Virgin Media UK Working to Fix Ping Spikes on 2Gbps Broadband Lines

A small number of Virgin Media’s (O2) broadband ISP customers, which appears to be largely impacting those on their latest 2Gbps full fibre package via nexfibre’s new XGS-PON (FTTP) network, have recently been suffering regular spikes in network latency (ping) and packet loss. But the good news is that the provider is working on a permanent fix.

The problem was first brought to ISPreview’s attention over a week ago after some of Virgin Media’s customers, primarily those who enjoy playing fast-paced online multiplayer games, noticed an unusually predictable period of disruption. In most cases this seemed to be occurring once every hour or so, which resulted in several seconds of disruption for gamers (i.e. lag and warping effects due to a ping spike).

Latency itself is a measure of the time (i.e. the delay in milliseconds – 1000ms = 1 second) that it takes for a packet of data to travel from your router to a remote server and then back again (ping). The shorter the delay, the better. This is particularly important for fans of fast-paced online games, where a low ping (lower figures are better) can result in smoother gameplay, while high pings and spikes disrupt play.

Issues with latency often go hand in hand with Packet Loss, which is the term given to a problem that occurs when some of the data packets being transmitted between two or more points (e.g. servers) on the internet effectively go missing or are incorrect. The connection will autocorrect for this, but doing so can result in a delay (e.g. increased latency / high ping times) and, at its worse, data corruption.

Suffice to say that online gamers are often the first to notice when something unusual is happening with connection latency, although such issues can also impact other services too (we’ve had reports of connectivity problems with remote desktop/VPN apps and call dropouts etc.). We should add that all networks can sometimes suffer problems with latency and packet loss, but such issues are usually localised and may be related to congestion or routing/peering problems. In this case, the issue wasn’t localised and had a predictable pattern, which suggested another cause.

What’s the cause?

After a bit of digging, ISPreview found that this specific issue typically seemed to be occurring for customers on Virgin Media’s latest 2Gbps speed broadband package on nexfibre’s network (FTTP – XGS-PON) with their HUB 5x router (note: there are indications that others may be affected too). Some of those impacted by this had previously upgraded from the provider’s 1Gbps tier, where they suffered no such problems.

Take note that not every user will be able to spot problems like this (i.e. active online gamers are more exposed to it), thus many others may not know if it’s occurring or even impacting them. Nevertheless, several threads on Virgin’s own Community Forum (here, here and here) can be linked to the same issue, which strongly suggests that the culprit is Virgin’s RealSpeed system.

For the uninitiated, RealSpeed reflects the router agent that SamKnows (CISCO) developed in order to more proactively and accurately measure the performance of broadband lines, which can also help to spot problems. The system runs at regular intervals, although normally it does so in a seamless way and customers should not notice. But something about either the 2Gbps service or the HUB 5x router may be conflicting with that.

A Virgin Media spokesperson told ISPreview:

“We’re aware that a small handful of customers may be experiencing latency spikes and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. Our team has taken steps to help minimise any disruption while continuing to work on a permanent resolution as a priority.”

In terms of the steps that Virgin Media has taken to “help minimise any disruption“, we know that one of those has involved switching off the RealSpeed agent on the lines of those who have complained. As soon as RealSpeed was switched off, then the problems with latency and packet loss (occurring hourly) went away.

In addition, Virgin Media has also reduced the background testing to use a much lighter schedule and tightened their cross-traffic detection system, meaning tests will only run if no traffic, or a very small volume of traffic, is passing across the customer’s connection.

Some of the latency spikes were so bad that they peaked at up to 1000ms, which is enough to cause brief connectivity and performance problems for a lot of services. But other spikes were more modest, and experiences do vary. Virgin Media does not currently have a huge pool of customers on their 2Gbps service and so there won’t be a vast number of complaints, although the first issues were raised back in early May 2024.