Guide - Getting the most out of your high speed Virgin Media (UPC) 240mb/s service

TheDoc

branners69 wrote: »

Would you not look into a mesh system. Very reasonably priced and were not really an option when this thread started 5 years ago?

Explain mesh to me. Seeing it mentioned a lot.

WiFi gone to **** in my house since lockdown with everyone working from home.

Can’t get a sparks out to do a cable job for me all seem too busy to take this type of work.

limnam

TheDoc wrote: »

Can’t get a sparks out to do a cable job for me all seem too busy to take this type of work.

Would you consider doing it yourself?

It's fairly straight forward a couple of youtube videos and you'd be away.

TheDoc

limnam wrote: »

Would you consider doing it yourself?

It's fairly straight forward a couple of youtube videos and you'd be away.

Never trust myself with diy haha. I’ve be having to drill out to run cable up the house and back in , or up through floors. Wouldn’t have a clue what I’d be doing and to be honest the misses absolutely wouldn’t let me have a go haha

S.E.A.L.s

TheDoc wrote: »

Explain mesh to me. Seeing it mentioned a lot.

WiFi gone to **** in my house since lockdown with everyone working from home.

Can’t get a sparks out to do a cable job for me all seem too busy to take this type of work.

Mesh is a fancy word and simple way of explaining how wireless devices work together in extending Wi-Fi signal coverage for an area like the home, office, secret base, etc.

In enterprise networks this has existed for many years, but it's new ish for non-commercial applications as it use to be complex to implement, now many manufacturers have made it easier

Also, there are many ways to set this up and mixing equipment to get results is possible if one knows how, I've a mix of ASUS, Devolo, and TRENDnet devices (routers, powerline and switches)

And then most wireless devices (mobiles, tablets, laptops, consoles, etc.) within the last decade support mesh via the 802.11r / fast roaming standard that's built-in

(could go on and on, but it's becoming a thesis)

TheDoc

My Broadband Ping

Things going real well anyway

TheDoc

My Broadband Ping

Been looking at this site since I saw others using here, and there is just a constant ping spike all day, every day? I can feel it in my games or when I'm watching something its so annoying.

ED E

TheDoc wrote: »

My Broadband Ping

Been looking at this site since I saw others using here, and there is just a constant ping spike all day, every day? I can feel it in my games or when I'm watching something its so annoying.

That looks like a HUB3.0 that was never updated. THe update reduces that drastically but not completely.

TheDoc

ED E wrote: »

That looks like a HUB3.0 that was never updated. THe update reduces that drastically but not completely.

Anyway for me to initiate that or is it a ring Virgin thing ?

*EDIT
Just reading the thread from the old Virgin support where you were heavily involved. Just WOW, I'd no idea it was a problem.

Struggling to work out the timeline of whats the "problem" firmware.

CH7465LG-NCIP-6.12.18.26-3p7-1-NOSH

Is what I have showing at the moment. Have to say I'm disgusted to see that much jitter on my connection. I put it down to maybe contention or issues in the area due to COVID, but I'm starting to think maybe I need to look at competitors? I've never contemplated not being Virgin because its being so solid and reliable for me, but maybe I'm only getting informed on the issues that have been plagueing me for so long

ED E

CH7465LG-NCIP-6.12.18.26-3p7-1-NOSH
CH7465LG-NCIP-6.12.18.26-3p7-1-NOSH

Identical to mine, so it has the mitigation.

Your segment could be very busy which is exacerbating the problem. The thing is its shared medium so your modem receives your packets and those for 10-20 neighbours and then decodes the one destined for it. Problem is its puny so its like a 16yo waiter trying to serve 200 tables at once.

Note with that graph yellow is MAX, not mean. The hub will be fine for 90s, terrible for 1s, fine for 90s. So its not constant jitter, just regular slowdowns. Kinda like microstutter in gaming you could say.

garo

I have the exact same problem and the exact same firmware. TheDoc could you point me to the thread you were referring to or how you sorted it out? Thanks.

TheDoc

garo wrote: »

I have the exact same problem and the exact same firmware. TheDoc could you point me to the thread you were referring to or how you sorted it out? Thanks.

Hey,

I havn't sorted it, hoping to get some info here I've generally kept tabs on this thread as I've moved through the virgin bundles haha.

TheDoc

ED E wrote: »

Note with that graph yellow is MAX, not mean. The hub will be fine for 90s, terrible for 1s, fine for 90s. So its not constant jitter, just regular slowdowns. Kinda like microstutter in gaming you could say.

Yeah problem I have is it feels like it's every few seconds. I've gone into this MENTAL state of having packet loss and ping graphs turned on in all my games and its become super distracting feeling the stutter, check graph, see spike, then return and rinse repeat.

Just running a looped ping to google.com there for example.

Average time is 8-10ms and then every four to five hops it goes 25-27ms.

