Why all the hate?
 

I don't understand why there is so much anger directed at Virgin Media online. Where ever you go people are always saying how bad VM is, unless i'm in a lucky minority who have had nothing but good service?

I've been with them for about 8 years and wouldn't use anyone else.

Furthermore I pay for 100MB and get that:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2085202399.png

Just curious as to whether there is anyone on here who actually like VM as an ISP?

Re: Why all the hate?
 

My speed and ping has always been good too, and i've never had an issue with CS or any other department.

People will very happily complain about something, but will forget to point out the good things aswell.
Alot of people come to a forum to look for a fix and to moan, they rarely come to a forum just to say everything is fine and they are happy.

Someone on the Official Playstation forum actually started a thread for gamers to say how their system was working fine and they were happy because he was fed up of seeing all the threads moaning about PS3's breaking down.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Your uploads a bit low, you should be complaining about that ;) :D

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2012/07/19.png

I'm happy with VM, they do everything I expected of them since moving back to residential from their business services

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Yep, generally happy with VM. Speeds are good and on the few occasions there have been issue they have been sorted out. I avoid their Indian callcentre where possible so often I'll ask the guys on here to step in.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

I'm the unlucky minority who's received nothing but bad service.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

I have no problem with the service I get. However Virgin`s publicity dept. tend to create sitting ducks.
The speed upgrade is a case in point. Personally, I do not really care that much about what speed I get.
My area is not going to be upgraded until August 2013 that is still an year away. Really did it require so much publicity so far in advance .

Re: Why all the hate?
 

I am really happy as a customer and have always recieved great service. My first ever NTL speed was a superfast 750K, then 1Mb and its just gotten fast and faster and now on 100Mb and consistantly that is the speed I get.

This has nothing at all to do with me working for them. Its my iopinion on the BB service I have recieved for the last 8.5 yrs.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Yes I would agree, I've been with NTL/VM for a long time. Speeds usually good and TV service not bad either. However, and I must stress IMHO, the SH was a disaster, hence I've stuck with the VMNG300.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Been with VM 6 months by now
Is OK ... just when area get congestion...
Had few small issues noticeable during area updating but not complains
I prefer FTTC (line is more clear due to jitter) but not coming in my post code as i am direct to exchange
Over All for TV,phone,etc with VM 8 out of 10 ;)

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Virgin okay when it's working. If it goes wrong you're in big do dah. :p:

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Happy

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Who has a low upload? :p:

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2012/07/17.png

Re: Why all the hate?
 

It is good to see people pleased with the service, it is refreshing :)

I don't work for VM don't get me wrong, but they always seem to have a bad reputation.

I use both Virgin Media and Virgin Mobile and wouldn't change neither services. Though I do agree with people saying about their Indian call center, though I believe that is more due to poor training than anything else. Plus a downside to 24/7 customer service.

Edit:
It's ironic really me posting this as right now i'm on hold to Virgin Mobile to cancel one of my contracts! (not for bad reasons, just don't need my rolling contract anymore)

Re: Why all the hate?
 

I'm a happy customer. The service generally provides what I pay for (a fairly reliable 50 meg BB and Tivo is good).

Where Virgin Media do sometimes let themselves down is that it can be infuriating trying to get something fixed, and their installations do (sometimes) leave something to be desired.

I have suffered long waiting times for an answer to my support calls, but this seems to be part and parcel of dealing with call centres (no offence meant to those who work in them), and I can honestly say that while VM can take a while to put you through to an operator, they are far better than other companies (BT, Nationwide and Npower spring to mind).

When dealing with technicians, I've had a couple of bad experiences with VM (one who ripped out the wiring for my AV System to wire in box, and the guy who fitted my Tivo who left over half an hour before the service came on line), but that's par for the course dealing with large companies as well. When they replaced my master socket, BT put it in the wrong place (after I repeatedly pointed out the right place) and charged me £110 for the privilege.

While inspecting my water main, the guy from Thames Water told me off for having my water main in the same ducting as the outflow from the waste system. All of which were put in by Thames Water. When "repairing" the main, they tarmaced over the bit of my drive they dug up, without actually replacing the concrete under the tarmac. A fact demonstrated to me when an engineer from the council pushed a screwdriver through the tarmac and it went straight through. Thankfully, no one had driven or walked on it. Also thankfully, the council engineer said that they'd done it all over the borough so the council offered to repair the damage for free.

This is a long winded post, but the point is that VM don't always get things right, and they certainly aren't the only company that doesn't get it right all the time.

When it does go well though, the service is brilliant.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

After taking them to small claims court i was satisfied with the outcome.:)
Yes I'm a hater

Re: Why all the hate?
 

All happy here too!

It doesn't matter if you are running a huge corporation or selling bananas down the market, unhappy customers will generally be noisier than others , that's just the way it is!

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Not so happy today for the 7th time in a month my TV and BB went down at the same time..Yes I've been awarded another£10 for the inconvenience but it's becoming so I can't rely on the service..I've had 5 set up recordings fail one of which was the final episode in a series that wasn't repeated or on catch up.

I know they are upgrading the system but why so many cut outs?

