My Community
General => The REST Room => Topic started by: harv on April 17, 2012, 12:40:31 AM
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I've got a 10 Mbps connection but am upping that to 60 Mbps 8)
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(http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/bimages/95561193.jpg) (http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk)
(http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/results/158217971.png) (http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk)
10meg (usually around 9.9).
God bless Virgin. Terrible customer service on the rare occasion you need to phone them, but when things are running well (which is the vast majority of time) you do get the speed they're selling you.
Gets doubled later this year. I'm more than happy with my current speeds - allows me to download ridiculous amounts of film/tv - but I'm not complaining at them doubling it for free again 8)
Edit:
Out of interest, I've just checked the speed on my office computer - which is also on a 10mb package (via Tiscalli).
Download speed 6.23 meg, upload 0.81.
Damn but that's poor (though in it's defence there's 3 other people in the office at the moment and I've no idea if they're online.)
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They probably won't double it for free though, last time they increased the price a little as far as I remember. Only a fiver or so if I remember correctly. ;D
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I get a misserable 4.6meg >:(
Joys of living in the sticks, im waiting for BT infinity to become available. The town where i live has it, but its not yet at my exchange that is only 40metres away, so should see a vast improvment when we get it! ;D
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They probably won't double it for free though, last time they increased the price a little as far as I remember. Only a fiver or so if I remember correctly. ;D
Initially I was on 150k connection (about ten years back) but pretty soon they gave a free upgrade to 300k. I've never changed package - they just doubled the speed (for free) every year or two.
From time to time they put their prices up a little but the timing's never near to the timing of a speed boost, and is never excessive. It's easy to argue that the upgrade isn't free - but I'm no mug and the price increases seem fair.
I think I was paying £15 per month a decade ago for 150k, and I'm currently paying £23, so as indicated earlier - I'm very happy with the service.
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I have the 20 Mb Virgin package, though they are supposed to be upping that to 30 Mb for free. To be honest, 20 Mb is more than enough for what I use it for. I don't upload vast amounts of data, so don't need a fast upload speed.
The only thing I'd invest in is a monthly outlay on a proxy server service if the Government bring in these snooping laws, which they say is to stop serious crime. In fact it would be a good time to start running a proxy server business lol.
I won't go into an in depth rant on my thoughts on that poposed legislation and the Government's complete and utter lies. They don't even protect us from petty criminals. The government's claims are an absolute joke and their trumped up reasoning to try and justify it is so flawed and full of holes, not to mention the fact that it won't stop serious crime as only the most stupid would be caught.
Anyway ... I'll stop now ... >:(
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Yup, I've been with Virgin for years...back when it was Telewest. Also had Cable TV at another address with Cable London, think it might be the same company before they changed their name again but I will stand to be corrected.
I went with Telewest because that was the only way I could get an internet connection without a BT phone line. I've been boycotting BT for years since they cut me off before sending me a red bill a week later. I still haven't paid it, they can sack my cook. :o
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I went with Telewest because that was the only way I could get an internet connection without a BT phone line.
Pretty much ditto. I went with ntl (as it was then) because it meant I could get rid of the landline - though I wanted shot of mine because it never got used rather than any bill dispute. Landlines are a completely outdated idea these days. I'll put them in the same category as wristwatches - fantastic inventions, and incredibly useful in their day, but their day was over a decade or two back... I've had no use for either since I got my first mobile phone.
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Yup, the only reason why I have my landline is because my doctors has one of those bloody 0844 numbers which would cost a fortune on my mobile. I don't really use it apart from that. I don't even have my phone plugged in because Georgie chews through the phone cable lol. ;D
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I went with Telewest because that was the only way I could get an internet connection without a BT phone line.
Pretty much ditto. I went with ntl (as it was then) because it meant I could get rid of the landline - though I wanted shot of mine because it never got used rather than any bill dispute. Landlines are a completely outdated idea these days. I'll put them in the same category as wristwatches - fantastic inventions, and incredibly useful in their day, but their day was over a decade or two back... I've had no use for either since I got my first mobile phone.
Wouldn't get rid of my landline. I hate mobiles. Plus the fact they turn people into complete ignoramuses (if that's the plural of ignoramus, or is an ignoramus like a hippopotamus? lol)). People walk along texting without looking where they're going and then complain when you walk into them. The amount of times I've had some prat cut me up or do something else stupid using one while they're driving. Then there's people who hold up queues in shops because they decide to take a call. Then they get indignant when told to eff off to the back of the queue if they want to take their call. Another pet hate is people who come round to visit you then spend half the evening texting other people on the phone. I have on occasion just told them to leave and visit the person they're texting.
As for people in cinemas. I don't care if your phone is on silent, that light I see shinging in the corner of my eye just winds me right up.
It's not good for me to get wound up, I have anger issues. lol.
Only ever use them for calls in an emergency.
My total virgin bill is arounf £45 per month, which includes free phone national calls anytime, XL TV package, Plus my 20 Mb, soon to be 30 Mb, broadband.
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Yup I have the same deal as you drags.. except I dont have the tv package, the extra channels were really not worth the extra £5-£10 a month for me
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£11 per month mobile contract gives me 1200 texts, 500 mins, 250mb, a new £100-£150 phone for free every 18 months, plus other stuff. In reality I use around 10 mins and 15 texts. Phone off in cinemas, hospitals etc.. and the chances of one of my calls or texts occuring while someone else is around is slim ;)
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I currently have a sim only deal, rolling 1 month contract, with O2. £10.00 a month for 600 mins ( I usually use zero lol), unlimited texts, I maybe use 100 max, and 500 mb internet as a bolt on for an extra £5.
I don't need a new phone every year to 18 months, happy with my HTC desire which is unlocked. Not worried about having the latest phone, as long as it does what it needs to do, that's good for me. There's always cheap options for getting phones, when they are nearing the end of their production. The good thing about that is, you're normally aware of the bugs that exist then.
Currently looking at what's out there.
Orange are doing a sim only, 150 minutes, 500 texts and 250 mb for £7.00 a month (12 month contract)
300 minutes, unlimited texts and 500 mb for £10.50, 12 month contract.
