Virgin Media Sucks

[jimmy]

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.

[OldTimer]

Just moved to O2 broadband cannot fault it for £12.50 a month 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.

[dave g]

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

[ashleyb4]

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

[jimmy]

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.

[showtime]

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

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

[RogerM]

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!

[DCM]

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.

[jimmy]

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.

[PaulRotheram]

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.

[Gaz_Stanton]

Totally agree about Virgin. Useless! 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! Broadband only the headline price if taken with a phone line.
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!!!!"

[Fiddybux]

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:

Maximum Downstream Data Rate : 4096000     
Maximum Upstream Data Rate : 400000

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.

[jimmy]

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.

[bigred5765]

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

[jimmy]

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.

[Southwell]

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....

[jimmy]

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.

[Southwell]

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

[jimmy]

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

[Southwell]

Ull be miles from the exchange then....