Virgin Media respond to complaints of slow evening service

[kalniel]

I've had this - in peak times my virgin connection can get pretty slow, especially the ping. It is just contention, but it's annoying.

I got a newletter from Virgin Media today talking about it - on one hand it's great that they're admitting there's a problem and that it affects several customers. But then again, I'm not so impressed with their solution

1. When using the Service or accessing the Site, you will not:
p - use the Broadband Service in any way which, in Virgin Media's opinion, is, or is likely to (i) risk degradation of service levels to other customers, (ii) put our system at risk and/or (iii) is not in keeping with that reasonably expected of a residential customer. This includes, but is not limited to, running any application or program that places excessive bandwidth demands on the Broadband Service for continued periods; in these circumstances, we are entitled to reduce, suspend and/or disconnect any or all of the Service and/or restrict certain types of traffic on your Broadband Service at our discretion without giving you notice. In the unlikely event that we need to disconnect the Service, you will not be liable to pay any cancellation charges under clause H.6. You will be notified in advance by email. Further information related to complying with our Acceptable Use Policy can also be found in the FAQs and our Traffic Management document on our website. View these at the following addresses: http://www.virgin.net/helpme/broadband/faq/. http://www.virgin.net/allyours/faqs/traffic_faqs.html. Virgin Media reserves the right to modify the FAQs and Traffic Management document at any time without prior notice and solely at our own discretion. Any changes will take effect when posted on the Site;

2. Notwithstanding our right to reduce, suspend and/or terminate the Services and/or restrict certain types of traffic on your Broadband Service, if you abuse the Services and/or breach these Terms and Conditions you may receive a formal warning from us specifying the unacceptable conduct and notifying you that repeated breaches may result in the Services (or any part of Services) being temporarily or permanently withdrawn from you.

3. If, after you have received a formal warning from us in accordance with section 2 above, your conduct continues to abuse the Services and/or breaches these Terms and Conditions, then we will withdraw the Services (or part of the Services) from you until such time as we are satisfied that you have implemented appropriate steps to ensure that your use of our systems, Services or equipment will comply with these Terms and Conditions.

4. If such a suspension is imposed, then this may be lifted, at our discretion, upon receipt of a formal written undertaking from you not to commit any future relevant abuse. However, all cases will be considered individually (in our sole discretion) upon their merits.

So.. that's one way to deal with it I guess.. write it into the terms and conditions that it's up to users not to cause contention issues for other users...

[MarcLister]

So what contention ratio have you got? Something like 50:1

Suppose this makes a mockery of the Virgin Media ads about guaranteed fast broadband in "your" area.

[Agent]

Really really unimpressed. They spent god knows how much advertising the service as "unlimited" so I signed up. Soon after the campaign, they slap limits on everything.

Its either unlimited or its not. Their current stance makes them nothing more than liars.

Im not even wound up by the fact there is limits, but the limits are so small that I am in real worry of hitting them some nights. With a Xbox, Xbox 360, media centre for my dad downstairs, 2 machines in my room, and friends which often bring there machines around on an evening its starting to worry me more and more.

[kalniel]

So what contention ratio have you got? Something like 50:1

I have no idea how I'd get that kind of statistic. Most people round me have got cable, so I deliberately went for ADSL which I thought would reduce the problem - I can also see the exchange (or an exchange) out of my window. Line speed outside of peak time is great - get a solid 700KB/s if the servers are fast enough.

But it seems there are still several ADSL users around

[MarcLister]

I have no idea how I'd get that kind of statistic. Most people round me have got cable, so I deliberately went for ADSL which I thought would reduce the problem - I can also see the exchange (or an exchange) out of my window. Line speed outside of peak time is great - get a solid 700KB/s if the servers are fast enough.

But it seems there are still several ADSL users around

VM should tell you that on their broadband pages somewhere really. The contention ratio is how people can decide between broadband suppliers really. The lower the first number the better as you're sharing the line with fewer people, eg. 20:1 is better than 50:1.

[Jay]

I hate VM, speeds have been all over the place!

also the loss of the sky channels is bad! I mean they "didn't want to pass the cost over to the user" but I don't see any reduction in my bills. Not having sky is making them millions in profit. Looking at it now I would say they intended to not renew the sky deal so they could charge us the same and provide less.

bit of a rip off really and they tried to blame it on sky!

