Yikes! Virgin Media - broadband and cable

[Jim_Campbell]

Anybody else's gone out this afternoon? I've had to switch over to my mobile internet, which isn't the speediest ...

Cheers!

Jim

[Peter Wolf]

No loss of Broadband today but its not uncommon round these parts.

A week or 2 ago it was off in this area for 8 hours and whenever it does go down its usually localised.

If you call them up on 150 from a landline you usually get an automated announcement that the service is down and "the engineers are working hard to fix the problem " kind of thing.

I noticed the other day that just along the road from here that one of the green junction boxes with all the cable broadband connections inside was left wide open with the door held closed by a bit of insulation tape which in my mind is a very sloppy way for an ISP provider to go about things.

[Colin YNWA]

Grrr don't start me on that lot. Have just left them after a year or more of shocking service. Problems, poor connection and when I complain they choice out right to ignore my attempts at communication (carefully written to be firm but not abusive however hacked off I was). 4 days trying to get my broadband back after an 'up-grade' that saw no improvement was the end for me.

Now on O2 and have to say they're considerably better AND cheaper (and a Which? best buy for customer service which I've not had to use as the set up etc has been so well done). Magnificent. I have no qualms in saying anybody moving from Virgin (one of Whichs? lost scorers I should note) to o2 should be very happy.

And relax...

[Peter Wolf]

Thats interesting :

Grrr don't start me on that lot. Have just left them after a year or more of shocking service. Problems, poor connection and when I complain they choice out right to ignore my attempts at communication (carefully written to be firm but not abusive however hacked off I was). 4 days trying to get my broadband back after an 'up-grade' that saw no improvement was the end for me.

Now on O2 and have to say they're considerably better AND cheaper (and a Which? best buy for customer service which I've not had to use as the set up etc has been so well done). Magnificent. I have no qualms in saying anybody moving from Virgin (one of Whichs? lost scorers I should note) to o2 should be very happy.

And relax...

....because i have to say the service that i have had from them when i have had problems with the cable modem was exemplary .One modem packed in and i had a home visit the very next day and another time i had technical support over the telephone from them that involved being dictated a set of instructions after just calling them up.

I use virgin Media because i have cable broadband .

Sometimes the bandwidth speed can be slow or sluggish .

[john_s]

I'm with virgin too - just had the broadband upgrade - and it's erratic as fuck.  I think they do this thing called "STM"-ing us ("traffic management" is another bit of jargon) at certain times of the day because we download "too much", apparently...  That "certain time of the day" bit can be anytime, too... which is what's most confusing...

There's a good newsgroup (maybe on Google groups?) called virginmedia.support.broadband.cable where virgin techies will answer your questions pretty promptly.  I'd recommend getting in touch with them...

[w3bz]

Have to say I used to have Virgin for TV/Broadband and they were generally fine, it was the customer service that pissed me off so I ended up with Sky...which worked out cheaper, and their broadband's faster. Your area doesn't help have the time though...

[Jim_Campbell]

I'm with virgin too - just had the broadband upgrade - and it's erratic as fuck.  I think they do this thing called "STM"-ing us ("traffic management" is another bit of jargon) at certain times of the day because we download "too much", apparently...  That "certain time of the day" bit can be anytime, too... which is what's most confusing...

Basically, they throttle your bandwidth between 6.00pm and midnight if they think you're using "too much" ... you can actually watch your download speed drop by half if you have a download running over the 6pm threshold.

I queue all my downloads and set them running before I go to bed!

Cheers

Jim

[vzzbux]

I install for Virgin and find it to be the best on the market at the moment, value for money that is when you combine all three services, just a shame there is only one HD channel.
They are now unleashing their 50meg BB throughout the UK and you get what you pay for, some speed checks are around 54+.







V

[vzzbux]

Double post.

At the moment there is a problem with the activation process on new customers which has been going on for the past 2 days. I don't know if this is effecting any other side of the internet, not been told but as installers we are always the last to know.







V

[Peter Wolf]

The throttling of internet bandwith by Virgin after 6pm nonsense seems to be happening here less and less and less which is a good thing.

I have cable broadband and i was under the impression that if you get your broadband via dedicated cabling you get a better and more consistent speed of bandwidth than you would via ADSL.

But i could be wrong.

[Jim_Campbell]

They are now unleashing their 50meg BB throughout the UK and you get what you pay for, some speed checks are around 54+.

Not singling Virgin out for this, because I understand that this is a common problem with ISPs, but the speed is all down, with no investment in the upload speed. Not a problem for most people, but as my livelihood is now increasingly dependent upon FTP, a bit fucking annoying for me ...!

In fact, if any Squaxx know of an ISP with a decent UPload bandwidth, please let me know!

Cheers

Jim

[VinceBot]

There was a big discussion about ADSL providers on another forum I frequent. Here are some usful tips:

Check what services are available in your area using the Sam Knows Exchange Search, just pop in your number or post code and it'll tell you if you can get ADSL or Cable, and which ADSL LLUs are available in your area.

