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[moosehound]

Before I start - DAMN this site has sderiously educated me in ADSL over the past few hours - many many thanks.


Hi all - please take alook and can some of teh Gurus on here see what they think,

Well I am having a total nightmare with Virgin Media. I will explain my issues and see what advice you guys can offer :-

I moved home at the end of May 08. I took Virgin Broadband Max with me. They screwed up It took them a few days to sort it out but basically someone had cancelled my accoutn as well as moved the account - nice

So my broad band worked well, I got speeds of between 4 and 6 MB depending on the time of day and all was good - infact it was better than when I was living nearer the exchange and getting 7.5MB as I did not get dreadful congestion slow down during peak times - sometime down to 90k!).

So as I say all was groovey until about 2 to 3 weeks ago. I noticed download speeds had dropped and that the Mrs was complaining about Facebook taking an age to load (more so than ususal - LOL). SO I ran some speed tests (speedtest.net) and checked my router settings. Router seemed fine, no line drops but speed was 400 - 500 K down and 388K up. When I started the tests zooooooooom it shot straight upto 1.5Mb and climbing and then SLAM it just went straight to 400 - 500K, not crept down but straight down like it had been restricted.

So I did comparative tests through out the day and into the night. All tests pretty much came out at those speeds. There where 2 I thin kthat dropped below 300K. NONE went about a 512K line speed no matter what time of day I tried - even 4am !

Another queer fact came to light with doing the BT tests - my profile had been 4000kb when I started investigating this problem. Over the 3 weeks it has steadily dropped to 2000Kb - my line has never, as stated, dropped out!

I played phone tag with Virgin tech support and custom services running scores (about 20!) BT speed tests. Virgin finally accepted there must be a prob and did a littel digging. The guy I spoke to finally spotted that, even tho I had moved in just over a month ago, and the place had been empty for months before an existing IP profile had been evident on the connection for about 3 months - ie my profile had not updated at the exchange. he said this would mean that the BT system would throttle down my line as the profile had become stuck. All that was needed was that BT had to "unstick" my profile at the exchange - so we passed it onto 2nd line to call me back.

4 days later 2nd line had not called me back! Then the phone rang and it was Virgin tech support - did I still have a prob with my line - HELL YEAH ! So I went through it all - again! This time the guy told me the system was reporting I was a victim of "congestion". I argued that someone 4 days ago had told me it was a stuck profile. he said nope and that he had ran the BT tests and all had come back clear. I then pushed the point and he went to talk to supervisors and Fault Dept. He came back and explained to me in baby language that I had "C o n g e s t i o n".

I said how could it poss be congestion as I was working 100% great and then WOLLOP straight down to a 512K connection and if it was congestion then how come I could not get a better speed at diff times of day/night? Whenever I had congestion issues before it would at least vary dependant on time - ie early hours would be quieter.

he said the issue was solely with their equipment, was to do with congestion on their network and that they could do nothing - would I like to cancel my contract? NO I want you to make it work !!

The other nugget of great news is that according to their "tests" my line should be pulling in 6.5 - 8mb based on their data - Thanks for that it's good to know when I can only get 512Kb grrrrrrrrrrr

So my problem is this - I am pretty damn sure it is either :
a) stuck profile or anomoly at exchange
or
b) Virgin have a corrupt account for me and they are "shaping" my traffic 24/7 to be 512K.

Problem is I am getting nowhere with this now as they want me to either put up with it or leave. HELP !!

Thanks for looking, I will add my line stats to a later post when I get home tonight.

Cheers

moose

PS Oh yeah I have tried the following :-
Connected using a : PS3, Wii, PSP, XP Laptop, Vista Desktop - all with same results
I have connected via : Linksys Wireless Router (I forget model tis a 54g I got in 2006) and 2 Speedtouch 330 "frog" ADSL modems

I have replaced all microfilters - twice
I have unplugged all comms equipment from my land line
I have plugged directly into the master socker
I have plugged into a BT installed extension socket

I performed speed and comparison tests after each stage - No change to speed AT ALL

Oh I have yet to try the sacrafice the chicken option or the prey to Shiva initiative

Line stats are below (my Down Margin moves around from 3Db upto 16 DB randomly - averages at around 10Db) :-

DSL Status

DSL Status : Up
DSL Modulation Mode : GDMT
DSL Path Mode : INTERLEAVED
Downstream Rate : 3808 Kbps
Upstream Rate : 448 Kbps
Downstream Margin : 15 db
Upstream Margin : 22 db
Downstream Line Attenuation : 51
Upstream Line Attenuation : 31
Downstream Transmit Power : 0
Upstream Transmit Power : 0

PVC Connection

Encapsulation : RFC 2364 PPPoA
Multiplexing : VC
QoS : UBR
Pcr Rate : 0
Scr Rate : 0
Autodetect : Disable
VPI : 0
VCI: 38
Enable : Yes
PVC Status : Applied

[roseway]

Hi and welcome.

I rather think there's more than one issue here:

First, if you are connecting continuously at 3808 kbps, then your IP profile should be 3000. So, either you have had a lower speed connection in the last few days, or your profile is stuck at 2000. Your ISP should be able to get it unstuck.

Second, it's very hard to believe that the congestion is such that your actual speed is never more that 512 kbps. The most likely explanation, I think, is that Virgin Media are throttling your speed down to 512. They have a rather complicated fair usage policy, and maybe you've been hit by that, or maybe you've just been capped by mistake. Either way, their help desk should have been able to resolve it.

So I think it comes down to more complaining to V.M. Personally I think I would have accepted their offer to get out, and sign up with a more competent ISP.

[oldfogy]

. Personally I think I would have accepted their offer to get out, and sign up with a more competent ISP.

Most definitely, but then again I am biased against Virgin Media.
I now want to leave but it's going to cost too much to set-up with another ISP because I also have Virgin Media telephone.

Whatever you do, do not cancel your BT line in favour of taking theirs.

Sorry I can't help you, and for taking this off topic.

[moosehound]

Hi,

Thanks for the responses - I have informed VM that the profile is stuck now on about 4 diff occasions - they won;t listen even tho one of their own tech support noticed it was stuck !  Also I have checked I am not on any cap lists - had them check 3 times now.  Also sent a formal complaint via ISPA - BOY do they move fast - had a call inside 24hrs

I thin kI will just move to O2 when the put their kit (LLU) in my echange at the end of next month. It's just crazy that VM will not listen and are willing to pi$$ of customers this way - ho hum reminds me of when I signed upto Tiscali... that's another story

Do you guys think, with my line stats (above) I will benefot from going for ADSL+2 from O2??

cheers

moose

[roseway]

Unfortunately you won't benefit much (if at all) from going over the ADSL2+. With your rather high attenuation of 51 dB you're outside the range where there's any real advantage. But it's probably still worth going over to O2 LLU because it's cheaper.

[moosehound]

thanks everyone for your help.

Is there any real tangible was to reduce the Db on my line??  I have removed the "ring" wire and checked my Microfilters (I am using the speedtouch ones now).  Would going for a filtered faceplate really make any diff to me??

Cheers,

Moose

[roseway]

No, there's nothing you can do to reduce the attenuation. That's a function of the quality and length of the line from the exchange. In principle the attenuation could be reduced by replacing the cable with a thicker one, but BT aren't going to do that unless you cross their palms with a lot of silver.

[moosehound]

OK Mate - thanks a lot for the help I guess I will just have to make do :O)

thanks,

moose

[moosehound]

OK - VM go bye bye :O)  Goodbye 450K HELLO 6MB    all thanks to O2

cheers all

moose