emPSN, Virgin, Kcom connection issues.

[nottsure]

Hello,

 

We have been struggling with a faulty connection from Kcom & Virgin, going through the LgFL and emPSN network for nearly a year. We keep being told that this is due to having the Virgin connection (BT based is not an option to us) and no one seems to be in any hurry to help or resolve this. Unfortunately we were signed up to a three year contract and are now starting to despair that we will be trapped with this mess for the next two years.

I'm hoping someone from the Nottingham(shire) area, or further a field, might be able to offer some help or advice.

 

Thanks in advance.

[johnpd]

Isn’t there a wireless wisp isp in your area? Maybe they could help.

[johnpd]

Don’t know if they are any good but try these https://www.mbc-comms.co.uk/free-business-communications-audit

[AlanD]

faulty connection?....exactly what is the problem. (partly thinking the problem is that you seem to have 4 suppliers involved in supplying you a broadband connection - which allows them all to point their fingers at the others) Step 1: Does the virgin connection work - plug in laptop to their router can you browse? (guessing there is some issue with the way Virgin deliver static ip addresses via a virtual connection......does it work for a while and then go really slow...then stop? If so - I'd put the router on a timer - and get it to switch off and back on once a day over night) Edited December 23, 2017 by AlanD

[nottsure]

Thanks AlanD.

 

Yes we can get a connection through Virgin with no problem.

 

I'm told that it has to be this way because we have a Virgin connection (BT doesn't yet have fibre here) so Kcom set up the connection with Virgin business. To then get to the emPSN joint network, which most maintained schools are on in Nottingham we then have to go first through LgFL because of the virgin connection. We also have filtering by CaptalBytes provided through emPSN.

 

I'll try and attach a picture of the public network. This is the part that supposedly has a break somewhere that is only affecting schools with a virgin connection. They have put in some sort of temporary??? bypass which is then causing us to have a degraded connection. This temp bypass has been there longer than I have and is the part causing us the headache.

 

Speaking to one company, they claimed they could fix it by moving us to their network, but with two years left on our current our SLT/Governors are concerned by having a double whammy of setting up a new connection with the costs of that and the penalty for leaving the contact early.

 

[AlanD]

So tell us what kind of connection has Virgin provided (leased line...normal business broadband?)...are you a college? And how does the "fault" manifest itself? Does the line have static IPs? Do you have a your own router behind the virgin one? Are you trying to use Virgins box in a "modem mode" rather than router mode? Things can get very difficult and convoluted when you have VPNs inside VPNs...especially if IP addresses of "internal" subnets along the way are not unique.

[nottsure]

AFAIK it is a normal Virgin business broadband connection (in modem mode) which then goes into a LgFL router. emPSN then run as the core routing and us as a NAT. So we have access to multiple public static IPs but are given a unique subnet for our internal use which is then monitored by emPSN and the Council IT arm. Our part of the network runs mostly fine but any traffic going to or from the internet or to the external parts of the network are very slow. We should have a 50Mbs down and 5Mbs up but are normally getting between 3-7Mbs down and 1-2 up and this can be as low as 1.2Mbs down and 0.2Mbs up.

It is a primary school.

[AlanD]

Virgin - as I understand...have problems with their broadband when using static IPs because the data has to come through a Virtual network (which provides those static IPs) and that network is...well....even the virgin staff will not be surprised when you complain...however the 50/5 seems like a poor offering...We have 300/20 from our virgin line although it does cost £100 a month (not the £50 you will see it advertised for - because apparently public sector can't get it for that money because they off-shore that to supply businesses - which they apparently can't do for public sector - seems like a scam to me). And while we don't always see the full speed - its pretty close to that during business hours (but a noticeable drop in the evening if you can be bothered going back into school). We also have FTTC - both into a load balancing firewall. I would be interested to know if the speeds are better for the first hour or so after restarting the virgin router....because we used to have progressive degradation (which went away if we did away with static IPs on that line) and restarting the virgin modem overnight helped enormously. I'd also be chasing Virgin (and it will be an uphill struggle - because they will want to sell you a leased line - and I partly wonder if they deliberately make it difficult...be prepared to sweat tears and shed blood) for an upgrade to their business Voom service. So if you only get 50% of the speed - it will be a lot more than you get now. Once upon a time leased lines were the only realistic way to get say 10Mb/s ...but FTTC and Virgin asymmetric broad band is fine for most schools - often say with virgin - faster than 100Mb leased line - and only a fraction of the cost. And you can load balance 2 or more FTTC lines for a lot less than leased lines too - providing welcome redundancy in the process - especially if they come from different road cabinets (I guess this is not an option for you). I assume this is a virgin cable connection (rather than a resold openreach line through virgin) you have.

 

Somewhere in your testing - you need to find where the bottle neck is. If you can get 50Mb/s through the modem consistently...then maybe its the filtering that is a problem (too many clients/schools on a low spec/d filter...) or maybe the upstream connections from LEA etc are poor. I know you don't make friends this way - but I'd be threatening to remove myself from Council services unless they got their act together. And I'd be investigating what and how other schools are connected and what their performance is like.