Hi-Velocity just had the plug pulled

My hi-velocity connection id down and I get re-deirected to a murphx page.

I called murphx who told me they have pulle dthe plug on hi-velocty's broadband supply.

Looks like no more hi-velocity, there webpage doesn't even work.

Murphx are offereing to pick up hi-velicity's client though, very nice of them, seeing as how they are wholesalrers only.

Bad times.

they should of at least informed you of termination. You have the right to a notice period and to request a MAC code if you are not happy,

The best bit is, they sent my bill through today which is unusally early, shame it is paid automatically.

Cheeky b@stards..

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/general/t/3640444-h...

Their site is working, and it maybe just a billing dispute with one supplier, not uncommon with the smaller suppliers and wholesalers

They still appear to be using an ISPA logo when not listed as a member though - which is not good.

Didn't Hi-V have a lot of posts on here not all that long ago as they were dragging their heels over MACs and such like? That always seems to turn into a major change or failure not too much further down the line.

Got it:
End March - didn't know who carried what connection - caused customer problems.
End March - weird outage
End March - member lanus - says still NOT got MAC.

Dec - Jan - problems getting MACs, member lanus claimed to have asked since June 08!
Dec - Contact Problems
Dec - Problems getting MACs.

Hey, they lasted FIVE months after a public outing of MAC problems. That's actually pretty good.

Edited by deleted (Tue 26-May-09 21:02:48)

you should of canceled your direct debit through your bank. That is the advice I give you in future. I always do that whenever i change an ISP. regardless of payment due or not.

I have just found out with the help of my IT friend that my service has been suspended as well,just got my bill in as well no mention about anything being wrong and i have phoned 4 times and left messages with Hi-V but they have not even got the balls to reply and explain whats going on, 6years loyal service and then get dropped like this very unhappy. ok rant over has anyone heard what murphx Innovative Solutions are like ?
Jim

In reply to a post by KevinR:

Dec - Jan - problems getting MACs, member lanus claimed to have asked since June 08!
Dec - Contact Problems
Dec - Problems getting MACs.

Hey, they lasted FIVE months after a public outing of MAC problems. That's actually pretty good.

Yes i first asked for my MAC on june 28th 2008 and emailed them maybe 25 times at various points after that. On the few times i got to talk to them i was told that it would be with me in the morning on first thing on monday. I wasnt really annoyed by the actual service most of the time, it was more a case of just wanting out because there were cheaper and much more stable isps to be with. Its been known that Hi-V was going under for well over a year now. I was also scared of cancelling in case they tagged my line or something. It seems an isp has a firm grip of your beans and neither law nor OFCOM can do anything reasonable about it.

What is the next step in this process? Will Murphx Innovative Solutions Limited give us all a MAC key if we dont want to remain with them?

The search for a new isp is on now and for anyone interested my shortlist at the moment looks like the following...
http://www.vivaciti.net/adsl-home.php
http://www.vispa.com/broadband-home.php
https://www.icukhosting.co.uk/broadband/internet_ads...
http://adsl24.co.uk/broadband/home/

I was always going to go with ADSL24 but reading the latest comments it seems theyre turning into Hi-V so probably best to steer clear of them. All the above are cheap, no-contract and uncapped but with various peak restrictions. Any other ideas are welcome.

In reply to a post by Lanus:

Vivaciti Family packages) and ADSL24 (Home packages) are both Entanet resellers but now have new non-Enta packages as well.

Enta have moved to WBC and IPSC (BT 21CN products). It has been a disaster for many customers and continues to be so.

Vivaciti have non-Enta Surfwise 75 (O-Bit) and LLU Unlimited (C & W), both seem to be getting good reports. ADSL24 have a Be-based LLU package.

I don't know much about Vispa or ICUK.

To make any more suggestions we need to know your exchange, typical download GBs per month, maximum spend and preferably your line stats.

Did some reading recently and Vivaciti had some problems with SurfWise in that o-bit were kindly traffic shaping it for them - especially p2p/usenet/etc - even though EVEN the wholesale deal said that it was unshaped.

They spent a while educating their account manager and I think they've managed to get it turned off. The medium/long term worry is that at best either:
a) o-bit have account/sales guys don't know what they are selling
b) o-bit have account/sales guys who'll happily sell a pig in a poke
c) o-bit's tech and marketing departments don't talk to each other.

As I say I think its OK now but it does raise some concerns over the long term relationship. A lot probably depends on whether vivaciti has really rented some central capacity to use as they wish or are merely reselling o-bit's own product.

