I've been with Virgin for some time now but since they merged with NTL their broadband speeds have been appalling.

At some times of the day (afternoons and evenings) I am getting around 160kbps. Yes, kilobytes and that will inevitably drop to anything from 8kbps to around 20kbps! I'm paying the thick end of 24 quid per month for a supposed 8mb unlimited package and i find it somewhat unethical that Virgin can continue to take that amount every month but fail to deliver what I'm paying for.

Yes, i know that I can expect speeds "up to" 8mbs but this is taking the fucking piss. Virgin are kind enough to up the speed to around 2.5mbps from around one or two in the morning and it will stay that way until around 9 or 10 in the morning before easing back to the paltry amount i can get in the evenings.

I spoke to their tech department only to be patronised by some twat who's opening gambit was "you're router is probably too close to your pc" WTF? How the fuck would he know that? It's nowhere near the fucking pc. Then i get asked to run various tests which, for some unfathomable reason suggests that they are supplying far better connection speeds than they actually are.

Anyway, I've kicked the fuckers into touch and am switching over to Sky. It's a right pain in the arse because it means losing my email address and no doubt some inconvenience as a result but I'm not prepared to allow them to take the piss any longer.

Virgin, like any other ISP, are throttling users bandwidth because their infrastructure is overloaded and costly to increase but that shouldn't be our problem. Any other business in the UK would be required under the Consumer Act to ensure that their products or services were 'fit for purpose' or at least delivered what was described of them. The ISPs seem to be immune from this sort of regulation and can get away with giving their customers less than they paid for.

To put it another way, if i was to buy a packet of skins and there was only 5 in the packet I would be within my rights to demand the fucking rest of them or at least my money back!

That's my lot, rant over.

The fuckers had it coming to them anyway!

Know how you feel dude, iam with ntlvirgin but only a 2Mb line, which is crap compared to th adsl line i had through pipex, certain times of the day evenning it just crawls along, where as before i could dload, surf and listen to music online, now i dont even dare as the line will not handle it.

I used to work for many isp's, it is a waste of time taking to isp about bandwidth etc as they always have a get out clause, which is hopefully going to go as soon as the watchdog gets its way which hopefully will be soon.

You should not have to lose your lose email address. do you pay for that through virgin? i ask as i have a free email account (not with virgin) and have had no problems in collecting any email, just need to put the smtp server from what ever isp email you choose, and still collect mail using whatever broadband provider you choose.

ie if you are with virgin broadband you can collect mail from any free isp email account bar hotmail.

Virgin are crap but at the moment i have no choice.

Will be intersted to hear about sky.

SS

The email address comes with the account. I could change the smtp when I get the Sky account finalised but Virgin cancel your email once the other provider activates the MAC code so it would be pointless.

Lesson learned and one that others might want to take into account is to definitely opt for the hotmail type of email so that you don't have to go through the hassle of letting everyone know your new email addy every time you change ISPs.

Is that Virgin Broaband through there own cable system or through the BT network? Just I have been on the cable version (8mb package)for years now with not to many problems speedwise. Occasionaly have to reset the cable modem. They don't seem to limit the torrent downloads too much either, where as when I go to my girlfriends house BT Broadband seem to limit torrents upto around 11-12pm, after which it speeds up.

Virgin have implemented traffic shaping despite still advertising an 'unlimited' service. It's scandalous really and I can't believe it is legal.

http://www.sn2ts.com/

hi all

tbh i think all the companies providing broadband throttle there users bandwidth on virgin myself .before this i was with bt and l know they throttle bandwidth for sure at one point with bt we were getting a average of 234k

peppi

its all here....

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

Whats so good about sky? just curious what they're offering?

get the model of your modem lqqk it up on ebay buy it send yours back cancel broadband keep landline and bingo free tinternet theres always that road

If you've got the Virgin 'M' 4MBit cable package, for example, the way they throttle you is that if you download more than 750MB during the 'peak period' of 4pm-12am, they cut your download pipe to 2MBits, and your upload to 192KBits.



From here.

I'm just going on the recommendation of a couple of fellas at work who were on Virgin but moved to Sky because their download speeds were slow. They reckon their speeds are good and they appear to be able to download a fair volume of shit without their bandwidth being reduced. I know most ISPs throttle their subscribers bandwidth but Virgin throttle the life out of it.

Thanks to the rest of you guys for the links and info, very useful and all confirmed my suspicions that they were ripping me off. The tossers!

i just moved to the post office after being continuously fucked about by tiscali. instant hookup once the router arrived and more than double my old speed of just under a meg.
the help line answered within 5 minutes and the operators i spoke to were irish - very soothing and efficient.

So have I. Their promised connection was 5 days late, tried and tried and tried to get thru to their help desk and couldn't. They advised at start I wouldn't be getting 8Mbps but 7 was expected, I'm getting 3.6 at the moment, it'll drop to 2Mbps later, and the fastest I've had is a 6.6Mbps but only for an hour or two at ungodly times.

