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Thread: An open letter to Virgin Media

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    Quote Originally Posted by jay_oasis View Post
    I can't get anything other than 512k ADSL due to my distance from the exchange.
    I've still not forgiven my parents for moving to cornwall, i'd like to say one of my main gripes was the total lack of broadband etc.... but seriously that was nothing in comparision to how dull the place was.

    You still have the option of 0.5mbit broadband from a multitude of suppliers, hell of a lot more than i had!

    But you still have the choice, insainly expensive saterlite option, wireless option, cable, or BT copper.
    throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)

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    Cool Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    You may not be aware that as a Virgin Media customer that if you have to phone the technical support line due to a fault that you should be offered the cost of the phone call back (maybe only if made on a Virgin Media line I don't know).

    Also if you phone the billing department you can get the cost refunded from the date of the fault.

    I too have a 20Mb line and I was getting 4Mb. I too emailed them and didn't get a reply for 2 weeks!
    I phoned up and complained. I got my XL cable package back-refunded to April and in effect I got £60 back.

    I wasn't allowed to find out what the fault was by the technical support guy. But I was cunning.
    When I asked the billing people, I asked them if it was in my record and he said it was. I asked them to read it out even if it made no sense to them. It seems there are several areas with low SNR levels in the UK and VM is upgrading them.

    I got my support call costs refunded as well as the technical guy told me he was doing this just before the call ended.

    A week later my connection was up to 13Mb.
    Then my email technical guys emailed me (replying to my original email 2 weeks previous) to say there was no fault on the line! Duh I blasted him with netstat, tracert and ping reports.
    I also said I should be getting 15-18Mb of real-world traffic not 13Mb.

    I quoted my own test from my own PC to their own servers which I use to download a file (a VM pc advisor file) . But I think it will be another 2 weeks before he replies. ;-)

    Still, it shouldn't cost you in the end.

    Code:
    @ECHO OFF 
    
    c:\curl -s --write-out "Download Speed is %%{speed_download} Bytes per second.\nFile Size is %%{size_download} Bytes.\n\n\n\n" htp://downloads.virginmedia.com/pcguard/6/virginmedia/tw/web/broadband_advisor.exe -o %temp%\aafile.tmp
    
    Tracert downloads.virginmedia.com
    It uses cURL, a free fetch tool

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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    Quote Originally Posted by Sim0n View Post
    DR,
    Do you have to pay 25p a minute for Pipex to ask you lame questions tho.

    I bet pipex would assume you had the common sense to check cables, and not waste £1 finding out
    it wasn't £1 for me, with virgin media if you didnt have their phone service you had to pay a premium rate 09 something number iirc.

    just quit i say, and go with bebroadband

    had a letter the other from virgin asking us to return for £4 a month for a year for 2mb..

    I feel sorry for them somehow..

    but yea it's true about what DR, most people are phoning up virgin saying I'm quitting then they are offering cheaper prices and deals time and time again. it works, just until theres something that needs fixing.

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    Senior Member joshwa's Avatar
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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    Quote Originally Posted by kst1973 View Post
    Good letter, I couldn't agree more.

    Thing that annoys me is prior to Virgin taking over, Telewest provided good customer service.

    Richard Branson should go fly his baloon somewhere!
    Agreed 100%. Telewest blueyonder used to be a free 150 call and they'd sort you out. I had no problems at all with Telewest 4mb with downloads and internet speeds always good. Now I'm on VM 2mb and I regularly get awful speeds downloading, and webpages loading SLOWER than dialup!!

    I shouldn't have to pay them money when the service they are providing is faulty!

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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    my service with VM has been generally reasonable, although I have had to be subjected to the 09 number before. First call started with the standard script and finshed with a vague 'I have changed things on our side and it will be working in 5 minutes'. No connection after 30 minutes and the second call started with script before I blew my top, told (screamed at) the nice man speaking to me to check my records on my last call and asked why VM had lied to me about fixing my connection... ...a little anger goes a long way- he confirmed that it was a problem on the local gateway and told me that it was getting fixed and promised to refund both call costs.

    But I agree with the previous comment - one of the key problems is the low cost of these services - the high levels of competition have meant that all these companies are mainly competing on price and that results in them stripping down parts of their service so that they can maintain some sort of margin. The problem is that we are all attracted to the price. If more people where willing to pay more for higher service levels, then companies would start offering packages to meet this need....

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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    Quote Originally Posted by kst1973 View Post
    Thing that annoys me is prior to Virgin taking over, Telewest provided good customer service.

    Richard Branson should go fly his baloon somewhere!
    Quote Originally Posted by leepen@scan View Post
    ....as Virgin have proven themselves to have done nothing but ruin the good work that Telewest/NTL had done in the past.
    Guys, its the same network run by the same people
    NTL / Telewest re-branded under the Virgin name after the Virgin mobile deal.
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    And by trying to force me to like small pants, they've alienated me.

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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    i was in a simular position and after several problems with speed , the actual cabe to my house (which they replaced after 6 weeks) i got my cable free for a while, but when it went wrong again i just left them and took up SKY instead, yeah its not 20mb but i get a steady 6mb rather than the crap flacky Virgin20mb which never actually went any faster than the 10mb.

    vote with your feet if your not happy

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    Post Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    Quote Originally Posted by kst1973 View Post
    Good letter, I couldn't agree more.

    Thing that annoys me is prior to Virgin taking over, Telewest provided good customer service.

    Richard Branson should go fly his balloon somewhere!

