Sigh... never say never... Virgin Media

[Cozwin]

After defending them on the hexus forum a couple of weeks ago, Karma comes and kicks me in the face.

My Virgin Media 20mb connection has been running for the last week at almost dial up speeds, did some ping tests throughout yest (from 11pm all way to 3am) each time i got 60% packet loss, ping in the 000's massive jitter and line quality rating of F...

Tried again about 3.30am ish this morning, got quality A, still 3% loss but a lot better, however still every single website i load, loads up like dial up... very slow, very crap basically.

So it is likely a problem at Virgin Medias end, I rang up the Virgin contact us number and it had a automated message saying there was a problem in the area yet the website status checker says there is not.

So decided to post on the VM forums because the staff tend to help more there, yet they only have one mod who replies to posts after about a week, so i have at least a few more days of unusable internet, is it fair i am paying for a month, yet only getting 2 weeks worth of what i am paying for.

[Jay]

Thats how it started for me, I hgave up in the end. Over subbed the area and just told me there was nothing they would do about it. I told them to shove the entire TV / Phone and broadband (top package on all)

Moved to Sky for TV and O2 for BB, much better all round.

[blueball]

Ask for a refund based on partial usage

[Steve]

Consumer ISPs don't usually have much in the way of an SLA, really all you can do is complain and see if they compensate you to make you stop moaning.

[Terbinator]

Mine has been slow at times during this week but only when browsing, general DL has been solid.

Maybe reset the router/modem and see if that yields anything?

[GoNz0]

ring up and demand an engineer

[Jay]

ring up and demand an engineer

lol... who won't turn up anyway.

[Pob255]

Actually it's may not be virgin's fault, it's the snow . . . well that's what BT Openreach have said.

"Further to our MBORC declaration yesterday (30/11/10), the areas which we listed remain severely affected by the weather, and remain subject to MBORC:

Highlands
North East Scotland
Tayside and Fife
South East Scotland
West Scotland
Newcastle and Northumberland
Tyneside, Durham and Wearside
Tees Valley

Following new snow falls and freezing temperatures, Openreach is now declaring a matter beyond our reasonable control (MBORC)/force majeure event in the following Openreach operational areas:

York
Bradford
Leeds
South Yorkshire/Chesterfield
Lincoln
Esher
Croydon
Crayford
Southbank
Tunbridge Wells

The declaration in respect of these new areas is effective from 14.00 today (Wednesday 1 December 2010). It applies to all activities in the listed areas that are subject to MBORC."

It's not just virgin who are effected

http://www.madasafish.com/support/service-status.html
http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1291219319.htm
http://status.newnet.co.uk/2010/11/b...their-control/

[IronWarrior]

Using Virgin here.

All good here, fast speeds and everything.

[patters78]

Using Virgin here.

All good here, fast speeds and everything.

+1 never had a problem

[catman]

Never had a problem with them either. Certainly no reason to leave them unless the issue doesn't get resolved soon and isn't because of the snow, but is a constant issue in your area.
I'd certainly give them a chance (all business encounter problems occasionally) as I would rather have them then any alternative ISPs!

[xiphrex]

You have to be onto them everyday demanding stuff is sorted or else it wont.

Thats what I had to do recently. Ive had terrible latency and erratic connection for 5 weeks. I had 2 engineers come to my house, and was promised the head engineer would visit but he cancelled once, and didnt show twice. Ive been on the phone to VM tens of times, and twice to a manager. Ive emailed the complaint department. Ive emailed the CEO of VM and he recently replied back apologising for the mess that has happened with the service and was very understanding.

My net is now almost fixed. I was given a fix date of 6th December about 3 weeks ago but even with that I demanded something be done quicker. And something did happen because the net has been much better for about a week now.

I threatened to quit once. Let me stress though that I was seriously going to quit, because when I did this it didnt really make a difference to their urgency to sorting out my problems.

I also posted on the forums about 10 times in 2 threads of my own. The forums are very slow to respond, and if you update your thread asking where the response is it puts your thread to the back of their "todo" queue. So you basically have to post then wait 4 days for a reply and hope no one else posts in your thread!

[shbris]

from experience, virgin media is so hit and miss

honestly, there's nothing you can really do. complain and they will take a year (no joke) to fix things, even if a whole area is effected. if i were you i'd just change provider and remove some stress from your life