They're all lying thru their teeth and OfCom want to get the big sticks out
Oh, and the router is crap

The guy who I finally got thru to at 4.00 am the other morning was a well pissed off Scot. Who told me in a very unguarded moment that it was all the fault of the PO. They ran the ad campaign without extra staff and had to take people off "provisioning" and put them on sales, so I and many others couldn't be connected. What really pissed me off though was that my connection date had been changed 3 times without telling me, he only had access to the last date and was under the impression I wasn't due to be connected....the letter I have in my possession states otherwise.

As far as I'm concerned they've broken the Contract before they even started....running a massive ad campaign without the staff to back it up is not "unforeseen circumstances" it's just bloody silly!

Most ISPs have a much slower upload speed than the download speed, it's standard practise. The upload speed shouldn't affect the download speed at all in normal useage. Except perhaps if you are using torrents, but then as almost all of the material on torrent sites is stolen, you can't really blame your ISP for not helping you steal it as fast as you'd like...

I use Virgin cable broadband, works pretty well most of the time for me.

Thats what Ive done then for an added extra had my modem chipped to 20mb free 20 mg broadband simple as!

I use virgin cable broadband too and think its a pretty poor service but can't change as our bt connection box thing is in the growbox and I don't imagine it would go well asking the engineer to just slip in between the widows to get to it.
Better to be a captive audience than a captive fullstop but I'm not happy with them not happy at all.

Can it be done with AOL ?
please explain lqqk ?

i think he meant look.

Would like to know this little trick too, sounds to good to be true!

Any technician for virgin can do this I paid 30 quid.Its unoticable to them cant help anymore than that sorry 908

Is this done by re-flashing the rom inside the router/modem? A few months ago, I bought a BT fusion wireless router/modem at a car boot. It powered up OK but didn't have any drivers or software. While looking on the internet for drivers, I came across details of how the BT fusion gear could only be used by BT internet accounts, because the modem had a built BT identifier in the flash-rom. Someone had got around that by decoding the rom, changing the identifier to Linksys or something and re-flashing the rom.

Could something similar be done for upgrading the speed?

i cancelled ma tv and tinternet kept the phone on needed it , they came n got all digi box n left modem neva came for modem neva asked 4 it cancelled tinternet most def not on ma bills .By 4-tune i came accross moden bout 3mnths lata plugged it in and bbbbbbbbbingooo yep go give it a try worth it if ya done your contract out so you can cancell str8 away as long as you keep your phone eh dont 4get that ive been cut off where you only get them cunts yet tinternet still works how long all i can say is shhhhhhhhhhh dont tell any-1 ok

Its beyond me tbh. but I think its called uncapping try here http://www.theoryshare.com/component/optio...nc,select/id,1/
908

If it's the domestic version of the BT HomeHub (the white one) there are some detailed instructions on how to unlock it with generic firmware - it's in this thread - they suss out how to do it at around page 10 or so, IIRC.

Ive been with Virgin for a while and theyve been utter shite for us. Internet cuts off at least once a month for a few days, has been good lately though, touchwood. Phone line was crackly as you like for months as well. Barstewards!

crackly line might mean waters leaked into somewhere. anyone with a dodgy vm modem do not access your old vm or tw email account. other than that you should be safe.

Well, Sky have activated the MAC code and surprise surprise my speed has shot up from 50kbps to around 3mbps and I can get about the net at a reasonable speed again.

I also found out that my line to or from the exchange is only capable of giving me 3.5mbps and I reckon Virgin knew that when they offered me the 8mbps package. Thieving tossers.

My broadband account doesn't technically start until next week, or at least that's when they intend 'activating' the account, and it's interesting that they are saying that I won't get Internet access unless I use a router that they supply. I'm already getting access using my own router so I was wondering if their router somehow 'phones home' from time to time. Why insist I use theirs?


Anyway, all is looking good and fast again so the move was worth it (so far).

Finally, To the 'Tech Guy' at Virgin who kept insisting that they weren't throttling my bandwidth and that the problem was with my network I would like to say...YOU FUCKING LYING, PATRONISING, IGNORANT, SHITHEAD OF A WANKER. WHY NOT TRY REBOOTING YOUR HEAD INSTEAD YOU TWAT!

There, I've said it now.

On the bright side, anyone else remember paying 1p a minute for 14kb?
Anyone have a link for a free usage monitor thingy?
I'm curious. I think I may be in that top 5% Virgin are harping on about.
Pisses me off because I originally signed up for unlimited broadband.

Its worth pointing out you was not on virgin/ntl cable
but were in fact routed thru crappy bt lines and thats your problem
im connected by cable on 20meg i d/l@2064k ish upload is around 105k
as you can see cable is fast all isdn adsl bollox work on bt 50 year old phone lines
JS

your paying to much to virgin anyway for 8 meg ive got 20 meg and only pay 17 quid . how long you been with them cause if you been loyal customer for long time (3 years and above) you can use this to your advantage trust me ive had no end of idiots on the end os the virgin line and when you threten to cancel all services they give you some kind of treat...i can give you an a to z on fucking incompetence in he virgin tv bb buisness