    Prior to Virgin taking over Telewest/NTL was about to go bankrupt...
    Why do you think Virgin bought them? This is what Virgin does!

    It's massively in debt with no money for essential upgrades to its network or the set-top box (which needs desperately replacing).

    So Virgin obviously cut some fat off, like UK customer support and got rid of a lot of its engineers.

    Do a bit of Googling and you'll find serious documents reporting on its financial position.

    Read about Telewest/NTL plans for its 50Mb cable upgrade and why it's never going to happen.

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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    My issues with Virgin Media are well documented on these here forums & on ISP Review.
    I pay for an 8 meg service but never get more than 50kb/s, owing to line contention. Now I was under the assumption that broadband constituted speeds of 10x dialup, which I've never got.
    Complained till i'm blue in the face & no joy. Their explanation is obscure in the extreme, the fact that I can 'theoretically' get 6meg makes it ok to supply me with 50kb/s and call it a broadband service.
    Quote Originally Posted by Virgin Helpdesk
    Dear Ian,
    Thanks for your email.
    The slow speed is caused during the evening hour/peak hours since the number of browsers increases; this is linked to “Contention Ratio”
    To provide a cost effective service - our ADSL services are 'contended' (shared) at the following ratios:
    50:1 ADSL 500, 1000 & 2000 Solo
    20:1 ADSL 500, 1000 & 2000 Business
    This contention is applied within the BT network - both locally with other users on your telephone exchange and within the BT network as it connects into our network.
    What this means in the 'worst case' is that you could be sharing a 500 Kbit/s connection with up to 49 other users. So if they were all using it at the same time 'theoretically' you would only get 10 Kbit/s (not very fast at all - in fact quite a bit slower than a normal modem).
    However, 'in reality' this scenario is very unlikely to happen and you should usually find it to be far faster than a modem connection.
    ADSL relies on individual users not making unreasonable traffic demands on the network to provide fast access speeds for all - please see here for further details.
    Remember if you are not getting the speed you expect it can be due to the contention ratio but also too many other factors including the capacity of the remote site you are accessing.
    If you have any further queries you can chat online with one of our agents, to chat online please click on the link below, and enter your Virgin Media email address and password to access our online chat agents.
    [
    Quote Originally Posted by Blitzen
    When I say go, both walk in the opposite direction for 10 paces, draw handbags, then bitch-slap each other!

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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    My landlord has been with ntl/Virgin for a while and was out of contract.

    When I moved in and discussed the ISP four of us were sharing, I was surprised it was Virgin XL 20 Mbps because it was nothing of the sort.

    We're now with Be

    When my landlord rang to cancel Virgin, the person said "don't leave, you'll be able to get our 50 Mbps service early in 2008".

    How can they possibly plan to give customers 2.5 times the connection speed when areas of the network are clearly crippled by their contention ratio and issues?

    Just as leepen@scan posted above, all they are doing is allowing you to blow your peak period allowance in even less time.

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    Red face Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    Quote Originally Posted by 0iD View Post
    ADSL relies on individual users not making unreasonable traffic demands on the network to provide fast access speeds for all - please see here for further details.
    However what is defined as 'reasonable' is set by your ISP.
    When you buy a 8Mb connection they have decided amongst themselves that you can't actually use 8Mb 24/7

    But ADSL and Cable users are maturing and unfortunately finding more uses for their internet connection than they did 2 years ago. So this is breaking their financial model of what is an 'average' Internet user.

    Many of us in the telecommunications business believe this 50:1 contention ratio is no longer viable. Hence the increasing restrictions made by ISPs trying to reduce the usage by their customers!

    I'm told by Virgin Media that Cable XL customers always have a contention ratio of 1:1 due to the nature of the beast. But that's not to say their routers network attached to the rest of the Internet have the capacity to take all their customers.

    My business just got themselves a 8Mb/432K ADSL line for £25 a month (Pipex) with a 20:1 contention ratio. At the moment if you want a better line go for the business type. It is unlimited bandwidth. It is really the only alternative. Take your custom elsewhere, it's the only thing that will work in the UK sadly.

  12. #28
    The King of Vague Steve B's Avatar
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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    Quote Originally Posted by quatermass View Post
    I'm told by Virgin Media that Cable XL customers always have a contention ratio of 1:1 due to the nature of the beast. But that's not to say their routers network attached to the rest of the Internet have the capacity to take all their customers.
    source? i smell bull!

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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    One for BBC Watchdog methinks
    [
    Quote Originally Posted by Blitzen
    When I say go, both walk in the opposite direction for 10 paces, draw handbags, then bitch-slap each other!

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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    i seem to be having problems too , regardless of what time of day i only seem to be getting 10mb connection and downloading from ps3 network or xbox live is really slow , slower then my mates 2mb connection.

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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    Guys, its the same network run by the same people
    NTL / Telewest re-branded under the Virgin name after the Virgin mobile deal.
    i would disagree with that i work for a electrical retailer and we do telewest sign ups , after the VM buy most of the call centres where scrapped and moved over to the virgin call centres and all the techies got made redundant and now work freelance for VM . wouldn't suprise me if they have changed the people running the network aswell to virgin people !

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    Re: An open letter to Virgin Media

    Virgin suck like a 2bit hooker. My dads been waiting 2 weeks for them to reconnect him after they cancelled his account without even contacting him, because his credit card expired and he forgot to update the details, no phonecalls no nothing just one day - no internet.

    Butuz

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