Virgin media farce

[alan cottrill]

Hi all.
I am haveing problems with (NTL)now Virgin Media,they are deliberatly slowing the broadband down,under the so called fair user policy at certain times,but they have slowed it down to such an extent that i cannot connect to the internet between 16:00 and 23:59,without a great deal of messing about,this never used to be the case,and i pay £25 a month for UNLIMITED broadband,does anyone know of a more reliable unlimited broadband supplier,as i have had a gut full of this company.
I have recently been sent a leaflet from O2,of which i am a customer with my mobile phone,and because of that i am entitled to a discount,they have checked my area,and i should be able to have the top 20m broadband conection for a little over £17 a month,but i am after an informed choice,so i can select the best broadband provider,that can provide unlimited internet,as i fly with the real weather downloaded every 15min,which i cannot do at certain times with virgin media anymore.
regards alan.

[RAF_Quantum]

Hi,

If your usage is being throttled under the fair usage policy with Virgin then if it is truly your high usage then other isp's may probably do the same. If you are determined to leave Virgin then you are reliant on the distance you are from the telephone exchange. The further you are away from the exchange the lower your speed to be able maintain a certain 'quality' of connection. Don't believe what an isp will promise you connection-wise. Put your telephone number in on this web site and it will give you some idea of what speed your may be able to enjoy. Depending what the results are and your usage you may be better off thrashing it out with Virgin. If O2 say you can get 20MB, I'd be surprised, unless you have the phone exchange next door to you.

Regards,

John

[TSR2]

Hi Alan,

Virgin, like all of the broadband opperators will cap your download speed if you download more than (I think its 5 but my be 2) GB in 24 hours. Virgin slow it down to 1Mb if you go over this limit, so if you can't connect, I'd suggest something else is up. O2 are excellent, but they reserve the right to disconnect you altogether if you go over their resonable use limits. You must be doing a hell of a lot of downloading if you breaking 2GB per day mate

[TSR2]

O2 have quite a few exchanges now with 20Mb+ broadband John. You need to be reasonably close, but O2 (actually "be") use there own kit so they arn't hamstrung by BT

[stegs]

I use O2 and pay for up to 16Meg and get 13.5 regularly when I test the speed.
I'm satisfied with their service.

Steve

[Quixoticish]

does anyone know of a more reliable unlimited broadband supplier,as i have had a gut full of this company.

https://www.bethere.co.uk/

I use the internet working from home every day so it's a lifeline for me and Be* have been fantastic. If there is ever a planned outage we receive an e-mail and a text message (the latter is very handy) and if there are any unplanned service issues the first thing they do is hit everyone with a text message and leave a recording on their voicemail so you can call up and immediately find out if there's a problem, no more pulling the router to bits to check the connections to see if it is your fault or a fault at the exchange. They are suitably ruthless dealing with BT and if orders aren't being processed by them for connections and you send in a message complaining they sort things out incredibly quickly.

Most importantly the staff on the phone are friendly and helpful but even better they have a public forum where members of staff post on a regular basis and they have a ticket system (the most I have ever had to wait for a reply is 24 hours) and they do actually go out of their way to help you. They are also more than happy to help you set up routers and equipment that isn't supplied by them.

They have a 24 meg service and they also offer an 8 meg service (both unlimited) for those who live too far away from the exchange or have poor wiring and can't get anything about 8. I pay £17.50 a month for the unlimited 24 meg service and a static IP address. Interestingly they also let you alter the speed of your line somewhat via their customer support pages. A few clicks will let you select fast, medium or slow (obviously the slower connections are more stable) and also put yourself on and off "fastpath", a service that improves your ping for gaming but can also affect connection quality, so it's up to you to try it and see what you think.

I've had nothing but positive experiences with them and recommend them to everyone. As with all good things this will inevitably come to an end, but judging by past ISP's I would say Be* have a good four or five years before they start to slide in terms of quality (it's inevitable that all good ISP's eventually grow so large that they become bad ISP's, it's just the way the industry works).

[tonymadge]

Plusnet are by far the best provider, a local call centre with local folk, excellent back up with questions answered very quickly news letters, cheap phone as well.... plus if you get others to join you get a discount every month for the life of that persons account!! I have been with themquite a few years now and would not go anywhere else..
If you wish to join tell them tonymadge (my username) pointed you there and I get another discount, if enough of you join I get free broadband and phone and they pay me
Joking apart they are cheap, reliable, british, and always get top awards.....

[Techy111]

Switch over to Sky.....get the tv package and the broadband is free....capped though...or pay a tenner on top and get the 16mb unlimited option like i do.....never had a problem...

Tony

[alan cottrill]

Hi All.
Thanks for your replys,as for my usage,i should be nowhere near to the limit at which it would be throttled like it is,i am beginning to think they may be trying a fast one,to make people update to the fastest package,with tv and phone for £30 a month,just call me synical,but this problem as only started fairly recently,since they annouced there so called mega fast broadband package.
Also the times at which it is slowed down are more or less the same time each day,prior to it slowing down,it works as it should,so i know its there end and not mine,and when i took this ntl broadband,i never had this problem,except during maintanance work,and it was unlimited,and downloading the real weather every 15 min during a flight,would not even make a dent in my usage.
Regards alan.

[TSR2]

Alan,

If you should be nowhere near the limit it sounds like someone is "borrowing" your wifi. My friend uses virgin for broadband only and has resisted their phone and TV package and gets great throughput. If you have a wireless router, I'd suggest making sure you have WP2 selected for the security encryption. If you aleardy have security enabled, and your passkey isn't something guessable (i.e. Password) then perhaps you have some sort of virus which is contacting websites etc, but I've never know one to generate a large volume of data. The reason I'd suggest trying to get things sorted with Virgin is that their means for delivery is definately the best... i.e. NOT over a telephone line, and has more scope for performance growth than any ADSL based service due to the nature of the infrastructure.