Virgin Media Business Voom 3 review
Background
So before diving into this some background: I'm a nerd. A dweeb. A geek. My first campaign for better Internet connectivity to my local area was in 2000 and was to try and obtain a deployment of ADSL.
In 2012-13 I was involved in getting FTTC delivered to a cabinet in suburban Leeds. There was a feeling in BT that the cabinet didn't serve enough premises to make it economically viable which was incorrect, they were using outdated information. That cabinet is now served by 2 x Huawei 288 FTTC cabinets, one of which has an extension on it to bring its capacity to 384 lines. At that time we also reached out to Virgin Media who looked into the costs of the build and planning, but went no further as they were not looking to extend their network at the time. They actually began building in the Middleton suburb of Leeds in 2015, reaching our property in September of 2017.
My experience with Internet service provider networks is a couple of years with the cable company ntl, some time spent consulting with a North American cable company, working for Easynet and, in turn, Sky, on their broadband ADSL and IP networks. I've spent the past 9 years working in building better networks through WAN optimization and, now, Software Defined WANs.
I work from home and the faster I can move files around the more productive I am. I love bandwidth. I hate waiting. My family are just as impatient. I always take the highest tier product feasible from my ISP, even when, in 2009, it meant spending over £50 a month on broadband alone.
I always have 2 ISPs going into the home. One is my home office/business service, the other is its backup and for general home usage.
We're in the middle of rearranging our connectivity. At the moment there are actually 4 broadband connections coming into the property. Served via Openreach copper one from a TalkTalk Business reseller, Pulse8, previously the primary service, with a backup BT Infinity service. Due to distance from the cabinet both deliver in the mid-60s Mb/s. There are then 2 Virgin Media Business modems, one belonging to my own service and another borrowed from an engineer so that I could test the performance of static IP service relative to dynamic. For obvious reasons this will be reduced to a VMB service and an Openreach-based service.
We have Cat 6A cabling running between the 3 floors of our townhouse. All ISP routers are used as modems or bridges, so ignoring those the property has 2 physical routers, one of which is wireless and both of which can handle a gigabit or more wired. There's also an additional access point on the top floor of the property. All the wireless connectivity is 802.11ac, and all capable of a gigabit genuine throughput. My home network is built to ensure that it wouldn't bottleneck even gigabit broadband if it arrived. There are 5 'smart' switches segmenting the networks. There are 3 separate networks within the property - an office network, a general network and a lab network. The lab network is segmented off heavily as I play with malware there as well as testing for the day job - I am in the process of gaining an MSc in Information Security.
The office network is separated from the rest by a dedicated Software Defined WAN appliance which connects my home office to my employer's network alongside carrying out firewalling duty - the office can talk to my other networks, they can't talk to it unless answering a request from it.
TL;DR - I have some idea about networks, and while the services are delivered to a home the network they are feeding is as complex as a corporate office and, aside from the lower number of users, as demanding. I use VoIP, video conferencing and real-time desktop sharing via WebEx. I require stability, predictability and performance.
The timeline
After VM commissioned the newly built network here an order was placed on 29th September for 'Voom 3'. Up to 350Mb, though only 200Mb available in this newly cabled area, with 20Mb upload and 5 static IPs.
It was then lost until 11th October when it started to be processed.
After a survey visit as they thought they needed to dig the streets some more, they didn't, the install was eventually carried out on 2nd November.
Worryingly the only correspondance I've received has been a direct debit confirmation. I have no idea how to access my bills, I've no idea of my billing date, I've no idea of my customer number, I've not received the BIS certificate indicating the service has been installed and commissioned.
From placing of order to activation: 4 weeks, 6 days.
The provided router
Virgin Media mandate use of a Hitron CGNv4 router for their business broadband. This router has a modem mode and that's about all that can be said about it that's positive. Virgin Media / Liberty Global's firmware running on the router denies the customer some statistics on performance that are provided to residential customers. The GUI is sluggish and can occasionally be very unresponsive. The device is having a firmware update to try and mitigate some of the issues with static IP addresses. The Hitron is the same device that's supplied to residential customers in some other Liberty Global areas. It's disappointing that somewhat better hardware isn't provided to at very least the higher end business broadband customers.
The particulars of performance
Using dynamic IP addressing, download and upload speeds have been pretty much solid throughout. There was some low-level upstream congestion which has been dealt with through moving the area from 2 sets of 2 bonded upstreams to bonding all 4.
Latency is noticeably higher than my FTTC VDSL services. Jitter is noticeably higher than my VDSL services both due to the nature of the cable network and issues with the Puma 6 chipset the Hitron router Virgin Media Business provide uses.
Download speed and packet loss when using static IP addresses are unacceptable.
