Never Thought I Would Have To Do It

[jailhouse]

Well, after many years, having been with the original BlueYonder service, then NTL, now VirginMedia, i never, in my wildest dreams would i have thought about reporting VM.

After the past few months i have had terrible service from VM, not he staff i will stress, they are brilliant, except for Dickies Offshore premium rate support servi ce which is a joke, just by its title.

Anyway, to the point, for a long while, i have been paying for a 20Mb Broadband connection, but receive less than 5Mb. This problem comes down to the matter of "restricting" the line of high users. I am not a high user, as has been proven to VM though my logs, but if a line has multiple HIGH users, everyone gets capped. Is this fair. NO.

Called VM, the problem they are having is the high users cannot be "identified" as VM do not impose limits. Yet they restrict a line for everyone because of the use and abuse of a few.

I have now put my complaints, officially, to the ISPA, with records of my internet use, dl rates, ul rates, for the past 12 months, and they have said "verbally" i have not received the service i have been paying for.

If any of you have a suspicion you are not getting what you are paying for, join the PC Computer Active campaign (do a google for ComputerActive Campaign) and lets try and get what we are paying for.

jh

[dev]

unless i've misread, are you suggesting that people are having the STM 5Mb limit/cap/whatever applied to their connection based on what other people do on separate connections?

[Roy MM]

The over use seems to be shared amongst all on the same UBR (or have i got that wrong) so if two or three are abusing it, it is calculated to them all and you will all be capped, it all sounds so unfair to me, i'm 20M i don't use anything like but i can't get better than 10 on any speedtests. :rme:

[Berealwith]

i have mummbled on in the past about setting up downloads to max everything out as to make the servers go so slow they have to upgrade (thats all the power you have and thats negative power) but i havent done it, i set my downloads up from 1am to 6 am and i get what i want no problem. for weeks i have to agree with you i think the servers are getting capped by a few of the others. I dont like to throw ideas up as we all should get what we paid for and should fight the provider to do its job....But how about setting up server sin bins, if you use more outside the fair useage rules you get moved to a capped server for a week, that would sort them out...the rest stay on the uncapped servers, and if you do it 3 times in 6 months you get a months sin bin server...could they set that up ? who knows but it sure would sort a lot out, don't you think so...

[wtaylor82]

I agree with what your saying here but unfortunately there is on problem virgin advertised these services as an up-to 20mb service rather than 20mb service.

My services sometimes goes from .5mb to 5mb, with the sometimes 12-15mb service.

I to have been collecting my logs and will be collating them and forwarding to the ISPA once I have enough information.

Good luck with your campaign

[Horace]

Anyway, to the point, for a long while, i have been paying for a 20Mb Broadband connection, but receive less than 5Mb. This problem comes down to the matter of "restricting" the line of high users. I am not a high user, as has been proven to VM though my logs, but if a line has multiple HIGH users, everyone gets capped. Is this fair. NO.


If you're going to start a campaign at least do some reading first on how STM works else you'll just look stupid. If your UBR is oversubscribed then you won't be stuck on exactly 5meg it'll be variable. STM isn't variable and you'll be on a rigid cap for the duration of STM being applied to your own connection. It isn't per UBR it's per user.

[Ernie_C]

If you're going to start a campaign at least do some reading first on how STM works else you'll just look stupid. If your UBR is oversubscribed then you won't be stuck on exactly 5meg it'll be variable. STM isn't variable and you'll be on a rigid cap for the duration of STM being applied to your own connection. It isn't per UBR it's per user.
Well said. There are a lot of people who do not understand the many factors which lead to speeds dropping in both a cable and ADSL environment.

The attitude seems to be "I'm not getting what I paid for so I must be getting STMed." The reality is that it is much more likely to be contention (possibly due to oversubscribed UBRs) or their own computer setup.

[brundles]

VM aren't exactaly helpful on that front though are they?

Perhaps if the tech support team actually considered the possibility of STM or a fault when ringing and took each call with an open mind fram scratch instead of always saying it's the callers fault then people might not jump on the STM band wagon so much. (Although that said, STM is a handy excuse for an untrained tech to give rather than look at the possibility of over subscription of the local area).

Oh, and people are less willing to even see if it's a fault rather than STM when it costs them a fortune to phone up and ask the question.

[Bonglet]

Does that not raise the point though that beforehand 10mb = fine and hardly any contention and 20mb = laggy and less than half of the 10mb speeds, when vm released 20mb when they knew most places couldnt handle it?.

[sav112]

I always think we should also pay upto! So if your on upto20mb but getting 5MB that’s what you pay for….only fair……next time you get a bill send it back with sorry £38 nah I said upto so this month I’ll pay £12.

[Ernie_C]

I always think we should also pay upto! So if your on upto20mb but getting 5MB that’s what you pay for….only fair……next time you get a bill send it back with sorry £38 nah I said upto so this month I’ll pay £12.
It would not be practical to charge in this way - how and who would measure the speed?

There is another way - charge for the amount you download - oh, that's been thought about before and people don't like it! Especially those high bandwidth users who cause the contention issues for the majority of 'ordinary' users.

[dav]

It would not be practical to charge in this way - how and who would measure the speed?

There is another way - charge for the amount you download - oh, that's been thought about before and people don't like it! Especially those high bandwidth users who cause the contention issues for the majority of 'ordinary' users.

That would actually be the most attractive way to pay for me.
Have everyone on the same speed, but just get charged per Gb per month.
Again though, the metering would have to be rock solid and bomb proof. Not something I can imagine VM coming up with.

[wtaylor82]

come on guys don't jihack the post with topics discussed before. this does not sort out the dilema at hand

[dav]

The dilema at hand being "not getting what you are paying for," to paraphrase the OP?

I wouldn't class that as being a subject that hasn't been discussed before, ergo, you are bound to get peripheral remarks that encompass the whole range of VM ineptitude.

[wtaylor82]

the concept of people complaining about the charge of 37.99 for a 20mb service when they get 5mb is in mass posts on the site. Feel free to look at them all.

[dav]

I'm sorry, I was under the apprehension that this thread was also dealing with that issue.
I must have missed the subtle nuances.