Virgin Media Discussion Thread

physichull · 24 Aug 2013 at 13:50

Just got the letter through telling me that they are increasing my bill by £2.50 per month.

What a bunch of cons! The service remains the same, the speed remains the same, the price goes up! Why?!? What was different from January when I first started! Nothing, I bet.

Nymins · 24 Aug 2013 at 13:52

Gotta pay for BT Sport somehow.

Jarrod · 24 Aug 2013 at 14:10

Also have had my STM removed, which isn't great because my area is already over utilised, so this is just adding to the problem. But anyway, just downloaded over 35Gb and no STM at all.

About 35 minutes after downloading 35GB:

manjuice · 25 Aug 2013 at 17:51

Hi guys, quick question. Does traffic management apply to all traffic or just P2P and Newsgroups?

Nismo · 25 Aug 2013 at 19:31

Upgraded through the website from 60MB to 120MB this evening, anyone know of the process for this?

Usually in the past when I've upgraded BB/TV channels over the phone it's been pretty instant, all I got this time is an email saying they will confirm prices within 24 hours.

Steampunk · 25 Aug 2013 at 19:39

manjuice said:
Hi guys, quick question. Does traffic management apply to all traffic or just P2P and Newsgroups?

Subscriber Traffic Management applies to all traffic. On top of this there is traffic shaping for P2P & Newsgroups.

There are rumours that it's being turned off in different areas. I suspect VM are testing the waters to see if they can disable all restrictions to match up with Sky & BT, and head off the problems they are having with the Advertising Standards Agency and VM's "unlimited" claims.

medley · 25 Aug 2013 at 20:15

I was wondering what was going on with my downloads. I was getting constant 12mbps for more than 10 minutes at 6pm. I'd love this to be a permanent change for my area as never had any long term issues in regards to download speeds.

MOOGLEYS · 25 Aug 2013 at 20:25

Mine is useless, 120mb is great but download anything and they half the speed. Tbh there is no point in 120mb as you hit the download wall far to quick and in a world were nearly everything is downloaded its pretty rubbish.

Frxn · 26 Aug 2013 at 08:56

mrk said:
Hmm I'll have to check when my renewal is due then ta!

Once informed of the price rise you have 30 days to cancel without having to pay a cancellation fee, you don't have to wait until your contract is due to expire

Chong Warrior · 26 Aug 2013 at 09:29

I've had to do a full reinstall of windows 7 twice this weekend, plus the six billion updates, plus the steam games folder. Probably about 150gb in total, still downloading at full speed on 120mb.

Don't know if this is true but the Virgin guy told me there will be no throttling of speed on this service unlike the 60mb package. This was after I phoned them up to kick off about their constant throttling down as we use the online movie packages a lot.

So far in the past 4 weeks I have yet to see the speed drop below full whelly

Nymins · 26 Aug 2013 at 13:00

Chong Warrior said:
I've had to do a full reinstall of windows 7 twice this weekend, plus the six billion updates, plus the steam games folder. Probably about 150gb in total, still downloading at full speed on 120mb.

Don't know if this is true but the Virgin guy told me there will be no throttling of speed on this service unlike the 60mb package. This was after I phoned them up to kick off about their constant throttling down as we use the online movie packages a lot.

So far in the past 4 weeks I have yet to see the speed drop below full whelly

STM is being turned off in certain areas. All packages are STM'd, but now some places are being turned off. Probably areas where there isn't much oversubscription.

Chrisbes · 26 Aug 2013 at 13:04

Might have.. 'accidentally' upgraded.
120mb, Here I come!

gareth170 · 26 Aug 2013 at 14:55

MOOGLEYS said:
Mine is useless, 120mb is great but download anything and they half the speed. Tbh there is no point in 120mb as you hit the download wall far to quick and in a world were nearly everything is downloaded its pretty rubbish.

I would just like to get the full 120Mb even for 5mins instead of 5-15Mb

gareth170 · 26 Aug 2013 at 15:03

Steampunk said:
head off the problems they are having with the Advertising Standards Agency and VM's "unlimited" claims.

I don't get this.

they advertise saying unlimited download, which it is..

they don't advertise saying unlimited download at full speed, hence why they say Up to..

