Did you find anything out please?

I've had to complain to the ASA as they state "350 for all" in the advertising - and it's clearly not as even on the business side still 200 max

https://s26.postimg.org/fb585j5yx/Screen_Shot_2017-0...

Edit - ASA

Edited by deleted (Sat 09-Sep-17 17:54:28)

VM Business were advertising the Voom 350 service way back in April. I was on the Vivid 200 residential service at the time but VM Business assured me that if I switched to them I would stay on the 200 Mbs service for a short while but that I could expect the 350 service very soon, probably by the end of May. So I went ahead. By August this had still not materialised and nobody could give me a definite forecast, just vague suggestions that it should be up and running by October.

Not only that but the whole switchover had been a disaster. My phone number hadn't been ported, my ntlworld email addresses which I had stated were critical before I even signed up with VM Business stopped working, I hadn't received any bills from VM Business and yet both VM Business and VM Residential were claiming payment for the same three months with the threat of disconnection I didn't pay. To cap it all, I eventually got through to somebody higher up who actually knew what they were talking about and she told me that ntlworld email addresses could only be forwarded for 90 days, then they're lost. She could see previous correspondence and agreed I'd been missold the product and arranged a refund of all the money I'd paid to VM business. So it was back to VM Residential, who course thought I'd never left so my email addresses and phone number were still intact.

It took several weeks for the refund cheque to reach me and get cleared into my bank but everything seemed to working OK again by mid September. Only a week or so later, I got a call from a VM Business rep to see if I'd be interested in trying them again as he said the 350 Mbs service was definitely due in my postcode in the third week of October. You can imagine, I was very cautious by now and said the only way I would consider it was if I could keep my ntlworld email adresses and I'd been told that wasn't possible. He said he'd look into it and call me back if it was. No call back, so I considered the matter closed.

Last week, I got another call from someone else claiming to be from VM Business saying the 350 Mbs service was now live in my street and he had sorted out my ntlworld email problems and that I could have them forwarded to a VM Business email address. I said maybe but I wanted to check what the situation was with VM Residential as if the network had been upgraded, presumably the Vivid 300 service should be available too and I wanted to see how the prices compare. He outright told me only VM Business had been upgraded in my area and that I was stuck on 200Mbs. if I stayed with residential. So I asked for an email confirming the email porting and 350 speed but decided to call VM Residential retentions department anyway to see what they would say. Sure enough they said Vivid 300 was available to me now and even gave me a loyalty bonus to switch to it. I agreed and the new router is due in the post tomorrow. Once I activated it, I should be up and running. Interestingly, when I got the email from the VM Business guy it actually came from halo-connect.com, who appear to be a reseller or independent sales agency so I don't even know how they got involved.

Now, I'm sorry for the long winded post to get to this point but I just logged into My Virginmedia to see if I could get any update on the upgrade and noticed they now show my broadband service to be Vivid 350. Since I haven't received the official contract agreement yet I phoned customer service and the lady confirmed it's been authorised, it is for the Vivid 300 service and she knows of no Vivid 350 service!

So what will I be getting tomorrow?

Screenshot of my Virgin Media page:

https://i.imgur.com/GZqjXdp.jpg

Edited by deleted (Mon 23-Oct-17 16:22:10)

No problem thanks for the long post/update!

I'm still 200 in my area. Ive actually lost any and all hope that they will bring it here - when I move in a few months I will be on FTTC 80/20 again so I am getting used to life with that being the max I can go

No VM there either.

From experience you won't be missing much other than the headline speed test 'potential' ...

I'm glad to have finally washed my hands for good of Virgin Media, though I'm still fighting for my £135 refund which they're threatening to take away claiming my kit wasn't return when the tracking shows they've received it :X

Would of begged for 40/10 FTTC instead of the 200/20, suppose I'll see how the Canadian providers hold up.

Why have a specific ISP email address if email is so important?

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Why have a specific ISP email address if email is so important?

My wife and I have had the same ntlworld.com email addresses for nearly twenty years. It takes a 36 page word document to keep track of all the online accounts that have those email addresses registered as my contact address and they are the email addresses that even people who haven't contacted me in years can still. Why would I ever want to change to something else? Especially since ntl, which subsequently became Virgin Media, has always provided the fastest broadband service available to my address since I first got it installed in 2000 and it's generally very reliable..

The only way I would consider changing providers is if another company came along offering significantly faster services for a similar price.

edit: OK I just got my new modem activated and used Speedtest.net to test it. This is what I got. Looks like Vivid 350 is indeed up and running. In fact, make that Vivid 380!

http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6733434328.png

Edited by deleted (Tue 24-Oct-17 16:23:01)

In reply to a post by Derek_S:

Why would I ever want to change to something else?

ISP email services have a history of disappearing.

In reply to a post by Zadeks:

In reply to a post by Derek_S:

Why would I ever want to change to something else?

ISP email services have a history of disappearing.

Nothing can be guaranteed to last for ever but at nearly twenty years my current ones have lasted longer than most.

You've been lucky that your connection has been good for so long. Most people change ISP at least every 3 or 4 years to get a faster connection and some users change annually to get a far cheaper cost.

It took ages for my new network to go live (7 months), but the upside was instead of vivid200 being available it was vivid300.

When I did speedtests I was getting 385mbps and when the billing went live it was listed as vivid350.

So the actual timing was perfect.