Virgin Useless Media

frank

frank

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<rant Mode> Phoned them up today to take away tivo box and V HD box but leave the 50 mb broadband as it is also the virgin landline, given new monthly payment which was agreeable to me on phone. Just received email confirmation from them they have upgraded my broadband connection to 100 mb (which I didnt want) gave me a tv M package which I just got rid of as two boxes are being returned, using Freeview now and monthly payment has doubled. How can they give me a tv package when I dont have a tv box ...the mind boggles.now listening to s***ty music on phone while on hold <rant mode off>
 
They are uping prices next month. In doing so relieving customers of there contracts. Vodafone have just started a fiber-optic broadband service with no TV or line rental I'm considering the move.
 
How does this work if there is no line rental? I'm currently with Virgin, would BT need to reconnect my old BT line, i assumed it would be adsl, or is Vodaphone run from your mobile via some sort of dongle?
 
vodafone, worst comms company of the lot. if you think VM are bad*....

*incidentally VM have been a breeze to deal with here (only on their cable internet, no phone or TV)

frank said:
How does this work if there is no line rental? I'm currently with Virgin, would BT need to reconnect my old BT line, i assumed it would be adsl, or is Vodaphone run from your mobile via some sort of dongle?
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its fibre internet the same as BT etc so needs a telephone socket. they've just taken the line rental charge off.

its also pretty expensive. £28/month for 76mb unlimited. VM give me double that for £5 more.
 
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neil_g said:
vodafone, worst comms company of the lot. if you think VM are bad*....

*incidentally VM have been a breeze to deal with here (only on their cable internet, no phone or TV)



its fibre internet the same as BT etc so needs a telephone socket. they've just taken the line rental charge off.

its also pretty expensive. £28/month for 76mb unlimited. VM give me double that for £5 more.
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how much are you paying? I have 60mb and the medium package and it's more like £45 and going up again next month?
 
rjbell said:
how much are you paying? I have 60mb and the medium package and it's more like £45 and going up again next month?
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For only the cable Internet I think it's 34/month for what started as 100mb and got upgraded for free* to 150mb last year in their regular "bump everyone up a level" events.

*while the upgrade was free our bill went up by about £1.30/month as a general increase
 
After a pretty rubbish service from BT - my broadband kept going off every time it rained – BT’s “solution” – switch everything off and turn it on again. Weather dry: Broadband works. Weather wet: Broadband doesn’t work didn’t seem to make any impression on them.

After I moved house I decided to try Virgin.

On the install date, three vans from Virgin appeared and the technicians began installing my broadband and phone line. After a while everything went quiet, I looked out and the vans were gone and my front door was left wide open.

I tried to access the web – nothing. I waited and tried again – nothing.

Next day I contacted Virgin and spent some considerable time on hold (listening to Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up – Ha!) eventually I explained what happened.

“Oh no, it hasn’t been installed yet.”

“Yes it has.”

“No it hasn’t”

“It has.”

“I can assure you it hasn’t”

Then I read out the serial number of the router and offered to e-mail them photographs.

“Oh…er…I’ll put you through to the installation team.”

And then I’d have to repeat the same conversation. In fact, I repeated that conversation every day for three weeks.

Then there was a change.

“We can’t install it until we get permission from council.”

“Why?”

“So we can dig up the pavement and put in a pipe to run the cables through.”

“But the cables already run through an existing pipe.”

“No, there are no cables, they haven’t been installed yet.”

“Want pictures?”

“Oh, we’ll put you through to the construction team…”

Repeat above conversation and get “Oh right…we’ll get back to you.”

They didn’t but what did happen was someone came along and dug up the pavement and put a pipe leading to the wrong place.

Then one day there was a knock at the door, I opened it and there was someone from the installation team, he asked if he’d left some equipment behind when he installed my broadband.

I explained what was going on and he said “Oh you should have phoned them.”

That didn’t go down well so he made a call and within ten minutes I was online.

So I’m stuck with them until my contract runs out but haven’t been impressed so far.
 
weird. our house already had the cable through the front garden with the VM wall boxes in the lounge and upstairs. VM seemed to know the cable was still in place (maybe they have records) as they never mentioned it during the sign up/appointment process.

guy rocked up on time and connected router, wasn't live so said they'd had a bit of a tidy up in the manhole recently and disconnected any unused properties, disappeared for 15 mins, came back and turned router on, worked perfectly.
 
I have to say VM works well for me. Been on it since it was Yorkshire cable. Really cant think of any major issues either with products or call centres.
 
I have been with VM since their predecessors laid their first cables in Bristol - we were the first area of the city to go live. Never had an issue with either the company or the service except that the prices appear to have been creeping up over the last couple of years.

