Virgin Media - a mini-rant

On the router config page (a WAG200G, by the way) where I enter my login and pw, there is no meniton of speed. There is one option, DSL modulation, which gives the following options: MultiMode, T1.413, G.dmt, G.lite, ADSL2 and ADSL2+. Is this what you meant? It's currently set to MultiMode.

I couldn't find any mention of speed in the remaining configuration pages.

Ginga
 
GingaNinja said:
On the router config page (a WAG200G, by the way) where I enter my login and pw, there is no meniton of speed. There is one option, DSL modulation, which gives the following options: MultiMode, T1.413, G.dmt, G.lite, ADSL2 and ADSL2+. Is this what you meant? It's currently set to MultiMode.

I couldn't find any mention of speed in the remaining configuration pages.

Ginga
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IIRC click status and then either Gateway or DSL Connection

It will say the sync rate in there
 
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GingaNinja said:
Ah - thank you. Under 'Downstream rate' it says 7008 kbps, and under 'Upstream rate' it says 448 kbps. That sounds like it's porbably about right, yes?

Ginga
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Yeah thats means virgin are screwing you over OR your profile is stuck (so the exchange is limiting you)

You should be getting 6.5 meg
 
The BT Speedtest will tell you what your IP profile is set to, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's Virgin playing silly buggers.
 
Just checked my speed on the Gadget Show bandwidth test twice and on both occasions I got about 40kbps. I suspect dial-up would best this. I'm mentally preparing myself to phone up tomorrow and demand improvement or a waiver of the £50 cancellation fee. I might check over my contract. There must be something in there about what they have to provide me with - it can't be entirely one-way traffick in their favour can it?

Ginga
 
GingaNinja said:
Just checked my speed on the Gadget Show bandwidth test twice and on both occasions I got about 40kbps. I suspect dial-up would best this. I'm mentally preparing myself to phone up tomorrow and demand improvement or a waiver of the £50 cancellation fee. I might check over my contract. There must be something in there about what they have to provide me with - it can't be entirely one-way traffick in their favour can it?

Ginga
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Just check your IP Profile as the exchange decides on it as it could be stuck and virgin might not realise

Also they might sugest this when you phone up..

http://speedtester.bt.com/
 
The Gadget Show (and most other) speedtests are rubbish - the only redeeming value of the BT Speedtest is that it'll give your IP profile.
 
Well, the missus is giving me jip, so I'll have to take issue with VM. I guess I have to give them a chance to put it right, but really I'd like them to waive their £50 cancellation charge so I can go to a better ISP. If necessary I'll pay it, such is my desperation.

Ginga
 
So this morning BT speedtester reports 5090kbps. I think I'll still phone and complain though because the service was appalling all of yesterday.

Ginga
 
Is this the first time you've tried to talk to them? (apart from the e-mail), if so they deserve a bit more of a chance to fix it, an e-mail should have been enough but i wouldn't write them off just yet.

If the problem really is with VM then they should re-inburse you the cost of the call, just make sure you mention it to them and keep a log of how long you have to spend on the phone (don't forget they charge a connection fee too ;) )

If you don't have any luck i doubt they could make a good case to charge you the £50 fee, just show them you won't take any call centre crap, if you speak to a techie i'm sure you might get somewhere.
 
Thanks for your thoughts chimaera, and I agree about giving them more a chance to sort me out. As it happens, today my connection is about as good as I've seen it (~5Meg). I phonoed them anyway because of how erratic the service is, but my complainnt seemed a pointless because, at the time, it was fine. She told me they're doing some upgrades (which is also mentioned on their service status page), which shoudl sort out the problem. In the meantime, she said that if it gets really bad I can switch off the router for a few mins and switch it on again, and that will put me onto a 'different channel', which might be less congested. I suspect that this latter bit of advice has no grounding in reality and is just something they say to pacify customers, but I'll give it a try.

My service has gone down (at precisely 4pm) to about 0.5Mbps. It attribute this to traffick shaping (dunno how ebcause I've only been browsing and e-mailing today), but that's fast enough for me just now.

Ginga
 
GingaNinja said:
In the meantime, she said that if it gets really bad I can switch off the router for a few mins and switch it on again, and that will put me onto a 'different channel', which might be less congested. I suspect that this latter bit of advice has no grounding in reality and is just something they say to pacify customers, but I'll give it a try.
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Starts a new connection session which could connect you to a different virgin gateway (The connection between BT and virgin) which might be quicker or could be just as bad
 
GingaNinja said:
In the meantime, she said that if it gets really bad I can switch off the router for a few mins and switch it on again, and that will put me onto a 'different channel', which might be less congested. I suspect that this latter bit of advice has no grounding in reality and is just something they say to pacify customers, but I'll give it a try.
Ginga
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That's what I have to do everyday (sometimes serval times a day) if I want to play online games, or I get about 250ms ping.
 
Piece of advise - get plenty of paracetamol in, after banging your head against the wall, you'll want them.
Good luck with them, I've found them earth shatteringly incompetent, not to go into a long long story but i've rang them at least 15 times and not one of them has managed to implement anything - I've had to wait a month to see the bill, oh huge surprise nothing done ring again etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc, you get the idea oh this includes alleged 'supervisors' / spits whiskey over keyboard LOL'ing

A complete, un-equaled, superior, fantastic, extraordinary, unbelievable even heroic level of awful customer service :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: /yes I'm not happy with them either / goes to grab some more whiskey......
 
Munky1080 said:
That's what I have to do everyday (sometimes serval times a day) if I want to play online games, or I get about 250ms ping.
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Yep, me too. BAM hopping as I like to call it. Get a ping program open (command prompt will do) and start pinging a nice UK server. Go into your router, disconnect, then reconnect. If your ping drops you're found a less overloaded BAM.

Sometimes at peak times I'll find my ping is 250ms until I connect to another BAM and it'll drop to 20ms. Same applies to net speed, you can get huge gains.
 
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