Virgin Media Sucks
 

Just thought I'd share my Virgin Media Sucks thread to warn anyone off this dodgy company.

We've been with NTL cable for years, only the cable internet (we have no tv or phone) and it's always been more or less good. NTL always prevented torrent useage (leave it on without any HTML movement and it would disconnect - leave it on and use the internet at the same time and it's OK..)

Virgin Media took over a while ago and rang many-many times trying to get us to sign up to a new altered package, one with faster connection and limits etc.. but we refused, said we were happy with what we agreed with NTL and it's been fine. Who on earth needs faster than a 4mb connection??? I have no use for faster.

Recently though I noticed we'd been throttled back, so despite paying 25 quid a month for a 4meg connection, after about 300meg of traffic it drops to a 1 meg connection. for 25 quid a month!

Downloading the forum database WAS 300 meg, it's about 100 now after I removed attachments but still - it all adds up and means I hit the imposed limit every single night and can't work on my website properly.

At the top end of the scale, I think Virgin are offering 20meg connections or something ludicrous - what the heck are you going to do with that?
To me its clear Virgin have oversold in a big way and admitted to us that they don't have the capacity - claiming our broadband would speed up soon when they upgraded some 'stuff'.

Just thought I'd share my experiences anyway - Virgin have imposed new terms and conditions on us without notifying us and the service is frankly crap. We're leaving at the end of the month though - thank goodness.

Just moved to O2 broadband cannot fault it for £12.50 a month :thumbsup: half what i was paying and no bandwidth limits, handy for getting the odd episode of Lost or BSG lol.

And with it being ADSL 2+ its quicker than the ADSL max i was on.

i agree in some ways jimmy.

back in the old days when it was blueyonder/telewest it was spot on,pings to europe were under 10ms and usa around 35-40...now its triple that on a good day!..been with them since broadband first came on the scene which was around 2000 i think?

im only on the £30 a month package which is 2mb BB(fast enough for what i want),phone and tele package and whilst most days its fine i do suffer from alot of timeouts some days etc,altho not had any speed restrictions imposed and i sometimes hammer the torrents for a few days amonth flat out at 240kbs,not been dropped from those yet..he says.

who you switching to?

and why not try the 4 for £40 jimmy...2mb,phone with free weekend calls,tele package and mobile phone sim with so many minutes a month free on it.

dave

We have got BT 26 pound a month we get a free wireless router free bt vision and up to 8mb and no download limit cant argue with that and so far it hasnt gone down. I foudnt he course of my problems to be my wireless stick.

A

We don't want phones or TV (I'll tell you why when I see you Dave) just broadband - and we used to get 480k a second. I have absolutely no need for anything faster than that for what I do. But now, I mean right now, I am getting 115k and that's the maximum, the limit. It'll drop to 60k or so if I start browsing the web or something.

I really can't use this service any longer - it's terrible.
Not sure what we'll move to tbh, we don't have a phone line for adsl but looks like we'll have to get one.

just ran a speed test on my connection & got a 21ms ping & 6924kbps

i'm with BT, seems quite good but it does seem to keep stopping for 10 seconds or so every now & then when i'm downloading & browsing at the same time :thumbdown:

i'll see what speed i get out of the unsecure connection from the B&B over the road ;)

I have a similar experience with Virgin.

When it was Blueyonder I never had a problem, now I am dogged with problems ... thanks Virgin!!!

The problem is that I am trapped into the Virgin service, there is litterally no other option :(

I live in a "conservation area" which means we have to maintain a certain look to our house, such as not being able to loose the 70m or so of 6 to 8 foot high hedge (takes some trimming I tell you!!!) and definately no satalite dishes. As the better half loves her yank nonsense on the tele we have no choice, 5 channels of terestrial don't cut it and digital terestrial signal is almost non-existent in my area.

I am on the 20meg connetion and to be honest it's really useful if you have two people trying to watch streaming video on different PCs at the same time (even with the 140 channels of TV there is often nothing on I want to watch so watch stuff on line a lot).

The trick to Virgin is to ring up and complainat every little thing, sometimes I am on the phone to the lack of "customer service" line several times a week and regularly get £10 - £20 a month rebate on my bill ..... at least that makes it bearable!

I must admit, I don't hammer my internet any more (can only download so many movies and keep getting porn instead... honest occifer) but I do get a good service, £45, V+, XXL TV, free evening and weekend calls and 4Mb (soon to be 10).

