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Virgin Media broadband
GENIE SAYS
Virgin Media broadband offers a choice of standalone cable broadband, or bundled with Virgin Media TV, telephone and mobile phone.
Virgn also offers a 'Broadband Extras' service with it's packages which gets you all kinds of premium entertainment - free!
If you can't get (or don't like) cable broadband, then check out Virgin Media ADSL Broadband (i.e. down a BT telephone line).
Virgin Media products
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Virgin Media reviews and ratings
Top reviews
| by joey m, 28 March 2007 | did you find this review helpful?  (241) |
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This is an absolute disgrace. Forced into using Virgin Media after years of (near) flawless service from NTL. Suddenly find that connectivity has dropped to a snails pace even if we can connect. I can't believe they're getting away with it. They've inherited a perfectly fine, well proven infra-structure for gods sake!!! Also have my suspicions that some of the previous posts may have come from Virgin Media workers! Posts extolling the virtues of the new service with a disproportionate amount of 'thumbs up' for the reviews. Don't let them infiltrate this supposedly unbiased forum! WILL DEFINITELY BE CHANGING PROVIDER & PERHAPS GET OFCOM INVOLVED.
| by Damian , Liverpool, 27 March 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (219) |
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thought it was my PC or maybe they where having a few teething problems , im a fair man and will accept that, but approx 3 months in now and on average getting about 200 - 800kb when i should in fact be getting 4mb . I pay 25 quid a month for less than 1mb , with telewest before the changeover i was getting approx 2900 to 3700mb which is fine as i dont expect to get bang on 4mb but this is pathetic , i bet there are thousands of others like us who cant be bothered calling support and getting charged a fortune for THEIR bloody problem , those Ba****ds should be calling me grovelling. I intend to ask for a refund for last 3 months if i can get that through to whichever poor unfortunate soul picks up my call in the call-centre. Finding this site with people having a blast at them has cheered me up and from what i can see , it will be waste of time sticking with Bransons interweb , just like his balloon expeditions this one is going to blow up in his face too !!!!
| by Rick M Worth, 05 August 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (66) |
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Like many I became a VM customer whilst with NTL and tho the latter's customer services (hah) were crap I did not know what was to come. I went onto a VM package which offered more for the same as my existing NTL package and this is when the fun started. BIlled a month before I cud even access the "service", charged £7 more than the package I agreed to (refund promised once, never received), VM do not answer recorded delivery letters except to acknowledge the letter, will ignore all others, do not answer emails but demand you use their customer service phone number to which I refused. If you have a dispute with them CANCEL YOUR DIRECT DEBIT and change your debit card number otherwise they will keep taking what you don't owe them, CRIMINAL ACTIVITY I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT. I offered what I felt I owed, they would not respond, and ceased my line, so having reneged on the contract they then broke it. BE WARNED GENTLE READERS, DON'T TOUCH THEM.
| by Alan, 24 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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have been with NTL for years, pretty good service - i play games online a lot. since its switched to Virgin Media, the connection isn't always there and now its been down for 2 days! - rang India, got ripped off for 25p a minute for half an hour - my 14 year old knows more about computers than he did, it ended up with me finishing the call when he said he'd tried everything and it must be my IE which was corrupted!!! straight away i plugged in an old dial up connection and IE loaded up (albeit slow!) the support staff know nothing! think i'll prob just canel the whole lot, broadband/tv/phone and swtich back to bt, maybe broadband with o2, they claim to be good for online gamers
| by virgin media SUCKS at my Halo, 24 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Uploading to xboxlive multiplayer games is slow at least 10 times slower than download speeds, which fly in 10x quicker. Why should the speeds differ so greatly. Virgin media isnt up to grade 547kbs is best for xboxlive games. The United States Gamers need a proper Kick in the rear from English Gamers. I dont have the speed so i cant compete really as our providers aint compatent to give us equating speeds. english we lag big time, if theres more than four players on a map, from where ever. you find yourself mercerlessley leached,, sheild equipment nades power weapons all useless, stop me feeling like a sucking muppet, am i wrong ? is there a way to increase upload speeds, DIY Mods lol CCXXX
| by RosedOut, 23 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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I'll try and be fair here! And I'll also tell you what I get for my money - I've found this important, comparing with others gets you a better deal. I have the V+ box, the XL tv package, Sky sports package and Sky Movies, the 4MB (soon to be 8MB) internet connection and the unlimited phone line for £52 a month. Now - my bill rarely comes to just £52 a month - any calls over 1hr will be charged, as are non home land line numbers. So I am expected to always hang up before the hour and redial! WHY? My broadband speeds seem to be ok/good. We use two laptops and an XBox360 on the internet most of the day (the xBox obviously less). However, my connection will freeze or fail up to 5 times a day and will require my IE to restart - losing all open pages. Now the biggest and most frustrating problem for me is my email. I cannot access online billing facilities or anything else with virgin's email. I have called the call centres and had less than no joy - but in fact - cont.......
| by Jon, 20 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I get 200kbps off-peak. Enough said.
