Virgin Media - a mini-rant

GingaNinja · 5 Dec 2007 at 18:29

I used NTL on cable for years and I was very impressed with the service. Since moving to a non-cable area (Maidenhead), I've been using Virgin Media ADSL, and I'm really starting to feel ripped off. I'm paying for 8Mb but I very rarely get any more than 0.5Mb (indeed, I usually get about 0.2Mb), and this is off-peak. Over the weekend I got laughably slow internet, almost as slow as dial-up (10kB/s). According to VM's own bandwidth assessment tool, I should be able to get at least 6.5Mb, and on isolated occasions, lasting maybe 30min at a time, I have clocked speeds in line with this, so I know the infrastructure (my hardware and the telephone cabling) is fit for purpose.

I sent an e-mail about it to VM quite some time ago, but predictably I've had no response. The only option I'm left with is to phone them, at my expense, to tell them that their service is substandard. If I want to leave VM, I have to fork out £50.

It all seems like a really shabby do, and no mistake. I ws wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences and how they got out of it. Don't get me wrong - I'm sure there are many peeps have had great service from VM. (I myself got great service from NTL for years.) I just can't think of many industries where you can pay for a service, get something far less than you pay for, have to pay to register the fact, and then have to pay a penalty to get out of the deal. I'm self-employed, and I know for a fact that if my work wasn't up to scratch my livelihood would be in jeopardy.

Sorry about the rant - just had to get it out of my system.

Ginga

Duke · 5 Dec 2007 at 19:25

Tell them you want to leave and will not pay the £50, as you have not been receiving a substandard service from them.

ste_bla · 5 Dec 2007 at 19:42

GingaNinja said:
I'm paying for 8Mb but I very rarely get any more than 0.5Mb (indeed, I usually get about 0.2Mb), and this is off-peak.

Sorry mate but no.

Your paying for an up to 8meg connection as on DSL there are no guarantees (well apart from the older home500, 1000 and 2000) of connection speed.

doggo · 5 Dec 2007 at 21:03

Only a min rant about VM

surely not, most people have a big rant, I know I do

GingaNinja · 5 Dec 2007 at 21:21

ste_bla said:
Sorry mate but no.

Your paying for an up to 8meg connection as on DSL there are no guarantees (well apart from the older home500, 1000 and 2000) of connection speed.

Point taken sir. I think I failed to recognize how literally VM would take the words 'up to'. What I'm getting at present can barely be described as broadband. I generally take 'Up to 8Meg' to mean 'Broadband but almost never 8Meg, if ever'. What I'm actually getting is practically 'narrowband', a very small fraction (1/16 at best to 1/40) of 8Meg. In short, I know I'm not guaranteed 8Mb, but 2 would do. Also, why are they prepared to charge me for such a service when they appear unable to provide me, 99.99% of the time, with even 1/16th.

Am I alone in thinking that this situation is appalling, and that if it is not unlawful then it ought to be. I'm resinged to putting up with it until my contract runs out (4 months) and then never, ever handing over any cash to any component of the Virgin group ever again. It's a shame because I've previously been a proponent of Mr Branson's enterprises.

Thanks for your thoughts guys.

Ginga

chimaera · 5 Dec 2007 at 21:36

Changing provider might not change anything you realise, depending on whats causing the bottleneck you might get the same speed from all ADSL providers.

How far are you from the exchange?

GingaNinja · 5 Dec 2007 at 21:50

I'm not ure how far I am. VM have a page (can't find it now) that gives an estimate of the speeds I can expect to get, presumably based on factors such as distance to the exchange. What's more, I have noticed a few spikes in bandwidth, to levels close to 8meg. Unfortunately, these are few and far between, but they illustrate that the hardware is not to blame. If I research my next ISP a bit more carefully than I did with VM, I hope to get something better.

I'm thinking about Be 24Meg. It's the same price as my current VM package, theoretically 3x times faster than what I'm currently paying for (although I'd happily settle for 6Meg), and I wouldn't be tied in to a full year contract. What's more, I've seen favorable customer reviews for the service.