[frazered]

glad i thought twice about these guys

[Imperator]

I used Virgin broadband for just over a year, then the system developed a fault. Forget poor line speeds and horrendous pings, it just would not connect.

Took 2 weeks with near daily calls from me to them of over 2 hrs each time (45 min to get through, 7 min for them to go through the same annoying questions, then 45 min on hold while they looked up what to do next - more of the same questions). I told them the problem was the line (they said it was not them and tried to blame me). When things had not changed after two weeks of collecting my money and doing nothing in return I told them to take a hike and moved to BT. BT sorted the line fault before the ISP transfer and I have never had a problem with their service (they even rang me twice to tell me on progress on two minor faults and to tell me things were up and running again).

Moral of story, don't just look at bandwidths and contention ratios, look at their after care, on this alone I will stay well clear of most things with the Virgin logo on. {don't know BT's ratio but I have no problems}

Impy

[[Grevane]]

The other problem is, they took over the mess NTL World left. And NTL were terrible. They always did network "upgrades" or in my opinion tried to fudge their rubbish network during peak usage hours rather than when the majority of the country or area weren't using it... i.e. when we're asleep and at work.

Before unfortunately, my Parents split up AND my Dad soon after got Accute Pancreatitis so was unable to work and give her any maintenance, so I ended up going back to live with my mother to help with rent - yeah a crappy year to say the least, I was originally with Nildram and never had any issues with them. My old technical manager (now just a good mate) still uses them and i don't think has a bad thing to say about them in over 5 years. He was originally with BT but got rid of them quickly enough.

But now, since my mother (against my suggestions) went with NTL World and now my online gaming is awful. Generally, most evenings the latency is too bad to play MMO's, particularly WoW since Blizzard overload their servers, and as soon as it hits peak time, the download speeds drop through the floor.

I'm playing Oblivion at the moment, and in peak times, I only get about 10k/s off www.tessource.net a modding site for Oblivion.

You know, the irony of all this is if it wasn't for P2P I'd never actually get anything downloaded off the NTL/VirginMedia network... and thats probably exactly what they want to block...

[funnelhead]

As fas as i'm aware it's still NTL... they just bought Virgin Mobile and the rights to use the Virgin brandname...

and yeah this habit of saying "unlimited" and "but you can only download what we say when we say"

should really have been hauled in front of advertising & trading standards by now.


I prefer a limit that is concrete and mine to abuse as i see fit. Nildram have been brilliant for me - i get 50gb limit between 8am - midnight, unlimited between midnight and 8am.

Last month i dled 120gb quite happily

f

[Skinleech]

I'm on Be now, who are are great imo. However, when I was on NTL's 10mb service in Glasgow I never had any issues with caps, contention or speeds. I was getting 200-300gbs some months at a constant 10mb speed.

[[Grevane]]

As fas as i'm aware it's still NTL... they just bought Virgin Mobile and the rights to use the Virgin brandname...

and yeah this habit of saying "unlimited" and "but you can only download what we say when we say"

should really have been hauled in front of advertising & trading standards by now.


I prefer a limit that is concrete and mine to abuse as i see fit. Nildram have been brilliant for me - i get 50gb limit between 8am - midnight, unlimited between midnight and 8am.

Last month i dled 120gb quite happily

f

Ahh, i thought Virgin bought NTL... although I wouldn't be suprised if I'm wrong. For two reason... 1. I couldn't ever imagine a successful business man like Richard Branson wanting to by a two bit rubbish outfit like NTL (heh hehe!) and the news I LIKE to read normally contains phrases like DDR2 in it or (particularly atm with Crysis coming out in the next 2 or 3 weeks) DirectX10 (w00t!!) and anything with NTL in the headlines, I normally dismiss as probably another complaint about their service... lol

I would definitely agree. Nildram are excellent.

[Agent]

Aye, they just brought the name and Branson got a certain % of the business IIRC. How much though escapes me right now

[[Grevane]]

Aye, they just brought the name and Branson got a certain % of the business IIRC. How much though escapes me right now

Ahh... a shrewd move by Branson no doubt...

[MarcLister]

Ahh... a shrewd move by Branson no doubt...

Very. He let NTL buy out Virgin Media or whatever it was in return for a percentage of shares in the resultant company. So whilst he loses the smaller company he gets the bigger one in return.

He's got 10.7% of the VM company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_media

[Agent]

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1746854,00.html

Much more info

edit - beaten!