CAM Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 You don't realise how bad those in the sticks must have it with terrible broadband speeds until you end up with a line fault causing your speed to drop to a mere 3-5Mbps. Then you get told you can have a discount for the shoddy service you've been putting up with for months, but still left with a connection that at times has dropped to dial-up speed <1Mbps with none of the satisfaction of the connection sounds firing up...until the end of February. Granted I may have vented considerably at the poor frontline employee for a good 10mins, I feel a bit bad for that, but dear god how has this been allowed to go on so long? We live in an age of digital distribution, online gaming, streaming of movies and music over the Internet, online file repositories, even turn your heating or fairy lights on and off before you get home, all of which requires a stable and fast connection. We live in a world of freakin' holograms but why in the UK do we get such abysmally poor Internet? You are left with a choice between BT or Virgin, neither of which seem capable of getting your transmissions from one place to another without making a pig's ear, trotter, snout and backside of the whole affair! I can't even play WoW, a ten year old game, on this connection. I can't download something from Steam because it crawls along (so god help me when a patch comes out, oh and most of my library is not installed yet). Could barely watch the Microsoft stream today as the presenters skipped, stuttered and buffered. My Internet connection has rewound a decade whilst modern day demands still need that decent speed connection. Oh and I have a family member who works entirely from home. She is going to be fuming! Oh and the reason for the speed loss? The reason support gave me? They are carrying out engineering work to give everyone a speed upgrade from 50mb to 100mb. So yeah enjoy sub-optimal poor quality single digit speeds for months on end whilst we promise you something faster at the end of it because now your exchange is over-utilised! Now I need a break, my eye is twitching so hard with rage right now it's actually affecting my eyesight...
spadam Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 I'm in exactly the same situation at the moment, overutilisation, been going on for 3 months and counting and the latest fix date is the start of February. My partner also works completely from home and is less than pleased. BT currently have no plans to roll out Infinity in our area so no other way for us to get fast connection. If this keeps up much longer though I will probably just switch anyway as the lack of speed at peak times is unbearable. I am receiving a discount until the problem is resolved but that doesn't help much when what I really want is a usable connection to the internet. Also doesn't help that every time I sign into Virgin website I have to wait far too long for the site to load only to be confronted by a message telling me that my connection has been supercharged... lucky me eh! 1
rich_tech Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 (edited) You don't realise how bad those in the sticks must have it with terrible broadband speeds until you end up with a line fault causing your speed to drop to a mere 3-5Mbps. Then you get told you can have a discount for the shoddy service you've been putting up with for months, but still left with a connection that at times has dropped to dial-up speed <1Mbps with none of the satisfaction of the connection sounds firing up...until the end of February. Granted I may have vented considerably at the poor frontline employee for a good 10mins, I feel a bit bad for that, but dear god how has this been allowed to go on so long? We live in an age of digital distribution, online gaming, streaming of movies and music over the Internet, online file repositories, even turn your heating or fairy lights on and off before you get home, all of which requires a stable and fast connection. We live in a world of freakin' holograms but why in the UK do we get such abysmally poor Internet? You are left with a choice between BT or Virgin, neither of which seem capable of getting your transmissions from one place to another without making a pig's ear, trotter, snout and backside of the whole affair! I can't even play WoW, a ten year old game, on this connection. I can't download something from Steam because it crawls along (so god help me when a patch comes out, oh and most of my library is not installed yet). Could barely watch the Microsoft stream today as the presenters skipped, stuttered and buffered. My Internet connection has rewound a decade whilst modern day demands still need that decent speed connection. Oh and I have a family member who works entirely from home. She is going to be fuming! Oh and the reason for the speed loss? The reason support gave me? They are carrying out engineering work to give everyone a speed upgrade from 50mb to 100mb. So yeah enjoy sub-optimal poor quality single digit speeds for months on end whilst we promise you something faster at the end of it because now your exchange is over-utilised! Now I need a break, my eye is twitching so hard with rage right now it's actually affecting my eyesight... I