Virgin Media - peering issues

digp

Is anyone else having issues with VM - it is amazing that they get away with so much marketing bluff (lies?) about how fast they are, when they peer so poorly and so you do not get fast speeds in the proper sense.

I am referring to virgin media cable broadband btw.

RobTang

I assume you mean peer-to-peer connections.
Which really depends on who your peers are, their connection speeds, who else they are serving etc. if they are all on slow connections and handing 50 other clients well it doesn't matter how fast your connection is.
They don't have the best upload speeds but then again most consumer uk boardband is similar.

buglawton

If you have a 50mb connection with VIrgin, you get a hard limit of 3mb upload. Apparently the technology makes an upgrade impossible. You have to go up to a 100mb service to get an unimpressive 6mb upload, requiring a new router. I was not convinced the latest VIrgin router has the extremely simple 'modem only' that lets me use my own excellent router for the wifi.

So for the time being I'm stuck with 3mb upload. A bummer if you work from home sometimes.

ADSL seems to offer much faster uploads without fuss, assuming you are near a street box for fibre or near an exchange.

esuhl

digp wrote: »

Is anyone else having issues with VM - it is amazing that they get away with so much marketing bluff (lies?) about how fast they are, when they peer so poorly...

What is poor peering?

digp wrote: »

... and so you do not get fast speeds in the proper sense.

In what sense are the speeds fast if not in the normal sense? Are you saying there are different types of speed...?

Have you run speed tests? How do they compare to your contracted bandwidth?

unforeseen

If you want good peering speeds then you need to get an SDSL type product and insist that all those you peer with also get it. That way you can have a product that has the ability to have same upload and download speeds.

thescouselander

Virgin Media throttle P2P connections at peak times as a traffic management measure. If that doesnt meet your requirements that you'll need a different broadband service.

https://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy-30Mb-or-higher.html

EdwardB

That is good to know, although I do not think peering is a good way to measure for reasons explained by others.

I had always assumed that if I had the bucks to go fibre I would get upload speed as I got these speeds at friend's houses



So BT and Sky seem to be offering decent upload, Sky would have been better without VPN.

I have seen people on here complaining about Plusnet traffic shaping their Fibre which they deny. TalkTalk were said to limit their 38mb service but not their 73mb, not that you can ever trust TalkTalk as they have disdain for their customers in my experience.

Whole point of going fibre is to get away from Asymetric ASDL.

I have NEVER had anything like 3mb upload on domestic ADSL, had max of a meg at last place and around 0.7 where I am now.

bsms1147

I'm assuming you mean peering as in how one ISP connects with another ISP, rather than two peers connecting via eg. P2P? I thought it was more a US problem, interesting to note VM aren't good in the UK.

EdwardB

I have used peering on ADSL for both big system VMs and torrents, never had a problem. If I did I would go to my local library which has 24mb upload and use a vpn.

EdwardB

Peering is used by bit torrent as well as Akamai and even Windows Update is supposed to use it a bit.

On ASDL if your upload speed is flooded your internet can be unusable for basic web and email

RumRat

I don't have any problems with VM. Yes they could do with at least doubling their uploads for those that may need it, but, it hasn't caused me any problems so far.
Just did a test via WiFi and through a VPN and got this.


Via WiFi with no VPN...