UKVoIPTalk.com

Nick wrote:
[color=blue]
> I'm surprised that a VOIP connection works at all while STM is in place.[/color]

My upstream gets throttled to 128Kb/s, still enough to carry a 64Kb/s
a-law voice stream.
[color=blue]
> I was never under STM. My connection sucked because of congestion.[/color]

How do you know? VM's support groups are full of people asking if
they're being STMed. They have to ask, otherwise how would they know
it's not congestion or other network problems?
[color=blue]
> It is easy to spot STM because the upstream speed drops so significantly.[/color]

Congestion can do that too.
[color=blue]
> If you don't approve of STM how do you think VirginMedia should manage
> congestion?[/color]

How about not rolling out speed upgrades until they have the network
capacity to support them.

On Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:05:42 +0100, Al Paca
<Al-Paca@lostsomewhereinperu.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
>On Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:42:10 GMT, [email]mymail@hotmail.co.uk[/email] wrote:
>[color=green]
>>not that I use any voip services much these days I am quite happy
>>using my free mobile minutes daytime and BT line evenings and weekends[/color]
>
>Then as usual Ron, it would appear that you have nothing of value to
>contribute to this discussion on VOIP.
>
>So why don't you just FOAD?[/color]
You appear to me to be a totally ignorant bastard so you FOAD and be
quick about it .

TheMgt wrote:[color=blue]
> Nick wrote:
>[color=green]
>> I'm surprised that a VOIP connection works at all while STM is in place.[/color]
>
> My upstream gets throttled to 128Kb/s, still enough to carry a 64Kb/s
> a-law voice stream.
>[color=green]
>> I was never under STM. My connection sucked because of congestion.[/color]
>[/color]

I thought STM used a method that dropped packets. I'm not sure this is
the case and would welcome a technical descriptions of how STM works.
[color=blue]
> How do you know? VM's support groups are full of people asking if
> they're being STMed. They have to ask, otherwise how would they know
> it's not congestion or other network problems?
>[/color]

If you haven't download much and your upstream is 3 times the STM limit.
It seems like a no-brainer.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> It is easy to spot STM because the upstream speed drops so significantly.[/color]
>
> Congestion can do that too.
>[/color]

It can but my experience was that the upstream did not drop anywhere
near as much as the downstream. More to the point it means if it doesn't
drop you know you are not being STMed.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> If you don't approve of STM how do you think VirginMedia should manage
>> congestion?[/color]
>
> How about not rolling out speed upgrades until they have the network
> capacity to support them.
>[/color]

I think current costs for ADSL 1Mb/s are about £200 per month. I was
looking at the new BT ADSL provison quoting prices less than this but
still in the £100 region. VM has a different cost structure to BT but
the problem is still the same. Say VM can provide 1Mb/s for £50 a month,
If a substantial proportion of users start using that allocation the
network gets congested.

So if a 20Mb/s user pays £37 a month after profit and admin costs are
taken maybe £25 is left which can finance 1/2 Mb/s. Thus you cannot
profitably run at a contention ratio of < 40:1. The more bandwidth
hungry users get the more likely this figure causes congestion.

VM cannot just add network capacity to fix the problem.

Woody wrote:
[color=blue]
> As I said on here a week or so ago, Virgin (as was NTL) got big by
> taking over other cable companies, and the install standard and system
> structure varied a lot between them.
>
> Get a good area in Virgin - as it is round here - and VOIP works
> perfectly well, but in other areas it is not so.[/color]

I disagree.
I was with Telewest from the start and had brilliant service for many
years through 1Mb -> 2Mb -> 4Mb -> through Blueyonder 10Mb even
ntl:telewest merger was fine until VM took over and started sharing main
pipes with ADSL trafic. Cutting costs through cutting spending while
trying to reel in more & more customers so they could find a foolish
investor willing to buy a company that was so far down in the sh1t it
was a hopelss investment...
That's when it went tits-up, that's when voip and even broadband became
crippled.

Nothing to do with the installation of local infrastructure as that was
all un-changed.

