Broadband problems

[Stephen]

I'm on Virgin Medias up to 20mb service though usually I've been getting around 11.5mb. Recently though I've been experienceing some problems with speed. Mostly the speed of the connection was around the 1-3mb area, but not only this, I kept losing my connection, especially when viewing online video or downloading files etc. and I would have to unplug the modem and reboot it.

I contacted the helpline eventually and they seemed to think it was the modem at fault. A new modem arrived this morning via UPS and after connecting and ringing VM to have it registered I appear to be going full blast again. Checked the speed and its running at 13.5mb which is faster than its ever been.

It seems that certain modems are incompatable with the 20mb service, mine was a Webstor 100 but the operative also mentioned a Motorola one.

So if you are experiencing slow speeds and other issues with your VM broadband, it could be a new modem is needed.

Just thought I would share that with you

[Ian]

Re: Broadband problems

I'm on Virgin Medias up to 20mb service though usually I've been getting around 11.5mb. Recently though I've been experienceing some problems with speed. Mostly the speed of the connection was around the 1-3mb area, but not only this, I kept losing my connection, especially when viewing online video or downloading files etc. and I would have to unplug the modem and reboot it.

I contacted the helpline eventually and they seemed to think it was the modem at fault. A new modem arrived this morning via UPS and after connecting and ringing VM to have it registered I appear to be going full blast again. Checked the speed and its running at 13.5mb which is faster than its ever been.

It seems that certain modems are incompatable with the 20mb service, mine was a Webstor 100 but the operative also mentioned a Motorola one.

So if you are experiencing slow speeds and other issues with your VM broadband, it could be a new modem is needed.

Just thought I would share that with you

Glad you have sorted that out, Stephen. I remember when we were upgraded to the, then, 10Mb service we were advised to have our Motorola Surfboard modem replaced by a more up to date one. Like you, we now have the 20Mb 'XL' deal and it does fly - we get around the same speed that you do on average.

It's not so spectacular here at the office, where we can't get cable service, so we're on ADSL. We had been getting just 2-3Mb performance as measured by ThinkBroadband.com, but I have just done a test today and I'm pleasantly surprised that we're getting 5.5Mb. I did speak to our provider (Eclipse) earlier in the week and they said they felt they could improve the speed on our line, and it looks like they have delivered

Ian

[Patrick]

Re: Broadband problems

Glad you have sorted that out, Stephen. I remember when we were upgraded to the, then, 10Mb service we were advised to have our Motorola Surfboard modem replaced by a more up to date one. Like you, we now have the 20Mb 'XL' deal and it does fly - we get around the same speed that you do on average.

It's not so spectacular here at the office, where we can't get cable service, so we're on ADSL. We had been getting just 2-3Mb performance as measured by ThinkBroadband.com, but I have just done a test today and I'm pleasantly surprised that we're getting 5.5Mb. I did speak to our provider (Eclipse) earlier in the week and they said they felt they could improve the speed on our line, and it looks like they have delivered

Ian

I have again sacked Virgin, I did so last year and returned due to some problems with Sky which were subsequently sorted out. I am using Sky now the 8 Mb service, just had it measured by ThinkBroadband and I am getting 6.6 Mb.

Patrick

[Autumn]

[StuartR]

Re: Broadband problems

Guess I'm lucky then...I get speeds in this region most of the time on my Virgin connection.

[Ian]

Re: Broadband problems

Show off!

This evening I'm only getting about 7Mb here at home on Virgin. It was 10Mb yesterday. Best I have seen is 16Mb.

Ian

[paul.r.w]

Re: Broadband problems

I don't get it! If you are on Virgin cable you should get maximum speed all the time because it's straight cable connection and not a loop with contention issues like ADSL. If anyone is in an O2 braodband area I wholeheartedly recommend it.

[Ian]

Re: Broadband problems

I don't get it! If you are on Virgin cable you should get maximum speed all the time because it's straight cable connection and not a loop with contention issues like ADSL. If anyone is in an O2 braodband area I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Not really - I don't think you get optical to the house, so some fall off over the co-ax to your house will be associated with distance in the street, but of course the most obvious speed factor is the contention ratio - how much the feed to your street is being shared by other users.

Ian

PS I have heard of several good reports concerning O2 broadband. They offer an ADSL2 service which can, I understand, reach 16Mb under ideal conditions. It's especially good value if you have an O2 phone contract.

[coupekid]

Re: Broadband problems

Not really - I don't think you get optical to the house, so some fall off over the co-ax to your house will be associated with distance in the street, but of course the most obvious speed factor is the contention ratio - how much the feed to your street is being shared by other users.

Ian

Absolutely!
We are so behind the times here in the UK.
I am still on 4mb, and dont really see the point in getting 20mb as clearly we wont get the full bandwidth.

I am looking forward to when broad band suppliers have to quote more realistic figures rather than the 'up to' nonsence.

[devilgas]

Re: Broadband problems

I don't get it! If you are on Virgin cable you should get maximum speed all the time because it's straight cable connection and not a loop with contention issues like ADSL. If anyone is in an O2 braodband area I wholeheartedly recommend it.

if only life were so simple
broadband is like a motorway. the more vehicles on the road, the slower it'll get. some vehicles are restricted to certain speeds e.g. lorries v cars. then you've got the traffic that the destination site can handle. if you've got a 4 lane motorway hitting a 1 lane caravan park with a dude selling you a ticket as you approach the booth then it's gonna be slow.
a decent bb provider will look to continually increase capacity. likewise a site getting a lot of traffic should be looking to better hosting.

[paul.r.w]

[StuartR]

Re: Broadband problems

It won't be long before we get 50Mb on Virgin....allegedly. I know there have been some extensive trials and last I heard it was still on schedule for 2008. Not sure exactly what I'd do with the extra bandwidth mind, be nice to have a bit more speed up though.

[Barr1e]

Re: Broadband problems

Guess I'm lucky then...I get speeds in this region most of the time on my Virgin connection.

Wowee - Now that is some speed.

We use Demon. Due to the lack of lines where we live I understand most residents around here share.

This is our speed.


Regards. Barr1e

[Ian]

Re: Broadband problems

I'm currently download Windows XP Service Pack 3 from the Microsoft servers - 2.15MB per second That's less than two and half minutes to download 316MB.

At the office on the ADSL we have there the same download would hav taken the best part of 20 minutes.

Ian

PS, seeing as we're all at it:

[Stephen]

Re: Broadband problems

I'm currently download Windows XP Service Pack 3 from the Microsoft servers - 2.15MB per second That's less than two and half minutes to download 316MB.

At the office on the ADSL we have there the same download would hav taken the best part of 20 minutes.

Ian

PS, seeing as we're all at it:

Just tested mine this morning using the same site and its running at 14KBs which is the fastest its eveer been. However last night it was only 3. this surely is an indication of the load/usage on the cable network