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Don't You Hate Virgin Media?

rph105

rph105

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 21, 2007
266
0
Ahh please tell me someone can relate to my complaining, I am fueled with hate towards Virgin Media, ever since they switched from 'Telewest" and 'NTL' they've been messing everything up;

  • Breakdowns due to "problem in area"
  • Broadband Technical Help Premium line 25p (50¢) per minute
  • Traffic Managing (from 4pm-9pm)
  • Crappy Customer Service that goes straight through to India
  • I've never once got the 20MB I pay for

They claim to be the only provider in the UK that has an unlimited data service for their broadband but I'm sorry if u you traffic manage my speed from 20MB to 5MB for downloading 3GB between 4-9pm thats not exactly unlimited.

The same happens with 2MB and 4MB customers, if you have 2MB broadband with virgin media and you download 300MB (like nearly ONE tv show episode) you will be traffic managed to 1MB, yes thats right, HALF YOUR SPEED!

4MB customers, download 800MB and they'll cut you right downnn to 1MB aswell (I'm not joking).

You can read more here: http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html
 
My Virgin Media connection has been really suffering recently. I presumed it was to do with some sort of limiting but was surprised it was so bad and occurring outside of 'peak time' 6-11PM of my previous house Tiscali connection. This all explains it.

I did some heavily downloading after returning from a week away and it slowed to shocking levels (for about a week) when I left them going all day (usually do during the night only to prevent this kind of thing). I'll have to change my scheduler to pause/severely limit 4-9PM.
 
Hah!!! You complain!! Try being on Tiscali for a few weeks and you'll realise just how lucky you are :rolleyes:
 
No ISP provides unlimited web access. They all have Fair Use policies in one form or another. VM are one of the better providers.
 
Well good to know I don't have to install Spyware on my machine to use it.

Surely that is breaking the Data Protection Act anyhow :rolleyes:.
 
I'm really happy with Virgin Media, I'm on the 20MB option. At least their (un)fair use policy resets every day and there are no charges. Pretty much all the other suppliers will charge you if you go over your allowance.
 
If you want a very good ISP, and I mean very good ISP...

http://www.idnet.net/

You get what you pay for. No throttling, no traffic shaping, and fantastic customer service.

Read the forums - you'll find the occasional punter wanting help, but most of the forum are about customers telling jokes, and having a laugh about life and stuff. No rants, no dissing about the ISP.

Checkout:

http://www.idnetters.co.uk/forums/

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=idnet

PS: I am just a customer, and therefore a fan of IDNET, I do not work for them nor am I associated in anyway. I moved from Pipex (Tiscali) - after being with them for the past 3 or 4 years as a loyal customer. They have got *really bad*

Try them for a month or two, only 30 days notice required!

Enjoy!
 
Im on the cheapest Virgin account, £20 for 2MB and phone.

Must be said, fairly happy with the service, hoping that Virgin up the 2MB service to maybe 4MB by the end of the year.
 
SpookTheHamster said:
I'm really happy with Virgin Media, I'm on the 20MB option. At least their (un)fair use policy resets every day and there are no charges. Pretty much all the other suppliers will charge you if you go over your allowance.
Click to expand...

That's one thing that looks really bizarre. Some ISPs in Britain seem to have options like 8Mb, 16Mb, 20Mb where Mb stands for Mega_Bit_ per second, fully knowing that your actual speed is limited by your distance to the nearest BT exchange, and in most cases there is nothing they can do to even get you to 8MBit/second. Someone I know just purchased Sky Broadband, it says "Unlimited data" on the package, and even when I was looking carefully there is no indication that I could find that there is any limitation. There _must_ be some difference in the small print, I just can't find it.
 
20MBits would imply a maximum 2.5MBytes. I regularly download at 1.5MBytes, which is acceptable for me. This is cable, rather than ADSL, so the telephone exchange should have no say.
 
Loge said:
It has to be optional, so don't opt for it.
Click to expand...

I've never used any of the Telewest / Virgin Media software anyway, I'm not even sure any of it works on the Mac?

Even when I was on dial-up on Windows, I used to input all the setting manually. I hate the way ISP software takes over everything on your computer.
 
I'm on Virgin Media for both TV and Broadband and I've got to say I'm delighted with both: I get 20Mb Broadband which consistently gives 20Mb/s (download progress in Safari regularly shows 2.1 - 2.5 MB/s), and On Demand TV that far surpasses anything available on Sky.
I would highly recommend Virgin Media to anyone who is in a cabled area, although ymmv...
 
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