I think the same can be said for many ISPs, especially the cheaper ones, also possibly made worse with anything supplied by Open Reach as two companies are involved and you can't speak to one of them.

I've gone round in circles before with Plusnet, Open Reach seemed incapable of fixing the problem, and Plus Net were incapable of managing the fault. Took 3 months until I made a CEO level complaint, then it was fixed within 5 days .

Very similar story here, had an appalling 3K+M line length with ADSL, sub 2M speeds despite loads of visits and swapped pairs etc.

VM upgraded our area (we were one of the first cabled areas in the 80's) and obviously everyone locally jumped onboard and the network was overloaded and collapsed! I remember not actually paying for my VM subs for about 8 months due to this. Wasnt really fixed and BT then installed FTTC which gave me a solid 80/20 connection on my approx 300M line which I was happy with for a few years.

More recently we have had issues with cross talk and the speeds intermittently dropped sub 60Mb, despite several visits (AAISP assisted) they couldn't improve. G.Fast has been installed, but unless you are within arms length of the cab you cant get it! Last time I asked when I saw an engineer with his head in the cab he told me "no one had been connected, and I'm not surprised"

VM came round with an offer that really couldn't be ignored (£82 P/M for VIP for 12 months).

To be honest its OK, had some problems with the phone line being disconnected, but that's the poor quality of the years old infrastructure and the fact that cabinets are constantly left open to the elements and local youth!

We do miss SKY-Q, the new V6 virgin box isnt as easy to use, and frequently misses recordings. However for the money cant complain.

I do agree about when it works its great, the first line support is a joke at times, just following scripts.

In short, I'm happy with the service (350/35) and the kids don't complain about the internet so thats all good! When the offer finishes we will be looking at getting Sky back just for the TV and keep VM broadband, but we will see what they offer!

In reply to a post by Daemon66:

Support of any kind from VirginMedia is woeful. I jumped ship from having Vivid 350 over to a BT 80/20 because half a dozen engineers failed to rectify the connection drops I was having.

VM is really great, a great service for a great price, but only when it works. As soon as you hit any issue you'll be left tearing your hair out.

I'm now on BT Ultrafast 2 getting 330/50, almost back to the DL speed I had with VM and paying more for it!