Virgin Media and slow Internet speeds
16-March-2010
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Virgin Media and slow Internet speeds

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Up until recently I was a Virgin Media broadband customer and have since left them and signed up with Plusnet.  As an avid gamer (please note, I do not download music or videos) I rely on having reasonably good Internet connectivity and to be honest, I really have not been at all impressed with the service I received from Virgin Media.

I have noticed my Internet service being extremely slow during certain hours...

The final straw for me was when my downward speed was reduced to less than 300kb/sec one Sunday evening.  In the past I have had a reliable 2MB/s, even though I live in rural Wales and am some distance from the exchange.  Over several months I have noticed my Internet service being extremely slow during certain hours of the day. Virgin have been less than helpful with this and more often than not my emails were ignored.

Slow Internet speeds...

Being cut off from a recreational activity that I enjoy and look forward to on a Sunday was enough to persuade me to change Internet provider after quite a few years of being with Virgin and NTL before them.  To make matters worse I was then contacted to try and persuade me to come back!!  Here's the content of the email I was compelled to send back to Virgin...

"Come back to Virgin Media, you're joking aren't you?  Your service was so bad I would never consider coming back to Virgin and I would advise you to start listening to your customers and what they expect from a broadband service.  Your website is confusing your and your customer service help team are inept at resolving problems.  You have never responded to any e-mails I sent you regarding the problems with my service.  Throttling bandwidth, traffic shaping or whatever other label you care to hang on it have made Internet use with Virgin totally unacceptable.  With a slow service and typical speeds of less that 300kb/sec how is one expected to even surf the web never mind play a game on-line?

I hope for your sake you put your house in order and start giving people what they pay for... a good Internet service, before you loose any more of your customers and come last in the comparison sites Internet service providers.  When I was with NTL I always had good service and the help team always responded to any difficulties I had.  When Virgin Media took over NTL and the service went straight downhill in my opinion and I hope I never have the misfortune to deal with a company like yours ever again.

Please feel free to pass this e-mail to Richard Branson if you wish...   I'm sure he would like to know how THIS customer felt about the service (or lack thereof) from Virgin Media."

Disgruntled George


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I play a lot of online games and now most have regular DLC (downloadable content) add to that I use a service called Steam that requires you to download all purchased games..
Iv'e always been happy with Virgin UNTIL this throttling began a while ago, soon as I download over a certain amount it pulls the brake and i'm dealing with only a few kbps and this lasts for the rest of the day/night...I hope this isn't the future because I have all my services with them and it'll be a bind to go but I won't be bent over by them...Is anyone else having these problems..
*jesteroony  03-Mar-2010 21:24

 
P_s I don't have a virus or a trojan eating away my systems, I use pc tools fire walll, nod32, peerblock, super antispyware, iobit 360, advance windows care, I even checked services msc and msconfig for fault finding , I could do a better job on custormer service helping trouble shooting computes then you would with a zx 128 sinclair spectrum.
*finnlayer  02-Mar-2010 02:06

 
I order the 10 mb package and for the first 3 months I was hitting 12 to 14 mb which is good, now for a few months after those high speeds I been having speeds of under 2mb with downloads beetween 19 kbytes up to 235, my speeds will change like the weather and wet down on me, for faults and trouble shooting are very endless, I tyed many tools even tcip repair, cable nut, reset the stack from virgin website help page, even patch tcip over the limit and reset back to normal.

I tyed two systems with xp and win7 , I even payed of my bill and it was late with the 10 pound charge, well should not course low speeds, I emai lvirgin and reported the problem, virgin was quick to reply to me, I asked for them to do a line test and was told I need teck person to come out to me, I said can you send a guy round this coming week, was told to ring them up on a virgin phone, don't have a virgin phone as I live in a tower block with no fixed line, ok then well send a teck guy out, well were the fu--k is he then you virgin cappers''' I like what I had before ok speeds and was happy man, now I get sh-t speeds and my games lag slower than a ant, get you finger out ya bottom and make your costumers happy. IAs you can see I not a happy chappy .
*finnlayer  02-Mar-2010 01:54

 
also id like to add, I have had nothing but good speeds from virgin media, but I do know when they first took over it was bad
*El-bobbo  21-Feb-2010 19:46