Three are doing a 12 month sim only for £10 a month, 300 minutes, 3000 texts and 1 Gb data. Or a 30 day rolling contract at £10 per month, 100 minutes (more than enough for me), 3000 texts and 1 Gb data (or 300 minutes instead for £12 per month). Or a 12 month contract with 300 minutes, 3000 texts and unlimited data for £15. Although I'd like to see the small print in their policy for what they consider unlimited data as fair use.
Virgin are now doing a sim only 30 day rolling contract with 125 mins, 2500 texts and 250 Mb data for £7.00 a month Edit: as a Virgin media customer that's 125 minutes, 5000 texts and 500 Mb for £7.00 a month. I don't think I'm going to find anything better than that. Or 250 minutes, 2500 texts and 500 mb for £10.00 per month. They are now using the T-mobile and Orange networks so their coverage should have improved.
So I'm going to ring O2 up th the next week and see if they are willing to offer me what I'm getting now for £10.00 a month or match what Virgin are offering. You can usually negotiate some kind of deal with mobile operators, none of their tariffs seem set in stone, though they do try and con you into signing up for longer contracts with incentives but I like the freedom of just being able to drop it at a months notice.
I probably wouldn't ever go back to Vodafone (their deals don;t seem too good at the moment for what I'm looking for anyway) after the problems I had with their customer service last time I was with them, or the idiots at Three, who told me that what they were offering was the best they could do when I enquired about an upgrade, until I asked for my PAC code, then they rang me up with a better offer, by which time I'd already agreed a better offer with O2. I pointed out that they'd basically lied to me when they said their previous offer was the best they could do, so I couldn't trust them.
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Having a new phone every 18-24 months is handy for me because I can end up with a spare one, sell it or give it to one of my mates if they need one and can't afford to buy one or don't fancy a contract. Think I'm going to keep my HTC Desire HD as a spare, not too sure when my contract is up though tbh.
I'm with Three at the moment because at the time my credit rating wasn't too clever and they were the only provider that would give me a contract lol.
Might go for another HTC phone I think because I quite like the Desire HD. ;D
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I've never paid a penny for a phone. My old phone goes to either my mate or my wife. The last one, and the current one (which I'm due to change in a month or so) both to my mate for around £40 each - which is a great deal for him, and saves me arsing about on ebay (the phones being worth around £60 to £100).
A new handset every 18 months isn't essential, but I don't like to fall too far behind - and of course the phones I get aren't top end ones. You might get fancy phones for free when you're paying £30 or more a month - not so much when you're paying a tenner a month ;) . The average and low end phones will be offered to me for free, the top end ones will require I pay about half the price of the handset - which is fair enough, and still means I'm getting a £400 phone for £200 plus £11 a month.
Thanks for that summary of offers, Drags - will come in handy when I renegotiate with Orange soon. My contract is to 3 August, and I'm able to upgrade phone after 5 May, and I like to know what the opposition can offer when I phone Orange cancellations. Tends to result in them offering me an improved contract each time ;)
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PAYG bitches.... ;D
£10 every other month MAX with the stuff I get for free when topping up...
I win :D
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Add what you pay in handsets.
Over the course of eighteen months I pay about one-ninety (recently increased from £10pm to £11pm :( ), handsets cost nil, and I sell handsets for £40, so I'm about £150 out of pocket.
No idea what you pay on handsets, but if it boils down to about £3.33 a month you're paying the same as me. (18 months averaging £5pm on payg topups and £3.33pm handset: total £150).
tbh none of us is going to beat the t-mobile contracts I got for the kids (which I imagine I mentioned on the old forums). 300 minutes, 300 texts, unlimited browsing, and one bolt on (unlimited downloads, 3000 mins, or 3000 texts) per month for £10.21 pm - less a discount of £10.21 per month, so the actual price payable is £0.00pm.
They actually put the price up this month (but didn't increase the discount), so I'm now paying about 30p per month for each contract.
On the down side, I did have to buy them a new smart phone each. I'd been planning on doing so anyway, for xmas, but they came in at about £120 each.
And the contracts are only for 12 months. Come this November I'm going to have to either start paying the full price for them, or cancel both contracts and tell 'em to get PAYG sims...
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Didnt pay anything on the handset.. it was a gift..
£0.00 < £3.33
I still win!! ;D
In all seriousness though... on a like for like handset comparison.. PAYG will always come out cheaper - not being tied down to a mobile phone company is worth going PAYG alone as well.. I've heard terrible stories from O2 / 3 customers about their level of customer services.
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I haven't had any problems at all with Three's customer services, and the reception has been great. No complaints so far and I've been with them for 5 years. ;D
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You bascally have to play them at their own game and lie when negotiating with them lol. Tell them you've been offered a better phone to change provider if you aren't on a sim free contract. Ov=bviously you don't want to go to a sim only contract, but you could try kidding them that you are considering it. They'll pull the old "but you'll have to pay for a handset" gag. To which you just say that your "friend" is letting you have their old Galaxy/Desire/any other better phone.
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Well that's a done deal. Signed up for the sim only 250 mins (plus 3000 minutes to other Virgin mobiles!), 5000 texts and 500 Mb for £7.00 a month.
Phoned o2 to get my PAC code beforehand and in all fairness, when I told him the package Virgin were offering he said the best they could do was 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 100 mb for £10.50. He just resignedly said there was no way he could beat it.
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On Virgin's 50meg service which should be getting upgraded to 100meg by June for free*.
Can't complain too much on the speed side, I get 49meg+ 95% of the time. Ping and Jitter are relatively high during peak times which is annoying if I want to play FIFA or COD, but then I usually don't get time to play until the evening anyway.
*To cover the cost for these upgrades they've brought in a price rise of £1.50 but have marketed it separately.
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The fact their network is on fibre optics already, the cost of upgrading for them isn't going to be as big as it would be for someone like BT who still have a lot of copper cabling to upgrade if they want to go to any decent speeds.