The deeper they get into debt, the more they will be throttling back
bandwidth and limiting QOS. Just as long as they allow you to hit 20Mbps
for a few minutes each day when everyone is asleep, the service will
keep getting worse.
I will never go back to cable not now not never.

Pete

"www.GymRatZ.co.uk" <discount-fitness-equipment@gym.shop.com> wrote in
message news:ftbg93$nqp$1@registered.motzarella.org...[color=blue]
> Woody wrote:
>[color=green]
>> As I said on here a week or so ago, Virgin (as was NTL) got big by
>> taking over other cable companies, and the install standard and
>> system structure varied a lot between them.
>>
>> Get a good area in Virgin - as it is round here - and VOIP works
>> perfectly well, but in other areas it is not so.[/color]
>
> I disagree.
> I was with Telewest from the start and had brilliant service for many
> years through 1Mb -> 2Mb -> 4Mb -> through Blueyonder 10Mb even
> ntl:telewest merger was fine until VM took over and started sharing
> main pipes with ADSL trafic. Cutting costs through cutting spending
> while trying to reel in more & more customers so they could find a
> foolish investor willing to buy a company that was so far down in the
> sh1t it was a hopelss investment...
> That's when it went tits-up, that's when voip and even broadband
> became crippled.
>
> Nothing to do with the installation of local infrastructure as that
> was all un-changed.
>
> The deeper they get into debt, the more they will be throttling back
> bandwidth and limiting QOS. Just as long as they allow you to hit
> 20Mbps for a few minutes each day when everyone is asleep, the service
> will keep getting worse.
> I will never go back to cable not now not never.
>
> Pete
>[/color]


Have it your way if you wish, but I have done speed tests regularly over
the last six months at all times of the day and on a 4Mb cable feed I
have never had less than 3.7Mb and often have 4.2Mb - and this is
morning, afternoon, early and late evening, weekends when the weather is
bad, whatever. I can't think that VM either know when I will do a test
or have singled out my line to give special treatment, ergo the
situation must vary according to location.

Any other VM users around the country care to do some speed testing and
comment?


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

In article <ftbg93$nqp$1@registered.motzarella.org>, [url]www.GymRatZ.co.uk[/url]
<discount-fitness-equipment@gym.shop.com> writes[color=blue]
>Woody wrote:
>[color=green]
>> As I said on here a week or so ago, Virgin (as was NTL) got big by
>> taking over other cable companies, and the install standard and system
>> structure varied a lot between them.
>>
>> Get a good area in Virgin - as it is round here - and VOIP works
>> perfectly well, but in other areas it is not so.[/color]
>
>I disagree.
>I was with Telewest from the start and had brilliant service for many
>years through 1Mb -> 2Mb -> 4Mb -> through Blueyonder 10Mb even
>ntl:telewest merger was fine until VM took over and started sharing main
>pipes with ADSL trafic. Cutting costs through cutting spending while
>trying to reel in more & more customers so they could find a foolish
>investor willing to buy a company that was so far down in the sh1t it
>was a hopelss investment...
>That's when it went tits-up, that's when voip and even broadband became
>crippled.
>
>Nothing to do with the installation of local infrastructure as that was
>all un-changed.
>
>The deeper they get into debt, the more they will be throttling back
>bandwidth and limiting QOS. Just as long as they allow you to hit 20Mbps
>for a few minutes each day when everyone is asleep, the service will
>keep getting worse.
>I will never go back to cable not now not never.
>
>Pete
>[/color]
Peter that was my experience also, but a month ago external bandwidth
went up to 10Mbps again. VoIP also works nicely all day.
--
Bob Geddes

