Help! The Yo Yo Fibre From Virgin Media

BlueEyedGirl

Help! The Yo Yo Fibre From Virgin Media

Apologies for the long post!

I have the 100MB Fibre from Virgin Media. For the past 12 weeks or so, the internet connection kept dropping off. Initially it was once / twice a day, then several times a day. Wanting not to go through the whole call centre chat I did not phone until last week.

When I did, someone said the fault was with the hub and the same day an engineer came round. Immediately he said ‘The power coming into the hub was too high and therefore it had caused a fault in the hub’ he replaced it for a new one, set me back up online and left. I was quite pleased and thought to myself ‘What wonderful service, why didn’t I phone sooner!’

Low and behold, it did not last and the next day the problem returned. I started to do speed tests and realised that the 5G connection on my phone and tablet was reaching speeds of over 100mb, and occasionally dropping to around 60-80mb. While my laptop, which only connects to 2G, was poor, speeds were ranging from 2mb and less (so barely connecting) to 13mb / 28mb and shooting up to 70mb / 80mb before dropping off completely and losing connection. The same speeds were on my phone when connected to 2G as well. Most of the time though the speeds on 2G my laptop do not go past 6.5mb.

When ringing VM again, I got someone who changed the channel and asked me to monitor the speeds again for 24 hours (channel changing was something I did / VM did when my connection was original put in - March 2014) This saw no improvement in the 24 hours and so I called again. Same story, same channel changing and I was told to buy a ‘Mini Wireless Adapter’ to boost the Wi-Fi signal in the room where I used a laptop – it didn’t work and now VM tell me that was not needed but they will credit my account with the £9.99 I paid for it!

Preciously I have used TP Link Powerline before being a fibre user and I plugged this in over the weekend, the internet speeds were around 25 / 30mb but more often than not dropped off completely.

This brings me to calling them today, as 4 times today my internet has lost connection – I should add that when it goes off all the blue lights on my hub are lit.

I have spent 56 minutes on the phone today, we have changed channels, renamed the hub, changed the password, then had to reset the hub as that didn’t work. To finally being asked to put my laptop in safe mode. This I did, only for it then to not let me log back on with my usual windows password. The VM person I was talking to decided my laptop was faulty, and told me to take it back to the shop (its 9 months old) she then said she would get someone to call me back who was better at technical things that she was. In the meantime me panicking googled on my mobile and realised that in safe mode the windows password defaults back to the original one, in this case it was my outlook password, so I finally gets back on and out of safe mode when someone from Virgin called me back this nice techie guy. I told him I had solved it.

I am sick and tired of calling VM, and going through the same process. Where do I stand on getting out of my contract early because clearly I am not getting the service I am paying for and I am sick and tired of the internet losing connection several times a day. Nothing more annoying than trying to stream a film on the TV and it losing connection or buffering! I was getting better speeds with Sky's normally broadband!

Alternatively, perhaps someone here might know what the problem is?

Any help gratefully appreciated. :j

kwikbreaks

No ISP is going to guarantee WiFi speeds. If wired speeds meet the speed you were sold then that's it so far as any obligations go.

Install the old-so-still-free version of InSSIDer and find the clearest channel. Here's a link to one mirror of it - http://www.techspot.com/downloads/5936-inssider.html Set your Superhub to use that channel.

There is no such thing as 2G WiFi. It will be 2.4GHz or 5GHz and the 2.4GHz can be B, G, or N. Only N will come anywhere close to delivering 100Mbps and many older adapters won't manage that even with N. Many phones won't come anywhere near to working at 100Mbps and there is little need for them to do so anyway.

I seriously doubt that there is anything wrong with your cable now that the engineer has replaced your hub and corrected the power level. It's much more likely to just be the vagaries of WiFi and low spec wireless adapters. That said the VM Superhubs are not brilliant on WiFi either.

