Who just saw BBc Watchdog with Virgin media?

[BuZ]

Cheers for the link. If Virgin isn't careful they'll be taken over by another company. Would be better anyway. Why can't UPC Europe take VM over; they'd be better at handling the connection and making sure their customers are satisfied. It's 50% their equipment and also their customer service/service in main context. If you want reliable BB stick with BT and Sky when they fully roll out their Fibre services. Virgin fails and sucks big time.

 

[moogle]

Completely serious. My connection is that good that when a neighbour on the opposite side of a busy road had issues I let him use my wifi to play FPS on his PS3.

Lucky neighbour

I rarely see a genuine post of praise for VM.


I guess my friends live in a congested area for cable broadband.

 

[Dist]

I've never had any major issue with VM (or the cable companies before VM took over). I get MORE than the speed I pay for (I pay for 60Mb/s, and can quite easily sustain 63Mb/s) and when I have needed support I go to the people who actually know stuff (previously their usenet newsgroup, now they only offer the support on their forums) and you can deal direction with the engineers instead of some call center. Their ADSL service is quite awful from everything I've read, but their cable service is amazing if you are not in an over subscribed area, and even if you are you still get good speed outside of prime time.

 

[jamjar]

Cheers for the link. If Virgin isn't careful they'll be taken over by another company. Would be better anyway. Why can't UPC Europe take VM over; they'd be better at handling the connection and making sure their customers are satisfied. It's 50% their equipment and also their customer service/service in main context. If you want reliable BB stick with BT and Sky when they fully roll out their Fibre services. Virgin fails and sucks big time.

I agree with this ! B.T has the better network anyway another thing i was reading is that Richard Branson has nothing to do with the running of Virgin Media , he only allows the use of his Virgin name , which he owns maybe one reason why there not run right , if he was more involved they would be better

 

[BuZ]

I agree with this ! B.T has the better network anyway another thing i was reading is that Richard Branson has nothing to do with the running of Virgin Media , he only allows the use of his Virgin name , which he owns maybe one reason why there not run right , if he was more involved they would be better

I know right! He's getting paid for the advertisement of the BB's name nothing more. UPC Europe should take them over and buy them (Google it). Other than that Virgin will end up out of business with their broadband as they're not being loyal to their customers. They just chew you up and spit you out. Have you noticed since the release of the "Superhub" there has been nothing but none-stop and 24/7 problems? It's their equipment + handling of the service. Also their TV service isn't a great deal either. Same with their phoneline service. They need to get their fingers out and finally fix it before they end up like I've explain before. I'm a 10Mb/s customer and I've tried 50Mb/s (with the Superhub) and it gave me nothing but problems. I've had minimal issues back with 10Mb/s. In my opinion it's their equipment and how the lines are installed that are a cause to the issues that are daily reported.

 

[Dist]

If you don't like the super hub, put it into modem mode and use your own equipment.

 

[nath247]

If you don't like the super hub, put it into modem mode and use your own equipment.

+1

Their hardware has never been great.

 

[IrishChr1s]

I thought it was an unrealistic representation of VM, I had been a very happy customer for 15 years, but moved into an apartment that can only get TalkTalk LLU, but again areas do have their problems, should that be enough to slate VM this bad?

I wish they would interview people who were computer literate.

 

[jakspyder]

Iv always thought watchdog was for the elderly with problems they dont quite understand that watchdog can make overly dramatic TV episodes about that serve only to annoy a few people.

 

[darknite]

Now I would actually sing VM's praises and SLATE BT. I've recently moved out of the city centre (Norwich) to the outskirts. City centre BT ADSL 3.2mb/s which went up and down from as low as 2mbit to 4mbit. BT said nothing can do about it. Houses in the next street 16mbit, houses behind me 10mbit+. New house, virgin, 100mbit, I get 100mbit. Had a billing issue in my second and third month, i complained they refunded it. I wasn't out of pocket long term.

BT connection to my work. should have been a 50mbit pipe. We never had more than 25mbit from it. We had BT looking at it for years. Yes i do mean years! Each time call raised passed to a new department, new engineer. Looked at for a week or 2 then quietly dropped into the pit of nothing. Work has changed to a VM 50mbit sync link this year and getting 49.5mbit in tests. So far no cause to call their support. . . .

My point is both BT and Virgin Media are huge companys with hundreds and thousands of customers. There will be customers who sing praise and some who just want to slate them. I work in an IT support role, I work in a team of 4 looking after nearly 2000. If you ask some of those 2000 at random some will sing our praise and some will slate of. Just out numbered to keep everyone happy. Same as BT and VM.

I think there is a point in here somewhere Its 4pm on a thursday and i've only had 2 cups of tea today!!!!

 

[asim18]

It's misleading because it isn't fibre to the home. They've copied BT and jumped on the "let's confuse consumers" bandwagon.

No. A connection does NOT have to be fibre to the demarcation point or fibre to the LAN to be considered fibre.

Furthermore, VM uses coaxial cable for the final leg into the premises, which doesn't affect anything at all. It would be a ridiculously tremendous waste of money and quite frankly pointless fitting expensive fibre from each green cabinet into each home. You are comparing the short coaxial cable to the POTS network which is downright wrong. As I said earlier, if you get 50Mb, you will get 50Mb. If you don't get 50Mb it has absolutely nothing to do with the copper used in the final leg.

So what about the Virgin co-ax cable coming into your house?

As above, it's a non issue.