Do they not do a leased line or similar, might be worth ringing them and INSISTING you speak to Customer Retentions, don't demand, and go from there, might get a better service for the same price, or a reduction in cost.

re:BT.... or BT related ISP, they are just as bad as Virgin, and sometimes worse, especialy if you are swapping from one to another company.

4mb - 10mb - 10000000mb makes no difference at all to normal web browsing, and the way Virgin Media have it is impossible to fully exploit high speed connections as they limit it so incredibly quickly. We are paying half or there abouts at the moment, because we complained - you're bang on there Rog, but I'd rather get a useful connection - Virgin Media for me is impossible to live with. Its crap.

I'm on Virgin too, and i'll agree, they are 110% complete toss. 2 weeks ago I had a loss of internet for 4 days, due to them having a technical fault, which they would not tell me what it what.
Not like I could understand them (not being offensive here) but every technical support person is forign, with an accent worse than my own for comprehending.

The uploading speed is toss, the downloading speed is poor and the reliability makes me wonder if i'll be able to go online from one night to the next.

They have defintely bitten more than they can chew, a move to a new isp is over the horizon i think.

Totally agree about Virgin. Useless! :mad: Had no probs with Telewest but since Virgin have taken over i have less channels and am paying more.
Like others have said, I rang them this week threatening to leave and got a reduced rate.

And their crappy L, XL pricing! :mad: Broadband only the headline price if taken with a phone line. :thumbdown:
I lost count of the number of times i've ended a call with them with "NO, I DO NOT WANT A F**KING VIRGIN PHONE LINE!!!!" :mad::mad::mad:

I've got to say that I have none of these issues with Virgin / NTL. I too have 4mb (soon to be 10mb) connection. No phone or tv.

I often get more than 3900mb down and 380mb or so up using http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

I do a lot of downloading, mostly linux distros DVDs, about 4Gb each and my speed is consistent and rarely drops out. I once lost my IP because I turned my modem off and went on holiday, but a quick call fixed that.

I suspect you guys have old Ambit modems that came with the original NTL Home 120 package?? I have big problems with drop outs with my old modem when I tested their 10meg service some time ago, and a new modem fixed it. However, the technology was also in its infancy at the time and the speed was all over the place so I went back to 4meg. I'm looking forward to free 10meg and will see how pleased (or not) I am then.

Another thing that could be affecting service is that they are doing a lot of maintenance / upgrades now due to the speed hikes. You can check here:

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html.../schedule.html

Seriously check you modems too...if it's grey and says NTL 120 on it, then get in touch with Virgin for a new one.

You can also check your modem itself using a web terminal.

In your address window of a browser, type:

http://192.168.100.1/

Click LOGIN and type "root" for both User and Password.

If you check "Operation Config" it will tell you the upstream and downstream speeds, plus other info not listed here, like this:

A speed of 4096000 means your locked at a max of 4meg and this is what it should be. Anything other than this and you've got problems.

Hope this helps guys.

Russ.

Hey Russ, thanks for the insight, This is the modem I have Ambit ETH/USB Combo Cable Modem certainly not the early NTL modem I know that much?

I have the same speed as you. The problem is one of throttling I assume, I could maybe fool myself into believing otherwise if I didn't look at their website and see in black and white that they will throttle after 300mb, and that is 100% how it is now. This is a recent introduction and it's because of the overselling they have been doing. Upgrading everyone to 10mb?? what's that about? It's about selling bandwidth you can't deliver to attract customers and screw them over.

I assume this 'throttling' only takes place in actuality where they NEED to do it because of lack of infrastructure and overselling of fantasy-speeds.

Ricardo Branson can keep his 10mb connection and shove it. :thumbdown:

whats the price difference between 4mb and 10mb jimmy
is it hugh??

the 10mb I was referring to is what they apparently plan to change the 4mb to. We were originally I think on 1mb, then it changed to 2, then to 4 as far as I remember. its been 4 for a couple of years.

On 4mb you should be throttled back to 2mb, unfortunately this doesn't work well and i know of people with 20mb connections getting less than 1mb after STM has kicked in!
The Ambit modem is fine up to 10mb although the new 250? modem is much better, i would get them out to change it, just in case it's going funny.
The biggest problem with Virgin is they are overloading their exchanges, hense having to limit your speed in peak hours....

I think they are on crack! I thought it was super 20meg connections that went to 2meg, and mine went to 1... either way it goes to ~1 absolutely like clockwork after so much usage.

10mb upgrade means I reach the limit 2.5 times quicker, WOW. Basically no different / even worse depending on how you look at it. It's bollocks.

Yep, they are shocking now. How far are you from the exchange? You could try .be or someone else?

