To Quit or not to Quit!

[AlanUK78]

Hello all,

Moved into my new home September 21st. It took VM 10 days to get me connected, and many calls to India, including the premium rate lines. It finally was all working on October 1st. Whilst the TV is okay, and the telephone is working, the broadband is terribly slow. I've downgraded from 20MB to 4MB since I was never getting near that speed on websites, torrents, streaming media... But now, I'm hardly ever getting more than 50Kbps downloads, and internet browsing is slow...

I still have 7 days to cancel the whole lot and re-activate my BT line. I have checked and Freeview is available in my area, as well as BE broadband which offers ADSL2+ for £22 per month at 24Mbps. Without traffic shapers!

Would you recommended I quit VM whilst it is still an option... If I don't advise them of my desire to leave by Oct. 21st, I will be with VM for 12 months minimum...

Alan.

[Hugh]

If you are unhappy with your service, and cannot gain guarantees it will get better, you are (imho) better off leaving.

For the broadband from BE, you probably need to check distance from the exchange, which can make a considerable difference.

Good luck, however you decide.

[eth01]

Don't bother moaning. Cableforum can't do jack ***** :)

Go figure.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Don't bother moaning. Cableforum can't do jack ***** :)

Go figure.

Kindly don't avoid the profanity filter ;)

It's true, Cable Forum cannot wave a magic wand to improve internet speeds. On the other hand we are a forum where Virgin Media customers are welcome to vent their frustrations. Indeed, one day Virgin Media might actually realise from postings here and elsewhere on the net, combined with other sources of customer complaints, that low speeds are a serious issue for customers that will discourage continued subscription.

To the OP, are you certain that your PC is configured correctly, and accurately detecting the ethernet connection type (duplex mode and stuff) of the modem?

[AlanUK78]

Don't bother moaning. Cableforum can't do jack ***** :)

Go figure.

I'm not here to moan or ask for something to be done. I'm asking for advice :)

I know the grass isn't always greener on the other side, but VM so far is proving to be a waste of time for me...

---
I haven't changed my settings since I got VM working, and the lovely 0906 engineer went through all the settings with me on the phone, so it is all properly set. The only thing that has changed is the fact that I now have the connection on a Wifi router, but the installation was easy, and it WAS bought off WM website...

[TraxData]

If your close enough to your exchange i'd suggest moving over to Be, they provide a great service, and their customer support is excellent, not to mention the 2.5mbit upload you can get! highly recommended.

[Hom3r]

Recently somebody posted a link to a page that told you setting to try to speed up your connection.

Somebody should be able to post it soon

---------- Post added at 18:34 ---------- Previous post was at 18:31 ----------

here it is

http://www.virginmedia.com/help/20mb-broadband-optimisation.php

[Shootist]

To the OP, are you certain that your PC is configured correctly, and accurately detecting the ethernet connection type (duplex mode and stuff) of the modem?

I'm not the OP, but how would I go about doing this? I'm 4mb from an STB and my speeds are down drastically after 4pm until midnight everyday. Tech support asked me to do speed tests by downloading from a VM site and speeds were around 70-500 kbps max (this was slightly before 4pm). It seems to be fine in the morning or early afternoon but just about unusable for the rest of the time. Even web browsing is a real test of patience with web pages erroring all the time.

I thought I'd give tech support another try today, and advised of the usual crappy speeds when they asked me to test by downloading a game from the VM site. She consulted her manager then asked me to try the same download while in windows safe mode and if the speed was the same she would book an engineer. I tried this then picked up the phone to advise her that it wouldn't let me connet to the 'net while in safe mode but she had hung up.

Perplexed, I called back to try and resume the call but was told by the next advisor that sending out an engineer was pointless as the pitifully slow speeds I was getting are perfectly normal for VM BB at peak-times. Basically I was told to live with it.

Surely this can't be right and I'm willing to check whatever may be causing the problem but don't have a hell of a lot of knowledge.

[Mick Fisher]

Hello all,

Moved into my new home September 21st. It took VM 10 days to get me connected, and many calls to India, including the premium rate lines. It finally was all working on October 1st. Whilst the TV is okay, and the telephone is working, the broadband is terribly slow. I've downgraded from 20MB to 4MB since I was never getting near that speed on websites, torrents, streaming media... But now, I'm hardly ever getting more than 50Kbps downloads, and internet browsing is slow...

