How to find nearest virgin cabinet? And does it affect ping?

BodOps · 17 Oct 2020 at 18:15

Hi all.

Im moving to a new property and just found out that on standard BT/openreach lines i'd be 1500 metres away from the nearest cabinet. Download and upload speeds would be very low and I suspect pings and connections for online gaming might be really bad too.

Been trying to find out where my nearest Virgin cabinet is to compare but after multiple emails, online chats and 2 hours on the phone theyve not been able to provide the info. The person in the sales support team said that distance from the cabinet/exchange wouldn't matter on Virgin (it's different to standard phone lines on openreach apparently) but I don't buy that.

Could you guys let me know how I can find out where the nearest cabinet/exchange is and/or whether distance would affect pings in games etc?

Rainmaker · 17 Oct 2020 at 18:24

BodOps said:
he person in the sales support team said that distance from the cabinet/exchange wouldn't matter on Virgin (it's different to standard phone lines on openreach apparently) but I don't buy that.

He was correct, however.

BodOps · 17 Oct 2020 at 18:27

Rainmaker said:
He was correct, however.

Ah nice. Ok so it's more down to how many people are on the service in the local area? Distance wont affect gaming pings?

Rainmaker · 17 Oct 2020 at 18:42

BodOps said:
Ah nice. Ok so it's more down to how many people are on the service in the local area? Distance wont affect gaming pings?

There's no exchange, as Virgin Media cable uses fundamentally different technology (DOCSIS) compared to broadband down a phone line (ADSL(2)(+)/FTTC/whatever). Virgin lay fibre to the local hubs/nodes, and then coaxial cable from tap points (usually under a grid labelled CATV in your street) to the houses. Each 'line' will be placed on a tap in the cabinet that gives the correct signal strength to give everyone the full speeds, based on their line distance and other factors. Pings aren't in any way impacted that you'd be able to measure.

The problem with line length and attenuation, SNR etc is an issue on phone lines not cable installs, or at least for the purposes of your question. You're correct that an oversubscribed area (i.e. too many people) can slow things down, and some areas do still suffer this. Be aware that pings are by nature a little higher on cable than on phone line broadband types or fibre to the home. Jitter can also be an issue, but again don't read too massively into this - many of the thousands of gamers on here have VM and don't have any issues.

VM have invested a lot since being bought out by Liberty Global however, and work is constantly ongoing to bring things up to date. If your area has gigabit for example, you shouldn't ever have capacity issues. Best thing is to ask neighbours etc how they find it, though don't expect them to tell you much more than 'the wifi works/doesn't work' - people don't tend to be able to answer a technical question like that in the way you may wish. VM do offer a 28 day cooling off period (iirc, check the exact terms for yourself), whereby if you're not happy you can exit the contract without penalty as if you'd never ordered it. You should be fine.

Duke · 17 Oct 2020 at 18:46

Rainmaker covered pretty much everything there. Although the distance to the VM cab doesn't matter, there are more of them (which is why most are smaller compared to FTTC cabs) so there should be one fairly close to your house. On my road there is one about 100 metres in both directions. I guess at some stage they will replace the final run which is coaxial from the cab to being all fibre, which is what new installs have had for the last year or so.

BodOps · 17 Oct 2020 at 19:35

Duke said:
Rainmaker covered pretty much everything there. Although the distance to the VM cab doesn't matter, there are more of them (which is why most are smaller compared to FTTC cabs) so there should be one fairly close to your house. On my road there is one about 100 metres in both directions. I guess at some stage they will replace the final run which is coaxial from the cab to being all fibre, which is what new installs have had for the last year or so.

Great. Thanks for all the info guys. It'll be a new install at the place because the property has never had virgin before - does that bode well for performance?

