VirginMedia - your experiences

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Stuart*
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Posts: 2150
Joined: Fri 24 Jun, 2005 10.31
Location: Devon

After 7 years with AOL, and after changing all my bank/friends/subscription contact details over to an MSN email address, I finally took the plunge and changed my ISP this year. After perusing the various dual/triple/quad deals on offer I selected VirginMedia. Despite my home being only 11 years old, my road is not cabled, so I settled for a good £9.99 p/m deal with VM for 5Mb broadband and the calls through the BT landline.

AOL immediately offered me a better deal, so I contacted VM and cancelled about 7 days before the transfer was due to take place. They said they were sorry I wasn't transferring to them, but confirmed the cancellation. 7 days later I got a text message "Congratulations, your Virgin Broadband is now active". I telephoned VM, who confirmed again that they had cancelled the transfer and that I was still with AOL. I rang AOL to double-check, and they confirmed (also in writing) that I was on the new fab deal they had concocted for me. I was a content bunny.

3 days later (on a Sunday afternoon) my broadband vanished. After desperate calls to AOL, who couldn't find a problem, I got BT to check the line on Monday morning. They advised that VM had taken the broadband over, and promptly cancelled it, thereby stopping AOL continuing their 7 year long supply. After furious calls to VM they allowed the service to be activated as a temporary measure, at no charge. I called AOL, who instantly told me that I couldn't have my previous fab deal, as I was now an ex-customer :o In protest at AOL I stayed with Virgin as it's a rolling monthly contract, but am obviously looking for another good deal.

When VM set up my account they mis-spelt my surname for the log-in and primary Email, so it took another day before they discovered that and I was actually on-line. Oddly they got my name right on my bank details though.

The broadband speed is erratic to say the least and they just say that it's "problems with the network". The download speed is sometimes slower than the standard 360kb/s upload. Ocassionally it's good, it's up to nearly 4Mb, but that isn't sustained for long before I have to reboot the router for another IP address.

Am I just unlucky in my experience, or are VM really as bad as this for all their customers?
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Jovis
Posts: 1454
Joined: Fri 25 Aug, 2006 20.08

Am I really the only person that never has any problems with Virgin?
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Sput
Posts: 7543
Joined: Wed 20 Aug, 2003 19.57

Well stu, you're off-network so I doubt my experiences are the same as yours, since I'm on SUPER FAST FIBRE OPTIC, ugh. I realise now that, on the vans, where it says "FASTER FASTER FASTER", it refers to what you're constantly shouting at your computer because it's downloading so slowly.
Knight knight
cdd
Posts: 2607
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 14.05

I have a theory: Perhaps VM are prioritising traffic. So all Sput's traffic is going through first, then mine, then Jovis's, then everyone else's, and then, finally, Stu's.
Stuart*
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Joined: Fri 24 Jun, 2005 10.31
Location: Devon

After my problems at 3am this morning (getting speeds of under 600 kb/s even after rebooting the router 11 times) I decided to enjoy the nice weather and calm myself down taking Oscar out for the day before ringing customer services tonight (they close at 6).

They finally tracked down and allowed me access to my bill (on the account with the mis-spelt name they said they'd corrected). That accounted for why they suddenly snaffled £41 from my account last week - 95% of call charges were to their 25p/m "technical line" complaining about their service.

I have mates who are on VM (formerly Eurobell, then Telewest) and they don't have the same issues. But they are "on-network" rather than on this dubious service VM are providing through the BT network. I appreciate that with 'local-loop-unbundling' the different telecoms companies put their own equipment into the exchanges, but surely they should be of equal or superior quality to that already in place.

The fact that my previously stable AOL connection to the Crownhill exchange has now become erratic must be down to the equipment they have put in there.
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Nini
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Joined: Fri 19 Oct, 2007 17.14

Probably should have stayed on AOL, seem that sort of user.
Stuart*
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Posts: 2150
Joined: Fri 24 Jun, 2005 10.31
Location: Devon

Nini wrote:Probably should have stayed on AOL, seem that sort of user.
I'm sure that is intended as an insult Nini, but AOL were simply the service provider, I didn't use their other services. In fact I found their web browser visually offensive, difficult to use and often totally incompatible with many sites, so I didn't bother with it. My main reason for staying with them for so long was that everyone I knew (and companies I used) contacted me through my AOL email address and was reluctant to go through the hassle of changing everything.

As an ISP they provided a very stable broadband service though. Customer Service wasn't that bad until they transferred most of it to Indian call centres. The service began to suffer when they were sold to Carphone Warehouse though - who have a terrible reputation for everything the lay their fingers on. :roll:
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Netizen
Posts: 197
Joined: Wed 17 Oct, 2007 19.16
Location: Wakefield

Sput wrote:Well stu, you're off-network so I doubt my experiences are the same as yours, since I'm on SUPER FAST FIBRE OPTIC, ugh. I realise now that, on the vans, where it says "FASTER FASTER FASTER", it refers to what you're constantly shouting at your computer because it's downloading so slowly.
Same experience here, except that the network was utterly fantastic when 10Mb was the maximum. As soon as 20Mb came along (which they cheekily upped from £35 to £37pm) it all went to shit. Now I rarely see a download speed of over 500KB/s. As soon as this fabled upgrade to 10Mb on the L package arrives I'm downgrading.
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Gavin Scott
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Netizen wrote:
Sput wrote:Well stu, you're off-network so I doubt my experiences are the same as yours, since I'm on SUPER FAST FIBRE OPTIC, ugh. I realise now that, on the vans, where it says "FASTER FASTER FASTER", it refers to what you're constantly shouting at your computer because it's downloading so slowly.
Same experience here, except that the network was utterly fantastic when 10Mb was the maximum. As soon as 20Mb came along (which they cheekily upped from £35 to £37pm) it all went to shit. Now I rarely see a download speed of over 500KB/s. As soon as this fabled upgrade to 10Mb on the L package arrives I'm downgrading.
I get about 12Mbps (sometimes) from the same service as you, but for the most part its not quite the upgrade I thought it would be.

No real complaints about VIrgin other than the letter I recently got saying, "You have been mistakenly paying less for your phone service than you should have for some time, so please note the new price on your next bill."

I've made about three calls from that line since demanding they change the number after allocating me one from a well publicised volunteer service in Edinburgh which had moved location. The number was listed on various websites I discovered.

No, I don't think I'll be paying them more for it. I expect to be paying less once I explain the situation to their complaints department.
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Beep
Posts: 738
Joined: Sat 24 Mar, 2007 23.53
Location: That London

Sput wrote:Well stu, you're off-network so I doubt my experiences are the same as yours, since I'm on SUPER FAST FIBRE OPTIC, ugh. I realise now that, on the vans, where it says "FASTER FASTER FASTER", it refers to what you're constantly shouting at your computer because it's downloading so slowly.
Im lucky , I live right next to the box and my broadband is at 23000kbps.
Jovis
Posts: 1454
Joined: Fri 25 Aug, 2006 20.08

Godfather wrote:
Sput wrote:Well stu, you're off-network so I doubt my experiences are the same as yours, since I'm on SUPER FAST FIBRE OPTIC, ugh. I realise now that, on the vans, where it says "FASTER FASTER FASTER", it refers to what you're constantly shouting at your computer because it's downloading so slowly.
Im lucky , I live right next to the box and my broadband is at 23000kbps.
That's strange, that's exactly the same reason that we're unlucky.
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