The fibre optics can already handle greater bandwidht and gigbit speeds anyway, way above the 100 and 200 they are marketing. They are less affected by signal attenuation. A lot of the upgrade costs will be the boxes in peoples homes,
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It's a bit weird. They've changed their different speeds available now. It used to be 10, 30, 50 and 100 but is now 30, 60 and 100. But if you're on any of the previous speeds then you're stuck there lol. On the previous speeds if you're on 100 then you'll only be upgraded to 120 which is a bit pants...and I can't see them changing that to 200 anytime soon. :-\
Was going to upgrade to 50 but 60 will be even better ;D
The best thing about Virgin is that you usually get the speed you're paying for as mentioned above. 8)
Although I always end up getting my speed cut by their 'traffic management' because I'm downloading and uploading pretty much 24/7. That's why I tend to burn through hard drives so quickly lol. :o :P
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It's a bit weird. They've changed their different speeds available now. It used to be 10, 30, 50 and 100 but is now 30, 60 and 100. But if you're on any of the previous speeds then you're stuck there lol.
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Not sure what you mean by people being stuck on thelower speeds.
That's not the case. I'm on 20 but I'm being upgraded to 30. So I'm not stuck on 20 at all. People are being upgraded for free but there is a timeline for it. They appear to be upgrading by areas and are having to send out a new cable modem to customers on 20 I think.
I had aletter from them some time ago teling me I could be upgraded to 30 now (at that time) if I wanted, when they started advertising the new speeds, but I couldn't be bothered. Partly because I figured they'd also be sneakily upgrading their prices too. What they are going to be doing now though is upgrading people as a matter of course so their minimum speed will be 30. Anybody signing up for a new service will get the newly advertised speeds, but people on the old packages will have to wait until their upgrade occurs to get the newly advertised speeds.
What I do find strange is that they offered me the option to upgrade about a year to 18 months ago (I can't fin the letter to check the dates) but they aren't doing the automatic upgrade in my area until August 2013.
Now that I found ironic as they were telling us about the speed upgrades in adverts with Usain Bolt in, boasting about speed. So I went online, input my postcode on their site to see when mine was being upgraded only to find that it's not being done that quickly. Not that I'm bothered.
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Ah, I guess they're upgrading everyone's speed area by area then. I'm still stuck on a 10 Meg connection but when I upgrade to 60 Meg I'm guessing that it'll stay at 60 until October when they upgrade my area. It's all a bit confusing tbh lol. If I didn't upgrade then I'd be on 10 Meg until October and then they'd boost that to 60..? Or would it just be 30..? :-\ ??? :o
Before they brought the new speeds in 10 Meg would have doubled to 20, 30 would have doubled to 60, 50 would have doubled to 100 and 100 would have gone up to 120 which is a poor deal lol. Maybe they've decided to double it across the board because they had a load of complaints from 100 Meg customers..? :-\
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Ah, I guess they're upgrading everyone's speed area by area then. I'm still stuck on a 10 Meg connection but when I upgrade to 60 Meg I'm guessing that it'll stay at 60 until October when they upgrade my area.
Phone them up and ask them. It's my understanding that if you pay for an upgrade you should get what you pay for. They will definitely need to send you a new modem for the upgrade anyway. At the very least you should get the 50 mb package, as they are capable of delivering that now, if you pay for the 60. The only reason you wouldn;t be able to upgrade is if a speed isn;t available in your area, which I can't believe would be the case in your neck of the woods as you're in London aren't you? Plus the fact that it would be illegal under the sale of goods (and services) to sell you something they can't deliver.
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Yup, I'll be getting 60 without a problem, I had 50 Meg a few years ago...I might not even have to have a different cable modem to get that speed but they'll give me a new one anyway. I might keep using my router though because the security is top-notch. I've got the most secure wireless security in my street. 8)
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Just had a Virgin Media bloke round to sort out my 60Meg connection. Hope they aren't going to charge me for that because all he did was plug the thing in lol. Took away my old cable modem too, and as the Super Hub is a cable modem and router all in one I no longer have the most secure connection in the street. Am going to miss my AES security, they use it for the military apparently :o 8)
Going to have a look in the root of my rooter to see what sort of firewall it has, if any. :-\
Edit: Finally I have a decent upload speed, am averaging 1.8Mbps at the moment. Should do my ratio on my members only torrent sites the world of good ;D Will also have no problems watching footy streams and downloading stuff at the same time. Had a 50Meg connection years ago when it was the fastest broadband in the country but ended up being out of work so had to downgrade it again.
And it's going to double in October lololol :o 8) ;D
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I went with Telewest because that was the only way I could get an internet connection without a BT phone line.
Pretty much ditto. I went with ntl (as it was then) because it meant I could get rid of the landline - though I wanted shot of mine because it never got used rather than any bill dispute. Landlines are a completely outdated idea these days. I'll put them in the same category as wristwatches - fantastic inventions, and incredibly useful in their day, but their day was over a decade or two back... I've had no use for either since I got my first mobile phone.
Wouldn't get rid of my landline. I hate mobiles. Plus the fact they turn people into complete ignoramuses (if that's the plural of ignoramus, or is an ignoramus like a hippopotamus? lol)). People walk along texting without looking where they're going and then complain when you walk into them. The amount of times I've had some prat cut me up or do something else stupid using one while they're driving. Then there's people who hold up queues in shops because they decide to take a call. Then they get indignant when told to eff off to the back of the queue if they want to take their call. Another pet hate is people who come round to visit you then spend half the evening texting other people on the phone. I have on occasion just told them to leave and visit the person they're texting.
As for people in cinemas. I don't care if your phone is on silent, that light I see shinging in the corner of my eye just winds me right up.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who clearly detests Smartphone culture. People who can't go more than 5 minutes without checking their phone have mental issues, but then again, that's practically everyone but me, it seems.........
One of my greatest hatreds in life is being out with someone, and they seem way more interested in what someone is texting them over their phone than what I'm saying to them in person. The amount of times I've arranged to go for a drink with someone on a day off, only for them to spend more time checking their phone than actually paying attention to what I'm saying, makes me frustrated to the point where I want to punch children.
If you're gonna invite someone out for a drink or something, at least have the decency to pay attention to them for a few hours....
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who clearly detests Smartphone culture. People who can't go more than 5 minutes without checking their phone have mental issues, but then again, that's practically everyone but me, it seems.........
One of my greatest hatreds in life is being out with someone, and they seem way more interested in what someone is texting them over their phone than what I'm saying to them in person. The amount of times I've arranged to go for a drink with someone on a day off, only for them to spend more time checking their phone than actually paying attention to what I'm saying, makes me frustrated to the point where I want to punch children.
If you're gonna invite someone out for a drink or something, at least have the decency to pay attention to them for a few hours....
Wholeheartedly agree with that entire post, apart from the very first sentence. Seems to be over 90% of people in pubs are sat with a mobile in their hand, and it seriously pisses me off. Ditto the kids when we're watching a family film at home, to be honest.
I still think smartphones are a fantastic invention and that landlines are obsolete, though.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who clearly detests Smartphone culture. People who can't go more than 5 minutes without checking their phone have mental issues, but then again, that's practically everyone but me, it seems.........
Obviously me too, from my first post.
The amount of times I've arranged to go for a drink with someone on a day off, only for them to spend more time checking their phone than actually paying attention to what I'm saying ...
Was that around the point the conversation went something like "yeah, but we've won the European Cup ... "
:P :P :P
Sorry, couldn't resist. Probably going to find it happening to me a lot more now too lol.
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Harv, this Virgin Superhub. I take it that it's a wireless router too. I assume the wireless functionality can be disabled.
Had a letter from them today telling me to register for my Superhub online in readiness for the upgrade.
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Yup, found that when I had a look at the root. My wireless router can't handle the speed though unfortunately so I'll have to make do. Am quite happy with the speed of it though, am currently downloading series 15 of Silent Witness, all ten episodes separately and they're flying in from 4.7Mbps to 5.8Mbps in total. Very happy with that because Virgin tend to limit torrent traffic, although I have encrypted everything so they don't know the reason for my high bandwidth usage lol. 8) ;D
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Well Sky are doing their very best to lose my custom. See the below complaint email I have just sent to them. Apologies that it's all in one block they seem to not like paragraphs on their complaint form.
I can't really decide which category my complaint falls into as there have been so many screw ups. Firstly let's start with some nice things. I have been a Sky customer since June last year and at my previous addressy broadband worked fine no complaints for a whole year. No reason to contact you. It was perfect. Then I moved.... Since I have moved I have had nothing but trouble. You activated my broadband on the 12th of July. Within 6 hours it had broken. I called your helpline an 0844 number from my mobile which costs me 35p a minute. At no point was I offered a call back whilst you spent half an hour trying to figure out what was wrong. 30 x 35p = £10.50 only for you to blame BT and arrange a call out for Monday the 14th so I went 2 days without my broadband. On the day the engineer didn't show up. So I rang you again this time a helpful lady did notice I was ringing from a mobile and offered to call me back (she mentioned that her colleagues should have offered this) She was nice and can clearly do her job properly shame she seems to be in the minority at your company. Anyway I digress it turns out it wasn't BT's fault it was yours and you had fixed it on Monday morning and just forgot to tell me. Actually I lie you did text me to say it was fixed....on the 19th. 3 days after you fixed it. So it was working fine until this past Tuesday when suddenly it started dropping out in the evening. So I called you on Wednesday. Again no offer to call me back. I was told the problem was my DSL cable and my micro filter and a new cable was ordered for me. I tried a different micro filter but still it was broken. So I called again and yes you guessed no call back offered. This person ran a line test and noticed a fault at your exchange and said it will be fixed in "1 to 2 hours" and I'd get a text. 2 hours later my broadband is working but no text but hey at least it's fixed.....how wrong was I?.... Very would be the answer. Thursday evening same problem so I called again no call back offer etc etc. this agent tells me his colleague who said "1-2 hours" meant 72 hours. So essentially this was a wasted call. Now I am getting texts telling me to call another 0844 number so you can fix it. No its your fault YOU CALL ME! I refuse to spend more money so you can fix your screw up. Three things now need to happen. 1. You need to fix my broadband. If you have any questions you call me. You text me so you must have my mobile number. 2. You will reimburse me for the calls I have made to you. I should not be charged to report screw ups with your equipment. 3. You should waive the charge for my broadband for this month seeing as in the 2 weeks since you activated it it has worked properly for just over 1 week. I do not feel these requests are unfair. I look forward to your reply. Yours sincerely Chris Beale
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Nicely done Chris. When I had a similar succession of problems with ntl a few years back they gave me two months free to compensate for my mobile call charges - I was happy with that result. Let us know how it pans out.
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Week before last I sent a very similar complaint to Virgin, but it wasn't about my broadband it was my telephone.
I went on their Facebook page and started kicking off.
I described their call centre staff in India "lobotomised zombies".
I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for the fact that every time I call them I tell them pretty much what the problem is and then they disagree. They send an engineer out a few days later, having lost service for a few days and having to take time off work, and the engineer says he can't fix it because there is a problem in the area, which I have already told them when I reported the fault, but their systems say there isn't until they have received 8 calls (apparently the industry standard threshold to escalate it to an area outage now (Virgin's used to be 3 according to the call I received today).
Customer service is generally terrible in all of these companies. So changing supplier doesn't really help much.
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If you need to call an 0870/0845/0844 number for any reason then try checking out www.saynoto0870.com it gives you geographical alternatives (01 or 02 numbers) for most companies so that you can ring them without costing anything using a mobile.
Generally if you're on Virgin Media you can use 150 or 151 from a Virgin Media phone line to get free calls to Virgin Media Customer Services and Virgin Media Technical Services respectively for free and the above alternative for the geographical free alternative if having to use a BT or mobile line.
;D
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Pfft @ landlines...
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Generally if you're on Virgin Media you can use 150 or 151 from a Virgin Media phone line to get free calls to Virgin Media Customer Services and Virgin Media Technical Services respectively for free and the above alternative for the geographical free alternative if having to use a BT or mobile line.
Unless of course it's your phone line that isn't working Harv!
Very difficult to ring 150 from your landline when your landline is what you are wanting to call about.
Many people don't have landlines now, choosing to opt only for a mobile. Virgin should at least offer a free calls to their technical support/customer services lines from Virgin mobiles, which they don't.
As for their technical support line. What a waste of space they are.
This is pretty much the last conversation I had when I had to speak to them.
Me: There is a broadband fault in the area.
Them: There is no fault in the area. Have you rebooted your PC.
Me: Yes.
Them: You need to reboot your cable modem.
Me: Done that.
Them: You need to unplug it.
Me: No I don't. Turning off the switch on the plug socket is sufficient.
Them: You need to unplug it.
Me: Are you stupid (getting seriously annoyed by this point). Do you know anything about electricity or computers? Are you working by gaslight (you can guess the geographical region I was calling). I don't need to unplug it at all. The power is isolated. There is no fault with the equipment in the house, the problem is also affecting my next door neighbour and two other people in the street who also have Virgin Media broadband.
Them: There is no fault in the area. You have a faulty network card.
Me: Excuse me? You mean the network cards in 4 PC's and two laptops have all suddenly stopped working. Are you serious?
Them: (a few moments of silence). There is no fault in your area.
Me: Can I speak to your manager.
Them: (completely ignoring me) There is no fault in your area.
Me: Can I speak to your manager, or anyone with two brain cells to rub together.
Them: There is no fault in the area. I have booked an engineer to visit you (5 days later - at least they seem to have improved that service a bit lately).
Me: bleep bleep.
It's just infuriating.
Tellign people they had a faulty network card seemed to be their thing for a while. A friend of mine called me to ask me fit a new one for them after Virgin Media tech support had told them they had a faulty NIC in response to a fault call (though I didn't know why she thought she had faulty card until I got there). When I tested it and found nothing wrong, I called them on her behalf, at which point they acknowledged a fault in the area. Bunch of lying b'stards.
My tip if you get a fault is to ring straight through to the cancellations department. Guaranteed to speak to somebody in this country.
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That's why I mentioned saynoto0870 which will give those of you with a mobile contract a free call ;)
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Would love to be able to get rid of our landline...99% of the calls to it are from people trying to sell us things, or carrying out surveys.
Only problem is, I get a pretty horrible mobile phone coverage in my area (I'm on O2), and thus, I have to keep the landline operative as an alternative, just incase I'm ever needed urgently when I'm at home and people might not be able to get through to my mobile during times when it drops out due to the awful lack of signal at certain times.
As you can see, even now (http://tinyurl.com/cz9xths), the coverage in the top left is reading "No Service", thus the landline is pretty much just an insurance policy, but how I'd love to get rid of it and stop the 4/5 calls a day about various forms of insurance and housing surveys...Talk about catch 22.
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Can you not get a better signal with another provider?
I wouldn't use a carrier that had a very weak signal where I live...
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Sky responded to my email. Here's their response.
Dear Mr Beale
Thank you for your email.
I can see from your account that our engineers have tried to contact you for more information. However, there was no response from your end. However, I have re-escalated this issue to the relevant department and would request you to call on the number provided to you.
Once your issue is resolved completely, please send your mobile bill notifying the calls to Sky in PDF format to check what best can be done.
Your patience is highly appreciated in this matter.
I hope this information has helped with your enquiry. If you require any further assistance, you can reply to my email.
Kind regards
Krishanu
Sky Help Centre
http://www.sky.com
So I responded with the below.
You have my phone number of you need more information regarding YOUR fault with YOUR equipment then YOU call ME! I refuse to call you.
I can send you a copy of my phone bill no problem but I see you don't mention any sort of discount on this months broadband subscription seeing as it is NOT WORKING!!!
I am not happy with this response.
We'll see what they say.
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Well in Chris. Used to be with Sky Broadband before moving to VM and their customer service was ridiculous.
To be fair, VM's isn't great either but then I haven't had many problems since I complained about my speed so much and threatened to leave they gave me 3 months half price! ;D
Nice shot of Marina btw, Ross. ;)
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They responded again. I have sent them screen shots of the cost of the calls I made to them. About £15 in the end.
This is their response to the email I sent that I posted above.
Dear Mr Beale
Customer Account Number: 621585722476
Thank you for your email.
I have left a note on the account and you will be intimated as soon as we need any information. I have not yet calculated the compensation amount because we need to know for how many days you had loss of services. Hence, once the issue is resolved, we will calculate the amount and compensate your account for the loss of services.
Your patience is highly appreciated in this matter.
I hope this information has helped with your enquiry. If you require any further assistance, you can reply to my email.
They have since text me telling me they fixed the fault without needing me to call them do they were clearly trying to get me to call to milk some more cash from me.
I was going to post this an hour ago but well my broadband broke again seems they haven't fixed it they sent the wrong engineer to the exchange. I now have to wait another 72 hours....
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They have agreed to credit my account with the cost of the calls I made to them. In total it was nearly £16 in calls. I have emailed them to check they are still going to compensate me because my broadband is still not working. I also posted on their Facebook page which I have since learnt all my Facebook friends can see they have now contacted me through Facebook too.
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Yep, shame them on Facebook, a phone call isn't visible to potential customers. I got a much better response from Virgin as a result of my rants on Facebook.
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Bah! Problem in my area, no internet access :(
Still, I've checked their status page and they're aware of the problem, should be fixed around 9:41pm. Doesn't happen that often to be fair, I'm unlucky if I lose my internet access once per year and so far they tend to be quick at fixing problems.
Edit: Either their engineers are on steroids or their clock is an hour fast, got sorted around 8:30pm. Nice ;D
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Just had a call from VM's outbound retentions team this morning. I was on the 50meg standalone BB with a 2x speed increase due next year sometime for £34 a month. Since I was out of the 12 month contract I decided to see if I could get a better deal, so I phoned up last Friday and said I was going to BT. The cancellations lady on the phone must have not believed me and actually got quite aggressive when I assured her BT were cheaper, resorting to "well their wireless speeds are crap!" ;D
Anyway, my 30-day notice period of cancellation went through. Was banking on getting a call from retentions as I didn't really want to leave. lol Fortunately they came through and a very sympathetic woman got my deal down to £26 a month, upped me to the 100meg speed now and threw in a phone line for free with no one off costs. ;D (Probably won't even use the phone line but I'm a sucker when someone says the word "free")
Always worth a shot if you're not in contract!
