The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

As some of you may be aware, I was recently "invited" to leave Virgin Media after a disastrous attempt to provide me with a 50meg broadband service.

As well as negotiations with several magazines, newspapers and consumer organisations to tell my story, I have also started a blog.

The purpose is NOT to diss Virgin Media. But there are an awful lot of aspects to the story that need to be told. And an awful lot of lessons learnt that can genuinely help the hundreds of customers who are struggling with this service - and we know they are out there, many of them are using this forum.

Please feel free to post comments over on the blog. I don't really care if you think I am in the wrong, or a sad sack with nothing better to do. There is a principle here. Virgin Media have closed dialogue on the issue, and it indicates an Orwellian policy of expunging dissatisfied customers - and it could happen to you.

Anyway - whatever - I hope my advice is of some use.

http://www.virginmediaisabunchof.co.cc/

I would like to thank the many wonderful posters at this forum who have brought me laughs, advice and intelligent discussion over the past 3 years. (Props to Media Boy, Broadbandings, Sephiroth and anyone I've forgotten)

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Without sounding rude and or disrespectfull. Whilst I appreciate you have had issues. Is there a need really? Seems like a waste of your time and to keep going round and round in circles with the story, when you could just move on and forget. ..?

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

I look forward to reading this, if for nothing else it'll be very interesting to see what you have to say.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Because big companies like this CAN'T get away with treating customers like crap. Simple as that. If people don't take action, it'll keep happening.

I am lucky. I write for a living and am able to take positive action instead of sitting back and being bullied.

My motives are purely philanthropic. I'm doing it because I can, for people who can't or won't.

I know I'll probably get nowhere. I accept that. But I can at least try and make a difference.

Damn, I sound like one of those hippies....

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Waste of time and energy. Who cares, how you;'ve been treaten? Go to the necessary regulators? This.. is ... well.. childish in my mind. Like, I said, i'm not being disrespectfull just saying as I see it.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Book deal and film rights going to whom ;)

Lets be real about it, no company no matter how hard they try can give 100% to 100% of its customers. They try to do the right thing, sometimes they succeed sometimes they dont. Thats life I'm afraid, whats the next blog your gonna start? One against Tesco because the shelf life stated of the bananna's you brought didnt meet or exceed the what was "on the tin"

Dont get me wrong I applaud your stance, but in truth its going to go nowhere, VM will continue to do what they do, people like me will continue to post replies to your post's in much the same manner, the earth will still revolve around the sun and night will follow day.

I hear Airfix still do a good line in models, maybe you could have a go at a couple, just to take your mind off things.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

You do seem to have a strange idea about complaining about bad service..

So we might as well not bother having this site then?

You do realise that this site came out of a Hell site?That the original was set up because Frank couldn't get anyone to listen to him at NTL about the extremely poor service he received..

If he hadn't then NTL and now VM would have a clear case to really ignore their customers.
I think you may well find that VM will take note especially if he can get enough publicity.The internet is full of people who have found ways to do so.Including the chap who got his guitar broken and wrote a song about it when he was ignored by the air-flight company concerned.They eventually coughed up to get the guitar repaired.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Well.. as I said. It's just my opinion working in a variety of IT roles. I see this everyday. Indeed, there is complaining and then there is just going over the top..

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Me too. There had to be a deeper story.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

I'd like to read it too, but your link doesn't work.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

It seems to be a general rant to me and some of it is plain wrong

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

It works for me..:erm:

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Link working ok for me, but if you get stuck, try www.the50megmyth.blogspot.com

If this was over the top, then Which?, Watchdog, tightwallet and Martin's Money Tips wouldn't be as successful as they are.

If you don't know tightwallet.com, they were the Bloggers who managed to get Orange to reverse their call charge rises last year, when they announced that the changes were in breach of contract, and thousands of customers left as a result. THAT'S consumer power.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

The original link now works for me, which is odd. Previously I got a DNS error.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

the domain and dns are in the Cocos. It's not exactly Silicon Valley :)

any blog sounds like a rant when only one person is posting

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Well it is a rant. I see no evidence. I see no cold solid hard facts. I see nothing other than you "ranting" about generally nothing..

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Hi I'm Ben and people need to chill

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

I'm chilled = perfectly... :D:D:D

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

I'm very chilled. Extremely so. If I was as angry as I was a few days ago, I wouldn't be doing it.

And... well, okay, maybe it is a rant. But that means pretty much the entire press is made up of "rants". I don't recall the last time I saw a column for citations in a newspaper.

Freedom of speech is something that people died for. If you want to disprove anything I've said, go ahead and add comments and I will stand corrected.