BlueEyedGirl

kwikbreaks wrote: »

No ISP is going to guarantee WiFi speeds. If wired speeds meet the speed you were sold then that's it so far as any obligations go.

Install the old-so-still-free version of InSSIDer and find the clearest channel. Here's a link to one mirror of it - HAD TO REMOVE LINK AS NEW POSTER Set your Superhub to use that channel.

There is no such thing as 2G WiFi. It will be 2.4GHz or 5GHz and the 2.4GHz can be B, G, or N. Only N will come anywhere close to delivering 100Mbps and many older adapters won't manage that even with N. Many phones won't come anywhere near to working at 100Mbps and there is little need for them to do so anyway.

I seriously doubt that there is anything wrong with your cable now that the engineer has replaced your hub and corrected the power level. It's much more likely to just be the vagaries of WiFi and low spec wireless adapters. That said the VM Superhubs are not brilliant on WiFi either.

Thank you for your reply. When I say to 2G I do of course mean 2.4GHz I've just shortened it because the SSID on the hub calls it 2G or 5G.

I will try the download you mentioned.

In the meantime, I am keeping a diary of the speeds.

I am beginning to wonder if something in the house is blocking the WiFi?

Am I right in thinking if my speeds plugged in with Ethernet are good, VM are honouring there contract? Even if they agree, something is terribly wrong with the poor WiFi speeds themselves?

BTW What on earth is the ‘Ping’ mine seems to go from 10 / 15 to over 30 and 136 earlier.

kwikbreaks

If you have a video sender or wireless cctv camera they may be operating on 2.4GHz as the spectrum isn't reserved for WiFi. Microwave ovens also operate close to 2.4GHz but if there is enough leakage from one of those to mess up WiFi it's also a health hazard.

The most likely issue will be other WiFi hotspots operating on the same channel reducing your bandwidth. To work at 100Mbps it will need 2 clear channels and despite seeing 13 in your channel selector list there are only actually 3 full channels in the band (1, 6, an 11) all the rest partially overlap on those.

There is VM self help on getting the best WiFi performance - http://help.virginmedia.com/system/selfservice.controller?CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=27667&CURRENT_CMD=SEARCH&CONFIGURATION=1001&PARTITION_ID=1&USERTYPE=1&LANGUAGE=en&COUNTY=us&VM_CUSTOMER_TYPE=Cable Somewhere in the small print you'll find they won't guarantee any given speed on WiFi as environmental issues such as interference, wall construction, and just plain distance are beyond their control.

PIng is also called latency. it's a measure of how long some given server takes to respond to a request from your computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latency Just as speeds may be slowerover WiFi latency is often higher. It's of great concern to gamers but rather less so for browsing unless it gets really excessive in which case you'd notice slower page loads - especially pages with plenty of images.

BlueEyedGirl

kwikbreaks wrote: »

If you have a video sender or wireless cctv camera they may be operating on 2.4GHz as the spectrum isn't reserved for WiFi. Microwave ovens also operate close to 2.4GHz but if there is enough leakage from one of those to mess up WiFi it's also a health hazard.

The most likely issue will be other WiFi hotspots operating on the same channel reducing your bandwidth. To work at 100Mbps it will need 2 clear channels and despite seeing 13 in your channel selector list there are only actually 3 full channels in the band (1, 6, an 11) all the rest partially overlap on those.

There is VM self help on getting the best WiFi performance LINK REMOVED NEW USER environmental issues such as interference, wall construction, and just plain distance are beyond their control.

Ping is also called latency. it's a measure of how long some given server takes to respond to a request from your computer. LINK REMOVED NEW USER Just as speeds may be slowerover WiFi latency is often higher. It's of great concern to gamers but rather less so for browsing unless it gets really excessive in which case you'd notice slower page loads - especially pages with plenty of images.

I tried checking speeds with the microwave off, and that made no difference. Plus the microwave is less than 12 months old so I doubt that would be causing the problem.

