Virgin offer - where's the catch?

Angilion · 8 Jun 2008 at 09:19

Got an offer today...£20 a month for basic TV, phone line with free calls at weekends and unlimited 2Mb internet access.

BT line rental is £12 if I recall correctly. I have 2Mb internet now and don't need any faster. I'm still paying £18 for that, because I can't be bothered to move ISPs and I don't want to sign the 18 month contract AOL wanted to upgrade me to the 8Mb service I didn't want anyway.

So I pay about £10 less per month and get some TV, which I might watch every now and then.

There must be a catch. Is this one of those very limited "unlimited" services? Unlimited as in any time of the day, but there's a low cap they won't tell you about? Is the "up to 2Mb" a case of "might be 2Mb once in a blue moon"? Does their net service fail frequently? Is it a case of "£20 until we put the price up in a few months, once we have you"? Are VM running on the principle of "screw your privacy, we're in the spyware and advertising business"?

It sounds too cheap, so it probably is.

Daegan · 8 Jun 2008 at 09:41

The catch will probably be that it's only £20 for the first 3 months, after which it goes up to £30. The broadband is unlimited in that you can use it at any time and download as much as you want, bandwidth allowing. However your bandwidth will be throttled if you trigger their traffic management policies.

Stability will depend on the quality of service in your area. Generally they're pretty good but they're a massive company with an infrastructure inherited from loads of different cable providers - when something goes wrong they're not always good at fixing it.

Dist · 8 Jun 2008 at 09:43

As with all VM broadband services, if you download too much during certain times, then your connection speed will be reduced to a slower speed for several hours.

For the 2Mb connection, if you download 500MB (or upload 200MB), between 4pm and 9pm you will be throttled for 5 hours, also if you download 1000MB between 10am and 3pm you will be throttled for 5 hours.

So if you are not a heavy downloader, none of this will matter to you, the only thing that will matter is if you are in an over subscribed area, which will mean slower speeds. Personaly though ive never had a problem, i always get the 20Mb i pay for.

4T5 · 8 Jun 2008 at 11:05

Don't doubt Virgin mate, I get 10MB, Good Tv pack & my house phone for just over 30 quid & have done for ages, They even guaranteed the price for 12 months, I have been with them for years though but this doesn't make a difference as they want your custom.
Superb service as well with Superb pings, Large downloads need to be scheduled to avoid throttling but I haven't been throttled in all the years I've been with them.

Plenty of nightmare storys about ISP's but never any of praise. Personally if I have to move then the only house i would move to is one with Cable.

Robert · 8 Jun 2008 at 11:05

Dist said:
As with all VM broadband services, if you download too much during certain times, then your connection speed will be reduced to a slower speed for several hours.

For the 2Mb connection, if you download 500MB (or upload 200MB), between 4pm and 9pm you will be throttled for 5 hours, also if you download 1000MB between 10am and 3pm you will be throttled for 5 hours.

So if you are not a heavy downloader, none of this will matter to you, the only thing that will matter is if you are in an over subscribed area, which will mean slower speeds. Personaly though ive never had a problem, i always get the 20Mb i pay for.

5 hours actually.

spirity · 8 Jun 2008 at 12:45

Angilion said:
Are VM running on the principle of "screw your privacy, we're in the spyware and advertising business"?

Yes, to be frank.

As others have mentioned, they do have a capping policy. But they are also in negotiations with a company called Phorm. And you need to read these next two paragraphs very carefully.

Basically what this will mean is this (if i have this right). Spyware will be put on your pc that will track your browsing habits. The addresses of websites you visit will be logged. You'll then be targetted for advertising promotions related to the websites you visit. Say for example you visit Going Places. Your visit to Going Places will be recorded, along with your IP address, and you'll be sent pop-ups with offers of holiday-related offers, promotions etc. I -think- you can opt out of this if you want.

Unconnected to Phorm, you should also look at this - http://stopvirgin.movielol.org/ and see what Virgin's stance on net neutrality is. Basically, your internet connection will be optimised for websites Virgin have a vested interest in. For websites that don't fall under Virgin's approvement, the quality of your connection will be lessened.

I hope that's given you some food for thought. If you don't mind the throttling, the spyware, and Virgin's opposition to net neutrality, then go with Virgin.

