Virgin Media: I want is a download speed I can rely on!

I don't think Virgin Media understand that where broadband customers' needs are concerned, service reliability trumps maximum bandwidth every time!

This week we're being promised an 'upgrade' from 20Mbps to 50Mbps. I'm not sure we actually need more bandwidth! It took me a while to remember when I last did something where the lack of download speed was a significant problem.

It was easy to remember the last time that a lack of any download speed at all was a problem - that was yesterday, and before that 3 days ago, and before that last weekend (3 times), ans before that... You get the picture.

What we need in our household is a minimum download speed, 3Mbps would probably be more than enough. It would allow us to use Skype without anxiety, maybe watch some on-line TV without wanting to kill someone when that 'spiral thing' comes on.

We've do the usual housekeeping on cable connector care, watching modem power levels, not using WiFi connections etc. The timing of the stoppages suggests that it's congestion and VM say they don't guarantee a non-congested service for residential use. That I understand, but it's not congestion, it's a complete stopage, which suggests that congestion is not being managed properly (or at all).

Should we look at going to another supplier, or will we meet the same problem for any service via BT wholesale?

We live in Stevenage, which IIRC had cable internet when most people were managing with 56k dial-up. Is this an old VM street/area hardware problem?

Hi Baritone

I have been with VM for just over 19 months, and like you I would like a reliable speed, not something that goes up and down like a yo-yo.

I am in area 21 (south London) which they claim is massively overloaded, and that they are trying to upgrade it as part of their "Project Lightning" (a £3m, 5 year investment programme, by their new American owners Liberty Global, which is primarily aimed at extending their network to another 4 million homes). Trouble is that promises like that keep getting bounced: originally scheduled for 23rd December 2015 it is now rescheduled for 31 Mar 2016, which makes me think that Liberty Global have moved in simply to milk the cash cow despite this much trumpeted investment programme.

My service is nominally a 50Mbps service but I test it on a fairly regular basis using the TBB speed tester, which very conveniently records and logs all of the test results for you, provided you are logged in. A couple of months ago I downloaded those into a spreadsheet and worked out the average speed over the period as 35 Mbps and then stuck in a formal, written complaint to their Complaint Service stating that among other things I was pretty unhappy about only getting 70% of the speed I paid for so I would like a refund of 30% of the money I had paid for broadband.

Finally got a telephoned response yesterday and they are prepared to offer some compensation, which I have asked them to put in writing, which they have agreed to do. I now await that email or letter.

So my suggestion to you is that you log the speeds that you are actually getting, and when you have enough evidence slap in a claim.