Any major issues before I jump ship?

Hi,

I'm currently with Be* - I've been with them for years, however I only get 9mb of my 24mb line.

I am going to jump ships to Virgin and get the 50mb cable + phone. This seems like a pretty good deal to me.

I value the opinion of people on this forum, so is there any hidden problems with moving to Virgin? I know thier call centers are in Mumbai ... but apart from that ... anything else?

Cheers
darius

It's ok but it is very dependant on location - some areas are heavily congested. Ask someone who has it in your area if you can. If I were you I would get it installed in parallel to your existing service (ie dont let them transfer your phone number over), you can test it for 30 days and bin it if its not performing.

That's a pretty good idea.

I guess I can adjust the package if I'm happy with it?

If it helps I'm in North London.

My Be* speed is



Thanks for your reply.


Cheers
darius

Edited by deleted (Tue 04-Jan-11 19:31:30)

very good advice I agree fully with.

If you're in North London you may want to investigate FTTC too, as you ought to see a much higher speed broadband service than you currently have with ADSL2+.

Geographical location doesn't impact on speed, but location from an exchange does.

I did try FTTC however the BT website said something like 'It's available in your area but you can't have it, this could be for various reasons'.

Seemed a little odd.

When I had cable, I use to get full speed. Everyone I know who has cable also has really good speeds. I have heard that in certain area's the virginmedia network ain't great, but for me, personally, never had any problems.

Like mentioned before, try to find someone else you know who is close who has cable and see if they can do a few speed tests at different times of day.

I'm in wales... so my experience with cable could be completely different to yours since your 3 hours drive from here.

BiPolarBear has given you very good advice. For example, there are issues reported in other forums on the Walthamstow cable hub.

On the other hand, my daughter lives in Stewington and reports an excellent service.

North London is a big place. What is your postcode or locality?

Well I can't comment about 50Mbit as I'm still on 20Mbit but since it's dropped in price I seriously am considering it.

Overall I'd say they're pretty good, not had any major problems with them, most of the time I get the full 20Mbit, occasionally it can slow down a bit but it doesn't seem to be too often, and even then I get about 16 to 17Mbit.

I'm not sure too if they're still doing it but when I signed up I got the M TV package (basically pretty much what you get on Freeview, plus on-demand things like iPlayer, ITV Player and 4oD on your TV) for free. Although we use Freeview, I figured since the box was free it was worth it (the original idea was to put the box in the bedroom, nearly 3 years on it still hasn't happened ).

If you already have the cable box and phone connection to your property you might be able to go for the self install option (means you get the kit quicker and you don't have to wait for an engineer to come round, although in our despite choosing self install the engineer came around the day after placing the order and connected our phone line to the cabinet). If you go for the engineer install option then you might have to wait a week or two for them to come round.

I'd also say maybe keep the Be broadband and phone line until you've got the Virgin broadband installed just in case there are any unforeseen problems or delays (probably won't be a problem but it means you'll at least have a connection just in case).

Rob