Defiance_co · 8 Jun 2008 at 13:20

Since NTL bought out Virgin Mobile and then setup Virgin Media the caps came in

They say the highest 3% of users are hit but in reality everyone gets capped

unless you live in a very low contention-ratiod area

What NTL really wanted was to change its image, So they bought Virgin Mobile to have the Virgin name/brand-power

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jul/04/citynews.marketingandpr

My 20meg service aint too bad but not as good as the speeds when it was NTL (on their at-then speeds i mean)

So many people think VM tookover NTL but above explains what happened

NTL's service was great, Customer service was not especially billing he he

VM service is worsening and their services are too lol

As said it's an offer, sooner or later it will go up, But if you call Retentions and try to cancel etc they will try to move heaven and earth to keep you with money/offers incentives etc

Ciao

Def

spookywillow · 8 Jun 2008 at 13:45

Defiance_co said:
As said it's an offer, sooner or later it will go up, But if you call Retentions and try to cancel etc they will try to move heaven and earth to keep you with money/offers incentives etc

Ciao

Def

exactly, when you order at that deal price just make sure you confirm it is for 12 months. if its only a 3 month deal then just tell them its not worth the hassle and they will do it.

also when the offer is up they will usually renew it anyway as when i recently moved i still had 4 months or so left of my deal (XL tv/phone/net for £40.50) and they carried it over to my new account and told me to just ring them to renew it after it ends.

to be fair virgin seem to be getting their act together except for the phorm and warning letters that they are doing but that dont bother me. speeds are fantastic and i very rarely get less than my full 20mb although i can't speak for everyone as every UBR is different.

Daegan · 8 Jun 2008 at 13:53

Defiance_co said:
They say the highest 3% of users are hit but in reality everyone gets capped

No, traffic management may apply to everyone, but that doesn't mean everyone gets capped. A bit of browsing and email isn't enough to get capped, and since that's all most people use the internet for you can appreciate where the 3% figure comes from.

spookywillow · 8 Jun 2008 at 13:57

no....everyone who goes over their quota during STM hours will and do get capped.

im quite sure that d/l 4gb or whatever the limit is during STM hours does not put me in the top 3% of downloaders.

spirity · 8 Jun 2008 at 14:03

spookywillow said:
also when the offer is up they will usually renew it anyway

Not always. If you signed on with a certain deal, after the 12 months are up they will alter your bill to reflect the standard price. They won't send you a letter or email advising you of the change, they'll just increase your bill.

If you ring them, you will possibly get the deal reinstated, but you'll be locked into another 12 month contract.

Amnesia · 8 Jun 2008 at 14:47

Daegan said:
No, traffic management may apply to everyone, but that doesn't mean everyone gets capped. A bit of browsing and email isn't enough to get capped, and since that's all most people use the internet for you can appreciate where the 3% figure comes from.

which can be done quite nicely on a 56k modem

Macro · 8 Jun 2008 at 20:04

spirity said:
Unconnected to Phorm, you should also look at this - http://stopvirgin.movielol.org/ and see what Virgin's stance on net neutrality is. Basically, your internet connection will be optimised for websites Virgin have a vested interest in. For websites that don't fall under Virgin's approvement, the quality of your connection will be lessened.

To be fair my understanding of this is slightly different.

Virgin propose initially to offer enhanced "additional" bandwidth to specific partners. That is to say other services will not be effected, however premium content could be routed over dedicated high speed links. This is not the same as "anyone who doesn't pay gets slowed down".

The problem is companies are making a large amount of money supplying high bandwidth services over an infrastructure they don't have to pay for. In the mean time ISPs are having to spend millions in upgrades and have their services to customers effected by companies in effect getting their business subsidised.

I think the basic premise of the ISPs is these companies should, if they are profiting from using the ISPs infrastructure, share the revenue, if only in a small way.

I don't think it's entirely unreasonable. If a company chooses to send a service to you by post they expect to pay the carrier (be it the royal mail or courier). It's already been established that it's Ok for a neutral delivery mechanism (post office services) to charge different rates depending on the demands (or bandwidth) the services puts on them. For example, the bigger or heavier the package they deliver, the more the profiting company pays, which easily translates to bandwidth usage in the case of an ISP.

