Virgin Media 70, 150 & 200 Mb Upgrades

[A Dave]

I have just had my date changed to April – June from the previous “by end of January”. Whilst I understand that it would be better if they made sure their system could deliver the increased speeds before enabling them, the impression of incompetency comes from the fact that this is, unless I missed some, the fifth different estimate.

I am increasingly gaining the impression that when they emailed me on 14th September "We're giving you a broadband speed upgrade this autumn” and had stated 90% of customers would receive the increases by the end of the year, nobody at Virgin had taken the slightest trouble to sit down and work out if it was at all likely they could even come close to delivering on their promises.

The fact that I have changed from someone who was reasonably happy with Virgin Media to now querying why I have to give them at least one star out of five for “Overall Satisfaction” rather than zero, must indicate a certain lack of competency somewhere.

Originally Posted by Stephen

How is it incompetency?

Would you rather they just enable it and you have problems?
They have Clearly noticed an issue and need to work on it first. I'd be happier that they are making sure it's being ully resolved.

I don't actually care when it is introduced, that's not the point. The fact that they keep changing the date indicates that VM simply don't have a clue about the state of the network. In terms of planning, this is shoddy. There is a serious failure of project management if dates slip so often.

If they don't actually have a clue about the actual date, why announce it at all?

---------- Post added at 15:48 ---------- Previous post was at 15:45 ----------

Originally Posted by BenMcr

My dates have changed from 'between January and March' to 'end of January', so they do go in both directions.

Ummm... the end of January is between January and March. With VMs track record for this upgrade, don't hold your breath, it could change a few more times before the upgrade.

---------- Post added at 15:50 ---------- Previous post was at 15:48 ----------

Originally Posted by A Dave

I have just had my date changed to April – June from the previous “by end of January”. Whilst I understand that it would be better if they made sure their system could deliver the increased speeds before enabling them, the impression of incompetency comes from the fact that this is, unless I missed some, the fifth different estimate.

I am increasingly gaining the impression that when they emailed me on 14th September "We're giving you a broadband speed upgrade this autumn” and had stated 90% of customers would receive the increases by the end of the year, nobody at Virgin had taken the slightest trouble to sit down and work out if it was at all likely they could even come close to delivering on their promises.

The fact that I have changed from someone who was reasonably happy with Virgin Media to now querying why I have to give them at least one star out of five for “Overall Satisfaction” rather than zero, must indicate a certain lack of competency somewhere.

Indeed, exactly the point I was making.

[chrispy2000]

Mine was original October then November, December, end of March. Then a couple of weeks ago when signing into my account there was a message say my FREE upgrade was ready all I had to do was apply I thought I already had, but did and got a message saying it would be ready in 48 Hours.
The next day I got a letter from VM saying as from February my bill will go up by £3.99 a month. Well there goes my FREE upgrade.

Seasons Greetings from Virgin Media. Giveth with one hand and Taketh with the other.

[Gavin78]

Mine was november then went end of march....a few weeks ago it went to end of january then i checked yesterday and it now says end of april....so who knows. It was only back in November i could upgrade to 200mb for £1.56 extra on my bill per month but that seems to have gone now

[Ken W]

Originally Posted by Gavin78

Mine was november then went end of march....a few weeks ago it went to end of january then i checked yesterday and it now says end of april....so who knows. It was only back in November i could upgrade to 200mb for £1.56 extra on my bill per month but that seems to have gone now

when VM first announced the speed in my increase as quoted as Sept 2015 now it is Sept 2016.

My bill is increasing by £3.99 from Feb 2016!

[Mr K]

I've gone from 50, 100, to 150mb in the last few months - and only because it worked out cheaper on my package. Can honestly say its made no difference to my web experience. Doubtless I can download a music track in 2.1 instead of 2.2 seconds but that hasn't changed life...

All a bit pointless since it went above 20mb, which enough for 99% of people. Become a bit of my speed test is faster than yours 'Top Gear' mentality game. Look at the numpties that put speed test results in their signatures - surprised they don't add the size of their small manhood's too....

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Mr K

All a bit pointless since it went above 20mb, which enough for 99% of people. Become a bit of my speed test is faster than yours 'Top Gear' mentality game. Look at the numpties that put speed test results in their signatures - surprised they don't add the size of their small manhood's too....

*Snigger* you win Boxing Day.

>20Mb is I would say important for more people than 1%, though certainly not all that many need it for much more than downloading dodgy material faster, especially as you get up to 50Mb and beyond.