| by Darren, 19 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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Had NTL for years and always had a good fast and most importantly reliable service up until about the start of the year I had pretty much the same service from Virgin then from about the end of January things have rapidly gone down hill. I've constantly been suffering from the following with streaming content, games and torrents the connection starts fine then after a short period it completely drops out then comes back, this happens a few times then it'll drop out completely yet the lights on the modem will say I'm still connected (backed up by my router still having an IP) but it won't send or recieve any data. The only way to fix this is to switch off/on the modem and wait for it to find a new IP which under NTL would take seconds but under virgin takes ATLEAST 10-15 minutes. this is an absolute disgrace. Called the tech support and got put through to india where the woman told me to reboot and turn the modem off and on. priceless advice. Moving shortly and defo won't be using VM
| by Noise, 19 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Today i turned on my computer and what happened?? I got instant terrible speeds!!! It would appear that they just like to cap people all day long and piss people off!! Usually i do get good speeds (4MB) but today im barely getting 512KB and my ping is 450ms!!! Say goodbye to youtube!! We should all pick a day this month and cancel all our direct debits and see how those fuckers enjoy the inconvienience!! AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!
| by Mcmaster, 16 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I have never seen a isp this bad. If you download 300mb they limit your download speed to 512kbs, which basically means you wont even get 10kbs download speed. What the hell kinda fair usage policy is this. AVOID VIRGIN AT ANY COST.
| by Daavviid, 15 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Virgin Media is cleverly advertising its high broadband speed while effectively the data stream (flow of data) is hampered not to permit any customer to watch movie nor play game on-line but you can check your email paying for 20MB!?!!. It is the only company that provides Internet through a CABLE (ADSL needs BT line). March 2008, they have introduced a restriction on download limits that hamper the DATA STREAM not the broadband SPEED which most of you are complaining. And to get rid of your complains about slow connection" they have increase the customer service call to 25p/m. What a clever way to make profit out of ignorance customers!
| by Reality Check, 12 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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I have to respond to the guy who was complaining that he only recieved 200k from a 4 meg line. Dude if anything your only suppose to recieve 400k tops form a 4meg line after considering the line constraints & so on. You were talking about previously recieving 3900k when NTL were in charge very unlikely, dude that would have meant that you were working with a 40meg line get real. I've got the larg package 20meg line & i recieve 2.34meg down constantly & i'm happy with the service.
| by dhl1, 11 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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Last year I was having nightmare problems with the broadband, I was signed up to their 4mb service, the simple task of opening a webpage was akin to loading a game on a spectrum 48k ! Bearing in mind this was around july/august 2007, so virgin media were up and running, in other words any decisions made were by virgin media and not ntl. I telephoned to complain and terminate the account, things had got that bad. When I called I was offered a free upgrade to 20mb for 12 months. I had a letter from them some 4 weeks ago saying that I was not paying enough for my telephone service, which is odd as I am with BT. I emailed them and told them I am not with them for phone and asked them to explain. They replied that a 1 month discount was applied to the account 2007 but this had run over. I replied that I was told 12 mnts, then they called me and the agent said the file said 6 months ! I made it clear I would not have agreed to that. The case is now with cisas. Avoid.
| by anon555, 05 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I used to be a Telewest customer and the service was briiliant just before Branson took over I jump ship to SKY BB they were offering 16mb for £10pm I Live close enough to a exchange to be getting 12mb + couldn't be happier it's cheaper more reliable while I haven't been a Virgin Media I do have many friends who are or have been Virgin Media and deserting in droves due to speeds as slow as dialup to the connection dropping 25p a minute Indian customer support centre From what I can tell they're giving bandwidth priority to new sign ups and slowing old loyal customers down one friend whose been a Telewest/Virgin media customer for 2+ years has seen his speed virtually stop since Virgin Media connected up 4 new customers in his road yet Virgin customer support say there's no problem and he must have spyware or viruses on his pc (more bull) I wiped his pc and did a clean install of windows xp still the same speeds they also like traffic shape between 4-9pm RICHARD BRANSONS THE PROBLEM
| by susieee, 02 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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i was with telewest which was fantastic for me , since i have been with virgin , im disgusted with them , poor service all round im in the middle of watch footie with my son , zapp gone , i try to get other channes ahh if im lucky tut , poor speed on intetnet ( yes i know about speeds ect ) no mainline phone saturday sunday and monday looks like i will leave i pay £ 70 a month a lot of money for nothing tut come on branson sort it out before you have no costumers tut ( sory about spellings im not happy )
| by nibbler, 31 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Why no decent email response to queries ? Customer service stinks
| by andy 1, 30 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Totally crap ! , bordering on fraud ! ! . I have their "so called" Elite 20Mbit service @ £37 mth but am luck if I get 4Mbit download speeds ! ! Terrible customer service ! , managed to give all my services to a new customer by mistake !! ,only found out when I could'nt access Web or phone . took them almost 1 week to fix ! ! - Am almost definatly going to cancel if these spivs dont buck their ideas up !. do yourselves a favour - A V O I D ! ! !