Ginga

tolien · 5 Dec 2007 at 22:07

www.btwholesale.com/getbroadband will use the same guesswork as Virgin's - what's your modem connecting at?

darkxenon · 6 Dec 2007 at 01:24

I know the feeling, I just seems so wrong how these companies can get away with this sort of abuse. If I ever get a terminal illness I'll be sure to pay them a visit :eek:

Pkiely · 6 Dec 2007 at 02:54

Basically Up to 8mb services should be avoided if your line is weak, has considerable distance to exchange and the ISP has lame contract policy.

I was on a fixed 1mb adsl with BT and it was great, never had a single problem - I was really happy with them for years as my pings were great and the connection never failed.... then "up to 8 mb" was released and I thought I would get more bandwidth on that. Needless to say I didn't have a service for entire days sometimes, unable to establish connection, line never stable and horrible pings to everywhere. The rare days it was fine, it was only maxed at 1.5mb... It also broke my old router some how

Worst part was that I couldn't escape as soon as I saw it ! No 30day trial, cancellation was going to cost £200 and they refused to help (spent a lot of hours talking to BT India). Eventually just had to shout at them & their managers to cancel my service because I was hardly getting one, they agreed eventually. Very stressful CS...

Was about to jump to BE aswell when all of a sudden Virgin Media Cable just opened up on my road... what a glorious transformation to 20mb !

It was even juicer than the first time I went from a 33kb modem to 0.5mb broadband

Oh waffled on for a bit... advice to you? Try to swindle a different broadband service if possible, I don't know about the other types (SDSL, fixed ADSL, LLU). Wouldn't be too sure you would get much on the be 24mb+ though.

chimaera · 6 Dec 2007 at 08:07

GingaNinja said:
I'm thinking about Be 24Meg. It's the same price as my current VM package, theoretically 3x times faster than what I'm currently paying for (although I'd happily settle for 6Meg), and I wouldn't be tied in to a full year contract. What's more, I've seen favorable customer reviews for the service.

Have a look at the Be Value product as well, if your line can only get a theoretical max of 6meg then it's pointless to get the 24, might as well pay less and get the same speed.

Thats what my parents house is like, they can only get 6mb due to distance from the local exchange, they changed from Be 24 to 14 and the speed is 6mb on both.

*cradles my virgin cable modem

so nice to be out of the ADSL mess.

GingaNinja · 6 Dec 2007 at 10:46

tolien said:
www.btwholesale.com/getbroadband will use the same guesswork as Virgin's - what's your modem connecting at?

OK - so I checked that. It seaid that my line "should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a line rate up to 2Mbps". It also said that my line "should be able to support a potential ADSL Max broadband line rate of 6.5Mbps up to 8Mbps". I think my "up to 8Meg" service isn't ADLS Max, so I presume that my theoretical max is 2Meg. Honestly, I'd be delighted with 2Meg. I just checked my connection speed on the Gadget Show speed checker and the DL speed was 750kbps, which is as fast as I've seen it in a while. If it were like this all the time I could live with it I suppose.

Really though it's daylight robbery. I had ADSL when it was first rolled out in the UK (from BT), about 5 years ago, and it was much better then (albeit at twice the price).

I take you point guys about the 24Meg service. If the line isn't up to it, then what's the point in paying for it? Pretty sure that the line can handle close to 8Meg though.

Ginga

Banzai_Joe · 6 Dec 2007 at 11:55

Mate, just ring them! Complain like buggery, demand reimbursement. Tell them you understand that there are no guarantees, but them telling you that 'should be able to get speeds of up to 8mb' is a little misleading when you only get 512kb at most.
If you rant enough they will sort you out.
My company can only get 512kb max where we are because we're nearly 5km from the nearest exchange. No one can do anything about it. BUT if on occasion you do burst up to 6mb ish then they surely can do something about it.
BUT....you gotta pick the phone up and yell at em, repeatedly.