O rly?

Yes. Just because it isn't FTTH, doesn't mean it's not a fibre infrastructure. The Virgin Media CMTSs are fibre. You think the copper comes all the way from the CMTS? haha. My local CMTS is over three miles away and I get absolute maxiumum throughput and extremely low noise. Explain that.

If they had interviewed me I could have told them how Brilliant Virgin is. Ultra low pings, great speeds & Zero down time.

+1

so that's nearly 2 months of having a crap internet connection? And this is OK?

Absolutely fine. Because now my internet is absolutely 100% rock solid. And in a few months I will be upgraded to 100Mb/s and then to 120Mb/s and I will have the fastest broadband in the land.

BT FTTP is 330Mb, Hyperoptic is 1Gb, and I think there are a few other proper fibre installations which are quicker.

BT's FTTP is only in trials in about 5 locations. With another 5 or so planned in 2013.
Obviously there are faster ways of getting internet. Build your own Tier 1 network and start your own data/peering centre why don't you? - this discussion is about consumer ISPs.

I genuinely wish Virgin weren't a bunch of marketing led morons seeking higher headline speeds instead of providing a decent product. I would love it if they pursued a RFoG rollout - then they could legitimately call it fibre and I'd probably sign up straight away. Sadly, I don't see it happening anytime soon.

You want RFoG coming from the green cabinet to your house??? Bahahah. LOL.
Complete and utter waste of money, fibre, and sense.

I wish they would interview people who were computer literate.

+1


Bravo Watchdog. Bravo.

 

[Clav]

No complaints from me. I've had Virgin in 2 houses now and both times got full advertised speeds. My only gripe is with the crappy superhub but this was easily resolved by modem mode and a decent router.

 

[asim18]

And you know what the best thing about VM is in my opinion...

That the V+HD box has it's own dedicated independent 10Mb/s (iirc) internet connection. So I can be watching full 1080i on demand material from their vast library while still downloading porn on my computer at full bandwidth 6.1~MB/s

 

[Judgeneo]

I had to laugh when they said they had an advert pulled because the small print was too small to read.


I've always though virgin are more honest advertisers that the rest of the internet providers, if you pay for xxMB/s, thats what you get.*


*Most of the time, their FUP screwed us over when we were with them on the 20MB/s service

 

[asim18]

I had to laugh when they said they had an advert pulled because the small print was too small to read.


I've always though virgin are more honest advertisers that the rest of the internet providers, if you pay for xxMB/s, thats what you get.*


*Most of the time, their FUP screwed us over when we were with them on the 20MB/s service

That was also not solely VM's fault. Crap printing quality and lack of communication of printing resolution is to blame. It should have been identified by the newspaper company when they did their draft. I've seen loads of stuff in newspapers that is too small for the DPI.

 

[drizzy]

Yes. Just because it isn't FTTH, doesn't mean it's not a fibre infrastructure.

Like my 56k modem close to the exchange example eh?

Thirdly: It is the fastest broadband in the UK.

Obviously there are faster ways of getting internet.

Such as BT FTTP, Hyperoptic, Gigler. These are all consumer broadband options. This is why Virgin were not allowed to advertise themselves as the fastest in the UK. You first argue they're the fastest, then concede they're not in your very next post.

You want RFoG coming from the green cabinet to your house??? Bahahah. LOL.
Complete and utter waste of money, fibre, and sense.

I want fibre to my house. If Virgin were to make it available to me in whatever method they deem appropriate, I would be happy.

For some people it is a good product. I am pleased you like your connection. For some it is not a good product. I am one of those, and I don't like Virgin's apparent 'headline speed' based business model.

 

[jamjar]

I know right! He's getting paid for the advertisement of the BB's name nothing more. UPC Europe should take them over and buy them (Google it). Other than that Virgin will end up out of business with their broadband as they're not being loyal to their customers. They just chew you up and spit you out. Have you noticed since the release of the "Superhub" there has been nothing but none-stop and 24/7 problems? It's their equipment + handling of the service. Also their TV service isn't a great deal either. Same with their phoneline service. They need to get their fingers out and finally fix it before they end up like I've explain before. I'm a 10Mb/s customer and I've tried 50Mb/s (with the Superhub) and it gave me nothing but problems. I've had minimal issues back with 10Mb/s. In my opinion it's their equipment and how the lines are installed that are a cause to the issues that are daily reported.

Well Ufortunately the Virgin engineers are pants ! a lot of them are rejects of small electrical companies that went bust ha! There customer service is worse than bad , and i noticed less Virgin vans these days

 

[Locky]

So from what you are saying asim18, becuase there is fibre in the network, it's fibre optic connection?

Going by that, 56k, isdn, adsl, etc etc is also fibre as it carries the connection via fibre once at the exchange level.

 

[borley]

So from what you are saying asim18, becuase there is fibre in the network, it's fibre optic connection?

Going by that, 56k, isdn, adsl, etc etc is also fibre as it carries the connection via fibre once at the exchange level.

Touché

 

[deuse]

And you know what the best thing about VM is in my opinion...

That the V+HD box has it's own dedicated independent 10Mb/s (iirc) internet connection. So I can be watching full 1080i on demand material from their vast library while still downloading porn on my computer at full bandwidth 6.1~MB/s

How did you get from 10Mbs to 6.1MBs? my 100 Mb is only 12.7MB.
Oh and it's not the fastest it's the fastest in SOME areas do you work for VM?