my street was only cabled about 2 months ago, originally when cabeltel dug in Derry, my street was listed as private, but they came back and infilled.

switched from bt to virgin and have had no problems, constantly getting full speeds, pings are a bit higher but im only paying 29 a month, for 50Mb, weekend phone line and freeview tivo.

bt wanted around 50 a month just for 76/19

northern ireland overall has no issues with over utilization.

I was approached today by a sales rep, never laughed so much in my life, I told him "when you can give me ACTUAL speeds above BT, and not up to advertising carp THEN and only then will I entertain you again

He was pretty much speechless

I am getting just above the advertised speed of 150/10. I've been on VM for 4 years.

IMO depending on how bad the congestion effect is, it might be better to avoid taking the discount and get out of the contract without termination fees.

Of course the CS will try and not give you an easy exit but should be easier if one obtains a fault reference from the forum team (who are more helpful).

I left after 3 months personally as my 200/20 "Gamer" service struggled at peak times to even hit 10/2 with pings regularly shooting above 300ms+. Needless to say I enjoy seeing the difference between my BQM with Virgin and my new FTTC ISP.

In reply to a post by Yves:

I am getting just above the advertised speed of 150/10. I've been on VM for 4 years.

It's not bad in all areas, although VM don't do 150 they do 50/100/200/300 in some areas. If you are on the 152 you should be on 200 now