The idea is not to punish users, but for ISPs to stop subsidising someone elses money making activities.

Steve2000 · 8 Jun 2008 at 20:33

Contrary to popular belief, Phorm does not install spyware on your machine, and your website's aren't logged. All it does is analyse each website as you go on it, and place it into a category. Then after X amount of time it calculates the categories with the most hits, and targets ads towards you based on that subject. Your IP address is not recorded, and you can even opt out someway or another.

Still, ads are annoying to me even if they pertain to what I'm interested in. So I have them disabled in my internet browsers.

Frank_Rizzo · 8 Jun 2008 at 21:40

Lot of FUD here.

Phorm does not install anything on your PC.

Your internet traffic (both ways) is intercepted, copied and EVERY word and number processed.

Personal / Confidential info such as credit card numbers and emails are discarded.

This information is used to create a profile about you. When you later visit a site which has signed up to OIX you will start to see ads tuned to your profile.

You now have the option to opt-in (previously they wanted the onus to be on us to opt-out). But not opting in will only stop the ads from being shown - you will still get all your webpage browsing profiled (from the last info I have).

IP addresses may not be logged but the recent leaked document of the 2006 test implies that IP addresses were obtainable from the Squid server.

You will not be able to turn off OIX ads unless you do not opt-in. This is all based on DPI and no adblocking such as 127'ing in hosts file will work.

Steve2000 · 8 Jun 2008 at 22:10

I stand corrected.

spirity · 8 Jun 2008 at 23:05

Athanor said:
To be fair my understanding of this is slightly different.

Virgin propose initially to offer enhanced "additional" bandwidth to specific partners. That is to say other services will not be effected, however premium content could be routed over dedicated high speed links. This is not the same as "anyone who doesn't pay gets slowed down".

I thought that Virgin stated those websites not part of this agreement would be "put on slower bus lanes" ?

dntbloodshot · 9 Jun 2008 at 01:39

"Slow lane" or "additional bandwidth" is just semantics but let's just say I would never pay money to an ISP that does not offer neutral bandwidth.

Angilion · 9 Jun 2008 at 04:30

spirity said:
Yes, to be frank.

As others have mentioned, they do have a capping policy. But they are also in negotiations with a company called Phorm. And you need to read these next two paragraphs very carefully.

Basically what this will mean is this (if i have this right). Spyware will be put on your pc that will track your browsing habits. [..]

You're wrong on that detail. It's much worse - the spyware is at the ISP's end. If it was on your PC, you could block it. As it's at the ISP's end, you can't. Essentially, it's an extra server (or servers, depending on requirements) at the ISP through which all customers' net use is copied for Phorm to use. The ISP will allegedly ignore the connection between the unique customer details the ISP holds (name, address, etc) and the unique customer ID number the ISP gives to Phorm. Phorm will allegedly ignore all the passwords and credit/debit card numbers that are fed to its server(s). Phorm data is then sent to somewhere in China for some reason. China, of course, is well known for data security and confidentiality and it is of course impossible for any third party to gain access to any of the data.

Data gathered by Phorm would have course be available to the authorities and would, sooner or later, be used for routine surveillance of everyone's net use. The current government wants to do that. Phorm will enable them to do it efficiently and cheaply by having Phorm and the ISP do it for them, thus making it unlike any government IT project. That means that they'll probably be able to do it. It also means that everyone's net use data will be leaked in one way or another, because that's what happens here. Left on a train, lost in the post...one way or another.

So, essentially, Phorm is much worse than you think it is. Virgin backed off from it this time, because of the adverse publicity. But the big ISPs like it because they can make money from it and the govenment like it because it further increases their powers of surveillance over everyone. So Phorm is going to happen, sooner or later. Probably in a year or two, enough time for the objections to be forgotten. All the big ISPs are likely to go for it. It's even possible that the government will force them to go for it.

Angilion · 9 Jun 2008 at 04:36

Daegan said:
No, traffic management may apply to everyone, but that doesn't mean everyone gets capped. A bit of browsing and email isn't enough to get capped, and since that's all most people use the internet for you can appreciate where the 3% figure comes from.

Watch one hour of TV on the services various channels offer online (iplayer, etc) and you'll hit the capping figure.

It might have been only 3% a while ago, but it certainly isn't now.