 
@SniperDaws perhaps a few people with in a few streets of where you live where downloading tons, making your speed slower due to bad traffic management
*El-bobbo  21-Feb-2010 19:45

 
did you ever think it could be a virus on your pc downloading more viruses.. thus making your web browsing slower
*el-bobbo  21-Feb-2010 19:41

 
hi guys...just a quick rant about the appauling service provided by our good friends virgin media... we have been on and off with this company (ntl days to) for something like 10+ yrs.. broadband around 5 yrs.. everytime we have been with them the broadband is diobolicle, about 3 months ago I upgraded from 2mb to 10mb which has doubled in price now 22.50,it was pretty resonable at first as I could watch programmnes online without a hitch(more or less) about the last month my connection keeps dropping off to nothing and it seems to be coming from there end (not recieving).im currently writing this message via a unsecured wireless connection ive pinched off somebody in the street because guess what,mine aint working?? I spoke to tech dept the other day and did all the reset bollocks and it worked for a few hours,then back to its old tricks...im currently seething at the momment as im paying this amount of money for effectively sod all,and the bloody sneaky russians have tied me into a 12 month contract when I upgraded I wasnt made aware of :-( I seriously want to get out of this contract,anybody with any suggestions would be fantastic....FROM MY POINT OF VIEW AS A LONG STANDING NTL/VIRGIN CUSTOMER PLEASE AVOID AT ALL COSTS...
*ZANEYBOY  18-Feb-2010 06:35

 
im on 10mb Cable with Virginmedia and for the past few weeks every day between 4pm and 9pm my internet is unusable, I rang virginmedia and mrs patel couldnt even understand what I was saying, I then rang again hoping to get through to someone else and I think it was Mr patel this time Mrs Patels Husband............i cant be bothered anymore im sick of Broadband being a complete rip off, its not just Virginmedia its every single broadband call centre, they are your best mates when you are signing up but soon as you need any help the call centres are idiots.
*SniperDaws  01-Feb-2010 18:50

 
I thought unlimited was unlimited, but with Virgin that is not so. I find my speed restricted at regular intervals each day. I remember that some time ago Branson was involved in a publicity stunt that involved absailing down a building and the harness caused some damage to his nether region. I think of this every time I see my speed diminish to a trickle and wish something worse had happened.
*clivusuk  31-Dec-2009 02:01

 
We tried Virgin but could not get a good speed, apparently they are too many people sharing the same output in our road so they could not fix it for us. We complained and they lowered the cost to us initially and promised us that an upgrade of their system was due soon but when nothing changed over 6 months we moved to another supplier. I notice that their van is often parked in front of a neigbourgh or another so I guess that the problem has not been fixed. We are now with O2 and get a much better service and speed.
*Clarite  11-Dec-2009 07:30

 
I'm with AOL. They're OK, but the connection doesn't wordometimes. It happens at least twice a month. But I still find them better than other services, like Talk Talk, which was terrible, so I've stuck with them. They're not that cheap though.
*Grumpy xx  29-Nov-2009 00:29

 
I have used Demon business broadband for the last two years. They've reduced the price of their demon business 2+ pro package to £23 + vat which at first glance seems quite expensive. But wait, there's no FUP (fair usage policy) and you get prioritised traffic at peak times and naturally you get a router etc. Personally I only download 80 to 100 GB a month and a lot of is off peak, but I like to know that if I "need" something, I can just get it and I don't have to worry about being "managed". I believe their home/office option is also very, very reasonable. Even better their tech support should you ever have to contact them will appreciate that you know what you're doing and will resolve problems quickly. I can't recommend Demon enough and as one of the UKs first Internet Service Provider, they've been around long enough to know the business and what customers want - (tenner a month dialup in 1992 anyone?)

Check them out - http://www.demon.net/

And no... I don't work for Demon, I'm just a fan having been on the receiving end of some very good service.
*Go to Demon  28-Nov-2009 17:30


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