A few months ago i called them to downgrade my service as it was costing too much. Straight away regretted it but thought I would stick to my guns. Anyway last month I got a call from them and they have upped my service to what they call the "Big Cahuna" bundle so I not get more TV channels and faster broadband than I had before downgrading for just £6 extra per month for the first year. R E S U L T !!

Note made in diary to call just before the 12 months is up to go back to the reduced service again :)
 
I was paying a discounted rate last year of £48 and was told all my discount would go and i would be paying £77. I told them to cancel. Waited a week and got a call saying they would do it for £69, i told them to carry on with the cancellation. Eventually they came down to £52 which for what i was getting was ok. Had the email last week saying it was going up by £3.50 so i phoned to cancel, he said they knew people would be phoning and offered the same deal for £50.50, to which i agreed. 2 days later i got an email to sign saying i was paying £48 and was on the big kahuna package. More than happy and i cant fault them at all, broadband has been spot on for me.
 
Been with then since NTL & Telewest now 22 years.

I'm on triple XXX package (cable), All channels except sport & movies, unlimited calls except mobils & international and 200meg BB.

It went up to £72 a few months ago and I questioned it so they sent me a copy of my usage.............600 GB in the last month. I had uploaded a pile of stuff to cloud backup so fairynuff I thought.
 
They shouldn't be charging you extra for upload?

VM are crooks, awful internet that can't even watch most YouTube videos and clueless support staff.
 
MilanoChris said:
They shouldn't be charging you extra for upload?

VM are crooks, awful internet that can't even watch most YouTube videos and clueless support staff.
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I never said they charged for upload, my point was I had used 600GB of broadband and they had never uttered a cheep about it. I had also downloaded over 100GB (testing the cloud). I couldn't see you getting away with that on BT broadband!
 
You don't pay for usage, you pay for unlimited, why would they say anything?

Currently BT FTTC is leaps and bounds better than VM, no management, no throttling and no congestion. The only thing VM get right is headline speeds, yet not many get them 24/7.
 
whatever
 
frank said:
How does this work if there is no line rental? I'm currently with Virgin, would BT need to reconnect my old BT line, i assumed it would be adsl, or is Vodaphone run from your mobile via some sort of dongle?
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You still pay for line rental but it's "bundled" into the cost of the broadband rather than being a separate item. Saying no line rental is a marketing ploy (a bit like multi-car insurance).
 
A serious question: What does a speed of, say 100mb, enable you to do that 50mb can't?
Is it simple faster download?
 
MilanoChris said:
Yes, I do. Go on any ISP forums such as Kitz, ISP Preview, Thinkbroadband and they will say the same.
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there are plenty of people on BT forums who disagree.

oh and for what it's worth VM dont traffic manage download speeds, only upload and only for 60 mins.. (unless youre on a legacy 20mb and slower service)
 
viv1969 said:
A serious question: What does a speed of, say 100mb, enable you to do that 50mb can't?
Is it simple faster download?
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Yes, plus more continuous streams, eg you have 5 people in a house streaming HD/UHD content from Netflix or Amazon Prime, 100Mb will most likely cope more than 50Mbit. Very rough numbers but that's the idea.

The problem is with VM, and not many people are aware due to a whole host of reasons I could go into, is that it is a heavily congested network which at peak times fails to deliver the advertised bandwidth. Phone calls to VM support will result in the support team blaming consumer equipment, AV, or something else and a lot of people believe it. If VM do admit a fault, they will credit the account monthly and give a fix date in the future. Unfortunately these dates are hardly ever met and so goes the endless loop.

I'm not for one second saying that this is in all areas of the country, but it's particularly true of big cities, especially ones inhabited by students as they tend to leave bit torrent on 24/7.
 
neil_g said:
there are plenty of people on BT forums who disagree.

oh and for what it's worth VM dont traffic manage download speeds, only upload and only for 60 mins.. (unless youre on a legacy 20mb and slower service)
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It's a plain simple fact that BT FTCC on an unlimited package is not throttled or capped in any way whatsoever. That all stopped a few years ago.

Yes I know that VM don't manage download (and now no longer upload on the 'gamer' package, what I'm saying, which is clarified a little above, is that their network simply isn't capable of giving everyone full speed 24/7.

I'm not saying BT's is, or Sky's or anyone's unless you pay for a symmetrical service, but FTCC supplied by the likes of BT is a much better experience when you look beyond download speeds.
 
MilanoChris said:
Yes, plus more continuous streams, eg you have 5 people in a house streaming HD/UHD content from Netflix or Amazon Prime, 100Mb will most likely cope more than 50Mbit. Very rough numbers but that's the idea.