You mentioned CCTV, we have a camera on the front of the flats, but I don't think anyone actually uses it, you see the picture from the TV, in the six years I have been here I have not bothered using it, mainly cause whoever installed it did so behind a beam, so it is pretty useless!

We have electronic car park gates, could that cause an issue. My flat is right opposite them.

I also wonder why my download is so poor (currently on channel 7 and no improvement) but my upload speeds are almost triple, last test: PING 14ms DOWNLOAD 2.95Mbps UPLOAD 6.15Mbps

I have become so curious now, that I am working through the channels and do speed checks, nearly all of them so far 1-7 have given the same readings, bar channel 2 which just could not connect.

BTW, I appreciate your help and input kwikbreaks :T

kwikbreaks

BlueEyedGirl wrote: »

We have electronic car park gates, could that cause an issue. My flat is right opposite them.

It would be more usual for gates to operate on 433MHz and there would only be a brief signal from the fob when it was used anyway.

Is your Superhub hidden away behind anything? How far are you from it when testing? Any walls inbetween? How many other signals do you see in the InSSIDer display? I haven't read the VM guide but I imagine it must cover points like that and more.

onomatopoeia99

BlueEyedGirl wrote: »

Am I right in thinking if my speeds plugged in with Ethernet are good, VM are honouring there contract?

Yes. In the situation quoted, there is no problem with your internet connection, the service you are paying the Internet Service Provider for.

A bad wifi signal in your house is not an ISP problem, although a lot of them have a go at helping you improve it as a courtesy and because it's too difficult to explain where their responsibility ends, so they end up as free technical support.

Use an ethernet cable. They solve all wifi problems.

Strider590

So it's a WiFi issue?

You have a smart phone? Download a WiFi scanning app and check what WiFi channels are being used by your neighbours, then change your WiFi channel to one that's not in use.

The problem is though, people who turn their routers off when not in use...... If the router is set to automatic channel selection (most are), when they turn it on it randomly selects the same channel as you and your stuck again.

I ended up running network cable through my house because some of my neighbours are ******* idiots.

BlueEyedGirl

kwikbreaks wrote: »

It would be more usual for gates to operate on 433MHz and there would only be a brief signal from the fob when it was used anyway.

Is your Superhub hidden away behind anything? How far are you from it when testing? Any walls inbetween? How many other signals do you see in the InSSIDer display? I haven't read the VM guide but I imagine it must cover points like that and more.

The Superhub is next to the TV in the living room. I know it is not the ideal place but that is where VM installed it, and the cable will not go any further to move it elsewhere. The cordless phone again is located on the other side of the TV on a sideboard, again, because of where VM installed the phone socket. I shall actually try to switch off the phone to see if that improves the signal.

From the living room, there is one wall leading into the hallway again solid walls then the laptop is used in the spare room mostly. The signal for WiFi is just as bad when I try the laptop in the bedroom or living room.

In the SSID I have:

WPA Auto (which I am currently on changing the channels)

WPA2-PSK(AES)

WPA/WPA2 Enterprise

BlueEyedGirl

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Yes. In the situation quoted, there is no problem with your internet connection, the service you are paying the Internet Service Provider for.

A bad wifi signal in your house is not an ISP problem, although a lot of them have a go at helping you improve it as a courtesy and because it's too difficult to explain where their responsibility ends, so they end up as free technical support.

Use an ethernet cable. They solve all wifi problems.

Thanks for your help! I am guessing it is going to have to be an Ethernet Cable connection!

BlueEyedGirl

Strider590 wrote: »

So it's a WiFi issue?

You have a smart phone? Download a WiFi scanning app and check what WiFi channels are being used by your neighbours, then change your WiFi channel to one that's not in use.

The problem is though, people who turn their routers off when not in use...... If the router is set to automatic channel selection (most are), when they turn it on it randomly selects the same channel as you and your stuck again.

I ended up running network cable through my house because some of my neighbours are ******* idiots.

Will definitely try a WiFi Scanning App! Thank you!