| by mr cooper, 30 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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this is my speed with virgin media Type Speed KBPS 56k modem 56 256k DSL 256 512k DSL 512 1Mb DSL/Cable 1024 2Mb DSL/Cable 2048 4Mb DSL/Cable 4096 8Mb DSL/Cable 8192 You 32 Results 816 kbits downloaded in 25.707 sec post office would be quicker suposed to have a 2048 conection and only getting 32
| by Andrew, 28 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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DON'T DO IT TO YOURSELF! Terrible ISP, they were ok before the merge but now are not worth bothering with. I have another line on BeThere and its faultless, don't use VirginMedia
| by Charles K, 26 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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I've been a Telewest/Virgin customer for just over 8 years now and I can honestly say that this is the first time I've seriously considered ditching my cable connection. The service under Telewest was generally pretty good, my connection speed was fast and on the whole reliable. Since the Virgin take over however things have rapidly gone down hill. The speed of my connection has dropped, it's supposed to be 20Mb but its now slower than when it was a 10Mb connection. And as for the new "Fair usage policy" all I can say is that it's an utter disgrace, and the ruination of what was once a good service. Whats the point of offering a 20Mb service and then limiting it's usage to a total of 3Gb of data in the 5 hours of peak time? How can that be called an "unlimited" service? And as for charging 25p per minute for their usless tech support line, that's just outrageous and a complete rip off! Unfortunately I don't have a BT line or else I'd be gone like a shot. Location: Gloucester
| by Foxy, 24 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Oh dear.. I get no internet connection in the early mornings - upto 0830am - and Virgin Media haven't a clue why. Time to move on to a more professional outfit I think.
| by ONE-WAY-SYSTEM, 21 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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first off i will be amazed if this gets posted before i get cut off, what a joke vm are, branson needs a good kick up the arse for letting this happen in the first place. ntl were great for years i was with them, so when the switchover came i spoke to virgin and they said, i will be running 6 times faster than what i was with ntl? great i was well happy! thieving, lieing, is all i have to say to that. wtf and how do these people get away with it? i shall be terminateing my account and will be more than happy to a court apearance and to see the scumbags locked up for good. i see richard branson in a new light these dayz! with a stocking over is head robbing
| by michael, 19 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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What can i say - spent all weekend on the phone to India at 25p a minute after my connection failed. Virgin blamed my router, despite the fact it's been working fine for more than two years. Had my router tested by D-Link, and they proclaimed it fine. Back to Virgin India, who claimed it was a problem with my settings. Having determined my settings were fine, the operator had no more technical know-how than an average ten year old. After asking for a reference number for the problem (he couldn't give one), i rang again to ask if they had been unbundling at the exchange. The new operator changed his tune and said yes, there are problems with broadband at the moment, but wouldn't tell me what they were or when they would be fixed. It's now day six, and i dont know what the problem is, when it's likely to be resolved or who i'm supposed to talk to about it. Steer well clear of Virgin Media - fine when running, but woe betide anyone who wants to talk to someone when it packs up.
| by Mr C, 15 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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I am an ex NTL customer who cut a discount broadband and phone 'loyalty' deal with Virgin on the anniversary of my renewal after making it clear I wasn't going to stick with them. What a mistake. I've barely been able to use my cable internet due to slow server and dropped lines in the last week - seems slower than dial up although its supposed to be 8mb. Even when its working I cant get more than 3mb. In my opinion, the company's download speed claims border on the fraudulent. Surely OFCOM should be doing something serious about this.
| by SRH, 15 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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I’ve been a VM customer now for 3 months and the initial contact with their customer support was helpful although it takes a while to get through. I have taken VM television, telephone and 20MB broadband service. I’ve had problems with the television set top box not providing television programme information about 20 % of the time, really irritating when you hope to get additional programme information. Anyway I have had the engineer out just when the set top box decided to work properly again and he informed me that this problem was common and it happens sometimes but didn’t offer any solution to it. My broadband speed should be 20MB and I’m averaging 3 – 4 MB which is way off the mark. Again after many times on the support line, oh dear what can I say, they sent an engineer out who gave me the answer that my area is being upgraded on 13th March 2008, this time has come and gone and my broadband speed, you’ve guessed it, remains at 3 – 4MB. Thanks for the bullshit Virgin Media,
| by Lewis Ferguson, 13 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Had great connection from Telewest until virgin took over... it was ok for a few months but lately it has been utter **** to say the least... After having a speed upgrade from 4Mb to 10Mb, i can download small stuff faster, e.g. an MP3 file. But when it comes to something like the PS3 Update files, it looks away at first sight... Would recommend to stay away from them!
| by Nicholas Boswell, 09 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I am new to this hole pc and broadband stuff but however only ever been with virgin I cant say a lot.But my friends on the other hand do know there stuff and are saying what am paying for is not what am getting.I pay for XL 20mb BUT ONLY GET less than 1mb.I've had them out to look at my modem,lines the lot.when the guy came around he checked my speed and it showed 23mb and on avg it was saying 18mb not bad.1 day later and back to 1mb not a happy chap at all.
| by none2, 06 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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The customer services department is utterly useless. Nobody responds to emails or reads your letters properly; and I had to cancel my direct debit, and threaten the directors of the company with service of proceedings at their home addresses, before the file was transferred (two months later) to someone intelligent, who was actually willing to make an effort to restore my telephone service. Fine if you are litigation lawyer, with a second BT line, and it costs you peanuts to make their lives miserable through the courts, if necessary (they came within two hours of that). But if you are not, choose someone else.
