I'm pretty clueless when it comes to networking, even in the home, but it's come to a point where I have to do something, I am paying monthly for a service that I am not really getting, or at least I don't think so, being clueless I don't know. So, here's my clueless way of explaining my setup; I switched over to a basic Virgin Media 10mb package, they told me over the phone it had been done, I didn't believe them as my BEST download speeds possible were 250kb/s as they have been for a very long time now, regardless of the service or package I am using. During the day and peak times I am getting an average download speed of 64kb/s give or take 10kb. After speaking to Virgin they tell me that this certainly isn't correct and there must be an issue with the way my network is configured. I have a 50m ethernet tidied away, running from my computer, all the way up to the first floor, where it is either connected to the virgin media modem I was supplied with, which is in turn wired to the wall of the first floor and then the cable runs on the outside of my house (very messy) down to the ground level. Or the ethernet is connected to my Linksys WRK54G wireless router (note that my speeds do not change) if I want to use a wireless device or have someone round with their lappy. Happy days so far. I frequently lose connection with default gateway and DNS errors, multitudes of them and I have tried altering the DNS settings to no avail. I live quite close to the exchange and I am in an area that is quite well catered for I believe. Like I say, i'm pretty clueless and as far as I am concerned the magic runs down the cable. Any help greatly appreciated.
Yes, have had a system running in the same room as the modem and it was a 0.5m or 1m ethernet I recall, really all I needed was a couple of cms. The download speeds were exactly the same, ranging from 25 - 64kb/s when it was peak hours, and 200 - 240kb/s usually after midnight. Another note, I have actually had many wireless cards running on this system, again, more or less the same average speeds all round. The WRK54G seems to do its job well. It has got to the point where almost every other time I refresh or open a new page in my web browser the net is down and I have to do a quick ' W7 diagnose' , it probably sorts itself out, but I always like to do it just incase it comes up with a clue. If not all, most of the time it gives me a DNS, invalid IP or gateway error and just says 'this done broked' no clue as to what is actually configured incorrectly or what settings may need altered. After calling Virgin the second time, when the call centre operator asked me "Is the grey lead plugged into the back of your PC?" I immediately hung up to save hours of absolute drivel.
you should be able to see the configuration on your modem config. page. You can get to it by entering http://192.168.0.1 on your browser. While you're there, also check your downstream and upstream signals pages.
Thanks, although I have tried doing this and unable to see my modems config page. I have also tried this here
Do you have the virgin cable service (fibre) or national requires a phone line (over copper wires) If you are on cable your modem should be on 192.168.100.1 If you download more than 1500Mb in a day you will be throttled to speeds around what your showing Is someone else on your wireless network that you dont know about? The default gateway is your router/modem so that would point to a problem with your network. I have the same problems with virgins DNS and now use google's public one on 8.8.8.8 How are you testing your connection speed, I use www.speedtest.net) none of them are exact though. Check the log files on the router to make sure its not crashing and rebooting when you get timeout/Ip/dns errors my DIR-615 falls over at least 3 times a week If you copy a file from one machine to another on the network what sort of speeds do you get ?
Is the modem connected into the BT master socket? If not move it to that location as the phone extension could be causing problems.
The speeds appear to be the same. I am not sure if it is connected to the BT master socket as the cable runs on the outside of my house like I said and may or may not route back in, I will have to check. I have now got access to my modem via web browser and can view the logs, lots of errors everyday it looks like. I would also like to know if there is somewhere I can lodge an official complaint to or about Virgin media. I have phoned them 4 times now, every time asking them to disable my landline phone and switch me to the 10mb broadband service. for 3 MONTHS now they have told me they have done this and have actually been rather rude when arguing that I am wrong and that they HAVE DONE THIS. Utter load of crap as I have been using the landline phone to check everyday and nothing has changed, I have assumed that the broadband package has also not been changed, yet everytime I complain to them they tell me that I am pretty much telling them lies and that my phone has been disabled, last time I got pretty annoyed and told the operator if he wanted to give me his number I would ring him from my landline number to see if he was still feeling clever. I'm paying monthly for services that I do not want and paying for another service which I am not getting at all.