But isn't that... you know... a waste of time and energy when you could just move on...? A tadge hypocritical, non? ;)

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

(Quote from the blog)

Secondly, this whole thing has screwed me over. As a recovering depressive, the fact that I had to use an entire session with my counsellor talking about this mess and how it's affected me has set me back several months.



I am amazed you put yourself through all this for the sake of paying £28 a month for 50MB,i pay over £700 a month on tax alone,perhaps you should pass over the number of your counsellor to me....move on or change ISP,my guess is you have so much time on your hands you need something to fill your workless life.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Actually, I am editor a music website, contribute to several others, have a twice weekly radio show, advise on music for advertisements, do PR for 3 music acts and give lectures and consultancy to community groups on how to develop their social networking strategies. I sit on the board of directors of two companies and manage two internet radio stations. Oh and I occasionally appear as a TV pundit.

I really should get a life, shouldn't I.

As for your comments on depression, it shows a complete lack of understanding of what depression is, how it affects you and what the symptoms and causes are. Depression kills. I don't blame VM for causing my depression - but the last six weeks haven't exactly helped.

Still, if you want to attack me for having principles, for having no life and no career, and being a bit sad, then go right ahead. Sticks and stones, and all that.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

In that case you should know that you should check facts before speaking. You have said (when talking about WEP)

My Virgin National (ADSL router) came switched on to WPA encrpytion by default, and the following comes from the Wireless G router help pages for cable:

http://www.virginmedia.com/help/wire...s.php#faq-ss-1

Is wireless Broadband secure?
Yes, Virgin Media Wireless Broadband uses the latest wireless encryption technology called WPA-PSK. Your wireless router is pre-configured with WPA-PSK as a default.

In addition you seem to be confused about why speeds drop from 'N' to 'G' if a router is set to WEP. However Virgin do explain what you need for best 'N' speeds:

http://www.virginmedia.com/help/wire...outer-faqs.php

Getting the most from wireless ‘N’ technology…

Important things to remember to get the most from Wireless ‘N’ technology:
Full wireless ‘N’ performance can only be achieved on computers/devices that use the latest WPA2 wireless security encryption (such as our wireless ‘N’ USB adaptor). If your computer/device is only capable of using WEP or WPA wireless security encryption, the performance of these devices will be impacted

When setting up your wireless router, we recommend you select the ‘Enable WPA/WPA2 Wireless Security (enhanced)’ security encryption option (this is sometimes referred to as ‘Dual-Mode’ or ‘Mixed-Mode’) This will ensure maximum performance with WPA2 devices, whilst providing compatibility with older WPA only wireless devices

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

It's not about attacking. Mearly stating our opinions.

Actually depression doesn't kill, I suffered depression. I lost everything g, £250k partner home etc. Depression kills, if your weak enough to let it control you.

I think you have waaaayyy too much time on your hands and it's annoying that, you don't even have the technical knowhow to make all that verbal drool, right. I would just take it down and move on.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

ADSL Routers are a different thing. Anyway, all the routers I've received (4 in total) for the cable service were set to WEP. I am happy to clarify the point on my blog.

I totally disagree with the "mixed mode" thing anyway, as many devices will pick WPA OVER WPA2 if there's a choice, and then you don't get the speed.

Same goes for Auto Negotiation with a wired connection. A lot of devices don't switch intelligently.

And my concern is that many of the fitters and tech support guys don't get trained on this self-same information, and spend time looking for things that aren't there instead of Occam's Razor....

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Now, you see, the thing is.....I've got this headache right? It's mostly been caused by the fact that despite having reached the ripe ol' age of 32 I still don't appear to have learned that a) I should eat plenty before I go out for a few drinkies, and b) I should stick to just a 'few' drinkies, and learn when to stop.

I say mostly because there's also a little bit of it that's caused by having to constantly remind people that they should be discussing the topic at hand and not continually trying to score points by taking lumps out of each other.

So.....whilst this little off-topic diversion into the relative viewpoints of depression has been just lovely, I fear that I must ask you all to stick to the topic and stop bickering.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Only in so much as they have a modem in them. Apart from that they work exactly the same

Again, not in my experience. I have a laptop with an 'N' adapter built in - it will go for WPA2-AES everytime in a Mixed-mode setting.

The reason Mixed-mode is recommended is precisely to stop the issue of older equipment not being able to connect.

Once Virgin are reasonably sure that all devices support WPA2 then the advice will no doubt change

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Crap blog and crap site.

None of the issues he's moaning about are major issues, alot are down to his own ignorance and some of the "facts" he posts are just pure wrong.

I wouldn't hold out on the Book and magazine deal.

I thought blogs were supposed to be interesting, insightful, sometimes amusing?