The faults
By the 3rd of November I had moved away from static IPs - receiving 20-50Mb out of 200Mb alongside jitter and packet loss wasn't appealing. In addition there was a fault on the network causing slower speeds and packet loss on the 2nd that was fixed on the 3rd.
Both VM and I knew that there would be performance issues using static IP addresses. I badly underestimated just how much impact there would be. Virgin Media Business know they have these issues and it's, frankly, unacceptable that they are selling the product in this state.
The static IP addresses issues are due to a combination of faulty firmware on the router VM require customers to use and faulty software / inadequate hardware on the Virgin Media network terminating the GRE tunnels that are used to deliver static IP addressing.
Credit to an engineer who visited on 3rd November, he loaned me his modem which was configured for 350Mb rather than the 200Mb my own is capped at. The performance of the service has been steady at 385Mb download, 21Mb upload with those speeds seen almost all the time.
However, we're now at the 28th of November and I'm still yet to see a fault-free day. I noticed the week after install that the service had been at least once a day every day, and this is an issue that persists. A network fault was closed, prematurely. I have had another fault raised which I presume will be looked into. These drops aren't just affecting me, they will be affecting both broadband and TV services for everyone connected to the optical node cabinet that serves me. For these to still be ongoing after nearly 4 weeks isn't good.
Given that the fault had been closed early I carried out some diagnostics of my own and showed the faults team the symptoms of the issue, re-raising the fault, on 24th November.
Technical support is better than the home equivalents, however I am not receiving much in the way of communication from the faults team. The only update I've received on any of the faults is a text message that was sent automatically when a previous fault was closed.
Verdict
The good
The bad
Overall
This is the only game in town that delivers 'ultrafast' and that's the main positive.
Summing it all up: I am concerned enough that I'm paying an extra charge to reduce the contract length from 24 months to 12 months. I'm obligated to use the company's money as wisely as I can and in that context have seen nothing from Virgin Media Business to indicate that a 24 month contract is wise.
Update 30th November: VM Business inform the line has been checked remotely, this took 4 working days, and seems fine so they've closed the fault. It's still dropping every day.
So before diving into this some background: I'm a nerd. A dweeb. A geek. My first campaign for better Internet connectivity to my local area was in 2000 and was to try and obtain a deployment of ADSL.
In 2012-13 I was involved in getting FTTC delivered to a cabinet in suburban Leeds. There was a feeling in BT that the cabinet didn't serve enough premises to make it economically viable which was incorrect, they were using outdated information. That cabinet is now served by 2 x Huawei 288 FTTC cabinets, one of which has an extension on it to bring its capacity to 384 lines. At that time we also reached out to Virgin Media who looked into the costs of the build and planning, but went no further as they were not looking to extend their network at the time. They actually began building in the Middleton suburb of Leeds in 2015, reaching our property in September of 2017.
My experience with Internet service provider networks is a couple of years with the cable company ntl, some time spent consulting with a North American cable company, working for Easynet and, in turn, Sky, on their broadband ADSL and IP networks. I've spent the past 9 years working in building better networks through WAN optimization and, now, Software Defined WANs.
I work from home and the faster I can move files around the more productive I am. I love bandwidth. I hate waiting. My family are just as impatient. I always take the highest tier product feasible from my ISP, even when, in 2009, it meant spending over £50 a month on broadband alone.
I always have 2 ISPs going into the home. One is my home office/business service, the other is its backup and for general home usage.
We're in the middle of rearranging our connectivity. At the moment there are actually 4 broadband connections coming into the property. Served via Openreach copper one from a TalkTalk Business reseller, Pulse8, previously the primary service, with a backup BT Infinity service. Due to distance from the cabinet both deliver in the mid-60s Mb/s. There are then 2 Virgin Media Business modems, one belonging to my own service and another borrowed from an engineer so that I could test the performance of static IP service relative to dynamic. For obvious reasons this will be reduced to a VMB service and an Openreach-based service.
We have Cat 6A cabling running between the 3 floors of our townhouse. All ISP routers are used as modems or bridges, so ignoring those the property has 2 physical routers, one of which is wireless and both of which can handle a gigabit or more wired. There's also an additional access point on the top floor of the property. All the wireless connectivity is 802.11ac, and all capable of a gigabit genuine throughput. My home network is built to ensure that it wouldn't bottleneck even gigabit broadband if it arrived. There are 5 'smart' switches segmenting the networks. There are 3 separate networks within the property - an office network, a general network and a lab network. The lab network is segmented off heavily as I play with malware there as well as testing for the day job - I am in the process of gaining an MSc in Information Security.
The office network is separated from the rest by a dedicated Software Defined WAN appliance which connects my home office to my employer's network alongside carrying out firewalling duty - the office can talk to my other networks, they can't talk to it unless answering a request from it.
