Any Virgin broadband user...why does my speed vary so much.

[magpienja]

The normally excellent service I get from Virgin for my TV/Broadband is playing up at the moment well the BB is,

for a few months the internet connection was a bit hit and miss at times very slow...its wired as opposed to wireless,

Did the normal unplug the little box they supply that connects the Ethernet to the PC...that sometimes helped but not for long,

When I spoke to Virgin and told them about the box they said it was a very old model and would sent me the latest wireless router...I still use it as a wired connection as this device lets me do that,

For the last month its been so much better giving the full download speed of 10mb/s...but over the last few days its dropped to 3mb/s...but the upload speed has remained constant at 0.929mb/s,

I'm just wondering if any other Virgin BB users are getting varying results like this.

Nick.

[Milo Minderbinder]

10mb/s
Are you sure you are measuring the cable speed? Thats sounds more like the internal network speed of an old network card or router

Whats is actually giving you that speed indication - the router diagnostics? or an online speedchecker?
What speed does this test give you?
thinkbroadband :: UK Broadband Speed Test (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html)

[magpienja]

Mmmmm tried that with these results,

Date 22/04/12 12:30:01
Speed Down 9534.44 Kbps ( 9.3 Mbps )
Speed Up 1007.38 Kbps ( 1 Mbps )
Port 8095
Server speedtest2.thinkbroadband.com

I was using Broadband Speed Checker - THE UK's No.1 Broadband Speed Test (http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/)

Confused now.

Nick.

[Milo Minderbinder]

can you log into the router and see what that reports?

[magpienja]

Mmmm sorry I don't know how to do that...I could try if its easy.

Nick

[Milo Minderbinder]

depends on what kit Virgin have given you - and I can't remember anyway as I rarely see Virgin installations (nearest is 20+ miles away in Blackpool)

Any Virgin users reading?

[mixture]

magpienja,

You get what you pay for in this life.

The less you pay, the more you get contention, traffic shaping, rate limiting and all sorts of other dark wizardry the ISPs use to stuff as many punters onto the same pipes.

If you do a lot of downloading, streaming or similar, then you'll be hit harder and sooner by their technology under the auspices of their "fair usage policy".

The fact of the matter is that on a residential contract, you're not going to get any SLA/SLG provisions that you get on some (not all) business contracts. Therefore large fluctuations in the performance of your line are to be expected and are par for the course.

Shame they don't tell you that little tidbit on their shiny TV adverts isn't it.... :(

P.S. Try this template (http://www.derbygripe.co.uk/ntl.htm) for your complaint letter (NTL acquired by Virgin, so still applicable). :E

[rans6andrew]

You get what you pay for except for BB. Data rates are invariably spec'd as "up to x Megs". Being tight fisted I only pay for "up to 8 Megs" and for most of the day we see about 6 Megs. On weekdays this drops to about 2 or 3 when the youngsters get out of school but usually recovers during the evening. When we first had it it was not throttled back and the line was able to sustain 19 Megs.

The drop off doesn't usually cause us any problems despite us both sharing the single connection for our work activities and running several PCs concurrently.

The regulator is about to step in and compel the ISPs to tell customers what rate they should expect to see. I will believe that when I see it.

Rans6...

[mixture]

You get what you pay for except for BB. Data rates are invariably spec'd as "up to x Megs".

Mine is "spec'd as up to x Megs"... but mine is contractually a 1:1 contention ratio with no "fair usage policy" nonsense so my download speed is solely affected by the distance from the exchange. I also get access to 24x7 in-country callcentre staffed by people who know what they are talking about and who will login to the exchange and diagnose live whilst I'm on the phone (not that I have much of an occasion to call them). Also have a 9 business hour contractual time to restore service for things that require physical intervention and can't be fixed electronically.

So you do get what you pay for. :E

You also have to remember that although you may be on a contract like mine, the download speed may also be adversely affected by the remote end (i.e. the website you are visiting, service you are streaming from etc.)

[Milo Minderbinder]

Mixture - who is that with? Zen?

[mixture]

No, not Zen.... although I would happily recommend them too ! Their product and support is also in the first-class category. My home backup line is with them, and I know many others with them too. Their contract is not as good though because it's BT based, not LLU.

Service I was referring to is Easynet On-Net LLU DSL.

Yes, Sky bought Easynet. But the service and support offerings are chalk and cheese...... home-users get the usual spec broadband via Sky, business users get the quality contract (and priority on the network).

About the same cost as the top-of-the-range Zen service ..... roughly £70 per month before any discounts. Well worth it though if you use your line for business purposes or are a heavy internet user.

[sky9]

I've been on Virgin Media for some 8 years on their fibre optic cable and have no complaints, I pay for 10mb and get 10.
Are you using the fibre optic cable or using Virgin Media on copper wire?

[magpienja]

As far as I know its optic cable...but its back to normal now 9.7mbps.

nick.

[Peter47]

I was thinking the same. I had a lot of trouble last weekend particularly with the BBC i-player but also 4 OD. The i-player was continually buffering this afternoon even for radio which requires lower bandwidth. It automatically did a speed test which was close to 10 M/s. I then watched something on youtube without trouble.

I know that the weekend is busy time and it could be that the BBC site could not cope. Same could be true for other sites. I'm now watching a TV programme on it with no trouble at all.

If you have trouble with downloading for several websites do a speed check (as I said the BBC site does one automatically) and if low contact Virgin media.

Routers last about five years and Virgin had to replace mine a few weeks ago. That could be the problem.

[magpienja]

Peter that's interesting that you say the BBC web site checks your speeds automatically....how can I view there readings...just had a look on the I player page I cannot see anything relating to it.

Your right about routers going down...Virgin sent me a new super hub a few months ago after my old one started to give very hit and miss results...not sure how old it was but it was the original equipment we got from Virgin and may have been the best part of 10 years old.


Nick.