Virgin Media congestion these days

I'm potentially moving to a new place that only has VM and GFast right now.

I haven't used VM for over a decade - which was either excellent or abysmal depending on the area. I've then been spoiled by hyperoptic which has mostly been rock solid for 10 years.

Is this still the case? Are there a lot of 'hot' areas still (I understand it is a lottery to some extent).

Also, is Gig1 somewhat insulated from the problems as it runs on DOCSIS3.1 and therefore a different 'network'? It is not ridiculously unaffordable with an o2 contract, similar price to top end GFast (I'm going to be right next to the cabinet).

I have no problems with congestion in North East Hampshire, (former NTL / CableTel network build). Congestion was always different in different areas so you would need to post an approx location (town/city) for other customers in that area to respond.

I have to say, I have Virgin Media M100 talk weekend calls and fully unlimited oomph simand there were a lot of major congestion issues for a long time, the week GIG 1 became available everything improved dramatically.

I just recontracted with M500 (500-550Mbps down 36UP), The contract doesn't take affect until may 5th since I am porting my phone number to sipgate next week on thursday (14/04/2022).

I know lots of people will say to me, why have you done that to yourself again, well they gave me an offer so low no other provider can beat £31 a month. If openreach FTTP was here I would find it hard to go for it when they undercut it by £9.

I will say, if Virgin Media have any more issues in my area or if there is a price rise, I will either follow the ofcom procedure once I know full fibre is available (estimated september 2022) or leave it for the usual price rise. Then get FTTP.

My original plan of FTTC for a few months was good however virgin never go a few months without a price rise or problem that can let me leave so thought, might as well keep going until FTTP is here.

I'm in St Neots, cambridgeshire.

You can see my broadband speedtest data in the latest OFcom report by isolating region ISP and speed tier. You soon know which I am from the fact that I'm the only one out of 11 in the region with the lowest peak speeds.
I know my agent name but won't share it for various reasons but can say this data should help you find common areas with issues.

OFCOM REPORT

Some upstream congestion here and there, so not really helped by Gig1, but there is a deployment of DoCSIS 3.1 upstream on the way which should help quite a bit.

Further out there's the XGSPON overbuild.

My most recent experience (South London) was of the 350/35 product.

In mid 2020 I took out the service when it was the only thing available faster than 50/10 FTTC. I was issued a Hub 3 (DOCSIS 3.0). Service was fine outside of peak hours, but it worsened heading into winter as more people stayed at home. Customer support may as well be non-existent, promises to fix it were repeatedly broken.

In early 2021 a Hub 4 (DOCSIS 3.1) was sent out and from then until the end of the contract speeds were fine all day.

The 3.1 modems basically can access additional downstream capacity which should prevent peak time slowdowns (for now).

In reply to a post by ft247:

The 3.1 modems basically can access additional downstream capacity which should prevent peak time slowdowns (for now).

Virgin said to me "do you want a new HUB 5 to use your service or maybe just the HUB 4) for my M500 contract, do you think I should take it or see how I get on with my HUB 3 first. I use them in modem mode so either way I just want reliability.

The person I spoke too didn't really have a clue about much. Today I got a call from a senior network management team in London asking me for feedback on the Virgin Media Networks, one hour of non stop explanations of the problems and he agreed that the customer service on the 150 number is useless and gave me the direct line to the london team if I had any more issues not only with them but my services.

The reason they called was because of the number of complaints on the account and also the fact I was leaving virgin home phone and mobile and wanted to ask me questions about the experience with support, customer care, and the services themself.

You can just guess how the conversation went

In reply to a post by CarlTSpeak:

Some upstream congestion here and there, so not really helped by Gig1, but there is a deployment of DoCSIS 3.1 upstream on the way which should help quite a bit.

Further out there's the XGSPON overbuild.

I'm personally hoping to be overbuilt sooner rather than later since my whole area is a big mess of reoccurring issues (every year or so)

Do you think they will upgrade existing customers upload speeds with DoCSIS 3.1 on the way, since the upload is so asymmetric it's just insane.

I mean I was seriously considering VDSL because the upload was double my speed tier at the time. I haven't gone that way since virgin did offer me a excellent deal on the M500 so couldn't justify downgrading or even FTTP options that are on the horizon.

I will say, I'm very unimpressed with the upload speeds I will be getting since they aren't exactly fast. To me 38Mbps upload is a bit useless 50Mbps would be a bit better, but I'll have to see how I get on.

I know I upload a lot of big files so I guess it will still be an improvement over the three day upload times I have had to upload 100GB of files while others use the connection.

I'm not really sure how virgin justify the upload speeds being so slow since I know someone on numericable (now SFR) in france they have 500Mbps down and 50Mbps up constantly over DoCSIS 3.0 They even gave the option to use both coax ports on their router but the person I know didn't want two coax even if it meant slightly better performance. (Don't ask me why they had two coax ports, my guess would be that they split the load in half or have some sort of failover, who knows)

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

Do you think they will upgrade existing customers upload speeds with DoCSIS 3.1 on the way, since the upload is so asymmetric it's just insane.

The most you'll get over DoCSIS is perhaps 2G down, 100M up. I do not think they'll upgrade any customers' upstream speeds, no. There's no need.

Never had congestion/speed issues here in N.Ireland, had several connections in different places and Cities.

Sadly I had an issue going to Gig1 which they couldn't resolve - and let me leave.

In reply to a post by CarlTSpeak:

The most you'll get over DoCSIS is perhaps 2G down, 100M up. I do not think they'll upgrade any customers' upstream speeds, no. There's no need.

I don't see how you can say that though, currently having 10Mbps up is a struggle, not only for video calls but for everything I do. Remote desktoping into virtual environments, remote desktoping into my servers remotely when offsite.
Then when uploading on youtube, onedrive, or when I collaborate with others files are constantly being uploaded and downloaded.

My onedrive network usage is 400GB on one of my machines in the space of 30 days. I know a lot of that is upload.

My max obtainable download is 100Mbps since the other 10Mbps is lost to background apps, on the upload i lose 2Mbps. It might not sound like a lot but this is just because of the amount of devices online, hitting 40-45 at times.
I know smart devices I have like dishwashers, echos, google nests and cameras, don't use much in comparison to other devices e.g. TV using between 40-60Mbs peek when streaming 4K HDR using 40 gigs today.

If i look at the upload a similar story presents itself.
e.g. all account data is stored locally on a NAS, then for extra precaution that is synced with 6TB of onedrive space and backed up onto another NAS.

I will say, the biggest files are 4K footage, small word documents and stuff like that isn't the problem, its photos, and 4K 60 or 120FPS video footage when we are hitting an hour or two of footage like that it takes an eternity to upload.

The biggest issue is when I'm not home since all my account files are on the NAS so when i VPN in windows file explorer freezes as its beyond slow.