Anyone in Kensington?

I am thinking of moving to VM's 20mb service now that BT decided to move my phone line from an the West Kensington exchange which was 200 meters away to Fulham which is about 1.5 miles (or even more in cable terms). Result? My adsl2 went from 17mb to 5.5mb ! Thank you BT!

Anyway before I sign on the dotted line is there anybody who could share his/her experience with VM? do you get 20mb? is it worth it or shall I stay suffering in silence in the BT world?

Vassilis

I hoped over from ADSL as I had a crappy BT line.

Can't fault the service so far - I can get 20Mb all day here when I need it.

Have you tried complaining properly to BT. Or your current ISP. The ISP pays BT to host the phone line, so if you pay your ISP and the performance has been severely affected, it's legally the ISP's responsibility. However of course they might say that 5.5Mbps is fine for ADSL. Not when going from 17Mbps though, of course.
The ISPA form works wonders... Try it.

http://www.ispa.org.uk/cgi-bin/complaints.cgi

I did complain to Be (the ISP) but they response was that there is nothing I can do as BT decided to move the connections from the West Kensington exchange to Fulham. To be fair to them they offered to reduce the monthly fee. But the fact remains the same, my line has been affected and given that all ADSL connections irrespective of ISP will be affected, I would like an alternative. Hense my question. If Virgin can supply a better connection I will move. Life is too short to start a campaign against BT and in the meantime to have a crappy connection.

I was originally with Bulldog,and as yourself,they have also migrated from West Kensington down to Fulham.My speeds also dropped from a regular 6.5mb to around 2.3mb. Naturally I cancelled and signed up with Virgin Media for their 20mb ( The mother of all Broadband !! ). and was activated a few days ago.
I am dissapointed to say that I dont really think it is the ultimate.In the evening I get around 7-9mb, and during the mornings I can get around 17 - 18 mb. I was told by the sales team, that I will get a constant 20mb !! as its cable and its not affected by contention. I am due to contact them and advise them re my dissatisfaction about their misleading information.I am sure the sales dept., will say anything just so as to get the sale.

It is good to try to establish how folks immediately close to you find the service. You now have one such view and this is as I would expect - nothing highly unusual about either the day time or evening speeds in a dense urban location.

You can get another view at the Virgin Media Support Newsgroup - virgin media support broadband cable (You will need to know how to access newsgroups -described on the www.virginmedia.com website)

There has been a small but growing number of complaints related to slow speeds. However, I cannot re-call any issues in West London. Virgin Media has done a good job in improving the level of network service for most of its users in most locations. But, beware: there are some very poor spots such as my immediate area in North London and also in East London and the service is often so poor that it makes our blood boil!

You need to understand the traffic management rules also as covered in the replies.

Given the above comments about the actual impact of the exchange move, my guess is that going with Virgin Media is likely to be a better option, particularly since the 20 and to be introduced 50 mbs services will be working on a different signaling system into next year. But also be prepared for some hiccups.

Do you use ethernet or wireless? In South London I can get 18-19Mb at times, but usually 10-12Mb through ethernet. With wireless, near the router 15Mb occasionally, but more like 8 on a regular basis.

GeoffB,

This has nothing to do with wireless. BT relocated my line to an exchange about 2km away and the speed dropped from 16-17mb to 5.5mb at best. I am with Be for the last 3 years and I do know the speed of my line. It is just so frustrating that this sort of thing can happen in 2008. I was with ntl using their cable service which is now Virgin media. Their connection then was really bad to the tune that they could not convert me to their digital service. I hope things have improved since then, that is why I asked the question.

Vassilis

Further to my last,contact with Virgin tech. resulted in them admitting that this area,or my cable , is heavyly congested.Interestingly,the sales department were not aware of this fact before they sold the service ( of course they weren't!! )
On calling the billing department,their response was that the service 'was up to 20mb '.Hmmm...(Somehow I've heard this elsewhere.)..and that the sales person was wrong in informing me otherwise.Hmmm...
So there you have it.Presently am looking to change to another ISP, if I can,and migrate my telephone as well...something I was NOT looking forward in doing.
Will I recommend Virgin? Definatelly not.