The problem is with VM, and not many people are aware due to a whole host of reasons I could go into, is that it is a heavily congested network which at peak times fails to deliver the advertised bandwidth. Phone calls to VM support will result in the support team blaming consumer equipment, AV, or something else and a lot of people believe it. If VM do admit a fault, they will credit the account monthly and give a fix date in the future. Unfortunately these dates are hardly ever met and so goes the endless loop.

I'm not for one second saying that this is in all areas of the country, but it's particularly true of big cities, especially ones inhabited by students as they tend to leave bit torrent on 24/7.
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Thanks for the answer.
As a VERY light use customer, I'll stick with my basic 50mb BT fibre then. :-)
Used to have Sky, but the reliability of the connection was dire so left mid contract. :lol:
 
MilanoChris said:
their network simply isn't capable of giving everyone full speed 24/7
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upload maybe, but then having a high upload capacity is a fairly niche requirement. download (which is what 99% of normal use would be) I would disagree, even in a fairly highly subscribed area on the outskirts of southampton i've not seen any throttling on download.

(edit: even on throttle, out of my normal 12mb i'd get restricted to 6mb upload for an hour and then 4mb upload after that if i didnt reduce my upload use. my 150mb download would not get touched)

on a home and business level VM have been a much more reliable and pleasant experience than BT here.
 
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5612867587.png


I get this all day and every day............just saying
 
admirable said:
5612867587.png


I get this all day and every day............just saying
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But as above, unless you've a platoon in your house all online at once, what's the benefit of such speeds (other than bragging rights, of course ;) )
 
admirable said:
5612867587.png


I get this all day and every day............just saying
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awesome speed, im on 75 meg with virgin...solid as a rock never lets me down, downloads all kind of stuff, kids on their ipads the second they are awake and never slows down...cant fault it
 
viv1969 said:
But as above, unless you've a platoon in your house all online at once, what's the benefit of such speeds (other than bragging rights, of course ;) )
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I work from home so internet is important, uploading images to website and the press, using 'we transfer' to send and receive. Certainly not bragging rights.
 
Why is there such differences in upload and download speeds? I know demand is obviously in downloading but shouldn't upload be more than 12 given download is 200+?

I've no idea what I get but I know it does the job I need it to do and despite my run ins with BT (and sky, Vodafone, EE and I'm sure a few more over the years) they'll keep my business while it does what I need it to.
 
admirable said:
I work from home so internet is important, uploading images to website and the press, using 'we transfer' to send and receive. Certainly not bragging rights.
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But surely nothing that a steady reliable 100mb speed couldn't deal with, or less if you're the only one online.
Just seems to me that it reaches a certain point when is does become just a little "look at my speed".
No offence meant, just an observation.
 
neil_g said:
upload maybe, but then having a high upload capacity is a fairly niche requirement. download (which is what 99% of normal use would be) I would disagree, even in a fairly highly subscribed area on the outskirts of southampton i've not seen any throttling on download.

(edit: even on throttle, out of my normal 12mb i'd get restricted to 6mb upload for an hour and then 4mb upload after that if i didnt reduce my upload use. my 150mb download would not get touched)

on a home and business level VM have been a much more reliable and pleasant experience than BT here.
Click to expand...

It's download during peak times that VM struggle in congested areas. Like I said it's not everyone in the UK, but it's quite apparent in areas where it is.

admirable said:
5612867587.png


I get this all day and every day............just saying
Click to expand...

Like I said it's not everyone, consider yourself lucky. :)
 
neil_g said:
upload maybe, but then having a high upload capacity is a fairly niche requirement. download (which is what 99% of normal use would be) I would disagree, even in a fairly highly subscribed area on the outskirts of southampton i've not seen any throttling on download.

(edit: even on throttle, out of my normal 12mb i'd get restricted to 6mb upload for an hour and then 4mb upload after that if i didnt reduce my upload use. my 150mb download would not get touched)

on a home and business level VM have been a much more reliable and pleasant experience than BT here.
Click to expand...

VM have had capacity problems in their backaul in Bristol in the past. It's not "throttling" by policy for heavy usage, it's insufficient network capacity meaning contention on their links and consequent packet loss, meaning in turn the headline throughput is not achievable. Sky had the same problem on their backhaul network around here (people on BT wholesale services using BT 20CN and 21CN for backhaul were not affected, only Sky customers).

As for the VM business service, they are a complete shower. The installation was the biggest comedy of errors one can imagine, "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" doesn't even come close to the chaos when we moved premises. And the "super hub" is anything but super. It has a ludicrously small amount of RAM allocated to tracking connections and drops them from the table in a very short time, meaning that protocols that may spend considerable time with no data exchanged but are still legitimately in use (SSH, for example) just drop unless you enable keepalives.

I can get VM at home. Would I use them? Only if there were no other option but talktalk.
 
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