Anyone else pished off with 'Virgin Media' already? [Archive]

festa

08-02-2007, 22:11

Coz I am!

I didn't mind loosing service for a whole day last Thursday, I could let that go. I have been noticing over the last 4 weeks it has slowly got worse and this week it has been going very very slow in terms of internet speeds. So I do a speed test to find out the connection is less than 512kbps (should be 10mb connection) and downloads are averaging 40kbps. So what am I paying for...?

Called Virgin Media and spoke to a barely english speaking tech support person who can only say "yes that is definately too low" and "there is cable damage in your area", that is it... no info on when or how long it will take to be fixed. Nothing on there website about any service issues. So now I have no idea when the so called broadband is gonna get any better, or if it ever will!

What a pile of crap. I've been a TW/BY customer for about 7 yrs and although it was never brilliant service it was never as bad as this, along with such poor customer service. Virgin Media really do have their work cut out if they aim to improve. Much more of this and I think I might give someone else a go, all I want is for a decent connection and to get what has been paid for.

p.s- sorry for my rant, but i hope they read this (unlikely as it is)

[if someone can move this to the correct channel, got lost after registration]

videodj

08-02-2007, 23:57

What firewall are you using?

Sometimes updates can cause issues. Might be worth turning off and checking speed again.

jcuk

09-02-2007, 00:18

well, im readin it man, and yeah im a v.media guy.

totally agree too, sounds bang out of order!

Which speedtest you using?

id recommend this one for Accurate UK results, as for service before i was working for the company i was with telewest and had their 4meg BB for some time.

ive always, ALWAYS had a 100% connection ! i guess its unlucky, could be that your at the end of your street and everyone has cable :|

zdnet uk speedtest

http://resources.zdnet.co.uk/speedtest/

also try it at different times and as above check your firewall

kristoficus

09-02-2007, 10:05

Virgin have screwed me over already! (first time this has ever been said in history?)

With NTL I always got peaks at 480kb/s and through downloads I had no problem maintaining above 400. With uploads I always managed to steady at around 46kb/s without a problem.

Since Virgin took over my max download rate has plummeted to 320kb/s and my upstream is suffering and can't make it past 36.

Come on Virgin... You should be giving us a better service - not a worse one!!!

janipewter

09-02-2007, 10:32

Paul K

09-02-2007, 11:34

bringerofnoise

09-02-2007, 12:26

TBH it was something of an anti-climax, what with 20 meg or 50 megs trials in the run up to same-as-every-other-day day lol, people expected something good obviously a speed increase or just something.

most people woke up and if not for the hype would not even see that V day had even happend.

for the record i wanted the speeds to increase but only so my 10 meg would drop in price so that i would feel the benefit of V day in my pocket! hahah

walfordking

09-02-2007, 13:05

It all takes time. It depends what area you are living in. Some have good & some have bad. It also in some cases depends how many are online in your area, but is rare.

Rone

09-02-2007, 14:46

"You cannot wave a magic wand and make years of bad management, bad recruitment and bad training (in some cases) go away"

Thats why there are AK-47's. :D

Hugh

09-02-2007, 15:34

"You cannot wave a magic wand and make years of bad management, bad recruitment and bad training (in some cases) go away"

Thats why there are AK-47's. :D

Ah, I see the 80's style of "firm but fair" management is coming back into vogue.;)

Rik

09-02-2007, 16:36

It will take more than a few days for everything to be sorted out so that things are done the way Mr B wants it done. You cannot wave a magic wand and make years of bad management, bad recruitment and bad training (in some cases) go away. Just like you can't wave a magic wand and make years of low investment in the backbone go away.

What he said!

No im not pished off with Virgin Media, im just waiting for my 20Meg upgrade ;)

2||Para

09-02-2007, 19:40

What he said!

No im not pished off with Virgin Media, im just waiting for my 20Meg upgrade ;)

20Meg??

Be happy if they can sort 10 MB out to be honest.

Maggy

09-02-2007, 20:32

Nope..only with the number of threads about it..:(

I think I'm going back down to the basement forums...and try to be controversial there.;)

Locky

09-02-2007, 20:35

well i am not at all impressed looks like they have TOTALY killed ALL NON VM newsgroups (newsdemon 60 kb/s!!!!)

stooeh

10-02-2007, 00:08

Well I live in a part of leeds that is considered student territory (LS6) and my speeds have always been rubbish. Mmm, not always, just from say 2pm to 1am, after that its fine. So downloads are fine and I'm not about to complain that peak times I dont get 1000k/sec - it's playing online games that makes me :( warping about not only makes it difficult for me but other player give me abuse for doing it !

