Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Is anyone having to reboot their router/modem regularly with Virgin Broadband? We're having to do it at least once a day. I think it may be a problem with their servers locally so if I notice a disconnect I will post the time on here, I would appreciate if others could do the same.

Tags for Forum Posts: broadband, consumer complaints, virgin media

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I'm trying this route first. I agree with you though.

See this. Scary...
So the engineer came this morning. He has agreed that the modem is fine and has not replaced it. I told him about neighbours getting disconnects at the same time and he has opened a ticket with the elusive "networks" team and suspects that it is the tatty box at the top of our road causing the problems. I still suspect that there is something more central and sinister afoot. For instance, it would be impossible to run any kind of service on these lines...

I will keep you all posted.
Hi John et al

I've just had a visit from a very helpful Virgin engineer, who we had called out to fix our landline (done!) but when he arrived I also mentioned the broadband as this has been getting progressively worse over recent weeks.

We did a check on the signal strength, in terms of power levels. When you're online, type 192.168.100.1 into your internet browser, then login with username 'root' password 'root'. When you click on 'upstream' and 'downstream' you can check the values against the expected. The engineer told me he looks for values < 0 for Downstream Receive Power Level (though 0-5 could be acceptable), and 35-50 for Upstream transmit Power Level (though he said he'd prefer values in the 40s for the Upstream). My readings were +2.5 and +39.5, respectively. So, the engineer went to try and adjust the levels from the street.

Two interesting findings from this:
1. On Lausanne Road (and the rest of the Ladder, it seems), the very long streets mean that not all houses can be connected directly to the main box for broadband (outside our house, roughly half way up the road in our case). Apparently my cable is going to another box at the Wightman Rd end of the road, then being relayed to the main box or something like that. This essentially means that, because the smaller box at the end cannot allow for adjustments of the power for one household without affecting all, an engineer cannot boost the signal for me, and so the problem persists.
2. The engineer looked at the place where the cable comes in at the front of our house. It turns out that my cable has been split to provide the feed for the flat downstairs, apparently by another Virgin engineer. This further weakens my signal. The reason this will have been done is to save on hardware costs by the contractor, and according to the engineer who visited me today, this is not good practice on the part of the engineer who split the feed.

The upshot is there isn't anything we can do for now, although I can speak to my downstairs neighbours and find out if they would be willing to report a complaint and insist upon their own cable being installed. Will update...

c
Thanks. Our neighbour's engineer went one step better and just pinched the top flat's cable and re-routed it to the bottom flat. I was initially impressed that he was done so quick but when the guy from upstairs came down and said his TV had just stopped working we all realised what he'd done. Scandalous. Ha ha ha, of course someone else had to come back and fix it up.

Indeed, speak to your downstairs neighbours and get them to join HoL too.

PS I would edit your comment and remove your address from it. I just give my location as between the passage and the church.
Thanks John, but my ref to number 63 is just where the engineer told me the main box for Lausanne Road is (apparently). Not necessarily my address... I'm pretty closed on that kind of thing too.
OK... I might have a look, I thought the main box was at the Wightman Rd end, that's certainly where I see them fiddling. I've just spoken to their "helpdesk" and apparently the issue is being dealt with... I'll keep chasing but basically, I think they need to do a bit of power boosting at those boxes given that they're unaware of how their engineers do installations. Fingers crossed.
Another fruitless chat with someone art Virgin. Because I have a dedicated router (albeit one that runs Unix/FreeBSD) they want me to plug a PC directly into the connection and see if that has a problem. I explained that my neighbours get the problem at the same time but of course they have a script they're going through.

So, this weekend I have to hook up one of my laptops directly to the modem and call Virgin as soon as I have the problem. If there is anyone with a PC hooked up directly to their modem who gets these random disconnects then I'd love to hear from you.
I've been asked to do the same thing - so definitely a script, as if I don't have beter things to do with my time than sit at my laptop, plugged into the modem, and wait for it to screw up!
Just come across this - I've been having this problem for some while, but put it down to a cranky router. I've got in to the modem as carolafan suggested & the numbers don't look right. I've decided to copy the event log before approaching VM.

This thread shows that the VM service around here leaves much to be desired - why don't we copy the whole thing (Hugh?) & send it to someone in management at VM?
Sadly my only option of copying is the same as everyone else's.
So I did get disconnects when I bypassed the router and had it plugged straight into my laptop.

Sun Jan 24 14:28:31 2010 Sun Jan 24 14:28:31 2010 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...

I rang Virgin and the guy out in India/wherever was actually pretty good. He will get an engineer to come again on Thursday morning (whatever). He seemed to think it was a power issue because my sync light was flashing. Anyone else get a disconnect at 2:30 today?

I've had a look at our cabinets up near the church and outside no. 63, they're closed and don't look vandalised.

I am going to ring up the "Scottish" office tomorrow and we'll see what they say now.
John

I've managed to copy out this thread so far, and have tracked down the VM Head Office address. I suggest that I send the copy with a (polite) "stinker" to the Customer Services director there. Do you think that this is a good idea - would anyone object?

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