Virgin media..any good?

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Hello All,

I've at present got O2 adsl, i was originally getting the fastest upto 20meg service but was told due to line length etc it's only possible to get upto 8meg. Since then the speed has dropped even further to just about 6meg, so i guess i'm a little disappointed to say the least.
Well i've been thinking it over because i'm in a virgin media enabled area and the house i live in has in the past had cable, so my question is can i get virgin broadband only with not having to take out the phone line option too as their site seems to state broadband and phone packages. Is there any pro's or con's to this cable service?

Thanks

 

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Thanks guy's, some good opinions there. I've just cancelled 02 adsl, and because i'm still within the 100 day cooling off period they're refunding all money paid. Only £30 but better than a kick in the teeth.

So i've ordered the 4mb Virgin media broadband via cable and upon ordering they said it'll be the 10mb service i'll get because my area has already been upgraded, cool!


What equipment will i get from them for this kind of service, is it a wi-fi cable router or what? And can i upgrade easily to their 20mb service in future?

 

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Not sure what equipment you will get but don’t think it will be wireless but you can always hope lol I have been on at them for ages to try and get myself a wireless modem and have ended up buying a wireless router which I’m having nothing but problems with.

Ok, i'm using mac so i'm getting myself one of the time capsules so i can link that to the cable and use that for wireless. I guess that's my way around it

 

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A mate of mine said he had problems with their service and left because of them cache'ing their DNS servers, is this true or do they still do this?
I'm not 100% sure on what he means by that

 

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You'll just get a cable modem, it doesn't have wireless. If you want wi-fi you'll have to buy a cable compatible router. You then simply connect the cable modem to the WAN port of the router via RJ45.

Mmm think i'll have to wait for my 'Time Capsule' for Mac, then use the wi-fi properties of that. In the meantime i guess i could use my Airtunes for wi-fi

 

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Im unfortunately in a bad area where my UBR is oversubscribed - the upgrade date has been moved twice now (18/12/07 -> 27/2/08) and still has not gone ahead. VM imo have no intention of fixing it anytime soon, so its back to ADSL (BE) for me with a 6Mb sync which will be faster than my cable :/

If your in a 'good' area, download speeds are excellent and nice low latency.

Rabtech, where are you in Preston? Sorry for sounding stupid but what's the UBR you mention?
I used to use Be* when i lived in Ashton area of Preston, fantastic speeds of 16mb Though now i live too far away from the exchange to make any impact speed wise unless i go cable.

 

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Dont make me jealous Do a reverse DNS lookup and the UBR your on is part of your address http://remote.12dt.com/

I'm located on the edge of Savick/Lea and connected to UBR04 which is having 'High TX Load' issues ie oversubscribed.

I'm now living in Walton Le Dale, so out of the range of the decent speed available with o2/Be* but seriously wanted them speeds again so only option now is cable with virgin and may upgrade eventually to the 20mb service pending funds.

 

[Av8]

A mate of mine said he had problems with their service and left because of them cache'ing their DNS servers, is this true or do they still do this?
I'm not 100% sure on what he means by that

Anyone got opinions of this question my mate asked ? Cheers

 

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It doesn't make sense - every ISP runs a caching DNS server, that's the whole point of them running a DNS server in the first place...

Sounds like he's talking about the caching web proxies, which are (it seems) gone.

Thanks for giving me the lowdown on that one, that helps now you've described it like that. I'll put him straight too now

 

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Well the service is installed, very quick so far even using a wireless network too.
Happy chappy so far

 

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Now i have my connection up and running, can anyone recommend a good cable router with 4 ports and one that they know works with no problems on virgin cable service. I've heard there are a few that aren't really compatible with their service, hence me asking advice.

Thanks

 

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Roll on 50Mbps

Yeah it will be nice, though at the moment i'm finding my 20mb connection to be doing the following



Judging by this, does it sound about right for a 20mb connection?

 

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get this router.

that's a 4mb connection (or running at 4).

Thanks for the advice on router, can i run this straight from the box as is and not have to update firmware etc?
I'm on to them (VM) about this so called upgrade i asked for and was told was actioned to increase to 20mb. Could there be a problem with the cable modem they installed to cause it not to go upto 20mb?

Thanks

 

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Well after a few weeks now got a problem solved which for some reason i was getting 4mb instead of the 10mb i was told i was on automatically when signing up to VM, i upgraded to the 20mb thinking great i'll get better speeds.

How wrong i was judging by this.... Last Tuesday's reading



This morning's reading



I've since tried to get someone from support to look into this, they say all tests on the cable connection are fine with no faults showing. I'd beg to differ saying something somewhere isn't quite right either with the Cable? VM Modem? Or something else not sure what.

I have the following system etc....
Apple Mac mini, Apple Time Capsule (Wi-fi 'N' standard) linked to VM modem.

Would anyone care to say if i have some inferior equipment in my setup or is VM really that ***p?

Thanks.

 

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I note that your in Lancashire from your profile. Any chance of you doing a reverse DNS lookup - http://remote.12dt.com/ and posting what UBR your on.

Peak time speeds for me are about 1-2Mb and 3am (!) I get nigh on 20Mb - however VM know about the problems on my UBR and cba fixing it (read my previous posts in this thread).

Hi mate, yes in Walton Le Dale and i'm on the following ......

ubr02.pres.blueyonder.co.uk

I'm obviously not happy paying for a service and not getting what's advertised, it'd be the same for anyone be a mobile phone or anything else come to think of it. I'll have to see what they say, but so far they've asked me to run some tests for them from my end of the line. However since i switched to a Apple mac some tests they've asked me to do i only know how to using a windows based system, so i've told them i can't do and have referred them to the speeds i'm achieving through the said speed test site as in my previous post.

 

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Av8: What model is the modem you are using?

'Scientific Atlanta 2100' (Cisco model) as installed by VM.

 

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That should be perfect for 20mb, so that leaves either general network congestion or something in the wireless.

It must be something to do with the general network then, i have brand new equipment in the Apple Time Capsule wi-fi 'N' type so that should be giving good speeds throughout the house. My house is a 1960's - 2 bedroom'd semi-detached with the wall's being either stud type walls rather than old type thick brick walls to cause any interference, i really can't think of anything else that could be wrong apart from the VM network.

These posts make me laugh.

Have you actually SEEN the amount you can download whilst suffering from mamangement VS normal?

You are talking over 150gb each way, now if you are unhappy about missing those 20gbs then something is wrong.

http://a.myby.co.uk/stm.html

I know you (Robert) are not quoting me as the cause of my own speed problems on the network, and i just want to say so far these speed problems i'm getting are from general browsing/downloading of updates for my os at the most so VM don't have a complaint against me for traffic management quota's.