10 year cable wait is over!

Soldato
Joined
7 Sep 2008
Posts
5,761
The day has arrived after 10 years of waiting around for Cable Broadband to be available in my area my wait is over.

Back in 1999 I had 1 36.6k modem and was with AOL. Then around 6 years back I had my first broadband with a company called Bulldog. Originally they were good but in the end they were terrible just like who I am with today Sky.

Really really terrible service from them I should be getting 8MB but I barely get 1MB as for my upload speed well how does 100k sound? I could have got that back in 1999!


It is time to jump ship probably virgin what is your experience of them? Can you recommend them? Thinking of breaking our 30 year tenure with BT as well and go get a phone line with them too.

Any advice?
 
Yea they were good when my dad had them (moved abroad so cancelled), 20mb is lovely, and no hard limit/extra charging too!

One of the best parts of going home used to be getting all my x264 tv shows so quick!

Not many outages either, sometimes the tv can be a bit iffy, and not many HD channels (don't know if you are going for tv too).

I would recommend. Only not on myself as when we moved in the was a 1/2 price offer from BE* for 8mb unlimited for £6.50 a month.
 
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I had no idea virgin were actually still expanding their network.
Good good, I have in general nothing but good things to say about virgin, they cap me when i go over a certain amount each day, but I don;t do it that often, and I do achieve the speeds the advertise.
 
I had no idea virgin were actually still expanding their network.
Good good, I have in general nothing but good things to say about virgin, they cap me when i go over a certain amount each day, but I don;t do it that often, and I do achieve the speeds the advertise.

As far ask I knew when Virgin Media bought the NTL brand there was massive debt and by law they weren't allowed to add to that debt by spending money expanding but last year they announced that they were expanding their coverage by 50,000 homes.


I'm not sure how true it is but that is my understanding.
 
yep thanks sky are terrible
internet is more down than up most days and the speed is terrible.

if you watch just ONE Clip on youtube the rest of the net doesn't work
if I download one application the rest of the net goes down. I'm not getting more than 100k a sec download wise 80-90 if I am lucky.

time to move on for sure. just wondering what speed to get what should I go for? 50?
 
oh actually NOT interested in TV as already with Sky but obviously looking to reduce the Sky bill.

Possibly get to HD whilst reducing channels. No more sky sports needed (football season over) plus no need for ESPN and obviously no more sky broadband.
 
Haven't got a bad word to say about my 50Mb line, always hits above 50Mb (typically 50.4~) and has only had one outage.
 
No complaints here with 50mb. Went for it over 20mb, only due to VM throttling on the lower lines.

Had a bit of problem with installation. Namely they connected teh upstairs cable wrong. But since then not 1 issue.
 
Well my 50mb line is a lot faster than my 3-4meg with BT. However my BT connection was stable as a rock, no problems in the 5+ years I had it for. As for Virgin they charged me twice for a 'free' installation, I gave up on trying to claw that. I've had one outage that lasted 3 weeks, it took 2 engineer visits and over 10 phonecalls before they admitted a bird had laid it's nest in my exchange which had caused my outage (can you smell BS?).

When the connection works, it's awesome. However their modem's are a pile of crab and require resetting 3-4 times a week. Maybe I'm just unlucky
 
Well my 50mb line is a lot faster than my 3-4meg with BT. However my BT connection was stable as a rock, no problems in the 5+ years I had it for. As for Virgin they charged me twice for a 'free' installation, I gave up on trying to claw that. I've had one outage that lasted 3 weeks, it took 2 engineer visits and over 10 phonecalls before they admitted a bird had laid it's nest in my exchange which had caused my outage (can you smell BS?).

When the connection works, it's awesome. However their modem's are a pile of crab and require resetting 3-4 times a week. Maybe I'm just unlucky

You are really unlucky. I never reset mine, neither do parents, mates etc. Always get full speed. You must have tried to get the modem changed?
 
I am still waiting for fibre to reach where I live! Also been waiting 10 years! :(

However, my exchange has been [or soon will be] upgraded to 21CN. We also got a brand new cabinet at the end of the road.
 
Haven't got a bad word to say about my 50Mb line, always hits above 50Mb (typically 50.4~) and has only had one outage.

Same here. 1 outage, but it was during the day when I was at work and ended about 20 mins after I got home.

I'm in a student heavy area and I get full speed most of the time.
I say most as I get this odd slow down from time to time when the speed drops to almost exactly 18Mb for random periods although I have not had time to investigate I'm sure it's something my end.
 
I am still waiting for fibre to reach where I live! Also been waiting 10 years! :(

However, my exchange has been [or soon will be] upgraded to 21CN. We also got a brand new cabinet at the end of the road.

21CN will make no difference to your speed, the new cabinet could be FTTC supplying VDSL.
 
just canceled BB with sky said it takes 10-14 days better order now

also reduced my sky bill from £63 to £20 DAMN Right
they are so expensive it is madness.

£9 - ESPN
£38 for the TV (NOT HD) £18 of this is for Sky sports
£15 for BB - only get 1MB out of 8MB
in total that is £63 - MADNESS


I've taken off sky sports, ESPN, and BB so now cost = £20 a month from next month
only thing left for sky is HD - need HD at lowest possible price!

I had an idea how about getting web exclusive for £15 a month for 50MB then after the three months are up they will charge me £28 but then I ring them to drop down to 10MB at £12.50? :)

well can it work? about to ring em up :)
 
what's with the sky bashing???
I'm on their max package and have been since sky announced it would be doing internet access and had only 1 outage that was when exchange DSLAM went down.
Sky are the only provider where unlimited means unlimited,
And are cheaper than VM as to me the cost for cable seams bit on the high side mainly as it's only them on the network so monopolyand charge what they wish.
 
what's with the sky bashing???
I'm on their max package and have been since sky announced it would be doing internet access and had only 1 outage that was when exchange DSLAM went down.
Sky are the only provider where unlimited means unlimited,
And are cheaper than VM as to me the cost for cable seams bit on the high side mainly as it's only them on the network so monopolyand charge what they wish.

I had Sky unlimited BB for a year in my student house with Sky (non HD),
Was lovely yea, but the tv was very expensive, we paid £63 a month with BB.

They are not the only company who do unlimited, I'm on BE* for £6.50 a month for proper unlimited.

Sky do have the best tv packages, they have so many more HD channels that it's a no brainer going for them over VM on account of the HD, you get bbc/itv/c4 HD on freesat. anyway.
 
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