| by David Homfray, 04 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Virgin Media are the worst company I have ever dealt with, they are totally useless and make me bloody angry. I have the VIP package which is supposedly 20Mb and HiDef telly. The cable TV keeps cutting out and stuttering and stopping. I know the broadband download speed is slower than stated but I could send letters by post quicker. It is no point phoning and complaining because some dude in the middle of nowhere has no knowledge and no ability to change or manipulate any outcome so all it does is cost you more money. I supposed to spend a fixed amount as I pay for all sort of VIP extra's and I never use the phone but there is never a month goes by where I don't spend another £20 or so. If anybody is thinking about moving to VM don't, don't, don't
| by Mr Marks, 03 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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R.I.P NTL. After about 8PM (If im lucky) Internet struggles to even load simple web pages. Playing games online became a Definate "No No!" This has been happening on an off ever since the switch. Also, the connection speed fails to reach even 1/4 of what its expected to be. Like many others i fail to connect higher than 200kbp/s. 50kbp/s is a Decent speed for me. Not quite 2 MB? (Other people in my town have the EXACT same problem)
| by Nick Cooper, 28 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Well ive had virgin bband since oct 07 it started off so quick i was amazed,i have the XL package,it seemed to b downloading off the xbox marketplace site extremely slowly and i thought it was all down to virgin but im pretty sure its the microsoft servers being used in abundance since the mass influx of xbox subscribers in the last few months,anyway i ran a few tests on the speed and its fine and evrything is running fine so im happy anyway.Its a shame for you lot the r having problems because it seems that if you have probs with one the next provider is no better anyway.good luck trying to sort out your problems :-)
| by James Henderson, 28 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Not a great service, when I was with Telewest Broadband I had no problems, my broadband was speedy and if there was any problems or if service was slow Telewest would fix this problem almost immediately and send an e-mail of appology. However since Virgin has taken charge it has been to put it kindly pathetic, I pay for 2MB broadband which isn't really great I know but it raley runs at over 500KB, I clocked it at 249KB the other day. I have considred upgrading to 8MB broadband and then perhaps there will be a chance my broadband will run at 2MB ? Anyway I have had very poor service from Virgin and I would not recommend them to my worst enemy so if you are considering joining I advise you not to.
| by Peter, 28 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Virgin Media are a bunch of robbers, my internet keep dropping out, its slow, and the customer service shocking, I've already cancelled the TV, and they are still charging me for it!!! I'll be cancelling the lot shortly, but who can I use instead??
| by Foreigner, 27 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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what do u think about upload speed? my mate sent me some mp3 file trough skype from abroad yesterday and the speed was about 200kBps and today was sending it to other friend who lives here in peterborough. the speed was no more than 12 kBps :(
| by James, 22 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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I have been with Virgin for over 6 months now and its been great. There has been some down time but you get that with any provider, and its normanly fixed within 2 hours or less. I have been with 4 other providers in the past and Virgin has been the best.. Oh and by the way, i dont work for virgin..
| by Stuart Bates, 22 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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I signed up to the 4mb service, after a month was dismayed at the average 200kbps download speed I was getting so called to complain, they told me I was on 2mb service, so told them to change me to what I originally asked for 4mb, they did that, now my download speeds are an average 300kbps !?!?!?!?! I was getting over 1400kbps on my old copper cable from Plus net, I am now on fiber optic so the distance from the exchange and the contention ratio should have little effect, my router is the same make, my pc has been formated and set up afresh so why the low speeds!!! VIRGIN MEDIA ARE A FRAUDULENT CON OF A COMPANY AND WHEN MY CONTRACT EXPIRES IM MOVING BACK TO STANDARD COPPER WIRE - THERE SHOULD BE A LAW STATING THE AVERAGE KBPS YOU SHOULD EXPECT FROM A PROVIDER ON ANY SPECIFIC PACKAGE! VIRGIN MEDIA ARE RIPOFF MERCHANTS!!!!!
| by The Ross's, 21 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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Crap... Migrated into a crap service immediately it migrated to Virgin Media.
| by Meenakshi, 17 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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oh well u cannot say anything about a service till u dont understand the type of connection that u have and the kind of speed calculation u r doing.800KB means 6Mega bits and downloads are always calculated in bytes may it be kilo bytes or mega bytes and the broadband speeds that u people have is megabits.And u are talking about people in india,Here a kid going to school would know how internet works and there in uk i have to explain an IT engineer what is a dynamic IP address.Indians too find it difficult to understand u people but they try and they are polite even if u say OH BLOODY INDIA.
| by DARREN, 17 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Since becoming virgin media from blueyonder i changed to BT and although they state up to 8Mb i am recieving 0.5Mb where i live!!! They dont tell you this of course when they are taking the order. Used to get 3.6Mb with virgin but when playing online games the ping used to jump from 20 - 450 during gameplay which was unusable. On a good note although i only have a 1/2 Meg connection with BT the ping rate is constant at 50. So it is okay for what i need. Virgin Media are rubbish and shouls be avoided at all costs. their after sales is atrocious and after they have attempted to accuse you of having virus or spyware problems they will still do nothing.