Ask for the customer relations team (they will tell you they don't take calls ) I got 4 months free out of them as the last 6 bills have been wrong and when I told customer service why they were wrong I was told I was lying by two different CS managers! unfortunately for them I'd still got the email from them in December proving my point!! End of the day VM are good if you want internet cheap, I'm paying £16 for 10MB as they don't require a phone line for fibre I have heard they are good if you have the 50MB service but don't know anyone with it, If you need quality and reliablity I'd move to BE asap. After I gave my data usage to BT,O2,Sky,AOL they all said no thank you please go elsewhere the only ones how didn't mind were VM who throttle on a daily limit (which I avoid) Tiscali (you couldn't pay me to take service from them) or BE who have no real limits despite what the t&c's say
If I can I will try to switch to BE and get some sort of compensation from Virgin, I have shelled out over £100 to them now for absolutely nothing and they seem to think they've done nothing wrong. I just hope BE can sort something out immediately, as it would cost me even more to be offline at home, even for more than a day.
Unfortunately it's unlikely that BE will be able to provide a better speed. What you are getting will be the physical limitation of the copper connecting your house to the exchange.
sorry but im still confused on exactly which service you have as you contradict yourself several times. do you have 10mb FIBRE i.e. cable modem + router. This looks like a TV aerial socket screwed in to your modem or do you have a BT landline and virgin is your broadband provider ? This cable looks like a normal telephone wire with a small plastic clip on the end (RJ11) What does your phoneline have to do with anything ??? If you have cable you cant simply switch to BE as they provide a broadband service on BT lines in which case you would need to get a BT line installed take out bt line rental then get broadband on BE. if your getting slow speeds directly from the router then you need to ring technical support and complain of slow speeds not complain about getting a 10mb line activated to customer support Can you post a www.speedtest.net result ?
It's a cable service.... What my phone line has to do with it is, I don't want a bloody landline phone, they're giving me one, they're charging me for it.
you should be able to get the phone removed and just have broadband if that is what you signed up for keep your bills and complain and they should credit you back for the phone charges. your speed is a totally seperate issue and you need to ring technical support and complain to them. They will ask that you plug directly into the router or if you have a seperate router and modem directly into the modem. if you perform a speedtest.net test what does it say ? EDIT - late post !!!
Neither is inherently reliable. Steam caps out at about 5Megabytes p/s for me on a 52Megabit sync (6.5MBps) and Speedtest varies wildly depending on the time even if I have no internal network connections active. Of course, they're both still reasonable indicators that you're not getting the service you were promised - I don't suppose you have a Usenet subscription by any chance? The only reason I ask is that it's the only application that gives me a consistent 100% connection utilisation, where I always get the full 6.5Megabytes per second. That said, with cable there are a few other things to consider - Have you got the internet/tv splitter between the wall socket and the modem? and then have you got the correct attenuators between the splitter and your modem? When you call VM, which you should, check that you have what you should, and insist on an engineer coming out to verify everything. TSB
No, it's a package deal, I was offered it too. (Although I saw it didn't offer value, and didn't take it) You get the cable for cheaper if you take out a VM phone line too, both subject to the 12 month contract. TSB
I have broadband ONLY from VM and did not equire a phone or was even offered one. It works out more expensive for broadband + phone than just broadband. If the OP signed up for broadband ONLY and they gave him a phone too that is VMs fault and ive seen it happen before. I was signed up to a large TV package at uni which we didint order and it took me about 3 months to get it sorted and removed and credited.
When it was originally setup it wasn't actually me doing, rather another resident of the house who no longer lives here, it was the package TSB is talking about. However, now I want rid of the phone, for something more like you have AB, just broadband, and they say they have done that for me. They have not, I still have a landline capable of making and receiving calls and I am still getting bills with it listed as one of the items of my service.
