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Slow download speed with Virgin Media

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.

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...

Slow Internet speeds... "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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Catch-up TV and streaming video is, in my experience, causing congestion on the internet.

I foresee a time when the internet will become unusable most of the time, not just when the kids arrive home from school and start downloading.

It’s all about bandwidth, streaming video and catch-up TV uses a lot,
and the number of users on your local loop.

If only you want to eat the apple pie you can eat as much as you like as fast as you like, but if all your neigbours want a piece, tough!

0

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Stalag 14 - 28-Jan-12 07:51 

I Am a virgin user, i pay for unlimited 100mb download...wow how crap can this company get.

It`s 5.14am in the morning i am currently downloading at 847kb/s.

Ping is disgusting when playing games , it creates constant lag.

£80+ a month for a piece of crap.

I wish BT would offer a real alternative because i`m very angry at Virgin.

+1

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CM - 28-Jan-12 05:17 

Pfff..... I thought I was on a 10MB service, I found out when I went to my local Virgin Media shop on the high street, I've been put onto a 2MB service. Which isn't even listed on my Broadband speed tester..... I tell you to go and double check what service you are on....

+5

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robert66jr - 15-Aug-11 15:39 

Just moved re-installed virgin where I moved to, used to have 10mb at my old place, last 6 months or so got really slow. 30mb broadband installed at new place 2 days ago, tried watching blinkbox movie it keeps pausing during the movie to download stuff and they are long pauses, it used to be fine on my 10mb. Tried testing my 30mb broadband on some of the test sites virgin recommends, one site it tests at 31mb other siite it tests at 5 mb. Tried downloading 200mb file it takes 10 min. Looks very much like pre-agreed test areas virgin sends to are fast but normal downloads are slow. Luckily I now live near to a video shop and I know longer play online games, so am going to downgrade my service to slowest and not bother with speed from virgin.

-7

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Fides - 15-Jun-11 21:07 

when I phoned virgin they said they would look into my speeds and thought I might be a high user. they did phone me back the next day and said I use torrents, I said no, they said well someone in my house hold does, I said I do download movies, they said well that would be the problem, I said why I pay for the movies and I belong to lovefim.com and they are streamed to my games console. to which I got silence. I said have you even thought of things like this and that's why I paid for 50mg you said it was unlimited..

+1

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mediaevil virgin - 17-Mar-11 00:57 

I have 50mb package SORRY I pay for a 50mb package and what I get is well at this very min it's 12.27am and speed test not wireless is 4.6mb wireless 2.1mb the new problem is virgin tell people who download torrents to do it when they think people are in bed. but not everyone has normal working hrs like me so the out come is I can't even watch a 3min youtube clip or a bbc news clip or player without it stopping every 2mins all so have a really high package loss it's crap!! and like the other comments google virgin speed and you will have a million results. yet they still don't give a toss about anything..

+8

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mediaevil virgin - 17-Mar-11 00:34 

we have upgraded my broadband to 50mb package with virgin media. its been more then a month since we upupgrad cannot even open the google page. they just ripping off their customer no inetrnet rubishh . we call the customer services first they said to us wait till 17th of january then your internet will be working fine. still internet speed is very very very slow.

+7

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mano - 10-Feb-11 22:55 

VM used to eb the nuts. OVER the advertised speeds and ACTUAL unlimited broadband. Recommended them to everyone. Now I get my 20meg if I'm lucky and 500kb limit between 4-10pm. Which quite frankly is s**t.

-7

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Honest Innit - 2-Dec-10 20:35 

I love VM. Luckily for me in London; the service is excellent. 10-Fold better than BT, which isn't too bad here either!

-7

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Kakalaka - 23-Nov-10 18:52 

I have my tv, phone & broadband with virgin

Called at 9.50pm last night to report a fault with my broadband. They did the usual tests and said I would need an engineers visit. I was expecting an appointment weeks away......

How fantastic I could have had between 12 & 4 today but because of work asked for an evening appointment. The chap came tonight about half 5. All fixed with a new wireless hub within an hour.

Excellent customer service.

-5

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anon - 10-Nov-10 20:56 

totally agree, their adverts are a complete joke too.

'' Fastest braodband in the UK! ''
(between the hours of...)

0

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rob, herts, uk - 9-Nov-10 21:37 

virgin media internet is absolutely rubbish, the only thing worse than that is their customer service. I mean just do a search online and there are so many complaints on various messaging boards against virgin media, just have a look here

http://virginmediacomplaints.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?id=39

-4

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virgin media hater - 2-Jul-10 12:52 

Marley, go with Demon Internet. As one of the first ISPs in the country they have an excellent reputation and there is NO USAGE cap. It's around £23 + vat, a bit dearer for the 20MB ADSL2+ option but I think it's worth it for peace of mind. I downloaded around 50GB last night without worrying about it.

http://www.demon.net/broadband/business-broadband

-14

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AOD - 20-Jun-10 12:44 

Just been 'capped' and im quiet p***'d off, to be Frank.........We have wonderful consoles like the 360, and the PS3....but we are being froced to not use it to its FULL potential....why?

+2

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Marley of Luton - 20-Jun-10 10:24 

I am trying to download a file of 68mb. my download speed drops almost as soon as I start the dowmload to less than 170kb/sec and the download stops. I am paying for 10mb speed and getting this c*%p. virgin eh........not for much longer. they are about as good as a chocolate fireguard.

+1

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hacked off baldy man - 10-Jun-10 21:31 

I pay for a 10mb package with sky after they insisted that I had gone past my 2mb dowload SPEED...which as far as I can tell is their fault.

10mb package is worse now than the 2mb. Rarely see 30kb/per second.

Load of crap.

-3

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chris. - 23-Apr-10 23:37 

In response to my other messages I got the problem sloven, virgin said on the phone that I had 2 mac address on my account, now how the f did it get there, they said they sent me a replaceable modem, did they heck and was not even told anything about that. No as I said it not my fault that for 3 months I had whack speeds, even was told I should not of got internet a tall, I asked for a refund for the problem and was shoved off, virgin took £35 of me for the month and a further £25 for another month for this technical problem, it is sorted now the internet and I am happy bout that, just This is not on that they took money of me and what can I do about it.

-1

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finnlayer - 24-Mar-10 15:25 

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..

-1

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jesteroony - 3-Mar-10 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.

+13

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finnlayer - 2-Mar-10 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 .

+2

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finnlayer - 2-Mar-10 01:54 

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