I know nothing about cable, so thats out the way here.

LLUs (24mbit)

As far as LLU's go (thats commonly 24mbit providers), I can't say enough good things about Be. They're owned by O2 but everything I've heard puts them on equal footing (plus I actually use them).
Be will supply a totally unlimited 24mbit connection for £17.99 a month.

There are no download caps and while Be do have a Fair Usage policy in their T&Cs, they've never enacted them against any of their customers, even during times when they have struggled to cope with demand - they just got by until new servers were installed.

Their downtimes have been minimal, such as scheduled maintenance periods during times when I should be asleep, and latency is pretty spiffy.

ADSL (8mbit)

For 8mbit I'd recommend UKFSN, or another reseller for Enta Net. I never had any problems with the service from Enta Net/UKFSN, and only migrated away because our exchange became unlocked to Be's LLU package.

UKFSN do not have a fair usage policy that I've observed - you're free to download however much you like whatever you like, so long as you don't exceed your bandwidth cap. Latency was also really good through these guys.

UKFSN's bandwidth limits function using the peak/offpeak system, peak hours are 8am through to midnight on weekdays. Your monthly charge is dependant on the download cap you specify, and the download cap only applies to the peak hours. Offpeak bandwidth usage is apparently not tracked.

If you do go over your peak usage allowance then your connection speed is axed to 128kb and a final limit of 1GB is imposed on your account. While on this limit you can then purchase a "top-up" on your download cap at around £1/GB in 25GB increments. Apparently these topups don't expire, which I guess means they carry over onto subsequent months, padding out your bandwidth cap.

Virgin

Virgin like many other ISPs implements a fairly broad Fair Usage policy which can be seen here - scroll down to the table for details on thresholds.

Their ping is apparently very good and the 54mbit service is tempting, but like the OP I keep hearing about drops in service, and the fair usage policy is fairly unpleasant.

Tiscali

If anyone is on any of the following ISPs I would recommend migrating immediately unless they're paying you to stay with them - the service you're on is almost guarenteed to be cheaper and better elsewhere.

• Tiscali
  
• Pipex
  
• Bulldog
  
• Switch Telecoms
  
• Homechoice
  
• Toucan Residential Ltd
  
• Reg123
  

Spoiler: [spoiler] They're all owned by Tiscali, and Tiscali is awful.[/spoiler]

BT

BTs fair usage policy is pretty terrible:

4. What is BT's Traffic Management Policy?

BT continuously monitors network performance and reduces the speed available to very heavy users (typically less than 1 per cent of all customers) during a given month to ensure that the service received by other customers is not impacted through extremely heavy usage by a minority of people.

Customers who are classified as very heavy users will experience significantly reduced speed at peak times (typically 5pm-midnight every day but these times may change depending on the demand on the network) for a period of 30 days, or for as long as very heavy use continues. This applies to customers on all Options. Option 3 allows unlimited downloads and uploads within the monthly rental price, so Option 3 customers will not be charged for over-use. However, this does not preclude BT from reducing your speed if you are a heavy user in order to protect the experience for the rest of our customers.

We may need to vary the policy from time to time to ensure the best possible experience for all our customers. This site will always be kept up to date with the latest information.

5. What is BT's policy on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications?

P2P refers to certain applications that enable files and program sharing between groups of people logged on to a P2P network. Because they use uploads and downloads and are often left running 24/7, they consume significant bandwidth, even when being used by just a small number of customers. Because a lot of P2P traffic is not time-critical, eg, downloading TV programmes or movies for later viewing, we treat P2P traffic differently from time-critical traffic (such as surfing, streaming or internet telephony) and apply speed restrictions to all P2P traffic at peak times. We manage these restrictions daily depending on the demands on the network, but typically they will be in place 4pm - midnight on weekdays and 9am - midnight on the weekend.

They don't specify what constitutes "heavy usage", so after an indeterminate amount of time you might suddenly notice you're running like a 512K connection for the next 30 days, with nothing you can do about it.

As far as pricing goes its also pretty bad - £20.54 per month for 20GB capped 8mb or £24.46 per month for 8meg "unlimited", compared to UKFSNs £18.95 where you receive an 8mb connection with no usage policy, and a peak time bandwidth cap of 30gb (peak hours mon-fri 8am to 10pm).


Tips on finding the best ISP for you

ThinkBroadband.com (used to be adslguide.org.uk) has an ISP list and some other usful tools on the left hand menu under the heading "Service Providers" which you may find usful.

I'd also recommend checking out their forum and visiting the specific subforum for whichever ISP you're thinking about to get a taste for what the current issues are, how many people are reporting the problem, and how many people are actually on that ISP.
A good example right now is their subforum for PlusNet plc, reporting many, many issues with actually migrating away from PlusNet.