This is none of those things.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Like The Murphy's, I'm Not Bitter

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/10/4.jpg

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

agree with you there BenMcr, i have no problems with connecting 'g' and 'n' machines at the same time it is a function of most wireless 'n' routers ,just choose the correct config and away you go ,

and by the way (directed to the OP)the VM site is awash with help and advice on setting up your equipment

I also think that the OP should be tad carefull with his blog because alot of his "facts" are plain wrong and the post is very deflamitary towards VM and when you put this together with the incorrect facts then VM could have a case to sue

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Please feel free to correct me and I will gladly update the site. However, I don't think any of my facts are wrong per say - perhaps incomplete in places.

And Virgin would be better off engaging with me than sueing me. I could quite happily sue them on a number of factors, but I'd much rather create an open dialogue.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

My own feelings on this matter are ,if you have had these issues for a long time which is the inference in your blog then VM have been trying to solve your issues and a lot will depend on your attitude towards them .
without any more facts (and lets face it you haven't put many in you're blog)then i find it hard to sympathise because i know from my own experience running my own buisness that the customer ISN'T always right

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

(Quote from the log also) , you will probably never get anything like that speed. Virgin's advertising is not clear on this matter.

Well i know a few people with the 50 meg and we can max out our connection may be your pc is not up to the job or your pc is full of spyware or Trojans didnt read any further in to your blog as your first written comment on the left hand side isn`t true if you wasn`t happy you should have done what most people do Changed isps the grass isnt always greener on the other side oh well back to MAXING out my 50 meg connection lol

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Agree with you there ,the blog does not state anything the OP has done to help himself
classic case is ME ,i got quite irrate with vm about 8 months back due to constant speed drops turned out it was my lappy and the security software i was using (norton360)no probs since ,has the OP tried cleaning his pc or changing his security software? he doesn't say any thing about this

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Got as far as the following & stopped reading..

If you want business SLA's take a business service..

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Gotta agree there aswell. This is just getting funny. However, we must be "nice" to him :)

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

From Blog site: We don't want you as a customer....

Can you prove that "most" customers can never hope to get it??????

Blog Site: Wifi Woes.

2.4ghz is a standard frequency and there is nothing wrong with it. 5ghz is relatively new and 5ghz equipment can cost approx 20% TO 30% more. 2.4ghz is adequate for the vast majority of users. Most machines out there will have 2.4ghz network cards too.

Why should VM increase the costs of the routers they provide to cater for what is, at the moment, a small percentage of users.

If you want higher end spec equipment then buy it yourself.

By the way how old is your machine and what frquency is your network card? could you even use the 5ghz?

Blog Site:They don't tell you. Because they don't know.

VM have several hundred engineers, + technical support staff. I assume you have spoken to them all, or surveyed them to come to that conclusion?

They can they phone support, or they can look on the internet - you did. And if you did and managed to quickly become an authority on it then so can anyone else.

Blog Site:It Ain't What You Do, It's The Way You Encrypt It

As posted above, you're rant about WEP & WPA is just plain incorrect.


Blog Site:Connective Defective

So after much fault finding they found out what the issue is and resolved it. Do you know what in the termination box was faulty? how obvious the fault was? if the fault was similar to other types of fault?

No you don't, so you can't summise that the actions taken up until finding the issue with the termination box were erroneous.

Blog Site:Pilot The Drop

Perhaps, but it doesn't work that way in business and managing resource. But what happend was that you reported a fault and the fault was resolved?

blog site: Drop The Pilot
It's called development, there's also many happy VM customers on this site too.


Blog Site: Beware of the Neighbours....
which is a major attraction

No it's not, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Blog Site: Whats the Beef?

So it's VMs fault that you find it hard to grasp the basics of wireless networking. VM shouldn't have to "teach" you anything. All VM provide is a cable capable of providing 50mb. They can try and help and advise you on how to set up your wireless router but if you are totally inept at doing to then I would have brought in someone who knew what they were doing to help you.

Blog Site:The Clue Flux Plan

Just stop winging.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Thats one hella response there - I'm not honestly sure what the OP was expecting by publishing all this? Maybe a group of people would join in.. I'd dread to think how not so many hits he has had

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

From the blog So, you are stating that Virgin are responsible for the fact that YOUR old hardware might cause the new, 50 meg router to slow the network? You do know that this is standard behaviour for routers, and (I think) is done because of the way WiFi works?

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

I just wasted some of my life reading the crap on that site:mad:

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

I have a 2.4ghz dual core laptop with a 802.11n wireless card. I clean junk files and spyware check manually once a week, as well as my resident protection. I find it insulting that people assume I don't know my stuff. I know my stuff very, very well.

The fact is - the blog isn't aimed at you lot. You're as biased towards Virgin as I am against them - and for the record, I used to be one of you, before I got shafted royally.

