mcbazza
0
Hi there. Despite the username, please call me Baz/Bazza, or Barry.
I normally frequent the VM ADSL forum over at ThinkBroadband - not sure if I'm allowed to post a direct link, so I'll save that for now. I'm not affiliated with them in any way. I'm just an irate VM customer that cannot believe the way we are all being fobbed off with excuses, smoke & mirrors.
My background is in I.T. with around 20yrs of professional experience. Everything from programming/designing to server admin and overseeing networks. I don't want to shout about where I currently work, but, suffice to say, if you think of the largest UK retailer for Mother+Baby, that's them - where I do all sorts. EPoS, coding, SQL, email. Basically, I'm an all-round I.T. trouble-shooter!!
I run my own 24/7 monitoring (speed/latency/loss/etc) from my home server, and have done for quite some time. Have a look for yourselves:
http://bazza.dyndns.org/rrdstats/baz14all.cgi?p=1w
That view gives you stats over the previous 24hr period.
Feel free to click on the other date ranges.
Try clicking on 'year', and see if you can tell when I moved to VM's ADSL service!! No prizes for getting it right. It's just for fun!
The '2yr' one actually covers 4 seperate broadband connections: Bulldog (8Mbit ADSL), Bulldog (16/24Mbit ADSL2+), NTL/VM (10Mbit cable) and VM (8Mbit ADSL).
As we all know, the issues with speed/latency/etc are all actually caused by VM's refusal to invest heavily in their network infrastructure - more specifically, the BT Centrals - which is what you call the 'pipe' that connects BT to VM's gateway.
If you type this from a command prompt, you'll be able to see what gateway ('BAM') you are connected to:
tracert -h 3 www.bbc.co.uk
Mine comes up as:
As you can see from this, at present my gateway/BAM (Leeds) is heavily overloaded, which is why I'm getting latency of 240-250ms to it. Which, if you don't know your networking, let me tell you, is pi**-poor.
The well-known workaround (for poor speeds/etc) is to disconnect/reconnect your ADSL modem/router, try the 'tracert' again, and keep going until you find a 'good' one.
USB - drop the connection, and reconnect. Don't just pull the lead.
Ethernet modem/router - go into the admin pages of your modem/router, 'disconnect', then 'reconnect'.
I have a script that will do this for you. Currently, it supports USB modems, and Netgear DG834GT's (will probably work on other Netgear).
If you use a non-Netgear modem/router, then this won't work for you. Sorry about that. I can only write code for what I have.
If you are interested in the script, then get in touch with me, and I'll sort you out.
That's it, I have no more left to say - sort of reiterating the topic of my post - Virgin Media are, without doubt, the worst ADSL provider I have ever used.
I never recommend them to anyone, actually, the opposite. I recommend people look elsewhere. But, when you are tied into a contract, what can you do?
Thankfully, I'm out of my contract period now, so I can think about jumping ship soon. Not that I want to. But, I'm wasting my time/money with Virgin Media.
All the best.
Baz
msn: barry_mccauley@hotmail.com
NB: If you do MSN me, don't just add me. Explain who you are, and where you found me. Or, I'll just ignore it.
ps: It's a shame this site doesn't support RSS, then I'd add it into my feeds and keep an eye on it. As it is, I don't think I have the time for another web-based forum to browse. Also, when the web is this slow, these pages take forver to load!!
I normally frequent the VM ADSL forum over at ThinkBroadband - not sure if I'm allowed to post a direct link, so I'll save that for now. I'm not affiliated with them in any way. I'm just an irate VM customer that cannot believe the way we are all being fobbed off with excuses, smoke & mirrors.
My background is in I.T. with around 20yrs of professional experience. Everything from programming/designing to server admin and overseeing networks. I don't want to shout about where I currently work, but, suffice to say, if you think of the largest UK retailer for Mother+Baby, that's them - where I do all sorts. EPoS, coding, SQL, email. Basically, I'm an all-round I.T. trouble-shooter!!
I run my own 24/7 monitoring (speed/latency/loss/etc) from my home server, and have done for quite some time. Have a look for yourselves:
http://bazza.dyndns.org/rrdstats/baz14all.cgi?p=1w
That view gives you stats over the previous 24hr period.
Feel free to click on the other date ranges.
Try clicking on 'year', and see if you can tell when I moved to VM's ADSL service!! No prizes for getting it right. It's just for fun!
The '2yr' one actually covers 4 seperate broadband connections: Bulldog (8Mbit ADSL), Bulldog (16/24Mbit ADSL2+), NTL/VM (10Mbit cable) and VM (8Mbit ADSL).
As we all know, the issues with speed/latency/etc are all actually caused by VM's refusal to invest heavily in their network infrastructure - more specifically, the BT Centrals - which is what you call the 'pipe' that connects BT to VM's gateway.
If you type this from a command prompt, you'll be able to see what gateway ('BAM') you are connected to:
tracert -h 3 www.bbc.co.uk
Mine comes up as:
Code:
Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.251.202]
over a maximum of 3 hops:
1 4 ms 3 ms 3 ms 192.168.100.254
2 246 ms 239 ms 241 ms leed-bam-1.inet.ntl.com [194.145.148.68]
3 244 ms 250 ms 245 ms leed-t3core-1b-ge-112-0.inet.ntl.com [80.0.241.197]
Trace complete.
As you can see from this, at present my gateway/BAM (Leeds) is heavily overloaded, which is why I'm getting latency of 240-250ms to it. Which, if you don't know your networking, let me tell you, is pi**-poor.
The well-known workaround (for poor speeds/etc) is to disconnect/reconnect your ADSL modem/router, try the 'tracert' again, and keep going until you find a 'good' one.
USB - drop the connection, and reconnect. Don't just pull the lead.
Ethernet modem/router - go into the admin pages of your modem/router, 'disconnect', then 'reconnect'.
I have a script that will do this for you. Currently, it supports USB modems, and Netgear DG834GT's (will probably work on other Netgear).
If you use a non-Netgear modem/router, then this won't work for you. Sorry about that. I can only write code for what I have.
If you are interested in the script, then get in touch with me, and I'll sort you out.
That's it, I have no more left to say - sort of reiterating the topic of my post - Virgin Media are, without doubt, the worst ADSL provider I have ever used.
I never recommend them to anyone, actually, the opposite. I recommend people look elsewhere. But, when you are tied into a contract, what can you do?
Thankfully, I'm out of my contract period now, so I can think about jumping ship soon. Not that I want to. But, I'm wasting my time/money with Virgin Media.
All the best.
Baz
msn: barry_mccauley@hotmail.com
NB: If you do MSN me, don't just add me. Explain who you are, and where you found me. Or, I'll just ignore it.
ps: It's a shame this site doesn't support RSS, then I'd add it into my feeds and keep an eye on it. As it is, I don't think I have the time for another web-based forum to browse. Also, when the web is this slow, these pages take forver to load!!