Ed.D
Active member
Hey guys,
I've been with Virgin Media for years. A while back I wanted to try to reduce my monthly outgoings due to redundancy from work so I contacted VM to try to get a reduction in my monthly bills. The support guy on the phone said he wasn't really able make any reduction to my current package even after I explained that friends and family (also with VM) were paying much less, but he said Virgin were trying to encourage people to take up the Superhub and Tivo box combination packages. If I took the lower of the two XXL packages he could do it for less than I was already paying and I'd also get HD TV channels which I didn't have before. I would save about £12 GBP per month which would help. I'd also not have to pay a £19 setup fee which he would right-off.
This sounded ok so I agreed. He then apparently tried ordering my new services but then said it would not go through the system, however he was able to put a higher grade service through with a saving of about £6/month. I agreed as it was still a saving, but wondered whether I was just being fobbed off and possibly suckered into buying a more expensive service.
So the installer came and set everything up and with my laptop he connected up first through wireless which gave about 24Mb download speed, 4.3Mb upload. Then via wired connection and he got 104Mb download and the same 4.3Mb upload, it's a 100Mb connection. The installer said it would be best to keep it as a wired setup and was honest enough to tell me there had been so many complaints about the wireless performance on the superhubs.
So it was installed and seemed ok since about march except for youtube and any streaming video. About a month ago up to now I've been getting really bad download speeds from 5:00PM to about midnight, anything from 40Mb/sec down to 2Mb sec, mostly below 10MB. Trying to load Amibay web pages can take 30 seconds or more. My brother who lives in the same area has also started seeing similar performance issues.
Checking on the VM support forum I've come across many, many complaints about these new services and VM just seem to be responding to indivuals instead of actually trying to find root cause, which is most probably due to bandwidth reduction and traffic shaping, i.e. caused by VM due to the consistent time window.
So here's the rant part:
Although I'm getting HD channels now, the same programs that I was watching 5 to 10 years ago are still being repeated but in HD. The internet is almost at a point of being unusable in the evenings.
...and just today I get an email from VM saying they will be increasing my service charges by £4.34 per month from February 2013. Ontop of the £80 per month I'm already paying this is too much for the substandard service they are offering. Additionally, my first bill on this new service included the £19 setup fee which I had to contact them 4 times to get sorted as they had no record of it.
So as per the title "better the devil you know" I wonder what other providers I could use instead? I hear people complain about BT as well. Are there any more providers out there or what do people use these days? I have free-view on satellite and terrestrial but to be honest the channels aren't that great.
I read on the web that OFCOM banned the TV Ad' where Usain Bolt claimed customers would have "no buffering".
ho-hum! :roll:
I've been with Virgin Media for years. A while back I wanted to try to reduce my monthly outgoings due to redundancy from work so I contacted VM to try to get a reduction in my monthly bills. The support guy on the phone said he wasn't really able make any reduction to my current package even after I explained that friends and family (also with VM) were paying much less, but he said Virgin were trying to encourage people to take up the Superhub and Tivo box combination packages. If I took the lower of the two XXL packages he could do it for less than I was already paying and I'd also get HD TV channels which I didn't have before. I would save about £12 GBP per month which would help. I'd also not have to pay a £19 setup fee which he would right-off.
This sounded ok so I agreed. He then apparently tried ordering my new services but then said it would not go through the system, however he was able to put a higher grade service through with a saving of about £6/month. I agreed as it was still a saving, but wondered whether I was just being fobbed off and possibly suckered into buying a more expensive service.
So the installer came and set everything up and with my laptop he connected up first through wireless which gave about 24Mb download speed, 4.3Mb upload. Then via wired connection and he got 104Mb download and the same 4.3Mb upload, it's a 100Mb connection. The installer said it would be best to keep it as a wired setup and was honest enough to tell me there had been so many complaints about the wireless performance on the superhubs.
So it was installed and seemed ok since about march except for youtube and any streaming video. About a month ago up to now I've been getting really bad download speeds from 5:00PM to about midnight, anything from 40Mb/sec down to 2Mb sec, mostly below 10MB. Trying to load Amibay web pages can take 30 seconds or more. My brother who lives in the same area has also started seeing similar performance issues.
Checking on the VM support forum I've come across many, many complaints about these new services and VM just seem to be responding to indivuals instead of actually trying to find root cause, which is most probably due to bandwidth reduction and traffic shaping, i.e. caused by VM due to the consistent time window.
So here's the rant part:
Although I'm getting HD channels now, the same programs that I was watching 5 to 10 years ago are still being repeated but in HD. The internet is almost at a point of being unusable in the evenings.
...and just today I get an email from VM saying they will be increasing my service charges by £4.34 per month from February 2013. Ontop of the £80 per month I'm already paying this is too much for the substandard service they are offering. Additionally, my first bill on this new service included the £19 setup fee which I had to contact them 4 times to get sorted as they had no record of it.
So as per the title "better the devil you know" I wonder what other providers I could use instead? I hear people complain about BT as well. Are there any more providers out there or what do people use these days? I have free-view on satellite and terrestrial but to be honest the channels aren't that great.
I read on the web that OFCOM banned the TV Ad' where Usain Bolt claimed customers would have "no buffering".
ho-hum! :roll:
