How Fast Is Your Internet Connection..?

[jman]

PAYG bitches.... 

£10 every other month MAX with the stuff I get for free when topping up...

I win 

[Late]

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...

[jman]

Didnt pay anything on the handset.. it was a gift..
£0.00 < £3.33
I still win!! 


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.

[harv]

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.

[Dragontao]

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.

[Dragontao]

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.

[ancelotti]

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.

[Dragontao]

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,

[harv]

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

The best thing about Virgin is that you usually get the speed you're paying for as mentioned above.

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.

[Dragontao]

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.

?
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.

[harv]

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..?

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..?

[Dragontao]

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.

[harv]

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.

[harv]

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

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 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

[AVFCRoss]

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....