Main Menu

Life is sometimes sort of okay because...

Started by House of Usher, 23 March, 2009, 05:17:47 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Mardroid

Quote from: Banners on 29 March, 2012, 04:49:47 PM
Phoned up Virgin Media to complain, and got a £10pcm loyalty discount and a broadband speed upgrade. Cool.

Interesting you should mention this. My dad* was thinking of changing our telephone/broadband package from Virgin to BT as they were doing a cheaper deal.  Then Virgin called him up (I think it was yesterday, but it might have been earlier today) and offered him an even cheaper deal to keep us.

*I still live with my dad and his wife despite my hurtling towards middle age. What can I say? I'm single, have part time minimum wage work**, and it's a nice enough environment to live in. Although I could do without the Mrs playing loud gospel music in the morning.

**No complaints. I like having just 3 days a week work, although I'd take more if offered.

vzzbux

Quote from: Mardroid on 31 March, 2012, 10:07:39 PM
Quote from: Banners on 29 March, 2012, 04:49:47 PM
Phoned up Virgin Media to complain, and got a £10pcm loyalty discount and a broadband speed upgrade. Cool.

Interesting you should mention this. My dad* was thinking of changing our telephone/broadband package from Virgin to BT as they were doing a cheaper deal.  Then Virgin called him up (I think it was yesterday, but it might have been earlier today) and offered him an even cheaper deal to keep us.

*I still live with my dad and his wife despite my hurtling towards middle age. What can I say? I'm single, have part time minimum wage work**, and it's a nice enough environment to live in. Although I could do without the Mrs playing loud gospel music in the morning.

**No complaints. I like having just 3 days a week work, although I'd take more if offered.
If you are changing to BT from Virgin your BB speed will be severely reduced.
A friend of mine moved to an area that couldn't recieve Cable and from getting 20 meg from Virgin, are now getting a maximum of 2 meg with BT.
BT feed you the shit of being too far from their switch to get decent speeds. From my experience the whole of Leicester must be too far from a switch from what swapping customers have told me.
Be careful out there.




V
Drokking since 1972

Peace is a lie, there's only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.

Mardroid

Quote from: vzzbux on 31 March, 2012, 10:22:26 PM
If you are changing to BT from Virgin your BB speed will be severely reduced.
A friend of mine moved to an area that couldn't recieve Cable and from getting 20 meg from Virgin, are now getting a maximum of 2 meg with BT.
BT feed you the shit of being too far from their switch to get decent speeds. From my experience the whole of Leicester must be too far from a switch from what swapping customers have told me.
Be careful out there.

I think our speed is pretty minimal as it is, for broadband (fast enough for me most of the time, though) , but good to know we might have dodged a worse deal.

Emperor

Quote from: Mardroid on 31 March, 2012, 10:33:25 PM
Quote from: vzzbux on 31 March, 2012, 10:22:26 PM
If you are changing to BT from Virgin your BB speed will be severely reduced.
A friend of mine moved to an area that couldn't recieve Cable and from getting 20 meg from Virgin, are now getting a maximum of 2 meg with BT.
BT feed you the shit of being too far from their switch to get decent speeds. From my experience the whole of Leicester must be too far from a switch from what swapping customers have told me.
Be careful out there.

I think our speed is pretty minimal as it is, for broadband (fast enough for me most of the time, though) , but good to know we might have dodged a worse deal.

Also be sceptical of the speeds some of them are advertising, from last year:

Quote"There is a substantial gap between advertised speeds and the actual speeds people get in their homes," Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards told the BBC.

"The chances of someone receiving the advertised headline speed are fairly remote," he said.

"We would like to see clearer information provided to consumers which more accurately reflects the likely speeds they will actually receive," he added.

Ofcom's latest research into broadband speeds found that just 14% of customers on 'up to' 20Mbps services received speeds of over 12Mbps, while 58% averaged speeds of 6Mbps or less.

Cable and fibre services fared better, with 92% of Virgin Media customers on an 'up to' 50Mbps service averaging 45.6Mbps.

Its lower 10Mbps service saw average speeds of 9.6Mbps.

BT's Fibre-to-the-Cabinet technology, which is currently available to 15% of UK homes, has an average of 31.8Mbps on the 40Mbps service.

...

AVERAGE DOWNLOAD SPEEDS

BT 'up to' 8Mbps - 4.1 to 4.8Mbps
Orange 'up to' 8Mbps - 3.3 to 4.3Mbps
Plusnet 'up to' 8Mbps - 3.4 to 4.4Mbps
Virgin Media 'up to' 10Mbps - 9.5 to 9.7Mbps
BT 'up to' 20Mbps - 6.9 to 8.7Mbps
O2/Be 'up to' 20Mbps - 9.9 to 11.6Mbps
Sky 'up to' 20Mbps - 7.4 to 8.8Mbps
TalkTalk 'up to' 24Mbps - 7.7 to 9.3Mbps
Virgin Media 'up to' 20Mbps - 17.4 to 18.6Mbps
BT 'up to' 40Mbps - 30.5 to 33.1Mbps
Virgin Media 'up to' 50Mbps - 43.9 to 47.2Mbps

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12611315

So Virgin's 'up to' 10Mbps was actually averaging out as being faster than BT's 'up to' 20Mbps and TalkTalk 'up to' 24Mbps!!