know your pain there, last area I lived in with Virginmedia had a badly oversubscribed UBR, (all new connections kept being jammed onto a single channel, with a few spare and empty channels having the service of their lives ill wager) you couldnt do anything when it came to peak time, WoW would let you in then you would lag out and you got to listen to your mates having fun as you telegraphed around Orgrimmar trying to just keep in the game with it and ringing up trying to speak to someone who understood online gaming was hit and miss, it took anywhere from 2/3 days to 6/8 weeks to get a resegmentation of the UBR so everything would revert to normal. It is spot on that in this day and age these things shouldn't happen, unfortunately they do and both companies are hit and miss I have found from being with both of them now, BT - they have twice wired me from a max length exchange to my home when a nearer one existed because it was "Easier" for them, so you automatically get poor broadband service (supposed to be 12 meg, I was getting 4.5mbps), something that my parents have a nightmare because of to this day though they have gone fibre now which has helped them a little, they have leapt from 1.5mb now to 15mb connection. Edited January 22, 2015 by rich_tech
localzuk Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 As someone who gets a maximum of 6Mbps, I know how you feel. When I was up in Bristol, I had 50Mbps. It was blissful (well, except for Youtube buffering). To drop back down to 6Mbps felt like going back in time to dial-up. I could no longer watch streamers on source quality on Twitch, the idea of downloading something and watching Netflix at the same time became laughable, and remote access to my videos via mobile devices became basically impossible. It amazes me that in 2015, we still have a complete mess of a telecoms network in this country.
Garacesh Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 with none of the satisfaction of the connection sounds firing up... You use that word.. I don't think it means what you think it means.. Damn that sounds bad, though.. Currently on 70+ MB fibre. Don't think I could ever go back to single digits D:
Nibiru Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 You don't realise how bad those in the sticks must have it with terrible broadband speeds until you end up with a line fault causing your speed to drop to a mere 3-5Mbps. 5 meg would be wonderful man Out in the sticks here (well 1.5 miles from the town centre) - MAXIMUM line speed down at home is 2.5 meg. 350k up. This is a vast improvement - until recently we were on 1 meg/300 - Youtube doesnt work properly at 1meg and find a graphic heavy web page (bbc news is typical) and half the bloody pictures on a page dont load!. No chance of Virgin as the nearest service is 25 miles way, BT have partially fibered the town but our area seems to have got missed somewhere
southhamster Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 Huh. In Devon there are plenty of village schools that are lucky to get 2mb even with DSL aggregation. And when it rains the lines often go down anyway. Same story with mobile reception.4G? Ha we're lucky to get 2G! On the other hand we do get to live in beautiful place.
hardtailstar Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 Could barely watch the Microsoft stream today as the presenters skipped, stuttered and buffered. Don't think that was Virgins fault. I tried to watch it at my house in a town with I think a 30mb connection from Virgin and it was doing the same, My friends were having problems with it too on BT and other providers. I found it on Youtube last night from an American account after the event and the video was skipping and stuttering for myself and friends so I think that was Microsofts fault or whoever was paid to stream it.
Edu-IT Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 I get around 5 Meg and don't struggle. Why is it really that bad? :-S
CAM Posted January 22, 2015 Author Posted January 22, 2015 Because the connection speed fluctuates wildly. It is also shared between other people in the house cutting speeds further, but even with one device connected directly to the modem the speed still goes way too slow for what Virgin are being paid for.
JRowley Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 It's almost all entirely down to BT OpenReach and their inability to maintain their infrastructure. They need to be dissolved and have the responsibility given to someone with a proven track record, something BT has never had.
CHR1S Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 I wanted to move to Sky recently as Vermin keep hiking their prices up every 3 months or so. I chatted to the guy who promised he could "smash" my VM mates rates price, great, where do I sign up? He asked the right questions and we were close to sealing the deal when he excitedly pointed out I can get 4mb internet too.... Wait what? I pointed out that I currently have 110mb (its 100 but always reads over) and he recoiled in disgust, you dont "need" that speed, you can stream HD on 4mb. Needless to say I walked away and saved my breath at why an IT manager and geek would want 100mb. Virgin or BT infrastructure... choice of two evils really.