| by ians, 15 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I think Virgin Media Stinks to high heaven. I have had more out's ie. cannot get on line, phoning the hot line.( JOKE ) Is as frustrating as trying to get blood from a stone. First they make you dial this number, then press this then that then enter your phone number then press this option then another option, finally you get a recorded message telling you a load of old rubbish. Or you can phone a technician, for 10p connection charge and 25p per minute. I'm charged £35 per month for a package they are still advertising for £30 per month. Speeds of 2mb in this day and age are very slow. They said they were going to up grade the service. Two years on and we are still waiting. The price goes up and the service decreases. DON'T USE VIRGIN AS YOUR INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER UNLESS YOU WANT SLOW UNRELIABLE INTERNET. I intend to find another provider. Ians.
| by handy hints 2, 13 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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sure wat to do contact your local cib or solicitor. and that apllies to ALL isp's not just virgin hope this helps you guys all the best tom
| by handy hints, 13 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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ok guys some things 2 help you, if they say u get 4meg u got to have that otherwise offcom will come down on them, secondly if they are going to cap the service they have to write and give u 28 days notice (read the small print on your contract) also there are uk call centres for vm if u phone and u get through to india u can request that u speak to a uk advisor (dont worry about it if u think its racist because it isnt, if you simply want to speak to a uk advisor that you feel you would get a better service from them you ARE entitled to ask they should also give you a direct number for the uk call centres, be calm but firm with the advisor) also when you phone ask them to record the call as your complaint is going to offcom aswell and you want verbal conformation aswell as written. the bad news is guys vm have the right to charge you the money for the sevices weather you use them or not. and they could bring a ccj against you if you dont pay the bill. but if your are NOT
| by nathan, 13 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I hate vm, ive had no end of problems with my billing, phone, tele, and broadband, AVOID AT ALL COST when i phoned vm coz of a problem with my bill i spoke to someone in india, i couldnt understand a bloody word the advisor was saying in the end i put the phone down, my contract is due to run out and guess what??? they renewed it without my authority, i payed late once or twice thru thier fault because they didnt put a pay by date on the bill i got a late payment fee, then when i payed the bill i payed approx £40 over the bill amount but yes u guessed it they ripped me off be cause i DOWNGRADED my phone package they charged me a partial months charge in advance and a whole month charge in advance respectivley, therefore wiping out the £40 i paid over, i pity anybody thinking of going with vm, dont go there find someone else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
| by Virgin, Axe merchants, 09 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I was a happy Blueyonder customer from 2003. The customer service was patchy but my connection solid. I was steadily upgraded until reaching the 4Mb service. Since Virgin took over it has been awful. The last 4 months a joke Every day this week I have speed checked my connection in the evening. Before virgin I got 450KB+ down load speeds all the time. For the past 7 days my average has been 100Kb. Calling it 4Mb is misleading at best fraud at worst. How can they take a perfectly good service and screw it up so much is beyond me. Like other I find my connection capped whether I reach the download limit or not. And 700MB on a 450KB connection comes along very quickly. Want use the BBC I player ? forget. Want to play games with out lag, forget it. And I am paying £25 pound a month for an unlimited 4Mb I am voting with my feet and leaving. Don't believe the Hype the service is terrible and they have lost another Telewest/NTL/Blueyonder user.
| by bushwacka, 08 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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virgin media is crap...like any other virgin product,by the way.... Virgin Media does not care about their customers , just cares about the money... And you cant even pay cash!!!!!!! They charge you 5£. I dont anderstand why cash is worth less than cards ? Cash is cash...If i pay on time(and by the way a month in advance ie i have not use the service yet) why beeing charged for using good old paper notes in the shop????? Anyway, virgin media is ****>>>>>>>>.!!!!!!!!!!!
| by nothere, 07 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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better hurry... my connection's going to drop in a minu...
| by James, 05 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Like Weed below, I am only getting 25% of my correct download speed for several hours each night. I'm having to start downloading my files from midnight onwards to allow me to download at my correct speed, as i've bought a 3 month Rapidshare account, so need to make use of the downloading, however i'm being unfairly restricted by VM. This is completely unacceptable, i'm having to lose sleep to stay awake to download the files I want at inappropriate hours. Paying £25 a month, plus all the money towards the Sky Sports cable package, for a **** service.
| by Weed, 05 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Yep, Virgin Media are crap. AVOID! Unfortunately I'm too far from my local BT exchange to be able to get fast broadband over a BT line, so i'm stuck with these greedy incompetents. I was with Telewest for 5 years, who were fine, but after getting taken over by Virgin Media, technical support is now on a premium line number, their performance is lowest of all the major service providers, and worst of all I get cut back to 25% of the advertised download and upload speeds for 5 hours every night -- this seems to happen as soon as my upload speed goes over 256Kb (I'm paying an extra 10 quid a month for a measley extra 128Kb upload which i really need). THERE ARE BETTER SUPPLIERS OUT THERE. IF YOU HAVE THE CHOICE, USE IT!