TL;DR - I have some idea about networks, and while the services are delivered to a home the network they are feeding is as complex as a corporate office and, aside from the lower number of users, as demanding. I use VoIP, video conferencing and real-time desktop sharing via WebEx. I require stability, predictability and performance.
The timeline
After VM commissioned the newly built network here an order was placed on 29th September for 'Voom 3'. Up to 350Mb, though only 200Mb available in this newly cabled area, with 20Mb upload and 5 static IPs.
It was then lost until 11th October when it started to be processed.
After a survey visit as they thought they needed to dig the streets some more, they didn't, the install was eventually carried out on 2nd November.
Worryingly the only correspondance I've received has been a direct debit confirmation. I have no idea how to access my bills, I've no idea of my billing date, I've no idea of my customer number, I've not received the BIS certificate indicating the service has been installed and commissioned.
From placing of order to activation: 4 weeks, 6 days.
The provided router
Virgin Media mandate use of a Hitron CGNv4 router for their business broadband. This router has a modem mode and that's about all that can be said about it that's positive. Virgin Media / Liberty Global's firmware running on the router denies the customer some statistics on performance that are provided to residential customers. The GUI is sluggish and can occasionally be very unresponsive. The device is having a firmware update to try and mitigate some of the issues with static IP addresses. The Hitron is the same device that's supplied to residential customers in some other Liberty Global areas. It's disappointing that somewhat better hardware isn't provided to at very least the higher end business broadband customers.
The particulars of performance
Using dynamic IP addressing, download and upload speeds have been pretty much solid throughout. There was some low-level upstream congestion which has been dealt with through moving the area from 2 sets of 2 bonded upstreams to bonding all 4.
Latency is noticeably higher than my FTTC VDSL services. Jitter is noticeably higher than my VDSL services both due to the nature of the cable network and issues with the Puma 6 chipset the Hitron router Virgin Media Business provide uses.
Download speed and packet loss when using static IP addresses are unacceptable.
The faults
By the 3rd of November I had moved away from static IPs - receiving 20-50Mb out of 200Mb alongside jitter and packet loss wasn't appealing. In addition there was a fault on the network causing slower speeds and packet loss on the 2nd that was fixed on the 3rd.
Both VM and I knew that there would be performance issues using static IP addresses. I badly underestimated just how much impact there would be. Virgin Media Business know they have these issues and it's, frankly, unacceptable that they are selling the product in this state.
The static IP addresses issues are due to a combination of faulty firmware on the router VM require customers to use and faulty software / inadequate hardware on the Virgin Media network terminating the GRE tunnels that are used to deliver static IP addressing.
Credit to an engineer who visited on 3rd November, he loaned me his modem which was configured for 350Mb rather than the 200Mb my own is capped at. The performance of the service has been steady at 385Mb download, 21Mb upload with those speeds seen almost all the time.
However, we're now at the 28th of November and I'm still yet to see a fault-free day. I noticed the week after install that the service had been at least once a day every day, and this is an issue that persists. A network fault was closed, prematurely. I have had another fault raised which I presume will be looked into. These drops aren't just affecting me, they will be affecting both broadband and TV services for everyone connected to the optical node cabinet that serves me. For these to still be ongoing after nearly 4 weeks isn't good.
Technical support is better than the home equivalents, however I am not receiving much in the way of communication from the faults team. The only update I've received on any of the faults is a text message that was sent automatically when a previous fault was closed.
Verdict
The good
- Download speeds are 5 times anything Openreach / BT will offer to this address any time soon.
- No download limits or traffic shaping either upstream or downstream.
- Technical support always reachable rapidly, UK based, and easy to deal with.
- Prices are competitive.
- No phone line is required.
The bad
- Static IP services don't work and should not be advertised.
- Given the download speeds the upload speeds are pretty low. More would be very useful.
- Latency and jitter are borderline and can impede real-time services.
- Reliability has been unacceptable.
- Having to constantly reach out to technical support over the phone to get updates is a little inconvenient - they don't seem to respond to emails.
- The processes are a mess. Orders are processed manually - mine was lost for nearly a fortnight. Not receiving any correspondance other than a direct debit confirmation is alarming.
Overall
This is the only game in town that delivers 'ultrafast' and that's the main positive.
Summing it all up: I am concerned enough that I'm paying an extra charge to reduce the contract length from 24 months to 12 months. I'm obligated to use the company's money as wisely as I can and in that context have seen nothing from Virgin Media Business to indicate that a 24 month contract is wise.
Update 30th November: VM Business inform the line has been checked remotely, this took 4 working days, and seems fine so they've closed the fault. It's still dropping every day.
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