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Nice.. Im supposed to be getting an upgrade to 60mb next week.. with a VM phone aswell I usually pay about £45 a month (with the calls)... so you've got a pretty good deal there... I really should get rid of the phone, its crap to be honest and I tend not to use it outside of the weekends as its just so expensive. To be honest, I'll probably go to Sky when I move house, virgin are great on the broadband, but thats about it.
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Just noticed my payments went up from £23.00pm to £24.75pm a few months back. Damn but that keeps creeping up.
That's just broadband (I have no landline and I get my tv from Sky).
With Demonoid down I've not really had the pc on much in the last few weeks - and I don't exactly test the limits of my connection when I've got the pc off. Will have to check my speed some time soon. Just been on the VirginMedia website and it says my area's been upgraded, but I vaguely recall being told I'll need a new router or something when the increase is implemented, and I've heard nothing. Could be a letter was binned as junk mail, mind... There's probably a letter about the price increase got a similar treatment.
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The lady on the phone was really pushing the phone line with weekend calls and I guess that's exactly why if your bill is that high, Jman. Probably hoping I'll get tempted and use it more often than intended. I was swayed by the free calls to VM more than anything lol. It's so expensive trying to contact them without one of their lines!
Yeah, Late, they marketed the speed increases as "free" but cheekily slapped a £1.50 increase on my bill, then sent me a letter saying the speed increases were delayed in my area till early 2013! You must need a SuperHub to handle the higher speed, their old modems can't handle anything above 20meg, I think.
The problem with companies like this is they'll never tell you if you're getting a bad deal. Their website is showing new customers are now paying £22.50 for 30meg and £27.50 for 60meg while old customers are getting shafted.
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TV, broadband and phone for £43.00 a month. Phone calls are free 24/7. Plus Virgin mobile for £7.00 a month.
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Yup looks like I'll be giving virgin a phonecall next weekend to discuss my current deal...
I sorted out a long term Sky customer move to Virgin... she was paying £95 for everything with Sky.. now shes paying £30 for 30MB broadband, a phone line with free weekend calls.. plus tv + tivo + ESPN.. apart from the broadband - thats much better than my deal of which Im paying £45 a month.
So armed with that, and a quote from Sky, I will be pushing for a lower deal now.. I personally dont mind moving to Sky, so will be quite glad to be sent to virgins cancellation department if they insist! :P
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When you phone them and get the options, just go stright to the cancellations department straight away and bypass the middleman.
Funny how when you want to speak to them about leaving you are guaranteed and English (or at least Welsh) voice on the phone.
Mind you, I'm pretty sure that if you got through to the Indian call centre and said "I want to cancel my contract because my bill is too high", their response would be "I am very sorry to hear that, have you tried re-booting your pc, oh your bill is still too high, you must turn off your modem, oh your bill is still too high, well obviously there is no problem then".
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My connection will be going up from 60 Meg to 120 Meg sometime next month lol ;D
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Sky finally fixed my broadband.....after 23 days! Their offer of compensation £4.80! They worked it out based on me paying £7.50 a month. I was not happy especially considering it broke again last night...
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Aaaaaaargh!!! My bloody hard drive has died on me!!! It's completely buggered. I'm definitely sticking to Samsung Spinpoint drives from now on. Not going anywhere near a Seagate or Western Digital drive again...can't remember which of the two it is off hand. About 700GB of porn, music, films, telly series and guitar lessons down the toilet lol.
Never mind, won't take me too long to find it all again I guess. ;D
Well that's a bit odd, I installed Vista on another drive. By this time the dying drive appeared to have dropped dead - no sign of it in the motherboard BIOS when booting up and as a result of that no sign of it in Vista. Started to install the drivers for the motherboard, restarted the PC and it started to do a DSKCHK. Took bloody ages and now my old hard drive is back lol. Going to order another one ASAP :P
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Surpised you haven't got a docking station for your hard-drives.. when my drives died, I knew they were dead because they werent even spinning when I put them in my docking station... I even resorted to trying the freezer trick but they were both completely dead...
...they were both WD drives too and I swapped to a 1TB spinpoint HDD and a 60gig OCZ SSD which will be used for my critical stuff...
...I bought a new case at the same time as the hard-drives but problem is, ever since I moved my stuff into the new case... its boots up but theres no display on either monitor and I know for sure the graphics cards are absolutely fine and tested them both in another machine and they worked....I have a spare mobo and CPU and PSU to try.. I elminated the PSU a while back.. still havent got round to trying out the mobo/cpu.. but the laptop I was using as a replacement has also developed a fault recently (the screen is buggered - all the colours look washed out on it).. so I've decided that I cant put it off much longer, that pc is getting ruddy fixed on sunday.. I might just have to use my old parts for a while though :(
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I've got an Antec 1200 gaming case so the drives just slide out so there's no problems replacing them. I'm going to stick with Spinpoint drives from now on, will get myself a 1TB F3 during the next few weeks but I'm having to juggle a few finances at the mo to fund my U purchase. Should have £650-odd quid saved up by the time release date comes up.
Had a couple of losing runs on my tips service but I've now subscribed to a second one which has considerably lessened my losses and seriously increased my chances of my profits. Am about £96 up now after being a couple of hundred points up yesterday. The tips I'm getting on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I'm backing at £5 per point and the latest tips I'm trying out on a free 14 day trial are 7 days per week and I'm backing those at 50p per point. Once my betting bank is over £450 I'm going to double my 50p stakes on the daily tips and when I've got over £500 I can earn around £150 profit risk free with spread betting.
These daily tips work out at £68 per month but I've got a free 14 day trial then another 7 days at half price but the way things have gone so far I've got no problems paying the full whack every month...it's a licence to print money so far. :o
8)
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Recently upgraded to sky fibre as i get it for half price. Crazy upload speeds lol, download is now up around 16 most days. Perfect for COD!!
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So the long running broadband saga is over. Sky have compensated me £111.42 and have offered me a get out clause as they couldn't give me the broadband speeds they promised me. I won't take it as it doesn't matter who I'm with the speed will be the same as they all use the same equipment and line.
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You actually live in Reading? And Virgin Media don't have fibre running there yet?
