Virgin Media - Crap/Not Crap

[UnderOpenSky]

So I've recently moved somewhere that is built up enough to have fast Internet. Till recently I've been living in a village where you struggle to stream YouTube at SD, so it's all quite exciting.

Virgin do 100mbs for £37.50 which seems to be put them in the lead for price vs speed. Quite a lot of money, but I'll be able to dump the seedbox and I'm not planning on getting another contract phone, so think it's doable.

Whose with them and what are your experiences? Any chance of getting a better deal or do offers only appear if your getting their TV and phone as well?

 

[souljacker]

I'd hold on to the seedbox if I were you. They block a load of torrent sites and will send threatening letters if they think you've downloaded something dodgy.

 

[Thimble Queen]

Their customer service is fucking appalling.

 

[Idaho]

Good when it works. Customer service used to be dreadful, but has improved to "poor".

 

[oneflewover]

My connection has been rock solid for a couple of years - fast as. So fortunately never needed customer service.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I'd hold on to the seedbox if I were you. They block a load of torrent sites and will send threatening letters if they think you've downloaded something dodgy.

I kinda assumed I'd need a VPN whoever I went with.

Thing is my seedbox is only 100gb and I'm loathed to pay more considering how much I actually end up loading. It's just a pain that certain torrent sites I use make it hard to maintain ratio unless you have loads of stuff seeding.

 

[Supine]

Virgin Media can fucking do one.

I had their service for six years, when I closed the account they insisted I pay for six months of additional service and they took the money out of my account for it. Wankers.

The reason for this was I had arranged to have more channels added to my package so they had put me on a new contract. This reset their contract length. I complained and the person on the phone was rather unfriendly and unsympathetic. I will NEVER USE THEM AGAIN the robbing bastards.

 

[oneflewover]

May be have a look at newsgroups, i'm a serial d/l and have never had problems - use a VPN to hide.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

May be have a look at newsgroups, i'm a serial d/l and have never had problems - use a VPN to hide.

Is the variety there and archived well? I tend to use private trackers for things that are hard to find elsewhere.

It's not a big issue, I manage with a 100k, but not running out of space would make things easier.

Does your VPN allow you to download as quickly as if it wasn't on? I use Surf Easy at the moment, but it's due for renewal soon and spend wasn't a priority when I picked them.

 

[dervish]

I'd hold on to the seedbox if I were you. They block a load of torrent sites and will send threatening letters if they think you've downloaded something dodgy.

They do, but it's not exactly effective. All you need to do is use the https version of the site.

eg

www.thepiratebay.se doesn't work but
https://www.thepiratebay.se does

This is true for any other torrent site that has a https version.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

Their customer service is fucking appalling.

Not as bad as BT's. been trying to get my mums and brothers internet fixed for the past 4 weeks now, they never ever seem to answer. luckily they've got it fixed now so that's that.

 

[Fez909]

They do, but it's not exactly effective. All you need to do is use the https version of the site.

eg

www.thepiratebay.se doesn't work but
https://www.thepiratebay.se does

This is true for any other torrent site that has a https version.

Wow. Never realised this. Cheers

 

[trabuquera]

The prices and the tech are mostly fine (good offers on Tivo, broadband is fast with only occasional wobbles in London Sw9) but the customer service / interface / interaction really is terrible . It took them more than a decade to get my name right on the bills, despite dozens of requests (both written and phoned in ) for instance. Which means I'm still overpaying them for the privilege of NOT giving them direct-debit rights to my account - never trusted them enough not to end up debiting 6 beeelion dollars 'in error'.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

Although if you're getting your internet changed over - say a new contract, the bastards tend not to stick to their appointed times.

I spent 2 days sitting in front of the door waiting for them to turn up. They didn't, and one friday night in the late hours they cut the net completely unannounced. I'd fallen asleep by then and by the time I could ask my housemate over the phone who'd gone to liverpool for the election results they delivered the router to my neighbour (the joy of not having a working doorbell!) and we had to ring them up a few times for them to tell us that the firmware was out of date - should have thought of that myself although the router's IP address and admin details weren't accessible to me.

 

[souljacker]

They do, but it's not exactly effective. All you need to do is use the https version of the site.

eg

www.thepiratebay.se doesn't work but
https://www.thepiratebay.se does

This is true for any other torrent site that has a https version.

Or, if you use torrentday, you'll find that torrentday.com doesn't work but tdonline.org does.

