We reported on latency issues for Virgin Media customers the other day, which was a follow up to another issue in April. The good news is that people are reporting an improvement.
To be clear if the issue was exclusively affecting thinkbroadband services such as the speed test and BQM we would likely have not covered it, but the issue was never that Virgin Media customers were just seeing poor BQM. People were seeing a clear correlation between the BQM showing poor performance and experiencing bad lag in gaming and other sites performing badly e.g. Amazon.
Mark Jackson from ISPreview has managed to find the time to chase down a statement from Virgin Media which we’ve copied in full below:
We’ve now determined the root cause of the issue and can confirm that it’s an issue exclusively impacting traffic passing through an interconnect from our network to the ThinkBroadband server site.
General traffic on our network is not impacted and as a result, the TB BQM is not reporting accurate latency data for Virgin Media customers right now. Whilst we’re looking to address this, we recommend that customers use the SamKnows RealSpeed application or Ookla’s Speedtest.net’s ping test if they wish to check their latency or network performance.
A Virgin Media spokesperson
It is good that Virgin Media has identified the root cause but we are not happy with the spokesperson appearing to suggest that the BQM is not accurate, it most definitely is accurate and was reflecting the state of all the links between the BQM systems and the customers router. Similar with the speed test we have always run that in a state that will highlight speed issues for individuals rather than trying to counter congestion by opting for a closer server or adding more download/upload links to compensate.
Now back to the main day time task of chasing down network expansion and ironically it is looking for more areas covered by Virgin Media.
Update 4:55pm We’ve seen some people saying they are still having issues, but from looking at 5 or 6 random BQM graphs for Virgin Media connections since Wednesday evening things are looking good. It is possible that some people may have genuine issues still that may be down to local or other parts of the network. Advice for those still seeing poor BQM results share the general area, as it may be that some regions are good and others bad.
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Yes, strange how lots of customers reported issues with other sites as well as TBB.
Project Lightening has been hard at work in NW Sheffield if you want an area to look for new VM coverage. Starting around S6 1TY (Wadsley Park Village) then follow A6102 inc. Worrall, Oughtibridge and Deeper/Stocksbridge. Not sure if it is all live yet as there are still a number of roadworks going. Several overhead fibre boxes were still taped to the pole this morning.
Still not sure why I’d move from full FTTP to their RFoG with slow uploads.
For the past month I’ve had absolutely awful internet from my previously fine VM service. It is coming and going every 15 minutes and sometimes is down for hours. The router also regularly resets and changes my WiFi settings. Here’s my BQM:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/01e28be932ccf744a12a11955a3a8dfead59192b
I can assure VM that this BQM is certainly an accurate representation of the issues I’ve been having getting online. I’m wondering if this is a fault with their network or just the hub. Hopefully I can get an engineer slot soon where I’m actually home.
@joelccr that BQM is showing total non responses for periods of time, which fits in with your description one assumes the timings line up too.
Looks much more like hub/local network rather than issues others have seen
If it was a issue with Thinkbroadband than why did only happen on weekdays and not Friday to Sunday?
That is such a weasel statement.
While I don’t doubt that it is true in a literal sense, Virgin’s telling omits to mention that this problem would also ‘exclusively impact traffic’ to ANY OTHER WEBSITE OR SERVICE that happened to be routed through the affected interconnect — which, as many of us who have suffered over the past few weeks would attest, is quite a lot.
Up yours Virgin, you dishonest toads.
What a load of horse manure.
My connection to my gaming server does not go through TBB at all yet I’ve been suffering high latency and massive packet loss practically every evening. Explain that one Virgin…
What BULL muck.. Every time this happens I get kicked from Warzone games with “connection lost to blizzard” Websites like amazon are painfully slow to navigate.
This is a brand new Virgin FTTP install in my area and I’m going to make it my work to make them lose as many customers and new customers as I can in the area with Facebook and other social media..
I’m quite well known in my area and people will take my advice..
Good they acknowledged and issued a statement, but bad that they blame it on TB BQM. I can tell you from experience in warzone and other games that it is latency overall and not just to BQM that is affected, so the BQM’s are accurate and reflective of what i have been experiencing in gaming. I have complained and came within in an inch of terminating my contract and switch to BT FTTP, but they upped my speed and reduced my bill so i stayed. Hopefully now that they have identified the issue they will resolve it properly. It’s just a matter of competency and caring, c’mon Virgin you can do it!
Also strange how speed tests to other sites were also affected as was online gaming and just general browsing and downloading.
More smoke and mirrors from Virgin!
if its think broadband why are sites like twitch and YouTube very slow loading?
yes because my internet cutting out 5+ times a day is just a visual issue on my broadband monitor.
what a sheep company.
Moderator Corey_C
“Hi Everyone,
We’ve now determined the root cause of the issue and can confirm that it’s an issue exclusively impacting traffic passing through an interconnect from our network to the ThinkBroadband server site.
General traffic on our network is not impacted and as a result, the ThinkBroadband BQM is not reporting accurate latency data for Virgin Media customers right now. Whilst we’re looking to address this, we recommend that customers use the SamKnows RealSpeed application or Ookla’s Speedtest.net’s ping test if they wish to check their latency or network performance.