So rules out this being a fault, got the response after emailing murphx

Carl Churchill, director says: "murphx have been forced to suspend service supply to Hi-Velocity as a result of a persistent breech of our agreement. We are working tirelessly to ensure we mitigate impact on end users as a result of this and are providing a number of options to customers who have had their service restricted."

When I run a speed test on speedtest.net (see link) this is through C&W LLU which is brought from Vivaciti I get Murphx Innovative Solutions as my ISP, I must say since going over to them I haven't had any problems, but I have only been with them 6 days now!

Just for the record, I moved from ADSL24 to Vivaciti. (Would of considered LLU with ADSL24 if exchange supported BE)

Speeds a lot better with Vivaciti, but this is mainly because of the no BT Bras profiling system and direct on C&W LLU.

Avoid Enta resellers, if you can.

If your exchange supports C&W try Vivaciti which I'm on, all good so far and for £21.85 a month uncapped, with email hosting - bargain.

Edited by deleted (Wed 27-May-09 11:43:56)

I just called Murphx and they indeed say the Hi-V service wont be back, at least not with them. You can either wait for a MAC or instantly transfer over to them directly under the same package as you were under Hi-V. They say MACs could take 10 days or more. What i forgot to find out foolishly was how long the temp login will work for. If it will last me until i get a MAC id rather go that route.

In reply to Roberto, my exchange is just a basic one that gets about 300k max and i do around 60gb a month dl mostly in the early hours and as always im frugal

and thanks

Edited by deleted (Wed 27-May-09 12:15:29)

In reply to a post by Lanus:

In reply to Roberto, my exchange is just a basic one that gets about 300k max and i do around 60gb a month dl mostly in the early hours and as always im frugal

Take a look at AAISP. Tiny daytime, big off-peak, unmetered 2am-6am.

I took murphx up on their offer last night, my bill went from 38.99 a month with hi-velocity to 18.99 with murphx witht eh same conenciton.

Good stuff, also sent an e-mail to hi-velicity telling them to cancle my account.

We can also offer the same package as HI Velocity did through the same provider (although a little cheaper at £25 for 50GB instead of £39 for 40GB as they priced it) so no down time for the customer either.

Hey!

I am still awaiting a response from you regarding seeing if you can get my SNR margin dropped to 6DB from 9DB, I am tweaking slightly atm, but would rather the SNR was set to 6DB as default with no tweaking needed, could you do this for me? Message was sent Tuesday.

benrb is my username, hopefully you can, fed up trying different routers to see which will give me the best performance, would rather just have the one with a 6DB margin.

Thanks!

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Their site is working, and it maybe just a billing dispute with one supplier, not uncommon with the smaller suppliers and wholesalers

So whats your advice for those faced with the walled garden.

I assume Murphx control the line but is it technically possible for HV to arrange to transfer the lines to another wholesaler without Murphxs co-operation?

10 days for a MAC is twice as long as they are allowed, and risks investigation and fine from Ofcom

Murphx are in control of the MAC and line as the wholesaler with the contract with BT Wholesale or another wholesaler so its down to them....

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

10 days for a MAC is twice as long as they are allowed, and risks investigation and fine from Ofcom

Ofcom have no teeth, they had many complaints about hiv not supplying MACs including from me and they ended up telling me to take them to court if i wanted anything more. They can only make suggestions to an isp to which they are not legally bound. On that note, has ofcom fined an isp purely because of user issues and not because another large company was not being paid?

As for hoping hiv might transfer users, you might as well forget about that. They were uncontactable and useless as a support company when they were running for the last year so they arent going to change now that things are much worse for them.

I am another of those left hanging by the demise of Hi-Velocity - over 5 years from starting with them. I wonder how many of us were left at the end?

While HV is unquestionably the more guilty party here, I am certainly not impressed by Murphx cutting off internet access without any warning. They could at least have had the courtesy to put up their walled garden message and then allowed access for one or two day for people to understand what had happened and to make arrangements to transfer.

Luckily I still have a dial up account hanging around from my days with Freeserve (remember them?) which allowed me to sign on and find out what was going on (mainly using this site of course - thanks guys)

Their walled garden message did not come up unless I dismissed a browser generated message telling me the site should not be trusted due to suspicious self-signed certificates, or some such (similar messages in both Firefox and IE7). Even when I got through this screen the page did not display correctly on Firefox, and it was only after a while when I tried with IE7 that I saw the message to sign up.

I didn't get a call back from Murphx as per the option on their walled garden sign up screen, which I was told was due to the number of people affected.

