recently I changed from Plusnet [ basically BT with customer services that speak english] to Virgin Media.

what a 

they had spent ages digging up the verges and footpaths to 'provide fibre to your home', and as Plusnet [ who I paid for fibre but got copper wire vie BT for the last mile or so, so no real improvement] were not interested in trying to give me a reliable service, I decided  to change to Virgin. in theory got TV as well, none of the recent pixelated  that we've been enduring for months, and for less per month, fibre to the house, 100mb download speed [ ] and then reality set in.

connection interrupted ...

speed test - download 19.xx mb

whole lot off line due to 'upgrade of network'  they've only just put in the network, for heavens sake.....

call to customer services, and guess what, a  computer that doesn't listen to what you say ...

finally told me it needed to reset something or other [ by now well through the bottle of Scottish water, and losing the will to live ]

worked for a couple of days, then repeat last again.....

and again .....

finally, and don't ask me how, I spoke to a human ' nothing wrong with our system, your computer can't handle our download speeds ' yeah right, only got it last year for heavens sake ...

back to the phone computer ... 'if you are thinking of leaving us select option x '

crap music ...

more music ....

finally answered, and told I would have to pay an early disconnection fee to terminate my contract, explained, for about the third time, the problem with their system, but totally NAAFI [ ex squaddies will know what that means] so I am stuck with them for the next 12 months.

mind you, SWMBO can watch the TV which lets me get on with important things.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I've got all the  I need with Freeview so am happy to remain a Luddite. During the MotoGP season I just pay £6 a month for  four channels of BT Sports.

Not totally related to the topic Alan but a somewhat interesting insight into the way things  go on these days.

One quiet day a Kelly Communications van arrives at our yard and introduces himself and gives us 58 pages of paperwork stating that they are upgrading the BT overhead lines to enable super fast broadband to rural areas and as such would spend 8 days working in our fields and driveway with land rover mounted cherry pickers.

Oh and here's the sweetener they will compensate us for the damage to the fields! (Still not recieved)

As it turns out Kelly Communications are paid by BT Openreach per mile of cable upgraded. So the 6 mile that come across our fields to our offices have been upgraded and ready to receive BT super fast broadband as soon as we pay for the privilege.

Come round behind our offices and we have 7 telegraph poles that run down one of our driveways to our house and then across to our home before returning back to the line of telegraph poles through 3 more down our drive taking that to another mile long section, after pole 10 we have NO connection to the BT network because there are no other houses near by yet Kelly have been paid to upgrade this 7 miles of cable for no reason.

On our last telegraph pole we now have a coil of upgraded cable, probably a spare mile on there just for good measure zip tied to the top foot rest on the pole.

No logic behind it but obviously nice work if you can get it

sounds like a government initiative 

We did wonder if it was BUT

1, It started on time
2, it was completed in the 8 day timeframe
3, it didn't run 60000% over budget
4, the same contractor remained on the job the whole way through
5, At some point it might become useful

So after considering all of them we realised it couldn't of been

 

Been with Virgin for at least 10 years and they put our monthly bill up from £34 to £48, for what extra am I getting?. I only have broadband and landline. The reliability has been good . We spoke to a customer service agent who told us your getting a discount at that price £48 and there is nothing they could do to help.
After threatening to leave their service, another agent told us we can have the same package for £37 for 6 months and then renew if the package is still available. 

Quote from: class37025 on August 15, 2019, 09:09:31 PM
recently I changed from Plusnet [ basically BT with customer services that speak english] to Virgin Media.

what a 

they had spent ages digging up the verges and footpaths to 'provide fibre to your home', and as Plusnet [ who I paid for fibre but got copper wire vie BT for the last mile or so, so no real improvement] were not interested in trying to give me a reliable service, I decided  to change to Virgin. in theory got TV as well, none of the recent pixelated  that we've been enduring for months, and for less per month, fibre to the house, 100mb download speed [ ] and then reality set in.

connection interrupted ...

speed test - download 19.xx mb

whole lot off line due to 'upgrade of network'  they've only just put in the network, for heavens sake.....

call to customer services, and guess what, a  computer that doesn't listen to what you say ...

finally told me it needed to reset something or other [ by now well through the bottle of Scottish water, and losing the will to live ]

worked for a couple of days, then repeat last again.....

and again .....

finally, and don't ask me how, I spoke to a human ' nothing wrong with our system, your computer can't handle our download speeds ' yeah right, only got it last year for heavens sake ...

back to the phone computer ... 'if you are thinking of leaving us select option x '

crap music ...

more music ....

finally answered, and told I would have to pay an early disconnection fee to terminate my contract, explained, for about the third time, the problem with their system, but totally NAAFI [ ex squaddies will know what that means] so I am stuck with them for the next 12 months.

mind you, SWMBO can watch the TV which lets me get on with important things.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

We had similar issues with another broadband provider, was never able to connect, turned out local exchange had not been upgraded, informed provider that as they were in breech of agreed contract that I was leaving without any costs as they had failed to provide me with the agreed connection etc, never heard anything from them again

If your broadband is slow you now have the right to leave without penalty even if you're in a contract. This from Ofcom dates from 2018:

QuoteIn future, providers will always have to give a minimum guaranteed speed to a potential customer at the point of sale. If that customer's speed then drops below the promised level, broadband firms will have one month to improve performance, before they must let customers walk away penalty-free.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2018/better-information-broadband-speeds

I don't know if this also applies to service being intermittent, but Ofcom has a contact page

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/contact-us

Ah yes Virgin.

Had many a dealing with them:

Originally signed up to them when living in city centre. All was well and internet was fast / reliable. I suspect this is much to do with the fact that when I moved in they actually had nothing to do (flat already wired up). I just plugged in the box and away I went.

Then moved out to suburbs and took the Virgin service with me. Actually that's not true; I moved somewhere without proper fibre and ended up paying the same for a fraction of the speed. Virgin didn't really want to know and in hindsight it took me a bit too long to work out I was being taken for a ride.

Threaten to leave and got a large discount.

THEN Mother dearest (in London) finally decided to join the 21st century and do something about all the leaflets she kept getting from Virgin saying how fast the fibre was in her road.

So began a clown show of errors that started with her lawn being dug up, resulted in a "it's all too difficult we can't connect you" shrug and ended with her house (6 months later) having NO power because, said clowns had sliced into the mains feed and eventually made her front lawn live 

Thank goodness for the local electricity grid team who were fantastically reactive (and the team leader on site at my mums had some wonderfully creative words to describe Virgin when he found out what had happened).

Skyline2uk

 

On one foot, but on the other, EEEEK!

I keep getting junk mail from Virgin so collect enough to fill a large Jiffy bag* and then send it back addressed to 'Beardy Man' at Virgin with no stamps on it. What happens to it I just don't know and, to be honest, don't care.

*Other bags may be available blah blah

Been with Virgin (and their predecessor in this area NTL) for about 16 years, as far as I recall have had only two days or so lost, when I moved from house to  flat I was reconnected within 24 hours. I'm paying for "up to 100Mbs, usually get between 91 and 94.

One strange thing, in this block of flats Virgin is only available on the ground floor.

I have been with Virgin or its predecessors (ntl, Swindon Cable) for over 30 years and have had almost continuous service I  believe the longest outage I have had has been 12 hours and get mid 80's mbps on my up to 100mbps deal, When my router went down they were out with a new one in under 24 hrs so I can not complain about the service I get from them.

Typical of Sir Richard toothy Branson....

But I'm just sorry I didn't have the same exposure, my fault, I guess....