I still have 7 days to cancel the whole lot and re-activate my BT line. I have checked and Freeview is available in my area, as well as BE broadband which offers ADSL2+ for £22 per month at 24Mbps. Without traffic shapers!

Would you recommended I quit VM whilst it is still an option... If I don't advise them of my desire to leave by Oct. 21st, I will be with VM for 12 months minimum...

Alan.
Not wanting to influance you either way just let me say I've been with cable since cable modems were available but due to this rebranding/20meg fiasco will almost certainly be quitting very shortly.

[piggy]

I'm not the OP, but how would I go about doing this? I'm 4mb from an STB and my speeds are down drastically after 4pm until midnight everyday. Tech support asked me to do speed tests by downloading from a VM site and speeds were around 70-500 kbps max (this was slightly before 4pm). It seems to be fine in the morning or early afternoon but just about unusable for the rest of the time. Even web browsing is a real test of patience with web pages erroring all the time.

I thought I'd give tech support another try today, and advised of the usual crappy speeds when they asked me to test by downloading a game from the VM site. She consulted her manager then asked me to try the same download while in windows safe mode and if the speed was the same she would book an engineer. I tried this then picked up the phone to advise her that it wouldn't let me connet to the 'net while in safe mode but she had hung up.

Perplexed, I called back to try and resume the call but was told by the next advisor that sending out an engineer was pointless as the pitifully slow speeds I was getting are perfectly normal for VM BB at peak-times. Basically I was told to live with it.

Surely this can't be right and I'm willing to check whatever may be causing the problem but don't have a hell of a lot of knowledge.

unfortunatly if your speeds are ok before 4 and slow after,then there is nothing a home visit would cure as its a network/ubr/tm./perm anything from the above issue!!! sorry:(

[Shootist]

unfortunatly if your speeds are ok before 4 and slow after,then there is nothing a home visit would cure as its a network/ubr/tm./perm anything from the above issue!!! sorry:(

Excuse my ignorance, but what's a ubr?

[philehidiot]

Quit - leave them.

The people at the top will only see there's a problem when people ditch them and those little graphs start pointing downwards.

Don't hang about waiting for a broken ISP to fix itself, just take your money and go elsewhere before you're trapped. Do you really think 50kp/s is satisfactory? You know it isn't so why bother asking the opinions of people here if you should leave?

Why did you leave BT? Quite frankly, if they provided a service that worked then there's little reason to stop you going back. If it's their administrative stuff that's the problem, then go elsewhere - just make sure they're not oversubscribed. In many cases a business line may be best if you're using the net after 5 as you might have less competition for the bandwidth.

Just leave or you'll be, like me, stuck with this pile of total pigswill for the next year.

[xspeedyx]

I have to admit the net is slower than before but I still get atleast 10mb in the evening so I am ok speed is fine in the morning but in the evening i do lose half of my connection but hey I can deal with it

[joglynne]

Excuse my ignorance, but what's a ubr?

Universal Broadband Router..... :erm: I think.

[Shootist]

I in the evening i do lose half of my connection but hey I can deal with it

I can't. Imagine browsing when every page takes 1-2 minutes to load up and errors 50%-75% of the time, where browing and gaming are pointless. It's getting worse too, I noticed the problems today from 11 am, and last night it continued to 1 am. VM BB is now only useable for 10 hours a day, and I'm asleep for most of that! Sadly, I'm stuck with this garbage for another 9 months.

[philehidiot]

If your internet connection is only mildly impaired at the moment, it's not going to get better. They'll prioritise the completely broken connections and leave yours to get worse. It's a broken infrastructure with a company not worth your time or money. Quit now!

[smeagoly1]

I have to agree reluctantly, quit while the goings good. In the past things used to get sorted ASAP, sometimes instantly, but since July VM seem to have made a hash of things.
If it was an isolated case I would say carry on, but far, far to many customers are getting a raw deal, BB wise. BUt at the end of the day, how much trouble is it worth setting up with a new ISP/phoneline etc Lesser of two evils.