Digital Home Support :erm:

[roughbeast]

Out of curiosity I downloaded VM's Digital Home Support Package, including the free PC Health Check. It seems stunningly superficial just tying together pre-existing packages like Virgin Media Security and V-Stuff. Its main innovation is the money-making element of Live On-line Chat and a hotline to experts who can fix all your PC problems, remotely if required, 24/7. Price is from £6.00 a month.

OK I can see that the PC Health Check is designed for folk who are not confident when it comes to managing PC security and performance, but why when it comes to improving browsing speed does it only concentrate on the performance of Internet Explorer? Firefox et al don't get a look in.

Has anyone subscribed to the paid-for 24/7 tech support? I would be interested to see how they deal with the multiplicity of problems highlighted in this forum. How are they going to differentiate between network and PC problems, when as we all know they are often related? The former we should get free support for.

[Peter_]

We transfer any call we get that are out of our support scope and many customers have already subscribed to this service.

[kwikbreaks]

It's a difficult one as I can see both sides of the argument.

I certainly wouldn't subscribe as I feel confident enough to seek out the solutions to computer related problems myself but there are huge numbers out there who simply have no clue and paying for hand holding (even when it probably won't come up with the optimal solution) is probably going to be a good idea for them. Whether it's worth £72 a year is another matter but you really can't expect an ISP to provide this sort of service free.

You only need to look at boards such as the MoneySavingExpert Tech forum to see the level of pure ignorance - and that's not in just those asking for help either.

[Peter_]

It's a difficult one as I can see both sides of the argument.

I certainly wouldn't subscribe as I feel confident enough to seek out the solutions to computer related problems myself but there are huge numbers out there who simply have no clue and paying for hand holding (even when it probably won't come up with the optimal solution) is probably going to be a good idea for them. Whether it's worth £72 a year is another matter but you really can't expect an ISP to provide this sort of service free.

You only need to look at boards such as the MoneySavingExpert Tech forum to see the level of pure ignorance - and that's not in just those asking for help either.
It is not aimed at the kind of person who is more than able to sort out their own machine or knows where to seek help.

It is aimed at the type of person who just uses their computer for general browsing and is unaware of what lurks behind the cute exterior of their computer and neds their hand holding while it is fixed, plus support is available 24/7.

Also if they cannot fix your machine the is no charge made.

Digital Home Support is only for Virgin Media customers, but Virgin also offer a digital support service for everyone else.