Unlike an earlier poster, I was given no offer of a 24 hour connection and simply given the option of either paying up or requesting a MAC code and being without access for 10 days (the time I was quoted for a MAC code to be issued). With my son sitting A-levels and needing to access the internet for research, there was little option but to sign up.

I was told that I would get the same service that I had with HV, but after asking several times what the service I would be getting was, it turned out that I am paying 5 pounds more per month (up from 20 to 25) for a service which is capped rather than the uncapped product I was on with HV, so not the same service and not the same price.

The plus points I can make for murphx are that they were efficient, gave me the ID and password I needed for my router over the phone (after having paid them), the person I spoke to was polite enough, though not very knowledgeable on the products that I was signing up for, and that connection using the new ID/PW worked without problems.

I now need to find a new provider. My choices will be limited as there is no LLU in the exchange, from earlier posts I am leaning towards either IDNet or Viviciti, but will keep scanning for suggestions, especially for ones with bundled wi-fi access.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

10 days for a MAC is twice as long as they are allowed, and risks investigation and fine from Ofcom

In fairness to Murphx, at least when I spoke to them, their comments on macs suggested that it would take some days (approx 3 days) for a Mac to be generated. This was partly due the the volume of requests created by the walled garden and partly due to the manual nature of generating individual end users macs, something they are not usually geared up to do.

This would then be followed by a further 5 - 7 days for BT to action the mac over to your chosen supplier.

Hence it could be 10 days plus without internet if you request a mac now and then use it with another supplier.

However if staying with Murphx then the internet could be back on in minutes. I was told end users would be on monthly contracts and therefore could ask for a mac at any time.

So perhaps its a question of whether customers need the internet back now, then sort out who to go to over the first month, or whether they prefer to go a few weeks without internet to go straight to the chosen isp.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Murphx are in control of the MAC and line as the wholesaler with the contract with BT Wholesale or another wholesaler so its down to them....

I wondered if HV would be able to do a cease and reprovide on the lines?

I suspect they did this in the past when they switched from IP Telecoms LTD to Hi-Velocity Ltd last year and connections were down for a few weeks.

Thanks for the thread: have been keeping an eye out...

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

The best bit is, they sent my bill through today which is unusally early, shame it is paid automatically.

Cheeky b@stards..

And exactly the same here. Suspended, transferred over to murphx only to find hivelocity had sent a bill the same morning (26th May). And, to add insult to injury, looking back at the credit card they also charged two months in April.
(Of course, if I hadn't set mail forwarding from hivelocity, I would've been oblivious to that latest bill too).

Good luck y'all - still trying to find out the precise package details frommurphx but didn't exactly have much choice in the matter, being left high-and-dry with no notice.

David.

In reply to a post by hdd:

I was told that I would get the same service that I had with HV, but after asking several times what the service I would be getting was, it turned out that I am paying 5 pounds more per month (up from 20 to 25) for a service which is capped rather than the uncapped product I was on with HV, so not the same service and not the same price.

Ah, well; that's answered my question, too. Thanks....
Was also on uncapped hivelocity, but £25/month or thereabouts since I only signed up 3-4 years back, IIRC.

d.

They might, but given the cease fee that now exists this is unlikely

Total lie that it takes BT 5 to 7 days to action the Mac over to your chosen supplier - the system does not work like that.

Providers/Wholesale have access to a BT system that can generate a Mac within a minute, the sensible ones have automated this

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/i/3953.html £30,000 fine for Prodigy

I think what the poster meant was it can take Murphyx 3 days to provide the MAC and it then takes 5-7 days for the user to submit that to a chosen new ISP and the migration to be effected by BT.

That makes sense and is perfectly reasonable. The implication is that Murphyx, who have no contractual liability to the user, would disconnect them immediately on request of the MAC on the grounds that the goodwill they are showing by continuing service was not being returned.

If the user accepts the switch to Murphx and later requests a MAC that is different, as a contract between the two would then exist.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Total lie that it takes BT 5 to 7 days to action the Mac over to your chosen supplier - the system does not work like that.

I think you may have misunderstood me. The ' 5 to 7 days to action the mac' I mentioned referred to the time taken from giving the mac to your new supplier and BT actually switching your line over to the new isp, ie the time taken from the end user having the mac to the time the new isp provides internet on the line.
Every reference I can find confirms that it takes days for the switch over to take place once the mac is given to the new isp.