Steampunk · 26 Aug 2013 at 15:34

gareth170 said:
I don't get this.

they advertise saying unlimited download, which it is..

they don't advertise saying unlimited download at full speed, hence why they say Up to..

VM got away with redefining "unlimited" as "you can download as much as you like, but not always at the full speed you pay for". This was fine while their ADSL competitors had hard caps implemented.

Same with "up to" that originally meant "best efforts, but the internet and websites are out of our control", but now they use it to include "we may slow you down so we don't have to pay to upgrade our network while we stuff more customers onto overloaded segments".

Now VM are in trouble because customers have complained to the ASA about excessive STM restrictions in relation to their adverts, and the fact that BT, Sky and others have got rid of all traffic management because they have so much more backhaul bandwidth they don't need it.

wam7 · 26 Aug 2013 at 15:41

I have just come off the phone from Retentions and then Broadband technical support. First, 'Gordon' in retentions lied to me about me being outside my cooling off period when he admitted that he knew that weekends were not included in the 7 day calculation but didn't include them when he initially told me it had expired. It hadn't expired and I was still within my cooling off period. I record all my 'Utilities' calls...

Broadband technical told me that my STM had been lifted that day so will no longer be on my line. We will see whether they were also being economical with the truth at 4pm.

gareth170 · 26 Aug 2013 at 18:48

well I hope they don't get rid of the traffic management in my area yet, because if they do it'll be impossible to use it. i'm only getting between 5-25Mb on a 120Mb connection and if they remove the traffic management it'll most likely drop to 1-3Mb

wam7 · 27 Aug 2013 at 21:11

Well it looks like STM has been lifted on my street at least but only once I'd gone from 100Mb to 120Mb. I had to get Retentions to manually change the jump from 100Mb to 120Mb. I first checked with Sales if 120Mb was available at my address, it was, so I asked Retentions to change it.

Just a word of caution as the new terms regarding cooling off period has been changed in our favour in June 2013, which is why most in Retentions are not aware of it. The 7 day cooling of period DOES NOT include weekends or bank holidays.

Nevakonaza · 27 Aug 2013 at 23:28

Steampunk said:
VM got away with redefining "unlimited" as "you can download as much as you like, but not always at the full speed you pay for". This was fine while their ADSL competitors had hard caps implemented.

Same with "up to" that originally meant "best efforts, but the internet and websites are out of our control", but now they use it to include "we may slow you down so we don't have to pay to upgrade our network while we stuff more customers onto overloaded segments".

Now VM are in trouble because customers have complained to the ASA about excessive STM restrictions in relation to their adverts, and the fact that BT, Sky and others have got rid of all traffic management because they have so much more backhaul bandwidth they don't need it.

Thats interesting,If anything VM should reduce our monthly bills depending on how much we have been traffic managed/slowed down each month.

I dont see why we should pay full whack each month when half the time its restricted in speeds.

Just as an example you go to a Cafe..order a full english knowing included in this full English is 3 sausages 2 bacon..yet they have ran out and only have 1 sausage and 1 bacon..yet still expect you to pay full whack..just doesn't work like that so why should this be any different?..its all bs if you ask me.

Steampunk · 27 Aug 2013 at 23:44

Nevakonaza said:
Thats interesting,If anything VM should reduce our monthly bills depending on how much we have been traffic managed/slowed down each month.

I dont see why we should pay full whack each month when half the time its restricted in speeds.

Just as an example you go to a Cafe..order a full english knowing included in this full English is 3 sausages 2 bacon..yet they have ran out and only have 1 sausage and 1 bacon..yet still expect you to pay full whack..just doesn't work like that so why should this be any different?..its all bs if you ask me.

It's because most of these companies come from their telecoms forebears, where your business model is about over subscription. You don't build a network to support every person at full speed, you squeak by on just being able to service your busiest period in order to extract maximum revenue.

It hasn't been helped by the fact that VM cut back on upgrades in order to cut costs in the short term and make themselves look better for the recent sale to Liberty Media.

VM also have a long history of waiting until they have 80-85 percent contention before upgrades are triggered. In the US, most cable companies are triggered at 60 percent.