Those Linux ISOs are very important torrents, and the faster those newsgroups can be 'read' the better. Oddly many don't mind paying for newsgroup accounts and higher tier broadband but object to paying legitimately for content.

I do of course exclude the uber-chavs who either run with the lowest tier or negotiate others as cheaply as possible and refuse to use VPNs or third party Usenet but use VM's own Highwinds server and torrents

I also exclude those who download TV shows for the most part; that's actually largely legitimate and those cannot be purchased in a lot of cases as they may not be available.

Those assembling modern movie collections and video games on the cheap, paying out hundreds for several terabytes of storage, though...

And, yes, putting speedtest results in signatures or avatars is somewhat weird. I only did it for a time to annoy some people but those who obsessively keep it up to date with their latest tiers and measure their manhood (I've never seen a woman do it) by their broadband are entertaining. To each their own.

Happy Boxing Day everyone

[Gavin78]

Or it might be for legit stuff like steam and EA store which games like GTA 5 are over 70gig to download. On top of that I have the steam link which stream's games to the TV so the faster the better to stop lagging

[jungleguy]

Originally Posted by Mr K

I've gone from 50, 100, to 150mb in the last few months - and only because it worked out cheaper on my package. Can honestly say its made no difference to my web experience. Doubtless I can download a music track in 2.1 instead of 2.2 seconds but that hasn't changed life...

All a bit pointless since it went above 20mb, which enough for 99% of people. Become a bit of my speed test is faster than yours 'Top Gear' mentality game. Look at the numpties that put speed test results in their signatures - surprised they don't add the size of their small manhood's too....

I have to agree, with a 20mb connection I could download an HD movie from iTunes quicker than I can watch it, and that's enough for me, but Virgin have priced my package in such away that I have the 150mb because its cheaper!!!, its like owning a Ferrari in a metropolis. I personally think the 50 mb connection is plenty fast enough for the majority of users. Sure, students, online gamers, day traders, and professional gamblers will want the fastest connection, but they only represent a small proportion of the market. Speed hikes by VM justify their price rises......although the majority are not interested.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Gavin78

Or it might be for legit stuff like steam and EA store which games like GTA 5 are over 70gig to download. On top of that I have the steam link which stream's games to the TV so the faster the better to stop lagging

Rare you download games, though. Unlikely to be purchasing several a month and in my experience download speeds on these services are somewhat variable.

You do know Steam Link is streaming from PC to TV via your home network, so not using your broadband at all, right?

[Gavin78]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Rare you download games, though. Unlikely to be purchasing several a month and in my experience download speeds on these services are somewhat variable.

You do know Steam Link is streaming from PC to TV via your home network, so not using your broadband at all, right?

No I wasn't aware actually, from some of the comments I read BB speed was also a factor...but I could have read it wrong...I've only used it a short while and noticed wireless was a but naff even on the 5ghz band so have got a ethernet cable but not had it running yet.

Only tried it a few times

As for steam games I've got over 100 but I have to agree it is only a few that are 40gig plus in size most are under 10 gig. Not sure if I have ever seen steam max out my 152mb BB. but if it works out cheaper to drop down in price to 150mb then I will.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Gavin78

As for steam games I've got over 100 but I have to agree it is only a few that are 40gig plus in size most are under 10 gig. Not sure if I have ever seen steam max out my 152mb BB. but if it works out cheaper to drop down in price to 150mb then I will.

That's it really - newsgroups and well seeded torrents are some of the few things that'll actually deliver 200Mb+ reliably

Upload is big for me due to working from home. I also use VoIP and WebEx extensively. Ideally I want to never max out my broadband despite a lot of streaming and other activities happening simultaneously.

I use WAN optimization at home which helps but I have a business service for a good reason and will be taking the 300Mb VMB service when delivered here but I'm in the minority - lucky buggers who work from home.

You alright by the way? Unsure which bit of the city you're in, hope you and yours weren't affected by the floods

[Gavin78]

I'm ok thanks, I'm seacroft so wasn't affected by any of the floods...drove past woodlesford yesterday and that was pretty bad. The bridge was passable but the area looked like something out of the lake district.

[Skie]

Steam is more than capable of saturating my 152, typically hits 18MB/sec.

[Ignitionnet]

So not actually saturating your 152 given it's capped at 168 and delivers about 20MB/s after overheads.

Pedantry aside I am sure it can at times, though, when servers aren't too busy especially.