Woody wrote:[color=blue]
> "www.GymRatZ.co.uk" <discount-fitness-equipment@gym.shop.com> wrote in
> message news:ftbg93$nqp$1@registered.motzarella.org...[color=green]
>> Woody wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> As I said on here a week or so ago, Virgin (as was NTL) got big by
>>> taking over other cable companies, and the install standard and
>>> system structure varied a lot between them.
>>>
>>> Get a good area in Virgin - as it is round here - and VOIP works
>>> perfectly well, but in other areas it is not so.[/color]
>> I disagree.
>> I was with Telewest from the start and had brilliant service for many
>> years through 1Mb -> 2Mb -> 4Mb -> through Blueyonder 10Mb even
>> ntl:telewest merger was fine until VM took over and started sharing
>> main pipes with ADSL trafic. Cutting costs through cutting spending
>> while trying to reel in more & more customers so they could find a
>> foolish investor willing to buy a company that was so far down in the
>> sh1t it was a hopelss investment...
>> That's when it went tits-up, that's when voip and even broadband
>> became crippled.
>>
>> Nothing to do with the installation of local infrastructure as that
>> was all un-changed.
>>
>> The deeper they get into debt, the more they will be throttling back
>> bandwidth and limiting QOS. Just as long as they allow you to hit
>> 20Mbps for a few minutes each day when everyone is asleep, the service
>> will keep getting worse.
>> I will never go back to cable not now not never.
>>
>> Pete
>>[/color]
>
>
> Have it your way if you wish, but I have done speed tests regularly over
> the last six months at all times of the day and on a 4Mb cable feed I
> have never had less than 3.7Mb and often have 4.2Mb - and this is
> morning, afternoon, early and late evening, weekends when the weather is
> bad, whatever. I can't think that VM either know when I will do a test
> or have singled out my line to give special treatment, ergo the
> situation must vary according to location.
>
> Any other VM users around the country care to do some speed testing and
> comment?
>
>[/color]
When I was with VM they had their own private support newsgroups which
were full of people complaining about the speed.

They also recommended speed tests which were based upon the total
download speed of a number of connections, they claimed this was because
the remote sites were too slow to keep up with VM. However my
observation was that congestion was affecting each connection at the
VirginMedia end, I independently tested this against another ISP. It is
no good being able to have four 1 Mb/s connections if you need a
connection to stream video at 2.5 Mb/s. I did ask VM about this but they
were not open or honest about the problem.

My own personal observation was that a 20Mb/s line would drop down as
low as 1Mb/s every evening.

Bob Geddes wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> The deeper they get into debt, the more they will be throttling back
>> bandwidth and limiting QOS. Just as long as they allow you to hit 20Mbps
>> for a few minutes each day when everyone is asleep, the service will
>> keep getting worse.
>> I will never go back to cable not now not never.
>>
>> Pete
>>[/color]
> Peter that was my experience also, but a month ago external bandwidth
> went up to 10Mbps again. VoIP also works nicely all day.[/color]

That is good to here. But when they tie you into a 1 year contract,
given the way it has been in the past, I would want some kind of
guarantee of QoS.

Bob Geddes wrote:
[color=blue]
> Peter that was my experience also, but a month ago external bandwidth
> went up to 10Mbps again. VoIP also works nicely all day.[/color]

:¬)
Might be to do with the amount of people that have fled once their 12
month contracts expired. There seems to be another wave of advertising
going on round these parts, but I would think if it gets too bad then
they would cut costs once more.
Can't have folks getting what they paid. ;¬)

Pete

--
[url]http://gymratz.co.uk[/url] - Fitness & Gym Equipment/nutrition specialists.
[url]http://www.trade-price-supplements.co.uk[/url] - Bulk buy for up to 33% off.
[url]http://www.BBE-Boxing-Equipment.co.uk[/url] - New Boxing Equipment site.
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"Nick" <Nick.Spam@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:65u33dF2hhj8aU1@mid.individual.net...[color=blue]
>
> My own personal observation was that a 20Mb/s line would drop down as low
> as 1Mb/s every evening.[/color]

Can't say i've ever had any real problems here (West London) in 4 years,
occasional DNS problems and the odd go slow but very rarely......

Only slightly below 20Mbps at 6pm

Date 07/04/08 18:03:57
Speed Down 18407.70 Kbps ( 18 Mbps )
Speed Up 719.77 Kbps ( 0.7 Mbps )
Port 8095
Server speedtest1.adslguide.org.uk


Paul