Virgin Media nightmare

Hi all,

My history with NTL was excellent. Was using their broadband for more than 5 years without a single day of losing connection or problems. Moved house and had to switch to SkyBB since I was in an area without Cable. I moved again recently to a Cable area and without hesitation I went with Virgin. Biggest mistake ever.

Subscribed myself to VirginTV XL and Virgin broadband 10MB(L) 12 months ago. To begin with it was working fine. But from January/February I have been suffering with the worst connection in my experience.

Cannot play online games without other players fuming due to my connection. Browsing is also not a great experience. I called Virgin customer support back in March and was dully told the connection problems was due to the capping.

I recently decided to just browse the net for a few days to check and the problem was still present.

Took a few tests from Speedtest.net

Ping test http://www.pingtest.net/result/41548886.png

Speed test http://www.speedtest.net/result/1327606393.png

I'm paying £45 every month for TV n BB but not enjoying the net quality at all. I am out of contract now and can cancel if I wanted to. Looking at going back to Sky now.

I called them again last week and technical chap told me they received plenty of complaints from other customers living in my street. He said its over congested. I had plans to upgrade to the 50MB connection but that wont even solve the issue.

Abdul - Unhappy customer

Edited by deleted (Tue 07-Jun-11 18:56:43)

Which exchange would you be connected to? See http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search

Edited by deleted (Tue 07-Jun-11 19:22:01)

I'm connected with Ilford Central

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/LNILC

Have a look at Be LLU or Sky LLU. Both have good reputations.

In reply to a post by john2007:

Have a look at Be LLU or Sky LLU. Both have good reputations.

With Sky I just call them to get a new line connected and the 20MB connection right?

I'll have to go with the bundle though, TV, Phone and BB. Any side effect?

Thanks John for your help.

You no longer have to have Sky TV to have Sky broadband.

Unfortunately the speeds you get on ADSL is determined on the quality of your phone line, principally the distance to the exchange. Close to the exchange it maybe 20Mbps+, far from the exchange it may be <1Mbps. Up to 20Mbps means just that, a figure between 0 and 20 Mbps.

For ADSL you'll be paying circa £10 a month for phone line rental and circa £15 for broadband, i.e. £25 a month for a broadband service.

If you don't want the TV it only costs £2.50 more pm on the broadband.

I'll have to also get the TV since I'll be cancelling the Virgin TV service. Dont wanna be in trouble with me kids without their proggies on HDD hehe.

I'll give Sky a call to see if they can match Virgin's offer with the V+ box.

Virgin surely messed up this time. I was upgrading to the Tivo box aswell but its their loss.

Abdul

If you are far from the local BT exchange you may get a worse service than you currently get from Virgin!

Check the speeds your neighbours get with ADSL before making a commitment.

Note what john says! ADSLx isn't like cable, distance from the exchange is very important.

What does this checker say about your address? Paste it here, as it can need interpreting until you are used to it. Specially the first bit is very scary and is rot!