I long for more holidays for students cause at christmas, etc they all go home and I get 24 hour bliss ;-)

I didn't realise it was Virgin Media already til I saw CF ;-)

Any other sad leeds'ers out there?

festa

10-02-2007, 00:22

It's not about me wanting a speed increase as if its never been there, until they decided to route my connection through their ntl digital tv network my 10mb connection (which was pretty damn fine before) is now struggling to reach 1.5mb at the best of times. Its a feckin joke to say the least, and the customer service which used to be ok before (as tw/by) is now laughable.

Tired numberous speeds test but all return same results. Have rebooted and checked router settings many times and rebooted modem to maybe re-establish a new connection since they started tampering - nothing has improved. There is now't wrong with router, but am even gonna try a brand new belkin in the morning just to prove it's all as should be.

The latency and upload speeds are fine, but its the download which is poor... perhaps being throttled?

I honestly do not know what to try next other than rip the crap out of the wall and find another isp who might provide what I pay for. But all I want is for a technition to come out and sort tit :(

caveman

10-02-2007, 09:33

XFS03

10-02-2007, 10:14

What do these speeds equate to in Mb please

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 09:31:48 UTC
1st 128K took 265 ms = 494611 Bytes/sec = approx 4115 kbits/sec
2nd 128K took 266 ms = 492752 Bytes/sec = approx 4100 kbits/sec
3rd 128K took 266 ms = 492752 Bytes/sec = approx 4100 kbits/sec
4th 128K took 265 ms = 494611 Bytes/sec = approx 4115 kbits/sec

Would it be 4000 x 1000 = 4,000,000 = > 4MB
and would that deem to be good for a 4MB service.
Looks like you have a very good, consistent 4Mbps connection...for now :D.

If you click on the Speed Test at the top of this page, it will also show you your speed in Mbits/sec..

.

Chrysalis

10-02-2007, 11:42

I am dissapointed they havent decided to expand the cable footprint and even worse not even sort out the analogue cable areas which already have some cable but substandard service.

tweetypie/8

13-02-2007, 12:11

Coz I am!

I didn't mind loosing service for a whole day last Thursday, I could let that go. I have been noticing over the last 4 weeks it has slowly got worse and this week it has been going very very slow in terms of internet speeds. So I do a speed test to find out the connection is less than 512kbps (should be 10mb connection) and downloads are averaging 40kbps. So what am I paying for...?

Called Virgin Media and spoke to a barely english speaking tech support person who can only say "yes that is definately too low" and "there is cable damage in your area", that is it... no info on when or how long it will take to be fixed. Nothing on there website about any service issues. So now I have no idea when the so called broadband is gonna get any better, or if it ever will!

hi i would try and be patient and give them a sporting chance,if the complaints keep rolling in i cant see branson putting up with to much crap from his administrators and i think he will come out cracking the whip.;)

What a pile of crap. I've been a TW/BY customer for about 7 yrs and although it was never brilliant service it was never as bad as this, along with such poor customer service. Virgin Media really do have their work cut out if they aim to improve. Much more of this and I think I might give someone else a go, all I want is for a decent connection and to get what has been paid for.

p.s- sorry for my rant, but i hope they read this (unlikely as it is)

[if someone can move this to the correct channel, got lost after registration]

Richy99

13-02-2007, 17:10

well i am not at all impressed looks like they have TOTALY killed ALL NON VM newsgroups (newsdemon 60 kb/s!!!!)

i have no problems with giganews and get max my modem can handle

|Kippa|

13-02-2007, 17:21

I have no problem with the commercial newsgroup provider Astraweb, I get a solid 10mbit connection at 1200ksec off it, and I am on a traffic shaped connection.

dev

13-02-2007, 18:01

well i am not at all impressed looks like they have TOTALY killed ALL NON VM newsgroups (newsdemon 60 kb/s!!!!)

i wouldnt call 60kB/s being "totally killed" and i dont think newsdemon is *the only* newsgroup service

i'm not annoyed with virgin, seeing as i was happy with ntl :p: all 2 outages to the internet i've had have been known before i've phoned up and even got an un-announced call back to make sure it was working after they fixed it. any time installs have been done fine as have repairs for broken stb's. To the people who are gettin annoyed, what did you expect would happen? you complain at a lack of training for customer services yet expect them to be fully trained overnight when virgin took over. As for a large network like ntl, it is going to take time to fix the problems it has, and i'd give it ~6 months before things are a lot better.