For adsl? not sure tbh, weve never had a phone line here - we only use mobiles. We aren't far out of huddersfield town centre so I'd assume it would be good around here.
We are moving though :)

Ull be miles from the exchange then....:p

I'm am using a 250 modem as Southwell suggests instead of the old grey NTL Home120....but I really don't have this throttling problem at all.

Do you guys use PeerGuardian or other IP blocker, e.g. Moblock. I would if I were you. Maybe this is why I don't get this issue (yet??).

cost you a small fotune to get BT to put a new line to your house where no line currently exists, and you will still get the same sort of issue's with BT.

Both are over selling their services, remember the BT is sold under lots of different company brands, and it is only ever a theoretical speed. The only way to get a garaunteed up/down rate is to get a business lease line

I had no probs with NTL (20 meg service) until Virgin took over and they decided i had to pay an extra £11 line rental for my phone service :thumbdown:.
I signed up with NTL because they promised not to charge me line rental, just to get me onboard ,then as soon as Virgin took control the bill soared
So i downgraded to the bare minimum package and also demanded the free tv box to be installed
So now i,m paying £28 a month for 2mb broadband,tv(on demand), and phone.
I mainly use my connection for online gaming on pc,ps3,360 and wii etc and dont notice any difference than i did with 20 mb...

I'm on NTL/Virgin as well and don't have throttling problems even running p2p/torrent software. The trick is to avoid the publicised times of 4pm to 9pm and you can download/upload as much as you want at full speed:thumbsup: Between those times the basic package is throttled for 5 hours when you reach the 300mb limit, but the next package up gives you 800mb before it's throttled which is why they wanted you to upgrade. If you can download/upload the database late evening or in the morning you should never have any problem.

I complained when Virgin took over about losing Sky One, even though I never watched it. Now on the XL TV package, phone and 4mb broadband for £30 a month.:lol:

Can anyone recomend a good security for a PC. running Mcafee at the moment and it is C*"p.
Sorry for hijacking this thread.

I,m running NOD32. never had any problems with it and is works out to just £13 per year if you pay for 3 years up front.

I know a few others running NOD32 as well - they are happy with it.

My exchange is across the road. I'm with talktalk/aol, paying £12.50 a month for 2MB and getting anywhere between 6MB and 20MB via an ethernet modem. Computer stays turned on nearly all the time and never suffers any "throttling".

The only problem I have is the computer is old and sometimes broadband can send info faster than the computer know what to do with it!

Who is your Internet Provider?
 

I hope it's not BT, Virgin Media or Talk Talk.

Like most of you that are using Virgin Media that have posted on this thread, I have found that they have de-generated from an excellent organisation in the days of Richard Branson to now, as Jimmy has stated in starting this thread, as an absolutely crap service. Their Customer Services Department is now without doubt the worst of any organisation that I have come into contact with. I am contractually ‘locked’ into them for a further month. It is whilst looking into whom to go to that I found this aspect of Internet Providers interesting and post this here to provide everyone else an insight as to what is going on.

Simply put, three of the UK's largest ISPs (Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk) have decided to sell your private browsing history to an advertising broker. Yes, the entire list of every web page you visit gets sent to Phorm (the broker) in real time, as you click, so they can send you 'targeted advertising'. Naturally the ISP's are not too keen on telling their users this, they'd much rather feed us all platitudes about how it'll help combat phishing and how the targeted adverts will be so much better than the random ones we see today. In fact, they didn't even announce it to the UK press; we had to find out about it from the New York Times!

The above mentioned providers have apparently reached agreement with Phorm to sell your surfing destinations to enable them to target advertising more specifically at you. Bear in mind, a lot of the smaller ISPs actually use the services of these big three although there is not necessarily any obvious connection! This is an interesting opening link:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02...a_summer_2007/

The company mentioned Phorm have gone through several name changes in their time - not surprisingly since they apparently have their roots in spyware.

Additionally BT customers, beware. The ‘sanitised’ name for this Phorm program is Webwise. They very craftily tie it up with a so called security features.

There is a thread currently running on a BT support forum:

http://www.beta.bt.com/bta/forums/th...art=0&tstart=0

where this is being debated. It is very much upto date and the BT staff do contribute. However if you were to read through it, and unfortunately it's over 20 pages long, you'll find that the staff have been frequently contradicting one another and Phorm employees contradicting them. Staff have been caught out lying in the thread too. It appears that BT has been less than honest about the whole matter.