Duke · 17 Oct 2020 at 19:57

I'm not aware it makes any difference but I did post in the main VM thread a few months ago that they're doing some changes behind the scenes and there is an off chance it might reduce latency a tiny bit. TBH I've been on cable for 20 years (how has the time flown :eek:

) and the pings are fine and never had any issues with speeds. Some areas will be oversubscribed but they do seem to improve it after a while, although for those affected I expect, not quick enough

Caged · 19 Oct 2020 at 00:07

The biggest issue with Virgin Media if you aren't in a congested area is that the hardware they supply and force you to use is complete toilet

neodude · 28 Oct 2020 at 13:53

Caged said:
The biggest issue with Virgin Media if you aren't in a congested area is that the hardware they supply and force you to use is complete toilet

They don't force you to use the hub as a router. Stick it in modem mode and you can use what you like.

Flake87 · 28 Oct 2020 at 20:23

Caged said:
The biggest issue with Virgin Media if you aren't in a congested area is that the hardware they supply and force you to use is complete toilet

Biggest issue with Virgin media is the completely non existent customer service !
That's not to say the kit is any better than suggested though.

Terrier_Jimlad · 28 Oct 2020 at 22:06

Double check your area first and ask other customers if you can what it's like, since offering Gig1 in my area, the entire village come 5pm average ping to lets say Clourfare, Google, or OpenDNS maybe be 9-12ms, suddenly rockets up to 80-300ms and lasts until around 11pm, have a thread open on the VM forums about it showing various customer's TBQMs and they admit there is a capacity issue. Unfortunately, 7 weeks down the road and they still havent fixed it, so I've give my notice and moving to G.Fast ... my 150Mbs wont be as quick as the 500Mbs but at least me and the lads will be able to enjoy gaming and remote working soon.

As Neo said, slap their hub in modem mode and stick a decent router on it, should have no issues in terms of kit.

Semple · 30 Oct 2020 at 09:31

Caged said:
the hardware they supply and force you to use is complete toilet

I actually think VM's approach is much better than other ISP's. At least you can stick their router into bridge mode and use your own kit. I've not come across another ISP's hardware that does this, which results in you needing to also use a 3rd party modem.

Caged · 30 Oct 2020 at 18:51

I prefer the option to buy third party hardware - the VM-supplied routers can still have issues running in modem mode that never come up with the Openreach FTTC modem, Openreach and CityFibre ONTs etc.

neodude · 30 Oct 2020 at 22:06

Never had any issues with my Virgin Hub in modem mode. Been running almost 8 years.

Terminal_Boy · 30 Oct 2020 at 22:16

neodude said:
Never had any issues with my Virgin Hub in modem mode. Been running almost 8 years.

Likewise. The WiFi from my SH3 was bobbins, so I stuck it in modem mode and plugged a Netgear router in. Worked like a charm for a decade.

Flake87 · 31 Oct 2020 at 12:05

neodude said:
Never had any issues with my Virgin Hub in modem mode. Been running almost 8 years.

The issue with the Virgin hub is that it uses the defective Puma 6 chipset:

https://approvedmodemlist.com/intel-puma-6-modem-list-chipset-defects/

neodude · 31 Oct 2020 at 13:21

Flake87 said:
The issue with the Virgin hub is that it uses the defective Puma 6 chipset

That was fixed with a firmware update years ago....

Rainmaker · 31 Oct 2020 at 13:37

neodude said:
That was fixed with a firmware update years ago....

Kind of. It was more hidden than fixed. They just offloaded pings to the wifi chipset (iirc) to make for prettier bqm graphs, but the underlying issues with latency and bufferbloat on real world traffic remains.

Flake87 · 31 Oct 2020 at 14:22

neodude said:
That was fixed with a firmware update years ago....

/QUOTE]
If you read the website it tells you about this:

"Some firmware updates have only temporarily fixed the problem and it seems Intel has no real fix for the issue. Consequently, these bad internet connections landed cable modem maker ARRIS in trouble with a pending lawsuit filed in California."

neodude · 31 Oct 2020 at 15:47

Rainmaker said:
Kind of. It was more hidden than fixed. They just offloaded pings to the wifi chipset (iirc) to make for prettier bqm graphs, but the underlying issues with latency and bufferbloat on real world traffic remains.

Well, I have no issues with pings and we have 4 people in the house all gaming at the same time regularly. My buffer bloat test results speak for themselves....

That test was done while my Son was playing PubG, the wife was watching IPTV and I was downloading "Linux Distros".