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No I live in Northampton and they're not running fibre from my exchange just yet.
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Now have my upgraded service from Virgin. Up from 20MB to 60MB. Good enough for me.
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Been a bit narked off with Virgin recently.. they were supposed to up my connection from 20 to 60 ages ago.. I put it off for a while as I didn't really want to talk to their indian call centre.. but when I did, they didn't fail to amaze me - the steps they told me to do had a bit of a hitch and my superhub wasn't working and at one point during the phonecall, they told me to remove the Ethernet cable from the hub and hold it approximately 1-2cm away from the unit.. I was like.. does it matter where I hold it (trying to humour them).. apparently it did and I had to hold it 1-2cms from the hub for around a minute.. as if some magic was instantly going to transfer from the cable to the hub lol... it didn't work, so I just had to stop speaking to this crazy indian woman, she hadn't a fucking clue.. after about an hour or two aftewards, it started working.. checked my speed and it was still capped at 20mb. :o
Well I couldn't be arsed to mess around with it again, so that's what I've stuck on since then.. about 3 months ago I got a letter saying that they have been undercharging me for 60mb broadband and that my next bill would reflect the new payment plan... even though the upgrade which didn't work was supposed to be free of charge.. well I checked and my service plan has still been the same amount since that letter.. if it had gone up, I probably would of threatened to leave unless I got a better deal.
Now I've got an email saying they are upgrading me to 100mb for free shortly... this will be the last chance for them I think.. if I cant get setup for 100mb then I'm definitely leaving them - paying £45 a month for a shitty phone line that costs more than using my mobile and only having 20mb internet is a total rip-off..
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I, too, have recently been promised a "free" upgrade from Virgin (from 20mb to 50mb) - due to kick in at the back end of 2014.
We'll see.
Last time I was told I was getting a free upgrade I was told I'd need to get a superhub - and that I'd need to ring them to sort that out. Well that isn't going to happen. I don't have a landline, and I'm not ringing Pakistan on my mobile for a two hour conversation, so I just ignored it.
The upgrade time came and went and my speed never changed from 10mb - until about 6 months later when it suddenly doubled. Without me getting the superhub.
I don't know if you can sort those things out by webchat/webforms, but unfortunately that's not an option as our internet is in the wife's name and she forgot her password about ten years ago. I've had no joy trying to get it changed in the few occasions I've spoken to Virgin over the years.
So I guess they were talking out of their arses when they said I'd need a faster modem to handle the increased speeds. I imagine they'll tell me the same later this year. Time will tell whether they're talking bo11ocks.
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Those old Motorola cable modems can handle at least 50Mbps because they did that before the Super Hubs existed. They just want to replace those because they're easily cloned lol ;D
Should be getting mine upgraded between April and June. 8)
Probably means that they're going to raise the price by a fiver again in the not-too-distant future though.
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Id love to have a fibre connection, ive been with BT for many years now. And with them i was getting a massive 4.7meg :o Which still enables me to do what i need to, but we all always want more.
Ive just recently moved over to sky as they have offered it free for 12 months (rude not to!)
And i now get 8meg!! So why the fuck wasnt i getting that with BT ?
Glad ive made the move now!
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(http://www.speedtest.net/result/3333373626.png) (http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3333373626)
Slower than 63% of the UK
And im happy with that !! ;)
Hate to think what the percentage would have been if still on 4.7 meg?
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Because BT are useless ;D
I had a disagreement with BT years and years ago after the sneaky bastards cut my phone off BEFORE I got a red bill. :o They couldn't even blame the post because the date the service got cut off was before the date on the bill. Needless to say I didn't pay the fuckers. >:(
They're on my Blacklist, along with Lloyd's Bank who refused to extend my overdraft by £30 so that I could go to my Grandad's funeral. And I even did the legitimate thing and talked to the Assistant Manager about it rather than just going to my local branch and writing a cheque to pay cash to me. They never used to check my balance, they just gave me the dosh...when that wanker refused to let me have the money I did what I should have done in the first place and wrote myself a cheque, except for 50 quid so that I could have a few pints lol ;D
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Looking forward to my free upgrade to 100 mb
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Yup, me too. Should be getting mine done soon. 8)
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Nice! Got my 100 Meg connection a few days earlier than expected. 8)
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Hmmmm.I think Virgin Media may have stopped throttling the download/upload speed for torrents. Am currently downloading episodes of The Bill at the full 10MBps ;D
Edit: Whoops, had to edit that and change the Mbps to MBps, that would have been the slow speed I had when I started this thread! :-[ ;D
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I've never noticed them throttling torrents to begin with.
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They didn't do it by much, but it was there for a while. I think it was something like 90% restriction for torrents, most people wouldn't notice tbh.
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I don't download so much these days, but used to get major throttling on Virgin a couple of years ago.
Was on 10 meg and it'd be on 3 meg when I got home from work. (And a reboot of pc etc. didn't help - it was definitely throttled by the ISP, and not some problem at my end.) Speed would go back up to ten meg in the early hours of the morning.
If memory serves, their policy was to throttle something like the top 3% of customers (i.e. the 3% who had the highest traffic on that day between 12am and 5pm, or something like that) to one third speed during evening hours (5pm til midnight).
Of course, if you self-restricted your transfers to only use 80-90% of your bandwidth then you'd likely fall out of the top 3% of users and be perfectly fine on the evening. I tended to restrict my downloads to about 60%, so that I could pretty much guarantee my connection would be strong on an evening when I wanted it for gaming etc.
Also, the wife and kids would get all uppity if they tried to use the internet and I was downloading at full speed whilst out of the house - so would just hard-reset the computer. (Which would get me slightly annoyed, naturally.)
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They didn't do it by much, but it was there for a while. I think it was something like 90% restriction for torrents, most people wouldn't notice tbh.
Believe me, I'd notice.
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I don't download so much these days, but used to get major throttling on Virgin a couple of years ago.
Was on 10 meg and it'd be on 3 meg when I got home from work. (And a reboot of pc etc. didn't help - it was definitely throttled by the ISP, and not some problem at my end.) Speed would go back up to ten meg in the early hours of the morning.