Brunel…What’s your point as this thread is about this issue and that statement…It’s clearly NOT an issue with ThinkBB as I, like many many others was,is,and am having issues with TV and internet, especially gaming so its OTHER sites as well. 😉
I’ve just switched to BT Full Fibre 900 as of 4/05/2022, and my BQM has been flat as a pancake, even when streaming, downloading and uploading at the same time there has been no discernible difference on latency. Such a difference from using Virgin. I too was one of the unlucky onse with Virgin and was unable to upload data off-site and was even having bad Facetime calls on the other end because of upload, and don’t get me started on the amount of T3 Timeouts in one evening. Stress free internet now with BT, well until the next problem arises only next time I won’t be dealing with Virgin.
Software I use for work shows pings, been an absolute disgrace for a while after 7pm weekdays.
Not even worth bothering them on tech support, are you connected to WiFi….
Which DC’s are the ThinkBroadband monitors hosted at please? Does it have an immediate AS adjacency to that of VM?
@Mrmagoosas1 It is a direct quote from the VM Community Forum:
https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-WiFi/VM-CORE-NETWORK-FAILURE-URGANT/td-p/4986440/page/51
Absolute rubbish. I’ve had a latency problem with my VM connection since the start of COVID, it got better after lockdown finished, but now for the past couple months its got terrible again, it spikes all over the place throughout the day and between 8-10pm it goes though the roof with even large amount of packet loss. This is NOT an interconnect issue its an issue with either DOCSIS upgrade or pure congestion that VM will not pay to have fixed. Joke of a company.
Here:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/7113ddb59bcae47dcc3dfc61269f58c28a2d0f32-06-05-2022
I had no idea this was such a widespread issue. Had an engineer out and explained what was going on. He said he actually lives local and had experienced the same so escalated it to the network team etc. Got a text a week later saying there was improvement work in the area and to expect downtime. Once that was complete I was hoping for an improvement but its still just as bad. High latency, random outtages, online gaming often impossible. I’m moving in a few months and will probably just have to take the loss and get a slower BT connection.
@crossblade08 from looking at your BQM the patterns are different to the issue discussed. Your graph is more indicative of a local congestion issue
even the VM forum seems to not have a clue, blinded by the BQM issue!!! I had a simple request about network speed, but they still thought BQM!!
answer: can anyone tell me what it means when TWO LAN lights versus ONE light means..
award yourself ‘sysop of the year’ if you know… its NOTHING to do cables, OS, or even MS!!!
@andrew yeah that is the case. Getting VM to even consider doing anything about it is impossible though, at least 5 engineers, a cable re-pull and multiple excuses and promises over the past 2 years and im still here in the same position. Its so frustrating.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/a3869788b704b7c1a1dd19f4c1c4f4e59edfa2a7-03-05-2022
Was amazed to see others experiencing the same issue as me in the same time frame from all over the country. But yeah TBB to blame…nice one VM
That statement is not an accurate reflection of the issues encountered by myself and others.
Following horrendous gaming sessions and smart devices not responding in a timely manner I checked my SH3 stats and saw numerous T3 errors and a BQM log with the 8pm to 10pm hump. I reset the SH3 and still had issues so created a forum post. I was then directed to a pre-existing post with multiple users reporting the same issue and regular ‘hump of latency’ affecting gaming. BQM traffic may have been affected but so were other services. VM reported I had 81 disconnects in a month!
well there is a rumor that Sky will pay off any ‘disconnection penalty’ from VM if you switch to their service… 🙂
It can’t be true it is only the Thinkbroadband BQM that has a problem. If it was only limited to Thinkbroadband, then why at peak times is the problem becoming worse? Thinkbroadband BQM just pings out the same number packets no matter the time of day, there is no peak time to cause a peak time issue on the charts! Therefore there must be other traffic on the same link that becomes congested at peak times, and that other traffic will be affected, this is then reflected in the BQM also experiencing the same congested link.
Same old story with Virgin Media then really….
I don’t bother with Gaming anymore as Virgin’s reliability was so poor, I don’t really spend much time at home anymore and only have one of there Free 15MB connections with Volt Boost so I don’t exactly take up much resources of Virgin’s network.
But from time to time I login to the hubs status pages to check stats and notice constant timeout issues.
As for testing connections these days, I noticed Virgin have dropped their local speedtest.net servers, I wonder if this was because even there issues would reflect on these too in the end.
Virgin statement borderline mockery…
I spent two years arguing with Virgin Media about latency. At times was seeing 250 millisecond peaks often accompanied by the service actually dropping completely. I took the case to arbitration and the arbitrator told them to fix it, or release me from the contract. They tried three times to fix it, each attempt failed. So I cancelled and moved to Sky FTTP, once Openreach had wired up the poles. Haven’t seen a latency or speed issue since.
once FTTP comes here likey jump ship to a openreach provider (as usually the Surrounding areas are getting FTTP first so probery be 2-4 years before we get it)
virgin has just installed a one of them big ass gray Fibre head unit near me so maybe i be able to get the FTTPn (its still n because it uses a FTTP to coxa but its at the house premise so basically like a dedicated Docsis connection) on virgin soom to remove all the latency
Still experiencing rubbbish latency and drop outs in Portslade evening and overnight. Compared to up until Feb service is now awful. Loosing the argument at home about switching to OpenRetch (from a nominal 0.5Gb VM service).