The obvious solution to all the concerns being aired there is "find another ISP", that are categorically prepared to state that they have no intention of incorporating Phorm, or Webwise. However, as was pointed out on the BT website, various other smaller ISPs are actually owned by BT. Although it would appear that they have managerial independence at present, but for how long?

Make no mistake, even if you have logged in to oOple, any posts you make here are on an unencrypted (non-HTTPS) page and would be included in the profiler, as would any mail you checked via web-mail.

Also, do not be satisfied if you are told that you can opt-out of this scheme if you want to. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to matter if you opt-in or opt-out. The system only appears to check for the presence of the opt-out cookie *after* your browser request has gone through the profiler. So all you actually opt-out of are the targeted ads. Phorm still get the marketing data.


Useful informative information about all of this can be obtained from this link:
http://www.badphorm.co.uk:80/page.php?2

The closest real world analogy to what all these ISPs are doing is having your postman open all your mail, read it through for keywords and seal it back up so he can better target you with more relevant junk mail. Obviously totally unacceptable

I’m a nonconPhormist and I will not be conned by Phorm however its name is sanitised.
Ian

just run a test on my Virgin setup using the above site

Last Result:
Download Speed: 1969 kbps (246.1 KB/sec )
Upload Speed: 188 kbps (23.5 KB/sec )

I have there 2mb Broadband, landline & TV package

Im at a mates, he's got 20mb: Last Result:
Download Speed: 5541 kbps (692.6 KB/sec ) Upload Speed: 596 kbps (74.5 KB/sec ) :thumbdown:

seems as if finding a Virgin that Sucks would be a good thing ;)






LOL......sorry, couldn't resist it

im on the WebSTAR EPC2100R2 modem if that helps,i was on the old modem until 6 months ago and that suffered from a lot of timeouts altho it was about 6 yrs old!

i did some downloading about 11 ocklock last night,8+gig of ufc and the average speed was bang on the 2mb speed,however what i have noticed is that if i upload at my max while downloading,my dl speed drops right down to about half.

i too use peer guardian..the isp's block some of the known peer address's i think so this helps,altho not much use in jimmys case except maybe download your stuff at night as said earler until you can find another solution..

dave

Just uploading some scanned images and here's how it's running now

Last Result:
Download Speed: 917 kbps (114.6 KB/sec )
Upload Speed: 12 kbps (1.5 KB/sec )

Cable Modem : DOCSIS 1.0/1.1/2.0 Compliant
MAC Address : * * * * * * * *
Serial Number : * * * * * * **
Boot Code Version : 3.1.6d
Software Version : 2.94.1014
Hardware Version : 1.19

it's sloooooooooooooooooooooow :thumbdown:

This is the problem, yes they half your connection speed but something else is happening which completely kills the connection so your not really getting half the speed, your getting hardly anything, looking at the results it seems to be the upload rate which is killing your connection. Complaint time ;) :thumbsup:

The old fair usage policy is a gotcha, even if you have no bandwidth restrictions, if you hammer your connection with downloads in peak hours, you'll still end up getting pegged back.

Cheers!

God help me, ive just had to sign up to Virgin 10mb as BT wouldn't install a line in my new house on direct debit, only payment card?? :mad:
At least it's cheap though :thumbsup:

I also agree that VM are getting a bit sucky of late, I find their customer service ranges from appalling to excellent depending on what call centre you get (apparently random).

The Terms of Service changes are a bit naughty as is the Phorm business.. Sadly, I cannot get any service other than cable it seems.

I must admit though that compared to the ADSL line I had at our old house the VM service is rock solid (Scientific Atlanta Modem) and the speed always hits the 2MB service we are signed up to when bench marking.

If you don't want your ISP profiling what you do and limiting your usage, I've heard the Onion Router stuff is very effective, it basically anonymises what you do from what i hear..

http://www.torproject.org/

*edit - TOR does actually look like it uses MORE bandwidth on your connection though sadly *

AVG is the bollocks mate. Its also free from:

http://free.grisoft.com

HTH
Mark

So a while back I said I had no problems with Virgin...but now I'm being throttled by 75% from 10mb to 2.5mb during peak hours. And to hit the limit all I have to do is download 1gb of data! This is crapper than crap!

I download loads of linux iso's, all the time. Most of these are 4gb each. It sucks.

So anyone got any recommendations for an alternative broadband supplier?

Anyone on Be? Or Tiscali? Or O2?

Thanks.

Sky are the only cheap'ish' supplier who don't throttle. Virgin don't throttle after 9pm. Still crap though. If you are too far from the exchange you wont even hit 10mb though....