 

[tommers]

They did upgrade me to 150MB for nothing, which was nice. And not had any problems with it going down.

All good so far.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

That does sound nice. How much do you pay for 150mbs?

 

[bemused]

I've been with Virgin for a few years, recently I phoned them moaning about the price of my deal and the chap said I was in the top 5% for usage - they still give me a nice discount. Like most of these companies they are fine until you have to speak to them.

Oh and the router is awful.

 

[bemused]

They do, but it's not exactly effective.

They block the sites the courts tell them to. So I don't think they actually care that much.

 

[neonwilderness]

Like most of these companies they are fine until you have to speak to them.

Oh and the router is awful.

This. Their product is good if you can get fibre, but their service is shite.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I've been with Virgin for a few years, recently I phoned them moaning about the price of my deal and the chap said I was in the top 5% for usage - they still give me a nice discount. Like most of these companies they are fine until you have to speak to them.

Oh and the router is awful.

Can you use a different router? If not is it worth using a seperate switch if you are planning on running a network?

 

[bemused]

Can you use a different router? If not is it worth using a seperate switch if you are planning on running a network?

Yeah, you can switch it into modem only mode then plug a wireless router in the back if. I've got an R7000 it works fine.

 

[Virtual Blue]

VM raise their prices quite a bit.
Their broadband is great when it works but everything else shit (their TV is the pits, utter pants).

 

[tommers]

That does sound nice. How much do you pay for 150mbs?

I think it's about 43 quid including a telephone line (haha) and weekend calls or something. I had a deal for the first six months where that was cheaper but it's run out.

I didn't bother with sports or TV or anything. Can get all that elsewhere.

 

[oryx]

I will NEVER USE THEM AGAIN the robbing bastards.

Same here - I had them at my old address (not by choice but they took over my old ISP, NTL) and made absolutely sure I told them the date I was moving.

I got mail forwarded, and received a letter not from them, but from a fucking debt recovery firm! They hadn't cancelled my service although my direct debit was cancelled.

I got cut off when being transferred in their call centre.

I sent them a massive complaint letter and when I phoned the debt recovery company (who were surprisingly helpful compared to Virgin!) they confirmed the 'debt' and any action had been cancelled. I never got a reply to my complaint, even just to confirm this.

Absolutely appalling customer service.

 

[oneflewover]

Is the variety there and archived well? I tend to use private trackers for things that are hard to find elsewhere.

It's not a big issue, I manage with a 100k, but not running out of space would make things easier.

Does your VPN allow you to download as quickly as if it wasn't on? I use Surf Easy at the moment, but it's due for renewal soon and spend wasn't a priority when I picked them.

Going through a VPN, I'll loose about 30% speed even when I pick fastest server. There are very few times I can't get what I want, but I'm mostly TV with a few films.

 

[Ming]

Don't know what they're like these days but i used them for a couple of years back i the mid 2000's. I was doing a lot of torrenting and they throttled my downloads. Didn't tell me. I called technical support (on a premium rate line) and they fucking lied to me repeatedly until one bloke (i presume by accident) told me the truth. I've never used a Virgin product or service since (with the exception of the train between Liverpool and London because that's a monopoly).

 

[gentlegreen]

Yeah, you can switch it into modem only mode then plug a wireless router in the back if. I've got an R7000 it works fine.

I don't know why the Virgin router is so crap - I can see the signal out into the street but my phone struggles to reliably stream Youtube videos...

What I currently do is use my old router as a WIFI repeater - my original plan was to keep it in the bathroom and only switch it on for garden access in the summer. It works fine for everything except airdroid because it's on the wrong subnet - so for that I have to connect to the Virgin WIFI.

As for the rest, my broadband service has always been bomb-proof.
I don't know how the TV compares as I've never watched sport or films and in fact I've now stopped watching broadcast TV altogether.

 

[bemused]

VM raise their prices quite a bit.
Their broadband is great when it works but everything else shit (their TV is the pits, utter pants).

If you ring them up and moan once you're out of contract they lower their prices. Last time they cut my price by £30 and upgraded my speeds.

 

[dervish]

They block the sites the courts tell them to. So I don't think they actually care that much.

No, they don't that much, the reason https works is that the site is blocked by checking the headers which are encrypted in a secure connection, they could dns block as well but they don't seem to have bothered yet. (although obviously you could go to the ip address in that case)