I'm impressed !

I got my cable box installed yesterday for broadband 'M' 2Mbit and so far so good.
My speed tests yesterday and just now are consistent and exactly what I was hoping for. These results seem to be in line with adslguides typical speeds for 2Mb:

Date 13/07/07 20:12:32
Speed Down 1831.54 Kbps ( 1.8 Mbps )
Speed Up 182.19 Kbps ( 0.2 Mbps )
Port 8095
Server speedtest1.adslguide.org.uk

........................................

Speed Test Results
Date 13/07/07 20:15:16
Speed Down 1837.60 Kbps ( 1.8 Mbps )
Speed Up 176.89 Kbps ( 0.2 Mbps )
Port 8095
Server speedtest1.adslguide.org.uk
......................................

15/07/07 04:29:39
Speed Down 1825.24 Kbps ( 1.8 Mbps )
Speed Up 183.73 Kbps ( 0.2 Mbps )
Port 8095
Server speedtest1.adslguide.org.
.......................................


There seems to be various other speed test sites giving me very low speed results, I'm not sure why. Anyway, I trust adslguides test so I'm happy. Even better, my gaming pings are incredibly low. Certain game servers I used to go to where my pings were around 50ms are now 12ms! I use a program called All Seeing Eye which shows my ping, servers, and the players on the servers and their pings. I haven't joined the servers yet, but some players are going to be jealous as I can see that they all have 30 to 40 ms ( which tbh is still good). News server is also working perfectly. Someone on here said they had to use a blueyonder news server but I'm finding news.cable.ntlworld.com is working fine.
Cable is definitely way better than adsl, I know that now.

The setup from the CD was a little problematic. Almost every step of the way it came up with error messages such as not being able to contact the default gateway, or, couldn't connect right now because of some technical problem and to try later. So I had to keep clicking back and reinputting setup information. When I got to choosing my email username I typed fred.bloggs, and chose a password. When I clicked next, it said couldn't connect to the internet right now try later. So when I got to reinput my username and password it then told me that fred.bloggs was already in use! So I had to make it fred.bloggs78. Is there a way I can get virgin media to change my username to what I'd originally chosen? Or when @ntlworld.com changes to virginmedia.com ( when is that gonna happen ? ) maybe that's the time to do it? Other thing is webspace. My account details came up with " webspace:http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fred.bloggs78/" but I get an NTL page saying page cannot be found. Any idea on that? I'd like to use it to upload stuff to.
Apart from that, I'm really happy so far.

Have you tried uploading a home page to your web space using FTP?

I'm not sure what you mean, could you elaborate?

I've got it sorted now. I just rang their 25p a min plus 10p for setting up the call
0906 2121111 tech support number. In india of course! The correct address is

'ftp://[email protected]'. After that, the http page works, 'http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fred.bloggs78/'

There was nothing sent to me from virgin media ( nor is there any info on their website apart from 'upload.ntlworld.com.') to tell me that the above ftp address was what I actually needed to access my webspace, meanwhile it cost me a 15 minute �3.75 phone call to find that out. While I was speaking to tech support, I also explained how the setup CD error messed up my orginal email username I created and asked her if it could be changed. I ended up saying I want to be refunded for this phone call since as far as I'm concerned, neither of these problems are my fault. She said she would make a note of all these things.

Whether I get refunded remains to be seen, but I sure had a go at her. She did manage to stay very patient all the way through, so credit to her for that I suppose. Half the problem with speaking to india is that you waste money trying to understand what each other is saying. They're not really on the ball and we can't understand their accent. It's not racist, just a simple fact

All of that information is available for free online - you didn't need to ring the support number.. I suppose the support people could save you some money by saying JFGI

You mean this? http://www.virginmedia.com/customers/webspace/access_settings/

"To access your webspace you will require the following information

Webspace and FTP settings
Homepage: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/user.name
FTP upload address: upload.ntlworld.com
User name: your virgin media internet username, e.g. user.name
Password: your virgin media internet password, e.g. s123456789 "

Where does it tell me to type

'ftp://[email protected]'


What it should say is
FTP upload address: ftp://[email protected]

It was only when I typed that in that a log in box appeared for the password. Typing just 'upload.ntlworld.com' came up with nothing.

Edited by deleted (Sun 15-Jul-07 23:37:23)

Those settings are exactly right..

if you are going to access it FTP via an internet browser (for example internet explorer, mozilla firefox, et al), then anyone should know you have to add ftp:// in order to let the browser know its not expecting http traffic.. and secondly username:[email protected] is standard for browsers once again.

To be honest though, using a internet browser for connecting to an FTP site is not a great idea.. if you were using a dedicated FTP browser, such as CuteFTP, SmartFTP, FlashFXP, etc then the details supplied would work perfectly - and to be honest I would expect people to use an FTP browser

Your knowledge on the subject is obviously not as good as mine, and so you've had to pay someone to explain it to you - thats what support lines are for.. although from what you've said they were not very quick in explaining it to you - possibly due to communication problems, combined with you not knowing exactly what you were trying to do

Alternatively you could have googled for the way to access via a web browser - which would have been free - Lesson is - only call an expensive support line if you have exhausted the less costly options available to you

Having said that.. adding a line to say: "If accessing via a web browser then use ftp://user.name:[email protected] " wouldn't be too difficult :S

Edited by azif (Mon 16-Jul-07 01:18:25)

The fact is, virgin media did not explain on their website how to put the details in properly, it's as though they were vague on purpose to make you use the tech support line.

"then anyone should know you have to add ftp:// in order to let the browser know its not expecting http traffic.. and secondly username:[email protected] is standard for browsers once again."

Sorry my friend, what is standard knowledge for you isn't common knowledge for everyone, and virgin media should never expect that their customers know these things. Their information is misleading or unclear. Like I said, the http page didn't work until I'd input the ftp info, and they didn't word it clearly enough to make sense to me.

Can I just ask what the setup cd is for ?
Is that used if connecting via USB, and not ethernet cable ?

When I had my VM installed recently, I just connected the ethernet cable and I was up and running there and then, without the need for a cd