| by Paul S, 05 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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James K below is wrong. 20Mb (Megabit) broadband should provide 20/8 = 2.5 MB (MegaByte) speed. 8 bits to the byte remember. So in kilobits I should expect 20000Kb (Kilobit) or 2500 KB (Kilobyte). I have 20Mb package from Virgin and get 15-18 during the day but in the evening it's down to 2-4Mb which is appaling. I'm not happy as under NTL I got damn near the advertised speed all the time. It's rubbish so complain.
| by T white, 05 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Virgin Media are a disgrace and run a service nothing short of being fraudulent. I am on the 20mb package and get capped everynight when i dont even use anywhere near what i am supposed to be using to be capped. All the garbage and rubbish virgin media spout about it only effects large downloaders is utter bull. They are capping everyone and we are all paying for it. NTL 10 meg an absolutely awesome service, one phone call in 8 years, virgin media about 30 calls since christmas alone, and almost everytime a guy in india who reads from a script on his screen who cant do anything or fix anything other than reboot your modem, or theres a problem with your modem we will send an engineer, and all the time it is virgin capping everybody. All you people that are concerned you have to stay with virgin for the yearly contract, check your rights, you are entitled to cancel the service at anytime, as virgin media have broken their contract by not providing you with an adequate service.
| by Since taking over NTL it's gone to Hell!, 03 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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My now 2MB Virgin Media Broadband connection is still lacklustre! I had 10MB with NTL no problems, within a couple of months of Virgin taking over it's abysmal - getting 3MB max at any time of day! They give me the 'up to 10MB' bullsh**, no point arguing as the helpdesk had a limited vocabulary and couldn't give two-*****s if my broadband was slow or not. I downgrade to 4MB. I get the same speeds as I got paying the so called '10MB'. A few months later I'm struggling to get 2MB, averaging around 1.1!!! Now downgraded to the 'basic' 2MB not because I want to but Virgin will not provide any help or support, just standard customer service lies. I am paying for the 2MB service as even if I pay more I get NO increase in my download speeds! Virgin Media can go ************! I'm moving house soon and will NEVER be using any of there services again. NTL was spot on and other than a few minor outages it was always fast and reliable! Branson touches it and it goes to ****!
| by james k ,, 03 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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IS EVERYBODY STUPID? i am not defending virgin media in anyway, i have had way too many problems with their tv service and the useless customer care, the stupid foreigners that cant speak english who answer the phone etc BUT everyone seems to be confused...... if you have 4 meg broadband which is 4000kb you should expect to get 400kb download speeds not 4000 4meg = 4000kb.........expect to get 400kb download speeds 20meg = 20,000kb.........expect to get 2000kb download speeds what ever broadband service you get, expect to get 10 times less download speed than stated THIS IS WITH ANY SERVICE PROVIDER YES ANY PROVIDER NOT JUST VIRGIN MEDIA the benefit of virgin media is that it is cable and the speeds dont slow down as much as adsl(bt, sky) when lots of users are using the service and also the service isnt affected by how far away you live from the telephone exchange. even that said, i have never had problems with a company before, but virgin media take the p**s BIG TIME!
| by John Sparton, 02 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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My experience is something completly different. I ordered the Medium Size (4mb) service online when they were offering it for £17 per month and a £10 online discount. I got the installation, which I really didn't need, but they came over, sorted it out and it took less than 10 minutes. After that, setting it up was pretty easy, using the CD and manual with the information you need. I have two things to say; One- We had some trouble with the billing department when they try to charge us the full £25 for the service, and also try to get away with not paying us our discount. One phone call to somewhere not in this country sorted it out though. Two- I don't have any problems with slow downloads or disconnections. Most of the time, I get more than 4mbs, and this will only occassionally slow down during peak hours. I pay for 4mb, which is what I get- I can't say the same thing about many other ISP's *Sky* Overall, I would definitly recommended it, I'm glad I went cable instead of DSl.
| by unhappy handbag, 01 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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Awful awful awful! Virgin Media = AWFUL ( I really can't say that word enough when it comes to VM) rotten Customer Service, chap seemed completely disinterested and bored, the internet speed is SHOCKING and I still don't know what I'm paying for TV wise....will be changing providers at the first opportunity.
| by Cat, 25 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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For the past few months we have been getting randomly disconnected. I found out it is due to Virgin's DNS servers being overloaded with customers, so they have been doing things on the cheap and piling everyone on to the same server - of course it's going to go down! Are they masochists? Do they WANT everyone to leave them? At 10pm every night WITHOUT FAIL we lose our service completely until some time during the afternoon the next day. Throughout the day, it will disconnect and reconnect within a few minutes, but way too often for it to be not annoying. Wtf are they on?
| by C.SERIOUSLY, 23 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (5) |
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VIRGIN MEDIA ABSOLUTE WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY ! WILL BE CHANGING SUPPLIER AS SOON AS THEY HAVE TAKEN 1 YEAR CONTRACT SUBSCRIPTION AVOID AT ALL COSTS LITERALLY !!! AND DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT GETTING IN TOUCH WITH THEM WITH PROBLEMS PHONING WRITING NOTHING WORKS JUST BANG YOUR HEAD AGAINST A WALL NO RESPONSE NO HELP WHATSOEVER I AGREE WITH OTHERS THE GOOD REPORTS ARE FROM VM INSIDERS DONT SAY I DIDNT WARN YOU !!!!!!