You lot are cable enthusiasts who know their stuff. Most of you have the expertise and this fantastic community to ensure you have the information you need.

Consumer issues are about protecting the "have nots" and the blog is all about trying to get the facts in one place. This is a new thing for me, and I don't pretend to have all the answers or get it right immediately.

Thank you all for your valuable feedback. I am about to tweek the entries accordingly. But I am going to continue to moan and stand my ground, and you guys are going to continue to diss me for it. That's just the way it is. Free speech is all about difference of opinion.

Perhaps some constructive feedback, and some counter-opinion would be more useful that "well that's just crap then", eh?

You're representing Virgin's side, I'm representing the consumer. Imagine, just for a second this forum was Watchdog. What a lot of these comments equate to is Neil Berkett going on to defend his service by saying "But you're lying. It's all great... Your programme is crap.... We've got Living HD".

If you want to help me get it right - help. If you don't have anything constructive to say. Butt out. I'm not here to fight with you.

---------- Post added at 17:36 ---------- Previous post was at 17:22 ----------

Oh - and I might add, that I know my hardware is ok - but why would I write this blog for ME? It's for people who DON'T know they need the right hardware, or settings or whatever...

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Uh, the whole point of the existence of this forum is for people with problems to come here. By its very nature this forum sees more posts of complaint and negative feelings directed towards Virgin than it does praise.

You can bet your bottom dollar that if people felt that they could empathise with what you were saying they'd be right on board with you, if they believed that what you were expressing was something that they could get behind and support they'd be only too happy to do so. There are few people here who are 100% Virgin Media 'fan boys'.

The posts above that are giving you negative feedback on various aspects of your blog suggest to me that if you actually want to reach out and form a bond with your target audience you've got a little work to do.

For the record, one of the biggest hindrances to any campaign of this nature is a lack of belief, faith, or trust, in the person driving it. If you can make sure that your message is spot on, accurate, and easy to follow, you'll find that there are enough people out there with similar complaints that you'll suddenly gain a lot of momentum. The first stage to this though is making sure that there's actually a genuine driver behind what you're doing, from some of the comments above it would appear that this may not be the case.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Ermmm.... yessssss. I know. Do I say it's VMs fault? I'm just saying what a new customer needs to know.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

My constructive critisism cllp1975 is that you have used a scattergun approach in your blog with many of the pellets missing the target. If you have been royally shafted by Virgin then that is the story to tell but that story gets lost in all the other stuff you have posted, leaving people wondering whether you really do have a valid complaint. You should have gone in to detail about why you feel you have been hard done by, you could allways have added other stuff to the blog later.

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

if i don't like a particular brand of beans i don't buy them,i buy another ,if i am unhappy with a service ,i don't use it ,i go some were else,i used to be with sky but was unhappy about their service so i switched to vm ,if i beome so unhappy with vm service (and time will tell cos my 50meg gets installed on wednesday)then i will leave vm and cherrypick the best of sky and vm's services or even bt (shudder)
what you are doing although good in principle is just getting vm's back up because they can't please you, and we can't see past the "rant"because there are no facts for us to judge
The only conclusion i can come to given the info from the blog is that vm had a fault/faults reported and started a investigation and worked through the most likely causes first and eventually sorted it .
so if i were you i would take a chillpill and relax ...oh and seriously think about taking that blog down cos it's seriously deflamitory towards VM and unless you have all the facts to back it up then be carefull

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Exactly, VM get it wrong all the time and deserve to be brought to book when they do.

However, that blog, is just a rant full of factual inaccuracies.

I see, so what you wrote regarding dual band routers

But that wouldn't have prevented your gripe as your laptop is only kitted out for 2.4ghz. What could VM have done to prevent this dreadful situation in regards to WiFi that you claim.

in that case why do you think If you kbnow your stuff then why are VM incapable of teaching, why do they need to teach.

No but it's aimed potential VM customers, to which you are feeding disinformation.

there are very few "facts" in anything you have posted - here or on your blog.

Get some facts. Write about issues that actually affected you.

exactly in what way are you representing the consumer? All you are doing is printing misinformation, halftruths and inaccuracies.

As Rob says earlier, you're not credible. If you credible with credible issues and credible arguments there'd be no problem.

But when you come here, and you opening gambit is "I hoping to get a magazine or newspaper deal" then you'd better be sure that what you're writing will stand up to scrutiny. I'm afraid - it doesn't.

The fact that you're going to now go and "tweak" your blog entries jusr weakens your position .

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Your blog URL does as does the language within it with paragraphs such as:
Hmm, it seems that others have a simliar view of the blog http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...php?p=36351228

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Sorry - that's 2.4ghz processor. It's a dual band wifi card :) - my bad

Re: The Truth About 50meg Broadband
 

Just getting even funnyier now