The joke that is Virgin Media

[mattx]

Massive problems since yesterday around 21:00 -

Almost 24 hours later still major issues around the Hayes / Twickenham / Houslow area

The company is not fit for purpose. And I thought BT were bad.....

[Abaddon]

Was last week for me - started on Thursday night, and was only resolved on Saturday night.. big problems with Tivo box. Seems they are having problems with other things as well - I use PistonHeads forums a lot, and there are problems connecting with that properly as well, which seem to be mostly a VirginMedia ISP problem.

[glennda]

I just signed up with Zen - use them a lot for work and cannot fault them!

[Rawns]

My mate has Virgin Media in Bristol and has packet loss constantly (think there is a FB group for Virgin Media Bristol Customers who have issues?). He works in the networking field and constantly shoots down the Virgin Reps on the phones who ask him to turn his router off and on again. Over the space of an hour, he looses about 25% of packets. Virgin Media claim this is an acceptable level and wont release him from his contract, and seem to do sweet FA in resolving the issue.

[andrew_91090]

I keep getting letters from Virgin saying that I can get a better deal with them than Sky with 60MB broadband, free 1TB Tivo box with loads of free channels inc 30 HD Channels, phone line etc... all for £45 a month (Sky is about £55 for less than that offer) and it will be 6 months half price, when I ring up, turns out it's not even connected to our street

 

Doesn't stop them sending me a letter every week though just to rub it in!!

[featured_spectre]

Abadon, I am on PH too (same username as here)

[AMLinington]

Don't get me started on Virgin Media - They are the only cable provider in our area and we're so far away from the exchange that we can't get BT infinity or anything - our bills are over £50 a month for no good reason, the wireless on the router is DREADFUL (I plan to put it into bridged mode and run one I can manage myself). The router randomly reboots itself periodically - usually when LeBoyfriend and I are halfway through a Raid in WoW. The Wireless randomly dumps clients for no good reason - the client says its still connected but I can't ping or access the router itself and the only way to resolve it is to reboot the router. I've given up phoning support now as I'm sick to death of the 'have you turned it off and on again' type of support. I fervently wish we'd never gone with Virgin but the in-laws have a standard BT ADSL and it's even worse - the speed is terrible so until BT infinity comes to our area we're fubared. *Sigh*

[Sdrawkcab]

Virgin Media are doubly terrible because they routinely finger all their users as well as performing dodgy practices like traffic shaping/port throttling. I'm glad we no longer use them, speedtest.net would show us getting decent speeds but we'd still get pings of over 400 in online games. I'm now on Xilo.net, I don't get the same theoretical speed that I got on VM, but now I average pings of 5-20 while my flatmate is streaming stuff from iplayer etc which is something we could never have done before.

[sted]

at least you can get more than 1mb so streaming say iplayer etc is at least an option. I have an option of bt (well any openreach provider) and even though im a few miles from the centre of leeds its useless. Id take virgin over that anyday but of cpurse they havnt layed any cable as far as I can see in decades

[Gibbo]

I've been with Virgin since they were Telewest, before that Cable & Wireless, then some other company before that. Never had a problem with the service.

 

Only thing I don't like are the offers for new customers. Yes, I can have them too but I have to sign a new 18 month contract to get them.

 

Oh, and the "superhub" but I read up on that beforehand and just use it in modem mode.

[GTX]

I've been with Virgin since they were Telewest, before that Cable & Wireless, then some other company before that. Never had a problem with the service.

 

Only thing I don't like are the offers for new customers. Yes, I can have them too but I have to sign a new 18 month contract to get them.

 

Oh, and the "superhub" but I read up on that beforehand and just use it in modem mode.

 

I totally agree, In all honestly i haven't had any big problems with them. A little of down time here and there but that's about it. Its normally when some little s**ts have broken into the box etc.

 

I'm on the 100mb package and i normally get around 103Mb. Pings of around 15-25ms depending on the time of day.

[ConradJones]

My mate has Virgin Media in Bristol and has packet loss constantly (think there is a FB group for Virgin Media Bristol Customers who have issues?). He works in the networking field and constantly shoots down the Virgin Reps on the phones who ask him to turn his router off and on again. Over the space of an hour, he looses about 25% of packets. Virgin Media claim this is an acceptable level and wont release him from his contract, and seem to do sweet FA in resolving the issue.

 

not fit for purpose, small claims court

[featured_spectre]

I totally agree, In all honestly i haven't had any big problems with them. A little of down time here and there but that's about it. Its normally when some little s**ts have broken into the box etc.

 

I'm on the 100mb package and i normally get around 103Mb. Pings of around 15-25ms depending on the time of day.

 

My sky connection is 20mb, my ping is consistently 5ms to the west coast of US, 8ms to AUS, <3ms anywhere in Europe and east coast of US...

[mac_shinobi]

On sky's adsl2+ net connection and get aprox. between

 

12-15 Mbps down

1 Mbps up

 

With around a 34 - 40 ms response time when using speedtest.net

 

Don't have fibre around where I am aside from VM but just left them as

 

1. Over subscribed

2. Too much traffic shaping and speed throttling on broadband

[glennda]

Sky have also just purchased BE/O2 broadband too.

 

Sky uses the Easynet network to provide its services.

 

My New zen line with be around 14mb down, due to it being off network will be BT for the last mile and then back to ZEN's nearest POP.

[ConradJones]

BE is really good (except for no fibre), not looking forward to the changes

[glennda]

BE is really good (except for no fibre), not looking forward to the changes

 

Yup I was with O2 at my old house but moved and they wanted to charge a fortune for the new one as it is a different exchange which they don't supply.

[mac_shinobi]

BE is really good (except for no fibre), not looking forward to the changes

 

I think Be are getting taken over by sky aren't they ?

[featured_spectre]

SKy bought out O2 Broadband and BE Broadband...so that means everyone on their services will eventually go to Sky Broadband (not a poor service IMO, very reliable and clued up techs if you tell them you have done their standard restarting or on/off stuff

[mac_shinobi]

SKy bought out O2 Broadband and BE Broadband...so that means everyone on their services will eventually go to Sky Broadband (not a poor service IMO, very reliable and clued up techs if you tell them you have done their standard restarting or on/off stuff

 

Didn't say they were bad - just saw a mention of Be ( BeThere ) and remembered reading that they are getting taken over by sky