Virgin Media 'overwhelmed' by broadband customers fleeing BT Hundreds of people who have recently signed up to Virgin Media UK’s ADSL broadband service face lengthy delays getting their accounts activated. The company has blamed a sudden spike in demand for its relaunched ADSL package, which is intended for would-be customers who live outside of the operator’s cable coverage and want to …
They may not be the cheapest, but the support is great, and you can speak to British human beings, located in Britain.
A while back I had a fault on the line - my internet was going slowly. When I picked up the phone I could hear a scratching sound. I called the fault report number - an automated system and it asked me for a mobile number so it could send me a text message. It then tested the line and sent me a message to say that a fault was confirmed and an engineer would attend to it. This was at 5 in the evening. Next day at 8.00 am the BT engineer was in the man-hole outside fixing it. WOW!
Rock on. They may not be the cheapest, but you get what you pay for!
I was looking for a new ISP when i moved. I phoned VM and specifically asked about their fair usage and throttling, they simply would not tell me. At first they denied they had one, then they stuck to a stock answer of "Our average broadband speeds are... " .
SO, i didn't sign up. If you won't tell me the details of your service why do you think that all the junk mail i get from you now is going to change my mind.
Broadband in the UK is a joke and 'Digital Britain' is whitewash of nonsensical rubbish.
Keep your trickle speeds and your 1980 level caps, i'm off to South Korea or Sweden ! (not really, but its tempting).
On the whole VM cable network is excellent delivery mechanism, ADSL is really a poor cousin. The VM back end is REALLY POOR. I myself am responsible for having them change their email support practices; how is it a call centre operative can open my mailbox and talk me through my list of emails without my permission? If its possible, they'll do it, even just for fun; I do know some call centre workers and you don't want to know what fun they have with your accounts.
BT used to try and probe my systems every time I logged in. I used to block them and complain. They never did anything about it. As far as I can tell NTL and then VM have never tried hacking into my systems. Of they did, they did it better than BT because I never noticed.
The only hardware failure was the original modem after many years of use and they must have put that in the post as soon as I logged the call. When it arrived I just had to plug it in and read them the MAC address over the phone and it worked.
It's reliable here. I have never come up against download limits - pretty good for having 2 teenagers in the house!
I don't want to ever use Sky. The Murdochs seem to be nasty right wing monopolists with a hatred of competition. At least Branson tries to promote a decent image rather than Rupes Bond villain one!
I'm with BT in an ADSL2+ Area. My line is rated for 1 meg. I barely see that and I'm living in a new built residential estate just outside of Gloucester. All ISPs are a joke and I don't know why the hell it is when I travel through the "rougher areas" they have decent cable speeds yet I'm stuck with this shit.
Fuck Virgin Media. Fuck BT. They're all bastards!
Currently get the full 10 MB/s with no problems, and £5 off the monthly bill for paying direct debit, extra discount for having their phone line as well.
Almost no downtime, and traffic shaping can be managed by careful scheduling, and leaving big downloads to run overnight. Even if I do get hit with traffic shaping, it's not like being reduced to 2 MB/s is particularly terrible or makes the internet unusable.
As for phone service, I've noticed a big improvement since virgin took over.. no more indians on the phone when I ring up.
I was with VM for quite some time with no problems at all. Then the problems started. I kept losing cable TV picture and had to power off box for a couple of hours (yes hours, not just 20 seconds) before I'd get anything back and then they mistakenly cut my internet connection.
This is when it got really bad, their customer service was really shite, no-one answered questions, no-one called me back, no-one took responsibility, they would deny I had spoken to anyone about the problems but then refer back to previous notes and finally they insisted on re-connecting my broadband on a new 12 month contract even though they had cut it off by mistake. So I cancelled my direct debits, went with BT/Sky and have been happy ever since.
However I appreciate much of my happiness with BT/Sky is down to the fact that I have not had to call them about anything - I am well aware it will only be a matter of time before they screw up so badly that I drop them and go O2 and Freeview, or similar.
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