Virgin Bl**dy Broadband - Capped!

[big_si]

Originally Posted by dry suit diver

I know that all the connections from the green box to the house are in a coax cable similar to statellite downleads.

I am also aware that the main network is in fibre optic.

hopefully thereb shouldnt be contention issues with the fibre optic network

I was assuming (yep, ass out of me and umption! ) the OP was on Virgin ADSL because virgin Cable wasn't available in his area so also assumed (again, making up my own part of the story) that his area doesn't have a fibre optic network?

As I said... I know nothing though so it could all be bollox

[dry suit diver]

Originally Posted by big_si

I was assuming (yep, ass out of me and umption! ) the OP was on Virgin ADSL because virgin Cable wasn't available in his area so also assumed (again, making up my own part of the story) that his area doesn't have a fibre optic network?

As I said... I know nothing though so it could all be bollox

yeah I made them assumptions too and was thinking more about my luvverly virgin media hybrid network thats mostly fibre optic and only the last 100 metres or less thats copper rather than copper all the way to the exchange.

next door are on an ADSL line and we are 2 miles from the exchange ( in London How this can be I do not know but thats what BT said) my virgin 2Mb service is according to an independent webtest service running at 3.5Mb and his sky 16Mb service is running at 2.1Mb .


PMSL in a churchill stylee oh yessss

[Mike Cunningham]

Cable is a local loop and as such can congest within the loop like an Ethernet ring, which will have collision issues; cable is symmetric but due to the local loop design download and upload traffic can contend
ADSL is asymmetric in the copper pair therefore download and upload have different channels, as defined by the spectral management plan. ADSL is sensitive to the length of the copper pair (Phone Line), cross talk (Line Noise) and local AM radio sources ( XMAS Tree light switchers etc..)
Fibre to the home is very new and much still has to be learnt about termination of fibre in the home in small low voltage reliable termination devices; the next stage is really fibre to the roadside cabinet (the green box) AKA VDSL; this effectively extends the exchange to the roadside box and shortens the copper pair, plus there is a different spectral plan involved known as ADSL 2+ which allows potentially higher download speeds subject to copper pair conditions.
All the above systems will be affected by the amount of bandwidth the ISP purchases from the exchange to the ISP interconnect point and again from the interconnect point to the ‘internet’.

[dry suit diver]

my head just exploded

[TeeJF]

I think you can sum up what's being said in the thousand and one replies here with just three short sentences...

1. The company are fine unless something goes wrong in which case they're complete tossers who will do anything to squeeze out of spending their money to put it right.

2. Claimed download rates are a complete load of cobblers and these companies excell at just one thing - lying through their eye teeth.

3. Any customer service (my company excepted!!!) in the UK is a bag of daz these days.

So Mister bl**dy Branson can pop his friggin' balloon mid Atlantic and I'll personally go out there and stand on the tosser's head to make sure he doesn't come up again...

Not that I'm vindictive you know...

T

[Paul Burgess]

Originally Posted by big_si

I think they're fine too............


until something goes wrong and then they're the worst large company I've ever dealt with

I have had a few run-ins with NTL/Virgin customer service in the past. Remarkably however, the last couple of times I called, I got throught to a helper in seconds and got the problem sorted straight away!!

Generally I find the broadband/TV very reliable.

[Allan Carr]

We live in a small village about 4 miles from the exchange and there is no cable at all in the area. We have BT broadband and a neighbour has Virgin. BT advise that due to the distance from the exchange, 3M should be the maximum to be expected but speed tests show that we regularly get 3.8M and performance seems reasonably consistent throughout the day. My neighbour only gets about 2.1M although the wiring into his house could be worse than mine.

However, I did have a bit of a problem with the so-called 'Helpdesk' while we were away. Whilst in the US, my mailbox stopped allowing any attachments to be downloaded so I called the 'helpdesk' when we got to New Zealand (the £1 a minute charge to access the internet in Fiji was rather too expensive). I was told that the first thing they had to do was to test my broadband line. But I'm at the other side of the world I said, it was working OK most of the time I was in the US and I haven't used my broadband line for over a month. This cut no ice whatsover with person with the Indian accent on the other end who insisted that the broadband line had to be tested before they would investigate anything else! I tried twice and even spoke to the supervisor but they were adamant that they had to stick to their standard procedure. When we got back, they tested the line of course and it was OK, went on to check the mail system and found that somehow the maximum download size had been set to zero. This took only a couple of minutes to resolve after they had checked the line. Why the hell could they not have done this at the start!

[Jules77]

Originally Posted by purple vonny

I've been with Virgin for 3 years and never had a problem. Am I a minority of one?

No looks like a minority of 2 Vonny

[Marky Mark]

Well maybe 2 1/2. I don't have any problems with virgin, as such, good bb, cable telly and phone just works. My only gripe is NO SIMPSONS......

[macstinator]

So, an update!

I emailled the Virgin Media CEO Neil.Berkett@virginmedia.co.uk.

Basically the long and short of it is that something is being done about this. Someone from his office phoned my office this morning. Unfortunately I was on a plane so missed it. Will keep you posted.

Yes, i am ADSL, as i have Sky. I am less than a mile from an exchange, which BT tell me supports upto 8 Meg. The most i have ever had is about 4, which is enough. Better than the 12kbps i was getting last night.