ONT supplied by Openreach is only 1Gbps.

Thanks
Dan

"UPDATE 8:10am

A credible source informs us that the HUB 5 also has a 2.5Gbps LAN port(s), which would make sense if they intend to launch a 2Gbps package in the not too distant future (here). But so far their 2.2Gbps trials have only made use of the HUB 4."


Now thats interesting....

Its about time really virgin sorted out the bottleneck even on Gig1

Indeed.

In other news... First sign of an issue. Never had this on my 500mb connection.

I noticed things were "slow" this evening and found my upload to be down as low as 2mbps but only as high as around 17mbps.

This is what the TBB monitor shows, and at the time the packet loss stopped my upload went back to 50mbps. Download has been fine at 900+
My Broadband Ping

That looks like the issue I had, and I had from November til I left them in July - they couldn't work out what it was on the forums and let me leave after 3 engineers and a replacement hub.

It may not be the same, it could just be the levels need checked.

I'd post all the details on the VM Community forum and get it looked at.

If you can share the connection stats I can have a quick look too for you.

3.0 Upstream channels
Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID
1 46200000 47.3 5120 KSym/sec 64QAM 1
2 25800000 46.3 5120 KSym/sec 64QAM 4
3 32600000 46.3 5120 KSym/sec 64QAM 3
4 39400000 46.8 5120 KSym/sec 64QAM 2


3.0 Upstream channels
Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts
1 US_TYPE_STDMA 0 0 0 0
2 US_TYPE_STDMA 0 0 1 0
3 US_TYPE_STDMA 0 0 0 0
4 US_TYPE_STDMA 0 0 0 0

They all look fine. Which mine always did too.

Check on the community and see. Curious now to see what this is.

Been fine tonight so far. Maybe just a "blip".

mine would appear randomly and last anything from an hr to maybe 12 hours - Rebooting the router at anytime it was happening would reset it.

Keep me updated if it happens again, touch wood it won't

My Broadband Ping


Here is.. hopefully a live graph if you want to take a look from time to time. I can see some spikes this afternoon but I'm not even in and using the connection

Looks a bit similar to how mine behaved, it would then flare up in patches.

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Gaming-Support/...

Unfortunately all the BQMs are deleted now.

Did you always get packetloss like you did this afternoon for eg?

I never seen packetloss on my virgin BQMs until 1gig.

Reason I'm curious if this is the same issue, in the future I could end up back with Virgin.... If i'm unlucky enough lol

I did not..

But that being said. My M500 connection started getting packet loss here and there at around the same time VM did some work in Peterborough to enable 1gig.

My connection went down on a Monday a few weeks or so ago. I did get a txt from VM to let me know it was going to be happening.

It's interesting that the packet loss started at the same time and is continuing on 1GIG.

I wonder what is about the network changes to enable 1GIG that cause the packet loss.

I can see I was getting a small bit of packet loss from 3PM to 6PM Saturday.

Edited by Seansmit17 (Sun 24-Oct-21 03:55:39)

It's a strange one, I had 3 engineers telling me it was 10)% fine.

I lost my patience in the end up as online gaming was pretty much impossible.

BuckleZ

This sounds like the error correction is failing, this is a cliff edge situation with DOCSIS 3.1 rather than a slower degradation with 3.0 and before.

https://www.viavisolutions.com/en-uk/docsis-31

Excerpt "But LDPC does have one downside. As LDPC makes real-time adjustments, it can reach its limits regarding power levels and modulation error ratio (MER) while trying to correct codewords. This means that LDPC gives less warning of impending failure. If LDPC goes over this edge, codewords can become uncorrectable and customer quality of experience (QoE) begins to decline."

This is one of the penalties of spreading data across multiple subcarriers to increase the available bandwidth.

I get the feeing that the lower bandwidth packages may only use one subcarrier and therefore do not suffer this.

Ah! I'll save that information, I was gutted to be having the issues, the speed was 100%.

Thanks

hope you get it sorted

I have seen on my ping graph a very small amount of packet loss.

Nothing that I have noticed with lag etc but its there...

That's not great is it.
What router are you using?

Do you do any gaming? I only noticed my issues when gaming,or when watching Twitch... as it has no real buffer

Im using the Hub4..

I only play Satisfactory and New World atm so I have not noticed anything yet.

I don't know anything about VM routers but if they are like most ISP provided ones they are built to a price and CAN route the advertised speeds to meet the contract obligations.
As soon as you want to do anything else they usually do not have the grunt to do it.

If the VM router supports any level of QoS or queue management then enable it and run a test at http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest

It is better IMO to sacrifice a small % of your connection speed for consistency so even with an 80/20 connection it is perfectly usuable at all times.

Example

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

I've just received an email that SWISH are coming to my area so will be moving to their 400/400 service when it is available.

the packet loss is not a router issue but an issue else where with VM's network as I am not the only one to have issues like this.

Sadly I do not have another router that is powerful enough to use. I have a TPLINK WDR3600 but even though it has a gigabit wan and switch, its CPU cant keep up and speeds back when I tested it on my 500mb connection were around 300mbps.

I plan on getting a new router at some point but I want it to be around £100 or less, WiFi 6/6e, 2.5gb wan AND ethernet port as well as a USB3 port.

Currently there is no such router. I can find plenty that have a 2.5Gbps wan port but only 1Gpbs wan ports

It's probably not in your price range...but...

https://mikrotik.com/product/rb5009ug_s_in

£100 is optimistic.

You are looking at pretty beefy CPUs for routing gbit reliably before you add on anything fancy but I guess those features will eventually make it to that price point.

Things seemed to have settled down. I have had 1 day of packet loss in the past 2 weeks or so and a reboot fixed it. It's been fine since.

Here's to smooth sailing from now on.

As for the router thing, I know I'm not gonna find what I want cheap....yet. maybe the new hub5 will be decent enough.

I am not sure thats a good thing the sales guy did it.

From what I understand VM block orders for their higher tiered products in areas that have congestion, so its still concerning their sales staff are pushing these orders through.

Also how did you get a Hub 5 tacked on to your order? that is supposedly in trial stage still.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 16-Nov-21 11:43:57)

If you are talking about my first post then it was a typo. As explained in a later post. I meant Hub 4 not 5

I actually placed my order 2 weeks before the VM website even said 1GIG was in my area.

BUT

While keeping an eye out for 1GIG to show on VM's site I had noticed over the past year that the 500Mbps service I did have kept disappearing and only showing 350Mbps. So maybe there was or is an issue with congestion but as said, Things seem to have settled down now. I only ever had packet loss. Never an Issue with speed. (Mostly) I did have one day where I was only getting around 30Mbps but a reboot of the router/modem sorted that out.

Edited by Seansmit17 (Tue 16-Nov-21 14:27:37)

Yeah seems dodgy what the sales guy did there. It shows to me VM are still not treating capacity issues very seriously. Your experience mirrors what was been reported a decade ago with VM supposedly having policies of blocking orders, but people always been able to do it over the phone anyway, so nothings changed really.

Thanks for clarifying on the hub 5.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 16-Nov-21 16:15:15)