virgin media......

rayman gtir · Post by **rayman gtir** » Mon May 26, 2008 10:45 pm

i will never touch a Virgin product again, i had bad experience with them on the BB side of things, i lost my telephone and my broadband for about 2 weeks they couldnt give me a time when they would come out. in the end i was without both services for a month and a half. why dont you try the sky deal, i pay a

Scoobyweb · Post by **Scoobyweb** » Tue May 27, 2008 4:26 pm

Hugh Janus wrote:was going to say their BB is superb when it works crap when it doesnt

Scoobyweb you say an 8mb connection so your going through a BT line :?:

Correct yes. During tha daytime I regularly reach speeds of over 600 KBs, but once it hits 4.00 p.m it slows to a snails pace. Although some days are worse than others.

Hugh Janus · Post by **Hugh Janus** » Tue May 27, 2008 5:22 pm

Scoobyweb wrote:
Hugh Janus wrote:was going to say their BB is superb when it works crap when it doesnt

Scoobyweb you say an 8mb connection so your going through a BT line :?:
Correct yes. During tha daytime I regularly reach speeds of over 600 KBs, but once it hits 4.00 p.m it slows to a snails pace. Although some days are worse than others.

the problem is actually the BT line and not Virgin media, basically that's contention ratio for you a BT line is 50:1 whereas Virgin Media (Cable service) is only 20:1

the only recourse i can suggest is find someone who uses LLU's basically this means a company (usually for a fee) will take out BT's equipment in the exchange and swap it out for theirs 99.99% you'll get massive speed increases and much much lower contention ratio's, i had a basically a business line in Norwich, cost me in-excess of

Scoobyweb · Post by **Scoobyweb** » Tue May 27, 2008 6:43 pm

If its a problem with the BT line then how come I never had a problem when I was with NTL. I never ever had a dropped connection and the speeds were always around the same mark. As regards finding a supplier who uses LLU's. As mentioned earlier I will be switching to Be-there as they are now setup at my local exchage and can supply a 24Mbit connection. Roll on December. :lol:

Mr Windscreen · Post by **Mr Windscreen** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:05 pm

My virgin tv box broke a few months ago, had to wait two weeks for a new one! They have also messed up several bills in the last few months. :x

alexb · Post by **alexb** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:24 pm

Internet-wise I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole (or BT or Talk Talk either) as they are in talks with a company called Phorm to sell the details of every page you visit to advertisers - and not just the list of the pages you visit, the actual page contents... This allows them to build up a profile of what you look at online and are interested in. However, on a family's computer they won't be able to tell who's online at any time, so inevitably the kids will get served ads targeted at Dad and vice versa...

And as it currently works you have to opt OUT to avoid it, and even if you do opt out, your data *still* gets sent to Phorm but they "promise not to do anything with it" (yeah, right!).

Phorm's technology is being accused of breaching Data Protection and RIPA laws, as the only right your ISP has to intercept your data is in the course of resolving a problem with the service provision, not to make money from your browsing....

For those interested, there's loads about it all here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/29/phorm_roundup/

For those with VM who are worried, they will have to change the wording of your contract if they implement this, which gives you the right to terminate without penalty if you reject those new terms.

Cheers,
Alex

Hugh Janus · Post by **Hugh Janus** » Wed May 28, 2008 6:01 pm

Scoobyweb wrote:If its a problem with the BT line then how come I never had a problem when I was with NTL. I never ever had a dropped connection and the speeds were always around the same mark. As regards finding a supplier who uses LLU's. As mentioned earlier I will be switching to Be-there as they are now setup at my local exchage and can supply a 24Mbit connection. Roll on December. :lol:

i worked for NTL for about a year and i was never aware they supplied BB via a BT line, it was only when we went to Virgin Media that we was able to offer the service, are you sure you had BB from NTL via BT?!?!?!?

but the problem you now have is simply BB had become more and more used...basically 4pm was always when a BT BB line would slow down due to school kids getting home from school and jumping on the net, maybe there has been a surge in your area of people taking up the service in the last year or so or even a new development of houses?

be aware you said you'll get 24Mb you wont, thats only an indication of how much the line could support, in reality expect around the 8-10Mb mark if your lucky, as a rule of thumb for every 500yds from the exchange you'll lose about 1Mb of speed...but this is only a broad guide.

the one to watch out for is H20 (often called SewerNet), they will be supplying Fibre Optic Cable service (as NTL/VM) through sewerage pipes, and will be offering speed upto 100Mb for starters, expect that company to rival and eventually overtake VM in the race for massive BB speeds as there are no real restrictions on who can have the service and those who cant, I'm lead to believe they have started (or about to) start laying the network down in Cornwall (or there abouts) as a test bench

Hugh

ScoobieWRX · Post by **ScoobieWRX** » Wed May 28, 2008 10:07 pm

100Mb sounds good to me. I would definately dump Virgin if someone came up with that kind of connection. I'll look out for H20

Hugh Janus · Post by **Hugh Janus** » Thu May 29, 2008 7:00 am

ScoobieWRX wrote:100Mb sounds good to me. I would definately dump Virgin if someone came up with that kind of connection. I'll look out for H20

Virgin have been testing 100Mb for a while now, i think from them the next upgrade will see 50Mb being offered as a replacement for their 20Mb, when H20 does go live nationally it will only be a two horse race between Virgin Media and H20 simply because they both use Fibre Optic

ScoobieWRX · Post by **ScoobieWRX** » Thu May 29, 2008 7:31 am

An auto upgrade to 50Mb for the same price as i pay now would be fine. You get to a stage though where your line speed is 500Mb/1Gb and your PC/Router can't take advantage of it. Maximum WAN rate as far as your router is concerned is 100Mb/s so they will soon have to make the internet Gb compliant like my hardwired ethernet network which is Gb ethernet.

PC's internally communicate with other internal peripherals at 300Mb/s so once you get anywhere near that it becomes pointless to have a faster line speed. They should really be working on bandwidth capacity by lowering contention rates. e.g. a 20Mb line with nothing more than a 5-1 contention rate at full capacity will be (for the average PC user) as quick as a 100Mb line at full capacity with 25-1 contention rate.

They giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other!! I bet as bandwidth goes up so do the contention rates.