| by Nick, 23 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I have been with VM since the inception of their broadband back in NTL days. I started on the 600k package and have been automatically upgraded through time to 4mb package. This gives me a healthy 450-500k download (Max theory is 512K). I do wonder if people understand the speed system? Most people dont. People might want to check their speeds correctly before ringing. I play regularly on xbox live and suffer no connection problems, other than xmas 2007 xbox live problems, but thats a different story. Like I said, been with VM for many years now (Originally NTL) and never had anything but a seamless service. Admittedly customer service was quite slow, but I have only contacted them twice in just under 8 years that I have used them.
| by Andrei, 21 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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There is nothingt o add except that STAY AWAY from Virgin Media. I was with Ntl since the Net wasn't even out:) I joined their dial up then bb, always fast stable no lag whatsoever.... very very good... until Virgi took over. How can someone take a perfect infrastructure and destroy it beyong my understanding. I was promised a fix 3 months ago, still nothing, I have 100's of screenshot from 1 year go, only thing I can do now is contact OFCOM and see what they can do about it. I pay £37 for less then 3Mb, this is a joke. I worked fro Bulldog was one of their NOC engineers... so I do know my stuff, what Virgin does has nothing to do with line or the user, it is their stupidity and management software. Stay away from Virgin!!!!!!!
| by To answer Bear, 21 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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You do realise 485kb's is actually less then 0.5Mb yeah less then half a meg mate, when I am paying £37 a month for a 20Mb connection... YES 20Mb which means 20480kb/s well of course I am moaning. What if you went to buy a nice new Ferrari and after you paid they give you a Mini Cooper and told you that's the Ferrari??? How would you feel about it???
| by Bear, 21 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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I don't work for VM, was desperately unhappy with NTL and was considering moving. I now get regular 485 kb/s downloads and my bill has reduced to £31 per month for broadband, line rental, all my calls and 120 channels of TV. I can't see what the problem is or why so many are moaning here. Just a thought - are you blaming your software's problems on VM?
| by parker1234uk, 21 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (5) |
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VM are complete and utter rubbish, I have been with them since their dial up service and up until Virgin took them over, they had been fantastic. Since moving house and and signing up to their adsl service it is unusable. Online speed tests show after 5pm im connecting at 0.3mb, however before work at about 8am I can connect at almost 7mb. After a number of emails and calls to india, my phone line, pc and or distance to the exchange is faulty after 5pm ? go figure :) Only 9 months until I can switch providors. Lucky my neighbour happens to be a good friend and has set me up on his wireless, he's on bethere broadband and i can connect at 15mb with downloads at 1.5mb a sec. Happy days.. almost
| by mahut, 21 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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As Telewest the service ahd improved recently and I hadn't rebooted the modem or called support for a long time. Since Xmas the connection has been appalling, often completely unobtainable in the evening but also at other times too. Download speeds are sometimes as low as 5 kbps compared to around 180 normally. No response to email and I too have no intention of paying to call them. Will write next but don't expect a good response. The 4mb service is one of the most expensive available and I only stick with it to avoid using a copper wire service so am in a monoply situation. Phone service too is poor and TV packages are inflexible. Will probably up sticks and move lock stock and barrel to Sky eventually.
| by BobTheWidget, 21 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (5) |
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The speeds are ok, except for a week when my 20Mb connection was donloading at 5Kbps. Usually download at about 1.9Mbps which i am happy with. Connection is reliable but i found it was better as telewest. Never had a problem at all in 2 years with telewest but have had 3 since it became virgin. The main problem is now they DO NOT offer free telephone support. This is a disgrace!!! I am paying £35 a month for broadband and if it fails i have to ring a premuim rate number. I never require technical support as i am very IT literate but if the line is not working this is way beyond my control. Very unhappy about this!!!
| by Nigel J, 21 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Yes the overall consensus is correct, "what a pile of garbage" Why can't we get it handed back to ntl, it was a wonderful service before VM got their very incapable hands on it, they are making a fortune out of us and without a mask. How do they get away with advertising fast service, Is someone getting a back hander?. Truth is there is slow, slower, creeping then VM "what a set of *******.
| by silver, 20 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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20MB Broadband... Rubbish. In reality, the max. download speed I have ever received on my XL a/c is 5.2MB, with upload speeds that are astonishingly low. The past week, my speed has dropped to a fraction over 1MB between the hours of 8pm - 11pm, with no problems being reported on the connection helpline. This started out as a sudden drop in speed on the odd night, now and again - but now that this has happened for 7 nights on the trot, I suspect bandwidth capping is the actual problem. If you're thinking of using VMedia, don't be fooled by the cleverly worded phrase "up to 20MB", as you won't get close to that speed. What you'll actually get is between 4 - 4.6MB with the odd peak close to 5MB, and a drop in the evenings to as little as 1.4MB or less... that's my current experience in S. Wales - be warned! Branson - stop playing with Northern Rock and look at your Internet company, and invest money in server upgrades if there's a need for capping to maintain bandwidth.
