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[tuftedduck]

I don't know if this is useful or significant to this thread, but I have recently been experiencing some dreadful speed problems with Virgin adsl.

My speed normaly bobbles around betwen about 6.8 and 7.3 but from Tuesday of this week there has been every day a period between 1600 to 1800 hours during which my speed would drop to about 3.5. Before and after these periods I go back  to about 7Mbs, which makes me think that I have not been capped or fuped ( I really quite a light user )

My routerstats do not alter at these times.

There is also an issue at these times with e-mails whereby when I open my Outlook Express I am constantly and repeatedly asked for my userid/password....a sure sign that there is a problem on the Virgin mail servers.

[kitz]

As mentioned it would be useful if you could post your linestats again.  Its not unusual to get slightly lower sync speeds in the evenings so it would be helpful for us to compare how much sync speed you have lost.

It is also very probably that the loss of sync has yet again pushed you onto another of their centrals.  So its worthwhile attempting another sync again.  The only thing that concerns me about this, is that with you having a modem rather than a router, is that if you have to perform a full sync rather than just reconnecing the PPP session.

Performing a full sync, makes the BTw DLM aware and doing too many in a short time span could fool it into thinking that there is a problem with your line.

As regards to the results from the BTw performance tester, I myself have seen a similar message in the past on my own line when I was on IPStream.  The performance tester does get very busy at certain times of the day and can start giving back silly messages.

[jeffbb]

Hi

quote is that with you having a modem rather than a router, is that if you have to perform a full sync rather than just reconnecing the PPP session.

which modem ? .
That was the good thing about the ST330  that would just reset PPP.
Regards Jeff

edit   Needed it with Tisc--y

[kitz]

>> That was the good thing about the ST330  that would just reset PPP.

ty jeff - couldnt remember - its been a while since I had my mitts on one.

[dayvh]

It appears the BTw speed tests were re-designed over the past few days, just the verification methods and stuff so I assume that's why I had trouble with it.

Latest speedtester.bt.com results from 1am GMT 07/09/2009;

Code: [Select]

Download speed achieved during the test was - 2010 Kbps
 For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
 Additional Information:
 Your DSL Connection Rate :7456 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
 IP Profile for your line is - 6500 Kbps
I'm not sure what the problem is now but it's getting worse.
I used to only get ping spikes locally on games and applications, ie only the application would report I have huge ping but I'd be able to browse the web and download at ok speeds and my ping would be fine on ventrilo which made it seem odd. Since I plugged into the test socket and then back into the master socket my ping spikes have been global so to speak. If I have high ping on ventrilo then everything else reflects on this like slow web browsing and horrible download speeds. I'm not sure if it was swapping sockets that caused this as I rang Virgin a few minutes after and had my problems passed on as a fault to second line BT. About 10 minutes after that phone call I lost sync and it wasn't until a few hours after that, just past midnight, when I expected my internet to pick up and it didn't.
For the past 3 days I've been getting download speeds that don't exceed 60kb/s between midnight and 8am which are usually my best times. I've tried reconnecting so it changes what BAM I'm on and I tend to have to do that several times in a short period as I'll do a tracert to bbc.co.uk every time I connect to one and 1-3 hops will time out which results in the worst delays I've ever experienced.
There's still supposed to be another 3-5 days before BT and/or Virgin contact me regarding the fault so does anyone have any wise ideas that might help me get some use out of it while I wait?

[waltergmw]

You might try getting yourself a second modem set up to BT W speedtest domain

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/btwspeedtest.htm

and plugging it in when you're getting poor performance, but not to swop them more than say twice in 1 hour.

You could also try http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/btwspeedtest.htm immediately after BT tests using your Virgin connection just to compare the two results.

Kind regards,
Walter

[kitz]

>> IP Profile for your line is - 6500 Kbps

As mentioned above, that figure is an estimate of what speed you should get on your line on the BTw system.
The fact that your IP Profile is at 6500 indicates that all is well line side.

All your symptoms seem to indicate severe congestion.

With IPStream adsl (which is what weve now confirmed you are on), congestion through contention can occur at 2 places.

1) The exchange
2) The ISP central Pipes.



Exchange

You can check your exchange status here.
Although saying that, it should be pointed out that exchange contention usually causes just slow thoughput.
Some form of low-level QoS is performed on the MSANs and more modern DSLAMs so that latency doesnt seem to be affected.
Since maxdslI dont think Ive ever seen a case of Exchange contention causing low latency.  Even way back to 2003 when our exchange kinda became famous for having extreme and severe contention and speeds right down to about 40kbps... not one of us had any problems with latency.

ISP Centrals

The only way you can check for this for sure is by using the old sytle BTw speedtest.  However it doesnt always allow access and Im not sure what impact the recent BTw tester changes will have had on it.

Virgin supplies broadband via several different methods.

• Cable - They took over the NTL cable..Normally OK although does see some local congestion from time to time.  Most users are happy with this service and dont see too many problems.
• LLU - A relatively new venture for Virgin, they started moving some of their users on to this service from IPStream/DataStream due to severe congestion problems on their centrals.
• IPStream - Historically Virgin are well known to have contention & congestion problems on their centrals through oversubscription. This is when they dont purchase sufficient central pipes to keep up with the number of users that they have.  Users on congested centrals report slow throughput and high latency. Virgin will deny point blank though that there are problems with their centrals even when it is obvious.. and historically they are known for not keeping up with supply and demand for IPStream... if you do searches most of Virgins complaints come from IPStream users reporting slow throughput.

Last Month.

Virgin Media recently ran an advertising campaign that some thought was a bit dubious about their claims, but it seems that many were taken in by the ads.  
This caused a problem last month in that Virgin wasnt able to connect all of them in time due to delays... mostly not being able to post modems out in time.
See Virgin Media 'overwhelmed' by broadband customers fleeing BT.

So Virgin is now seeing lots of new users -  thats lots of new people now sharing their Central Pipes.  
Lead time to get more BTw Centrals installed is 90 working days..  If this is whats going on.. then it could be a bumpy ride for Virgin cutomers over the next few months if Virgin havent planned properly :/
If Virgin havent planned enough modems which can be got in days/weeks.  Then what are the chances that 3 or 4 months ago they planned for sufficient centrals to be ordered to accommodate these new users .  


----------
Theres just one other thought that does occur...  VM has a FUP were users who have used more than 'x' amount of bandwidth get their connection throttled.  Is it possible that you may have tripped their Fair Usage Policy and are being traffic managed.


http://www.virgin.net/allyours/faqs/trafficManagementFAQ.html