GingaNinja · 6 Dec 2007 at 12:09

k.Jacko said:
Mate, just ring them! Complain like buggery, demand reimbursement. Tell them you understand that there are no guarantees, but them telling you that 'should be able to get speeds of up to 8mb' is a little misleading when you only get 512kb at most.
If you rant enough they will sort you out.
My company can only get 512kb max where we are because we're nearly 5km from the nearest exchange. No one can do anything about it. BUT if on occasion you do burst up to 6mb ish then they surely can do something about it.
BUT....you gotta pick the phone up and yell at em, repeatedly.

Normally I would, but I've read reports of people being bounced from one department to another and back again, at the caller's expense, with no resolution of the problem achieved. I also know I have a tendency to get really wound up by poor CS, to the point that it can ruin my morning or afternoon (or even whole day). If I really have to, then I will call them, but only when I have plenty of time on my hands to enter a zen-like state of calmness in advance! The other thing is that I really resent having to pay to tell them that they are not supplying me with the service that I have already paid for and reasonably expect.

Ginga

GingaNinja · 6 Dec 2007 at 12:22

chimaera said:
Have a look at the Be Value product as well, if your line can only get a theoretical max of 6meg then it's pointless to get the 24, might as well pay less and get the same speed.

Thats what my parents house is like, they can only get 6mb due to distance from the local exchange, they changed from Be 24 to 14 and the speed is 6mb on both.

*cradles my virgin cable modem so nice to be out of the ADSL mess.

Just noticed that Be Value requires a 1-year commitment, which is a no-no for me just now, having experienced the horror of being tied into a rubbish service. I'd prolly want to go for the Be Unlimited, purely because I'd only (!) need to give 3 months' notice if I wanted to leave.

Ginga

Banzai_Joe · 6 Dec 2007 at 12:33

Ginga, you say you are self-employed? Do you use the broadband as a 'home' user or a 'business' user? Business tarif tends to get you quicker responses.
Sad thing is, regardless of how poor your service is, you cannot argue that your business suffers because of it, as they'll just say you should be on a business tarif.
They are t***ers at that place.
I use a company (can't remeber name, will dig out and post details later), its a monthly tarif and i get 2mb, with a 5Gb/month download useage; costs me £15/month. If i discontinue within the 1st 6 months of connection (i think its 6) i have to stump up about £50, but its not bad as monthly tarifs go.

GingaNinja · 6 Dec 2007 at 12:56

Thanks Jacko. I use a Home User package for my business, but I'm really classed as a Sole Trader, so I don't think I'm obliged to use a business-class service. Mostly, during the day I just use broadband to surf, e-mail and access an ftp server. A bigger headache, though, is that the wife often works at home and connects to her office via VPN. Because I also game, I think we really need an uncapped service. As I'm currently paying £18 to VM, it looks like I could pay the same to Be and get 24Meg (prolly 6Meg in my case) and an unlimited service.

I'd be really interested to know who your ISP is though. Maybe they have a different option, with unlimited access (or a higher allowance).

Ginga

tolien · 6 Dec 2007 at 14:50

GingaNinja said:
I think my "up to 8Meg" service isn't ADLS Max, so I presume that my theoretical max is 2Meg.

Nope, fixed rate ADSL from BTw only goes as far as 2Mbps. If you're on "up to 8Mbps", you're either on Max or LLU (and AFAIK Virgin don't do LLU ADSL).
What's your modem connected at though, and more to the point does it change at all? It's possible that's part of the problem.

GingaNinja · 6 Dec 2007 at 14:57

Hi Tolien. Not sure what you mean by 'What's your modem connected at?'. How can I tell? (Thx for the help!)

Ginga

tolien · 6 Dec 2007 at 15:12

I mean what I said - what speed does your modem (or router or whatever) say it's connected at?
If it's a router you use, it should be within its web interface (the IP address the manual says it's at, and you went to plug in the username/password Virgin gave you).