Finally, to those saying they'll be happy with a working 10Mb, how long after it is working will you be wanting 20/50Mb just so you get to complain about that instead?

machead

13-02-2007, 18:52

ive just jumped ship today as had enough of these really weak connection. i had my sky 16meg connection now for over a month and not one problem at all.

makes ntl 10meg feel like dial up

Barnaby

17-02-2007, 12:29

Hello festa and others,

I was a satisfied Blueyonder cable customer until recently. Now I suffer from very slow broadband speeds, I have just run a test and the download speed is 0.2Mbps and the upload even less than that!!! Does anyone know if this is a temporary thing with Virgin Media and how long it will take them to fix it? I can get no help at all from their websites.

Any ideas or suggestions out there?

All the best,
Barnaby

Jonboy

17-02-2007, 12:49

from when virgin took over my internet has really slowed down even browsein is painfull also page cant be displayed happening far to often so whats gone wrong

Tops

20-02-2007, 20:46

i live in the leeds LS6 area, i use a wireless belkin router, while running on it back a few months ago with NTL i could handle online games routed wireless to my mate downstairs who could play at the same time on the same game with me and we experienced no problems. But until about a month ago and even more now that Virgin Media took over the speed is absolutely village !!!!
its meant to be 4mb , its more like 1mb atm.
there are so many ppl around me that are on the same isp its a nightmare

ps there customer care sux ass also

Jonboy

21-02-2007, 01:33

yep have to agree nothin has changed and i dont think it will looks as if we are still going to be on a sinking ship for a long time to come

mattymoo

21-02-2007, 22:25

I was happy with NTL 10Mbit until two weeks ago... now it's doing my head in.

Gordon_30

26-02-2007, 00:25

well i am not at all impressed looks like they have TOTALY killed ALL NON VM newsgroups (newsdemon 60 kb/s!!!!)

Damn right newsdemon since saturday afternoon has been 195 KB/s

considering it was 1.17mb in the morning

that is a serious drop and it has not changed in 2 days

get a grip Mr B and get rid of this capping of newsgroups or better still improve your own

shnookumshnum

26-02-2007, 09:50

I have had 2MB for a while now and for the past few months connection has dropped badly and download speeds awful, this generally happens during peak periods of the day, they call it traffic shaping I think. You would think that the fibre optic cable bull would be able to handle the faster speeds with busy traffic but clearly not! stick with BB down the phone line, living miles from the exchange is bound to be better than this fibre optic crap! As for india, say no more, tho though the AK-47 idea a good one! They offer the most awful customer service in the world. Imagine an Indian company had a call centre here - that would be awful customer service! Its obvious that VM care bout money and not CS and believe me this will not change because the savings are huge as oppose to the UK call centre.

tweetypie/8

26-02-2007, 13:59

It will take more than a few days for everything to be sorted out so that things are done the way Mr B wants it done. You cannot wave a magic wand and make years of bad management, bad recruitment and bad training (in some cases) go away. Just like you can't wave a magic wand and make years of low investment in the backbone go away.

you have hit the nail on the head,quick fixes just dont work,i think Mr b deserves a fair crack of the whip and he will end up wit a lot of satisfied customers.;)

Locky

27-02-2007, 08:12

Damn right newsdemon since saturday afternoon has been 195 KB/s

considering it was 1.17mb in the morning

that is a serious drop and it has not changed in 2 days

get a grip Mr B and get rid of this capping of newsgroups or better still improve your own

gordon ntl dont cap downloads tht much on 10 meg, newsdemon capped ME ! i raised hell and get a FULL refund, they are reluctant to admit they cap u but they DEFINITELY do if this speed is the same over the next few days get onto them for a refund !

Gordon_30

27-02-2007, 09:46

It Does not matter now

I was at the end of my month so i Canceled it

Goodbye slownewsdemon Hello Somebody else

Spooky_uk

01-03-2007, 02:36

Finally, to those saying they'll be happy with a working 10Mb, how long after it is working will you be wanting 20/50Mb just so you get to complain about that instead?

so are you saying that if we pay for a 10mb service, and are getting less than 2 (slower than download speeds at times) we should be happy with that? Taking into account that Vm(well when it was Telewest not a long time ago) acknowledge your area has an oversubscribed UBR, they have known about it for 12 months and no action to be taken for at least another 6 to 12 months. :rolleyes:
I await your response eagerly....