If, as you suggest, you know of isps who can provide instant switch over once they have a mac please tell us as that would helpful. (obviously Murphx can do it instantly but thats not using a mac)

Providers/Wholesale have access to a BT system that can generate a Mac within a minute, the sensible ones have automated this

I'm not sure how it could be automated in this instance. How would you automatically get the MAC code to the end user? They have no internet access and murphx have no email addresses for users, and users couldn't access emails even if they did.

In conversation the people at Murphx they suggested that their system for generating MACs is automated but that is set up for their wholesale customers to access a control panel/console to generate the macs. Obviously in this case that would mean HV being the ones with access to the automated system, getting the macs and passing them on.
That clearly won't work in this situation so it seems that in the short term Murphx have to manually process each request for a mac.

When I spoke to them they estimated the 'queue' for the staff dealing with manually producing macs was around three days, hence 3 days to get the mac code and a further 5 -7 days for your line to be switched to the new isp by BT.

Once you have the MAC the length of time for the migration falls outside the scope of the rules.
It is getting the MAC into the consumers hand that has to reach the five day.

The MAC is valid for 30 days from its generation.

The exception to this would be if your going to migrate to a provider that currently uses them as a wholesale provider (like us) then things would move a lot quicker, but you would still require a MAC

It seems this is what they meant, i.e. 3 days for the MAC and then the time to decide to use it and it to be actually used.

Exactly .
But they may discontinue service during that period, as some people seem to think they will be without for around 10 days.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Exactly .
But they may discontinue service during that period, as some people seem to think they will be without for around 10 days.

The service has already been discontinued. Everyone is in the walled garden and just gets a holding page.
Users then either choose to pay Murphx a monthly fee and internet access is restored in minutes or alternatively they stay in the walled garden and request a mac.

As far as I know those requesting a mac will stay without internet until the mac has been issued, given to the new ISP and BT switched the line over.

If Murphx can/do get macs to users in around 3 days then 10 days offline sounds about right to me. Of course the longer they take to generate the macs the longer the time offline.

Vivaciti makes in interesting point. If you choose a new ISP who uses Murphx as their wholesaler then downtime may be limited to just the time top generate the mac, possibly just three days, as BT won't need to do ant provisioning, presumably its just an authentication issue with Murphx themselves.

However its not very obvious who uses Murphx.

Thanks for the clarification there.

The murphx guy told me it would take them 7-10 days to produce a MAC and the 5 day rule does not apply because it is an "exceptional situation" and they are very busy with lots of HV customers! And in that time, I would have no connection until I was with a new provider.

However, the sign-up is just for a month, which gets me back on-line then I can request a MAC "in a few days" he said.

Overall, this might be a good thing for those wanting to move since it's hard to imagine that murphx can be any less responsive than HV. Even 7-10 days is much better than the months that some have reported trying to extract a MAC from HV.

There is a statement from murphx on http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2009/05/27/murphx-t...

For those accepting the murphx offer, what should we do to formally terminate with HV?

-- anon2

Well we do use Murphx for some of our corporate connections already if thats any help, although the packages through them are not listed on our web site, but if you know what you have and want, we could always look at it for you.

I also took murphx Innovative Solutions up on their offer but i have a slight problem ,when i was with hi-vilocity i had max adsl but now i only have 2 meg connection have been onto support but nothing yet surely if hi-v can give me max then surely murphx can do the same or is it not that easy ?
jim

Im on max and was moved over to the same and its actually gone up from about 290k to 370k.

I entered my address details on the Murphx page which came up when I tried to surf the web and was sent a temporary login which worked immediately so I was back online. The temporary login apparently only lasts 24 hours.

Murphx then phoned me and offered a permanent login which at £25 costs £5 per month more than Hi-V but has a 50GB cap rather than a 10 GB cap so it's not bad value (although I never used the 10GB anyway).

Murphx seem a lot more efficient than Hi-V and more attuned to customer service - this happened on a Sunday after all! The Murphx guy gave me a permanent login and mail server details over the phone which worked immediately.

There's no web space provision with Murphx but they seem to be on the ball so I'm going to stay with them and see what happens over the next few months.

Hi-Velocity provided a good connection (through Murphx) but I'm afraid that their accounts function was a disaster so I can't say I'm sad to leave.

Richard

MURPHX INNOVATIONS SOLUTIONS have just sent me my MAC

I moved to Murphx, too, when Hi-Velocity went down.

I've just moved so have cancelled with Murhpx. However they continue to take payments off my card for this. I've sent them emails and letters with no response. The payments are taken by http://www.isp-payments.com/ and emailing them has had no response either.

I've also contacted my bank to get these cancelled, but a payment still appeared to be taken this month.

Steer well clear of Murhpx is my advice.