Garacesh Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 lmao @CHR1S, Sky (speaking from experience) are just as terrible as Virgin are heralded to be, and their customer service is utterly appalling. You dodged the bullet there. 1
JRowley Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 I'm with Sky at home, the problem is that they are just a reseller for BT OpenReach. So Sky's customer service is as good as it can be given that all they can do is open a ticket on my behalf with BT OpenReach.
eyetea Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 Used to get 2MB/s at my parents house on a good day! I moved out nearer civilisation and went with Virgin fibre... gaming was a whole new experience!!!
Shadow_Walker Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 (edited) I get around 5 Meg and don't struggle. Why is it really that bad? :-S Does the buffer wheel get annoying? I get 76 meg now but fibre has only recently come to the area. Edited January 22, 2015 by Shadow_Walker
Sunnyknight Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 As i've said before on another Virgin thread... I had a right battle with them when i had 30mb speeds but pings of 400 - 600. I went on battling with support on the forum, phone, email, letters etc etc for 2 years. Came to nothing apart from pointless engineers coming out and bull being told. In the end, i wrote a very.... aggressive letter to one of the CEO's. The next day the technical manager got in touch with me saying they're doing maintenance around my area and that they can't do anything about it. I said that's unacceptable. I was put through to the finance director, yes director, who i had a right war with. She agreed with what i was saying and that it was unacceptable and shocked that it went on for so long without a resolution. She said she'd call me back in the afternoon. She did. She had the relevant CEO, the technical support manager in the same room. They agreed that i would be refunded 2 years of payments and that i could leave if i wanted without any penalties. I did. Joined BT. Never been happier. 3
rich_tech Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 As i've said before on another Virgin thread... I had a right battle with them when i had 30mb speeds but pings of 400 - 600. That made me laugh there, I remember it well as though the mention of ping was a swearword at times with the Tech support call handlers and they didnt have the scripts to deal with it, always had to be passed to second/third line support, when I first started with them, they didnt have any concept of wanting the connection to have a decent ping not caring that it was 1meg speed (£90 a month that was costing back then, today half that for 152mb lol) 1
Edu-IT Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 How can people justify paying £90 a month for home broadband?
localzuk Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 How can people justify paying £90 a month for home broadband? I've considered it! I considered bonding a couple of ADSL lines. Decided against it though, as I noticed fibre was being rolled out to the area. Hasn't arrived at my house yet though!
Sunnyknight Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 How can people justify paying £90 a month for home broadband? Because we can. #YOLO
Garacesh Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 How can people justify paying £90 a month for home broadband? To be fair, his name is @rich_tech Because we can. #YOLO You don't get to comment on anything involving money. Ever 1
mac_shinobi Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 (edited) As i've said before on another Virgin thread... I had a right battle with them when i had 30mb speeds but pings of 400 - 600. I went on battling with support on the forum, phone, email, letters etc etc for 2 years. Came to nothing apart from pointless engineers coming out and bull being told. In the end, i wrote a very.... aggressive letter to one of the CEO's. The next day the technical manager got in touch with me saying they're doing maintenance around my area and that they can't do anything about it. I said that's unacceptable. I was put through to the finance director, yes director, who i had a right war with. She agreed with what i was saying and that it was unacceptable and shocked that it went on for so long without a resolution. She said she'd call me back in the afternoon. She did. She had the relevant CEO, the technical support manager in the same room. They agreed that i would be refunded 2 years of payments and that i could leave if i wanted without any penalties. I did. Joined BT. Never been happier. Could have done with your letter writing and that a few years back as was with VM back then and had a lot of issues with there broadband etc, with Sky currently and waiting for BT Infinity to be released in our area or our area be upgraded Thanks Edited January 22, 2015 by mac_shinobi
free780 Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 The moral of the story is to live in a city. Been with virgin for 8 years 10meg is now 50. No issues. Been down twice.
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