G0ggy
27-11-2007, 13:26
Hi everyone,
First post so hi again! Glad I've found these forums as it appears there is some extreme views about VM.
If I could let you know my plight. I used to be on VM 1MB service in Southampton, which was absolutely fine, we then moved house to Tutbury, Staffordshire (Tutbury exchange) and during the move conversation with VM they offered to upgrade our broadband to 8mb, after which it was pretty much unusable. Luckily we were only 3 months away from being with VM for 1 year so we put up with the appalling speeds and throttling, then got our MAC and buggered off to a small ISP called Cybernetic. After which time our Internet connection sat at 6.5mb and stayed there, which made me wonder about the lies customer service tell when we were told 1mb is the maximum we could get on the Tutbury Exchange due to distance!
We have now moved to Lichfield, Staffordshire (Lichfield exchange) and even with Cybernetic our Internet connection is around 125kbps (min) to 375kbps (max), Cybernetic have said that this is because the Lichfield exchange is some distance from our house. According to BT's ADSL checker we should be able to have a 1mb average and 3mb max service.
Here is the crux of the point, we are in a Virgin Media cable area (the old 20mb Internet connection etc...) but reading on these forums and others it appears that no-one gets anywhere near these speeds and also have to suffer with download caps. as a gamer, that would mess me up. Since we used to be with VM I've noticed on their website that they now trumpeted a 30 day cancellation option, so is it safe to assume that I could give this a whirl and if not satisfied just cancel it? Or am I rightly suspicious that the connection would be fine for that period then drop thereafter?
I'm wholly suspicious of this Internet business, my personal opinion is the network is over-sold and rather than committing the money to putting it right, they're introducing punitive measures to stop people using it. A bit like the problem with the roads at the moment. Our American cousins telecoms companies must be looking across the pond and laughing their socks off. If you've seen those little signature bars you can get from Speedtest.net, I think the lowest American one I've seen is about 10mb!
Sorry for the long post, I wanted to ensure that people knew how wary of VM I am!
Cheers.
First post so hi again! Glad I've found these forums as it appears there is some extreme views about VM.
If I could let you know my plight. I used to be on VM 1MB service in Southampton, which was absolutely fine, we then moved house to Tutbury, Staffordshire (Tutbury exchange) and during the move conversation with VM they offered to upgrade our broadband to 8mb, after which it was pretty much unusable. Luckily we were only 3 months away from being with VM for 1 year so we put up with the appalling speeds and throttling, then got our MAC and buggered off to a small ISP called Cybernetic. After which time our Internet connection sat at 6.5mb and stayed there, which made me wonder about the lies customer service tell when we were told 1mb is the maximum we could get on the Tutbury Exchange due to distance!
We have now moved to Lichfield, Staffordshire (Lichfield exchange) and even with Cybernetic our Internet connection is around 125kbps (min) to 375kbps (max), Cybernetic have said that this is because the Lichfield exchange is some distance from our house. According to BT's ADSL checker we should be able to have a 1mb average and 3mb max service.
Here is the crux of the point, we are in a Virgin Media cable area (the old 20mb Internet connection etc...) but reading on these forums and others it appears that no-one gets anywhere near these speeds and also have to suffer with download caps. as a gamer, that would mess me up. Since we used to be with VM I've noticed on their website that they now trumpeted a 30 day cancellation option, so is it safe to assume that I could give this a whirl and if not satisfied just cancel it? Or am I rightly suspicious that the connection would be fine for that period then drop thereafter?
I'm wholly suspicious of this Internet business, my personal opinion is the network is over-sold and rather than committing the money to putting it right, they're introducing punitive measures to stop people using it. A bit like the problem with the roads at the moment. Our American cousins telecoms companies must be looking across the pond and laughing their socks off. If you've seen those little signature bars you can get from Speedtest.net, I think the lowest American one I've seen is about 10mb!
Sorry for the long post, I wanted to ensure that people knew how wary of VM I am!
Cheers.