I know its not "crisis" point but damn you can feel it in the games I'm playing.

The general issues with video lag, stream buffering and my WiFi disconnecting when I start to download big files, well thats just general stuff I'm constantly trying to sort.

garo

Right. I seem to be on the same firmware as you: CH7465LG-NCIP-6.12.18.26-3p7-1-NOSH. I switched to IPv4 and bridge mode and got a TP-Link router but I still have issues when I just lose the internet connection for a couple of minutes. And then it comes back by itself.

ED E

garo wrote: »

Right. I seem to be on the same firmware as you: CH7465LG-NCIP-6.12.18.26-3p7-1-NOSH. I switched to IPv4 and bridge mode and got a TP-Link router but I still have issues when I just lose the internet connection for a couple of minutes. And then it comes back by itself.

Thats it crashing and rebooting, downtime of about 3 mins or so depending on how fast your TP detects the link up.

If VDSL wasnt 20-30Mb on my street Id move. May still do. Feasibly I'd get a better connection from Three LTE as theres a site about 200m way (obscured) that isnt usually super busy.

garo

Alas there is no SIRO on my street either. Best other providers can do is 100 Mbps. Probably enough for me but with multiple device users and WFH I appreciate the extra bandwidth.

It must be an area specific issue you are having. I had those issues a couple of years ago and constantly complained to VM when they were on Boards. Eventually the issue stopped but I have no idea if VM did anything.
However, my hub 3.0 is in bridge mode with a Netgear R8000. I have 3 serious PC gamers (how did I end up with 3 gamer sons, I don't know as although I am in IT, I was never a gamer) in the house and they have no issues anymore and all are connected by WiFi.
Am on the 500Mb package and when I speed test at router level I get ping of 8-10ms on average and speeds are up around 470/55.

garo

My hub is in bridge mode too. The problem certainly seemed to have reduced in severity compared to a few years ago. But happened yesterday.

TheDoc

I'm also in bridge using an Archer C8. I've been a happy Virgin customer really, never had a hitch. Been with them all the way since they were Ireland Online.

Totally accept there is widespread degradation due to COVID (Sat in enough meetings in work about enterprise level degradation during initial lockdown) but it's just been these niggly issues since February/March.

To be honest it's only that I'm now seeing all the spikes on my graphs that I'm tieing it to real world impacts. It's either stutter/lag in my games or poor registry on shots, jitter or total drops on Video conf (where it reconnects) or failures when I'm pushing commits of code where something has just gone boink.

I swore I'd never touch eir again, Vodafone I'll never consider more then a phone company, so the only other alternative I have locally are Sky (not overly interested) or Digiweb, which is same price/more expensive for just a flat 100mb FTTC as opposed to the four higher options Virgin provide.

In no way contemplating leaving them tbh, just another COVID related pain in the hole I'd say

AndrewJRenko

TheDoc wrote: »

I'm also in bridge using an Archer C8. I've been a happy Virgin customer really, never had a hitch. Been with them all the way since they were Ireland Online.

Totally accept there is widespread degradation due to COVID (Sat in enough meetings in work about enterprise level degradation during initial lockdown) but it's just been these niggly issues since February/March.

To be honest it's only that I'm now seeing all the spikes on my graphs that I'm tieing it to real world impacts. It's either stutter/lag in my games or poor registry on shots, jitter or total drops on Video conf (where it reconnects) or failures when I'm pushing commits of code where something has just gone boink.

I swore I'd never touch eir again, Vodafone I'll never consider more then a phone company, so the only other alternative I have locally are Sky (not overly interested) or Digiweb, which is same price/more expensive for just a flat 100mb FTTC as opposed to the four higher options Virgin provide.

In no way contemplating leaving them tbh, just another COVID related pain in the hole I'd say

I'm considering switching away from Virgin ('up to 250 mb/s') service for Sky ('average 75 mb/s') service. All my usage is wireless, and I'm getting anything 40-50 download, 10-20 upload speeds. So I'm reckoning I have nothing to lose by switching to Sky - am I on the right track?

bren2001

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

I'm considering switching away from Virgin ('up to 250 mb/s') service for Sky ('average 75 mb/s') service. All my usage is wireless, and I'm getting anything 40-50 download, 10-20 upload speeds. So I'm reckoning I have nothing to lose by switching to Sky - am I on the right track?

Plug in an ethernet cable and see what speeds you're actually getting. Switching to Sky won't fix your issue, you won't get 75 to your device over WiFi. Putting the box in modem mode and buying a better router seems like the obvious solution.

AndrewJRenko

bren2001 wrote: »

Plug in an ethernet cable and see what speeds you're actually getting. Switching to Sky won't fix your issue, you won't get 75 to your device over WiFi. Putting the box in modem mode and buying a better router seems like the obvious solution.