Plus Virgin are doubling (and in some cases tripling) their broadband speeds:

www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/11/virgin-media-double-broadband-speed

Leading David Cameron to say "I welcome this announcement from Virgin Media; it will provide a great boost for those downloading films or people caught out by buffering in porn videos when they are on their vinegar strokes." Although I might have fixed that for him, a bit.
if I went 'round saying I was an Emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

Fractal Friction | Tumblr | Google+

vzzbux

I did a speed test for a customer who had 100 meg yesterday and it equated to 250 although speedtests cannot cope with the virgin BB so it isn't entirely accurate but not far off 250 as I downloaded a 20 min youtube clip instantly. The infrastructure for 250 speed is there for Virgin but as the network is full of noise they wont sell speeds like that nationwide until it is sorted properly. I think they are trialing fiber optic to the property in london so if that is successful then speeds will hit the roof.




V
Drokking since 1972

Peace is a lie, there's only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.

TordelBack

Long, tiring and frankly utterly crappy day, return home to find loving family asleep and naught but stale bread in the house to eat, but I hit 'recently updated topics' and the motley freaks of this here board manage to put a smile on my face.  Thanks all!

Emperor

My wireless router has pissed me off (the socket of the power lead is... corroded and seems to need tweaking an awful lot to work) so I was thinking of replacing it. However, I wondered if I could get Virgin to upgrade the modem to a wireless router model. It costs £49 for installation (which is fine by me, as a wireless router would have been in that region anyway, and it means I'll never need to buy another one so I'll save quite a bit in the long run - plus they install it for you, I can do it but this is less hassle) and to qualify for the wireless option got upgraded to 30Mb broadband and got free evening calls (in addition to the current free weekend ones) for an extra 10p a month. I had to get the girl on the phone to say it a few times to make sure I'd not misheard £10/month.

I assume it is this that I'll be getting, which looks to be an improvement on the Surfboard I've had since they were Telewest:
http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband/broadband-extras/wireless-routers.html
if I went 'round saying I was an Emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

Fractal Friction | Tumblr | Google+

Proudhuff

I've had BT for ages at home, BT vision and three laptops all working of the one wee hub at the same time, and nary a hiccup.
DDT did a job on me

Banners

Quote from: Emperor
I wondered if I could get Virgin to upgrade the modem to a wireless router model...

I had nothing but problems with our so-called SuperHub which was foisted on me against my will. The old VM modem worked perfectly with my old router, but the SuperHub was constantly dropping out, screwed up my local network settings and had a pitiful range.

A recent firmware update allows you to run the SuperHub in modem-only mode, which is what I do now - in conjunction with a fantastic new wireless router from D-Link which hasn't failed me once.


Hoagy

2000ad is seen as staple reading for any kid brought up in the70s/80s. According to the props men of Matt Lucas' new show. Check out Images 5 and6 for what's on his bookshelf.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p00qr716
"bULLshit Mr Hand man!"
"Man, you come right out of a comic book. "
Previously Krombasher.

https://www.deviantart.com/fantasticabstract

Emperor

Quote from: Banners on 04 April, 2012, 12:16:40 PM
Quote from: Emperor
I wondered if I could get Virgin to upgrade the modem to a wireless router model...

I had nothing but problems with our so-called SuperHub which was foisted on me against my will. The old VM modem worked perfectly with my old router, but the SuperHub was constantly dropping out, screwed up my local network settings and had a pitiful range.

A recent firmware update allows you to run the SuperHub in modem-only mode, which is what I do now - in conjunction with a fantastic new wireless router from D-Link which hasn't failed me once.

Ah balls, I hope I'm not clearing a path between these teetering stacks of comics, books and DVD for nothing!!!
if I went 'round saying I was an Emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

Fractal Friction | Tumblr | Google+

Banners

Get them to give you a SuperHub for free (mine was), set it to modem-only mode and spend your £49 on a decent third-party router.

Emperor

Quote from: Banners on 04 April, 2012, 03:24:59 PM
Get them to give you a SuperHub for free (mine was), set it to modem-only mode and spend your £49 on a decent third-party router.

I'll see how it goes. If it is shit I'll ask for a refund and do just that.
if I went 'round saying I was an Emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

Fractal Friction | Tumblr | Google+

Dandontdare

Quote from: George Dread on 04 April, 2012, 12:26:38 PM
2000ad is seen as staple reading for any kid brought up in the70s/80s. According to the props men of Matt Lucas' new show. Check out Images 5 and6 for what's on his bookshelf.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p00qr716

DISGUSTING - none of the spines match up!  :D

Dandontdare

I had to use up some chicken stock to defrost the freezer so I made a chicken & chorizo soup thing with barley and sweetcorn, purely from instinct and guesswork and it was bloody gorgeous. COOKING DOESN'T GET BODGIER THAN THIS!