| by mike.d13, 19 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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ok i think virgin media is rubbish i dont care what you rate this just read ... i have been with virgin media for 6 months now one wired computer alot of problem with that one wireless computer many problems cant view videos on youtube at times cause its to slow ( and the wired computer is not on at that time ) have a ps3 and with virgin broadband ha playing fifa 08 online be a pro mode what happenes cuts out says it loses connetion but the signal strengh is at 80 to 85 % ( any answers on what i can do please email me at michael.d13@hotmail.com )
| by SpamBot, 19 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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HAD to upgrade from 512 to 20k because I am working from home on an online application: made next-to-no difference so far. Marginally faster page loads but definately not instantaneous! Connection drops and I suspect we get capped: even after only being online for 5 mins! RUBBISH! I don't want to have to change, but they said that at the end of the month they are improving their 'nodes'. If I don't see an improvement then I'm changing to Be
| by internet virgin, 17 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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i had a BT Internet and phone, sky tv, before i went with virgin media now the on-line package deal looked very good and happily it is i went for the 3 for £30, TV size XL, broadband 2mg, phone. i also ordered a extra set top box(£10) to be installed as well with all the discounts available for singing on on-line the first bill came in at £85 first month in advance and second bill £43. installation came round very fast with-in a week and the work was completed with little disruption to my self took about an hour as for the service i have had no problems as such but if you phone for a problem to be sorted it can be a lengthy call. as for value for money go for it well worth it, sky and virgin have fell out and so dont look for sky one with virgin!
| by Tom Lewisohn, 13 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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I too am appalled with Virgin Media's services. NTL were running a fine service and my connection speed was reliable - fairly near the speed promised. Ever since the takeover my connection speeds (supposed to be 2mbps) have severely plummeted. Though online tests suggest I can just about achieve 200kbps download speeds, in reality files typically download at about 10kbps - slower than age old dial-up. It is infuriating when trying to browse a number of web pages at once due to the waiting time. If I want to download other content on top of this, connection speeds further hit trouble. Contacting Virgin Media about my problem would be good, but they now charge an extortionate price to phone them and I expect hold times are long too (though I cannot confirm this, this is purely speculation). I would not recommend this ISP for anyone.
| by Been great., 12 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I was with Telewest, then the NTL and over to Virgin when they took over. There's usually always a connection and I find the speed great even with 4 computers running off it. Location: Gloucester
| by Spike001, 12 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Like many others I used to receive a good reliable service. I began to play on line games on a 512 connection and this was okay. Upgraded to 2mb and again this worked well with CSS and pings 200. Spoke to technical support at 25ppm and the reverted me to 2mb connection and I was back to 20-30 ping which was great. Then it all went wrong on 10th December 07 when my ping jumped to 4/500 and really bad lag even if when my ping went down to double figures. To date, after many unanswered emails and several phone calls to customer services and reluctantly to technical support, I still am unable to effectively play on line games such as CSS and COD4. I donte see why should call technical support at 25ppm when virgin created the problem with their supposed "Improvements" They have screwed up big time.
| by Howard44, 09 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Used to get good broadband speeds from NTL. Virgin are now capping speeds - I pay for 4Mb and am being capped to less than 1Mb. This is unethical and a rip-off. Super-fast We page refresh is not the main advantage of high speed broadband - it is downloads, radio, tv and video streaming. DO NOT USE VIRGIN MEDIA. I have Virgin Media TV,Phone and Broadband package - I will be reinstalling BT telephone and looking at all other broadband providers.
| by Alastair W, 08 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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Virgin Media customer service is appalling! When they disconnect servces that are paid for in advance due to what they call technical faults they charge extra on other services because they are no longer eligible for package discounts, this where they were not asked to disconnect a service they just failed to provide what was paid for but they take money from the customer to cover their own mistakes. DO NOT USE VIRGIN MEDIA. Please note, if the above appears in any way libellous it isn't, it is based entirely on fact and my terrible experience at the hands of this terrible company. If Virgin Media think this is libellous I invite them to take legal action, my name is on their database, they are the ones in breach of contract.
| by RTA, 06 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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I too have been with Virgin ever since they started their internet service. 56k dialup - fantastic. A couple of years ago switched to 1Mb Broadband service - Fantastic. Switched to 2Mb service - Fantastic. Switched to 8Mb ADSLMax service - Fantastic. Then, late in 2006, my line speeds started dropping from the 6.5Mb I had been getting down to less than 56k dial-up speed. As if by magic, at midnight speeds returned to 6.5Mb. After 10 years, I made my 1st ever complaint to them. I supplied them line speed tests and was emailed asking for line speed tests. By my connection achieving 6.5Mb after midnight, it proved my settings were OK but was told it was my PC. Finally got 3 months payments refunded & the promise that they were improving things as fast as possible. A whole year later - 4k[!] connection & had to DIAL in to check for problems - 'none reported'. Enough is enough, I'm off. Three years ago I was recommending them to everyone. My sad advice now is to avoid like the plague.
| by Sceptic, 05 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? | |