Forum Topic

Virgin broadband speeds rubbish?

Has anyone locally had problems with Virgin broadband speeds and been told that they won't get any proper broadband until at least 20 Nov? We have had only a very basic slow internet access for over a month now, intermittently and sometimes not at all. Every time we call we get told something different. Latest is there are too many people in Acton using their cable and they can only provide simple browsing in the area for the next month. No  downloading or streaming - ie iPlayer etc. We are absolutely livid, especially as we took time off work yesterday for an engineer and no one turned up (Because they knew it wasn't a problem in our house and hadn't told us but didn't bother to let me know.) Virgin Media stinks, in our view. Any other experiences or info to share, anyone?

Cathy Johns ● 5446d21 Comments

Ive BT Broadband It is 95% reliable and runs @11 Megs.

Roger Foreman ● 5446d

We've had problems recently with Virgin too although we thought it was perhaps our router but your information makes more sense as it has only been a recent issue related to streaming. How frustrating that they can't do anything about it for a month! Worth complaining to them as last time this happened they took money off our bill.

Jo Reeve ● 5446d

Yes, they have offered to repay us our money, after speaking to a "manager" - (who also gave us a different story about dates- 9th Nov is the new one!) but £15 is very small compensation when we rely on decent internet access for freelance work, etc. I want the service, not the money back....BT sounds a whole lot more fun at 11 megs, Roger. Best speed we've had over the last month  is under 4, and it's usually about 1 or 2.  Impossible to download  documents or access any streaming, such as youtube, iPlayer, etc. And now Radio 3 is such rubbish before 12 midday this is a real issue (but that's a whole other story!) Aargh!

Cathy Johns ● 5446d

I'm on BT Broadband option 2, which is good value.  My speed on the desk top runs very fast, whereas the lap top is a bit slow in booting but, I can live with that.  Any problems that I've had have been quickly resolved (3 in the last 4yrs.)and, have always been the BT server,that has been the problem.I think Virgin are getting desperate by the amount of junk mail they keep sending out. Don't believe a word of it.I have a Virgin PAYG which always loses signal but, there again it is shared with T-Mobile (covered in a previous string.)

Nicola Howard ● 5446d

My Virgin works fine, checked the speed this morning after a BBC clip failed, just under 20mgb, put failure down to demand on BBC at that time. I do have intermittant issues with my router.....

Iain Muir ● 5446d

20 , Ian? Wow.  Obviously not many people round you downloading and streaming round you (they suggest it's over-demand in the Acton area that's ruined our speed - too many students coming back to university, they even suggested..!? which is why they need to upgrade. Clearly not in your bit of Acton!

Cathy Johns ● 5446d

I hadn't noticed any problems (watched the news on PC last night - or rather, listened as I was dealing with emails, so perhaps the picture quality wasn't too good) but on reading this thread I checked: instead of the usual 7.5mbps I'm only getting 1.5, so something's wrong somewhere... But I've found Virgin pretty reliable over the years, and I don't need large amounts of pleasure or business download speed, so will wait and see what happens.

Lorna Dodd ● 5446d

I'm in Acton on Virgin's 50meg service and that's what I'm currently getting - just over, in fact.

Keith Clarke ● 5445d

Streaming and download speed so slowwwwww past couple of weeksphoned them up through billing as you cannot get through otherwise, told them not paying bill for internet service until they sort out there end the problem "best we can do is credit you with 20quid" fine but tha's not going to help my two children who are in the middle of doing there gcse's at school and rely on there pc's at home,told them if they can't sort it out we are going over to Sky services.

Ricardo Pelc-Wesoly ● 5445d

50 meg????  Are you sure it's not 50kps?

Nicola Howard ● 5445d

No, 50Mb. You can get 100Mb from Virgin in Acton for an extra tenner a month. Why would 50Mb be a surprise? Check it out: http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband.html

Keith Clarke ● 5445d

thanks for all the replies, folks - seems there are very widely differing local experiences of Virgin's 'services'  - maybe you have to fork out for the 50 meg service to get anything worth having. I am now unable to work from home in the evening because of slow speeds so I guess I will have to charge Virgin for the lost income....by the way apparently they are 'waiting for parts from the USA' to mend their system. !!!!  I have heard that if you say you're leaving the contract they sometimes pull their finger out to try and keep your custom. Wonder if that'll work, Ricardo. Can't bear another 3 weeks of this....will be on to BT soon.

Cathy Johns ● 5445d

I'm back up to 7.6 this evening, so this morning's slow speed was only temporary.

Lorna Dodd ● 5445d

Rang up virgin media on Friday to complain. I live on Maldon Road and we get very slow speeds in the evening. They have refunded our broadband for the past two months and set a date of November 9th.

Julia Weston ● 5442d

Oh well - at least they are saying the same thing to everyone, Julia - thanks for the report. ..we have been refunded too but what is annoying is that we got no notice of this work and no offer of money back until we rang up to complain about the abysmal service (and only when we were vehement did we get this offer). We were told that apparently it "isn't the kind of problem that we would communicate with customers about unless they ring up to complain" - what, no proper service for 2 months? Virgin really needs to address their customer relations big time.I have now given up on the internet in the evenings as it's so annoyingly slow. Grrrr. Interesting that in other parts of Acton it's fine though. What's that about? We aren't even near Maldon Rd. (Birkbeck Grove). Everyone in between must be suffering, surely?

Cathy Johns ● 5442d

I wouldn't rush to Sky. You may find it's simply a journey from the frying pan over to the fire!I've just switched to BT from SKY for my broadband. Very good offer with 4 months free then £13 per month for 14 months. You als oget a free home hub. For an extra £4 per month you can even have TV package too which includes BBC Iplayer and other funky stuff. I've heard mostly good things about BT and they tell me that where Virgin have 200 customers sharing each line, they have only 50. My problem is the connection keeps dropping, a real pain for Skype or general surfing, so hope that will improve.Carl

Carl Tamboli ● 5438d

Agreed.My BT drops 2/3 times a week but is recovered by rebooting the supplied router After my contract expired in May I negotiated unlimited downloads(with no obvious throttling) for the same price as the 10gB basic package - its a very competitive market!

Roger Foreman ● 5438d

Just got £10 discounted from my bill. Same story high demand in the area and it should be  fixed by 09 Nov 11. It was not too bad yesterday but today its terrible.

Tony Crumpton ● 5437d

I'd push for complete refund, Tony - we've got this -  though it's poor compensation for 2 months of boradband hell!

Cathy Johns ● 5436d

Funny because I have had the same problems and in September I was told that the upgrade work was starting on 14th October, having been put back over the summer every time I phoned.  I actually think they're being economical with the truth.

Anne Brown ● 5432d

Just tested my Shakespeare Road Virgin connection.19.2 Mb.Virgin have offered to jump this to 30Mb, but I would have to enter into another 18 month contract which I am reluctant to do. So, for the moment I will suffer along at about 20Mb.Virgin's cable is superior to the old telephone line based services. BUT Virgin 'forces' its cable broadband subscribers to to take an additional expensive landline. Even if you do not want the landline (which is not needed for the cable service) it does not pay to drop it.The new fibre optic systems are potentially superior, but I have not really looked into them.

Sheldon Greenberg ● 5431d