Thanks, though I'm honestly not really trying to fix the current service. It works OK for me for WFH and for the family in the evenings.

I'm really just looking for reassurance that switching to Sky with the lower headline speed (average 75 mbps vs max 250 mbps) won't make things any worse.

garo

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Thanks, though I'm honestly not really trying to fix the current service. It works OK for me for WFH and for the family in the evenings.

I'm really just looking for reassurance that switching to Sky with the lower headline speed (average 75 mbps vs max 250 mbps) won't make things any worse.

If your devices are only getting 40-50 max then probably not.

TheDoc

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Thanks, though I'm honestly not really trying to fix the current service. It works OK for me for WFH and for the family in the evenings.

I'm really just looking for reassurance that switching to Sky with the lower headline speed (average 75 mbps vs max 250 mbps) won't make things any worse.

If your using ISP provided router for WiFi and are having problems, going to the lower speeds could cause you more problems, yes. It depends, everyones house and home is different.

Obviously your contemplating dropping your speed by over half, so you'll be sharing lower bandwidth, with the same number of devices and people.

My Dad has SIRO through Sky and says it's fine, but I can't say I've ever heeard rave reviews about their non SIRO services.

AndrewJRenko

TheDoc wrote: »

If your using ISP provided router for WiFi and are having problems, going to the lower speeds could cause you more problems, yes. It depends, everyones house and home is different.

Obviously your contemplating dropping your speed by over half, so you'll be sharing lower bandwidth, with the same number of devices and people.

My Dad has SIRO through Sky and says it's fine, but I can't say I've ever heeard rave reviews about their non SIRO services.

Thanks for the feedback. It will be a different router presumably, the Sky one instead of the current Virgin one, so I'll see how that goes. I guess if I have serious problems, I can think about replacing the Sky router with something better.

Sharing shouldn't be a big problem. I'm the only one working from home, so no-one else would be taking that bandwidth during working hours.

And yeah, I know every home is different and that there are no guarantees. If I can cut my bill from €94 with Virgin to €55 with Sky without causing myself serious problems on network performance, I'd be crazy not to go for it.

CoBo55

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback. It will be a different router presumably, the Sky one instead of the current Virgin one, so I'll see how that goes. I guess if I have serious problems, I can think about replacing the Sky router with something better.

Sharing shouldn't be a big problem. I'm the only one working from home, so no-one else would be taking that bandwidth during working hours.

And yeah, I know every home is different and that there are no guarantees. If I can cut my bill from €94 with Virgin to €55 with Sky without causing myself serious problems on network performance, I'd be crazy not to go for it.

Have you tried getting a deal from VM? Many on boards are getting half price for 9 months, full for 3 etc. Be no harm giving them a ring.

AndrewJRenko

CoBo55 wrote: »

Have you tried getting a deal from VM? Many on boards are getting half price for 9 months, full for 3 etc. Be no harm giving them a ring.

Yeah, I did a call last week and was offered €84. I might give it one more shot before I switch. If I go Sky, I guess I'll be able to switch to Freeview /Saorview at the end of their contract period, and will never go back to Virgin - more than 25 years as loyal customer of Cablelink/NTL/UPC down the drain, because they won't give me the same deal that they'll give a new customer.

TheDoc

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback. It will be a different router presumably, the Sky one instead of the current Virgin one, so I'll see how that goes. I guess if I have serious problems, I can think about replacing the Sky router with something better.

Sharing shouldn't be a big problem. I'm the only one working from home, so no-one else would be taking that bandwidth during working hours.

And yeah, I know every home is different and that there are no guarantees. If I can cut my bill from €94 with Virgin to €55 with Sky without causing myself serious problems on network performance, I'd be crazy not to go for it.

94 seems extremely high for the 250mbps package. I'm paying 70 for 500mbps and im out of my discounts.

I'd say maybe giving them a call to get a better pricing would be the best shout. To be honest Virgin has been the best non FTTH service in the country for years. If you have issues with your Virgin router you'll likely have the same issues with Sky.

It's why its generally recommended to get your own router and turn the ISP provided one to just be a modem. I did that a good few years ago on the back of this thread starting and one of the best choices I made regarding my home technology.

TheDoc

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Yeah, I did a call last week and was offered €84. I might give it one more shot before I switch. If I go Sky, I guess I'll be able to switch to Freeview /Saorview at the end of their contract period, and will never go back to Virgin - more than 25 years as loyal customer of Cablelink/NTL/UPC down the drain, because they won't give me the same deal that they'll give a new customer.

Somethings not right there at all. Are you getting other services from them other then broadband?

AndrewJRenko

TheDoc wrote: »

Somethings not right there at all. Are you getting other services from them other then broadband?

Yes, sorry, should have clarified that it includes a TV bundle with two boxes as well.

garo

The 55€ deal from sky only gets you one box I believe.