If memory serves, their policy was to throttle something like the top 3% of customers (i.e. the 3% who had the highest traffic on that day between 12am and 5pm, or something like that) to one third speed during evening hours (5pm til midnight).
Probably why it never happened to me. I do my downloads first thing in the morning when I get up, before going to work, as it's mostly TV shows I download and the ones from the previous night in the US have been uploaded. I'm proably also lucky because I live in an area with quite a lot of old folk who never use a computer. So high usage around here isn't an issue.
Another possible reason I read somewhere is that network prioritisation methods such as QoS can struggle with encrypted data, so if you're using utorrent and have the protocol encryption switched on, it slips through the net because it doesn't recognise it as a torrent.
So if the ISPs are using QoS to target specific protocols, which would be a reasonable way to go about it, then anyone not savvy enough to protect themselves a bit more will find their bandwidth throttled, which will probably be enough to reduce total bandwidth usage and keep everyone happy.
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About 5MB, been waiting for Fibre in my area for fucking ages and just doesn't seem to come...Worst thing is, the main road about 200 yards away has Fibre up to it's bollocks and we're just somehow deliberately bypassed (On a cul-de-sac)...Don't seem any reason why a main road round a corner would get it and we somehow can't. >:(
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I think I'm up to about 152Mb download and 10Mb upload after the latest round of speed boosts from VM. Only costing me £26 a month for broadband + phone line rental so it's not bad.
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Not so much How fasts your internet connection. But.... Where to start... Uurrgghhhh BT. Anybody wih them? Had any issues with them?
Been with them for just under a year. Paid our line rental up front. No problems there. And then within less than a year we've had to have the engineers out 6 times!!! We've not been reimbursed for any of the downtime we've experienced in that time. So we've decided to change. Better service, cheaper. Only to find BT are now slapping us with a £256 termination charge. WTF. They won't refund the rest of the line rental we won't be using but they will charge us for the rest of the current contract on broadband.
Help? Opinions? Anybody had anything like this?
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Yep BT are shit.. I'd never recommend anyone go with them...
BT Infinity is probably one of the worst broadband services I've even had the displeasure of using. I know several people who are stuck with it though. BT OpenReach (which is a separate company) is constantly on programs like Watchdog too.
Constant reliability issues and downtime.. I switched to Virgin over 5 years ago, and had two cut-outs since.. one which lasted about 2 days and the other lasted a week (although this was due to them having to send an engineer round and insisting I was in at that time - apparently another engineer had fucked something up, although I still don't know why I had to be in, he didn't even come into the house when he arrived ::)).
If BT never informed you of a termination charge when you agreed to terminate your contract (presumably over the phone) - there's fuck all they can do - you should be able to worm yourself out of that one. If BT have done nothing to reimburse you - then you might find you can go with the Supply of Goods and Services Act - where the company has failed to provide you with the goods necessary or done anything to remedy the situation - i.e. reimburse you for your downtime.
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I went with Virgin Media around 12 or 13 years ago because at that time they were the only broadband provider where you didn't need a BT phone line. I had problems with BT years ago because I've always paid my bills at the last minute (although with direct debits these days you can't really do that anymore unfortunately >:( ). I always used to wait until I got a red bill and then paid it the same day...
But then BT had the bright idea of cutting the phone off and sending me the red bill afterwards. So I basically told them to go and do one (although I was quite polite to the girl on the other end of the phone because it wasn't her fault).
I was moving out of that flat anyway so no skin off my nose anyway lol.
Went with Virgin when I moved into this place and I really couldn't be happier.
Your best bet would be to go to the CAB I reckon. :D
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Been with Virgin Media for many years. Mostly a very good service, the only gripe is their Indian call centres which can infuriate me to the point of genocide.
"There is nothing wrong in your area" is their mantra until they get at least 10 calls (they may have dropeed it to 8) about the same fault, even if 3 people in the same road call up and report the same fault.
or
"there is a problem with your network card". What all 7 of them across 5 PCs and a laptop. How unlucky am I to have all those networkl cards fail at the same time eh.
or
"Well you must switch everything off and unplug it". Dont that. "have you unplugged it". No, I;ve turned the switch off on the plug. "you must unplug it". No I don't need to do that, the power is isolated. "you must unplug it". Okay <sigh>, done that (lying through teeth).
Apart from that, and occasionally strange dropouts for about 10 minutes during the day now and again, happy enough.
BT. Utter shite.
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Well, we got it today. Our final bill from BT. £248
When reading into the bill further it was interesting to see what exactly made them come to that amount.... Most of it was ending our contract early. Then the interesting bit. £65 for our last bt hub and £55 for our first bt hub. WTF? The funny part about it is they're asking us to return them as they reuse them for parts. So what exactly are we paying £65 and £55 for? I don't want them but if they're charging us that then were practically buying them.......
Crazy huh
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Kevin in the flat downstairs has had a similar demand for money a while back. He told them to fuck right off, and quite right too.
A right bunch of dodgy fuckers, BT. Always have been, always will be. Not as bad as they used to be years ago mind you, back in the day they didn't have any competition so they could basically do whatever the fuck they wanted. I've never thought much of them tbh, mostly because they were in charge of TV Licence Vans. Twenty years or so ago they were anyway. They were always harping on about being able to detect what channel you were watching and it was a load of old bollocks. At the time they did have handheld detectors to be able to tell but in the entire 90s they only had 4 of them in the entire UK lmfao ;D ;D ;D
One of the guys in a band I was in let us all know what a load of old bollocks it all was, he used to work at BT. The majority of the vans at that time were empty inside and just had a dodgy aerial on top lololol :o ;D
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Just thought I'd necro post this thread. My Virgin Media internet has been crap these last few months. These last few days it's been cutting out every 5 minutes forcing me to restart my Virgin Media Hub to get it back again.
I've also noticed this last year or so that whenever the Virgin telly in my area has a problem my internet does too. I'm pretty sure that they're using the internet bandwidth to get their telly service going. Fuck knows. It's happened way too many times to be a coincidence.
I'm going to phone them up during these next few days and ask them, not that they'll tell me if they are doing anything dodgy lol
And for the first time in ages they've put their prices up without giving everyone an increase in speed too.