It's been a great service up until now.:(

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Clearly, you do.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2012/07/18.png

Re: Why all the hate?
 

In that case, it could be said you (comparatively) have a low download....;)

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Please DON'T bate him :erm:

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Yes, I do. But the reason I switched was because upload was more important to me.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

same here but will not come FTTC :dozey:(maybe FTTP in future)

Re: Why all the hate?
 

tbf i really like VirginMedia

My price is very very good, my speed is mint and tbh when ever i have spoken to their customer service it has been great :)

Re: Why all the hate?
 

VM is decent when all is optimal, the problem is when the service is bad it can get very bad. Those with good service seem to not always respect that.

Been with VM in its many guises since 1998 & a BB customer from early 2000.
On the whole my experience is a good one.
TV issues in 2004 took some sorting & the only real issue that required a phone call to VM due to poor download speeds turned out to be my AV that was the cause.
VM does suffer from some problems that they need to overcome (& I think they will) & I think that some customers are over critical, but from my point of view they have been pretty bob on & I would happily give them a good 9.5/10.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

ntl and VM customer 10+ years. Now with 4 services. Few problems over the years. Those there have been have been quickly sorted.

One criticism is that often customer services do not understand what you want and give incorrect information. Only way seems to be to go to 'thinking of leaving us' option who are generally on the ball, but those who do not realise they can do this may be left with a very poor view of VM.

VM phoned me and offered an upgrade from 20 to 60 broadband with a free superhub and a reduction in my monthly bill. As a regular reader of this forum I was dreading this . . . but after several weeks no problem whtsoever with the superhub. Wireless connects with my Android phone all over the house. Consistently get more than 60Mb. Would show you but speedtest.net website seems to be down at the moment.

Two other family members with VM. Both would broadly agree with my comments. One has had several house moves, taking VM with him. All installations have been very good indeed.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

On the flipside of that, those with bad services don't always respect the fact that some (possibly even most, we don't have figures to prove or disprove that) customers do get the service they pay for.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Wish I'd stayed with BT to be honest, I'm on the supposed 120meg and it's been lucky to hit 30meg and that's on a good day.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Nidge, I am very surprised to hear you are having speed problems in Sutton-in-Ashfield. I am in adjoining Mansfield NG18 and it is my impression that we are fortunate in this area with the reliability of VM broadband.

I suggest you push and push to get this sorted.

I have recently had a free speed increase to 60Mb (see post above) and get more than this nearly all the time.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2012/07/15.png

http://www.pingtest.net/result/67064962.png

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Apart from the odd loss of service here and there ive been happy with them. I live in a small town and have always gotten the max speed for my package over the years with no slow down.

If there's no news on increased upload speed past 10mb however i'll be making the move to FTTC when it hits my area in December. I've zero interest in being bumped from 100/10 to 120/12 when i could get 80/20 from BT and god knows what in the future.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2012/07/13.png

Re: Why all the hate?
 

I had brillaint service from them, but my 100Mb is up and down alot now but as for the TV the service is great and the phone well it calls people and I can hear them so I am happy.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Yep, I was with them for 3 yrs at a previous address, and have been with them for 4 years at my current address. Apart from a couple of outages, I'm perfectly happy with them as a company, and the service. In both cases the alternatives were (and still are) ADSL with an actual speed of 6Mb.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Not all that many are saying that here it seems.

For the most part VM deliver a decent product. When it does fail though it can fail big time.

Some support is pretty abysmal so that can generate bad comments.

Pricing policy attracts some venom when somebody finds they have been paying over the odds for years and needed to call and haggle every year to get the best deal.

As mentioned many people only visit forums when things go badly wrong. Then maybe the local smarty pants/fan boy makes some comment or other which sparks off a tirade of abuse.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

On average over ten years my area has grinded to a halt every 2-3 years and i have to put up with a terrible service for 3 months waiting for the stupidly slow planning phases and re-segmentation.

Other than that its fine. Hopefully the latest set of large upgrade work that comes to my area at the end of this year finally breaks this ridiculous cycle for 5+ years.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Infinity in the area would help with that in two ways IMO....

Deserters.
Competition at last.

My area went bad and stayed that way for months. BT have installed Infinity all over town now. Suddenly the local VM network has got much better. I just noticed today that I'm now on a new upstream - I'm pretty much certain we only had the one until very recently. Coincidence? The doubling upgrades? Maybe but I doubt it as doubling isn't due here til next year.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

I'm a happy customer. But there is something about VM that I hate. In fact two things:

1/
Dishonest advertising - see their website and what they say about that wretched superhub's wireless capabilities

2/
No public acknowledgement whatsoever as to just how wretched that SH is as regards wireless.

My SH is in modem mode and everything works perfectly.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

The Superhub has certainly caused a lot of ill feeling IMO.

It is possible to get it right with free hubs but it can take time. The original BT Home Hub on ADSL was abysmal in that it couldn't hold on to the connections well and given the BT DLM routines that was very bad news. After several years it seems they may have eventually got it right as the HomeHub 3 has a good reputation from what I've seen although I've never used one.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

I work for VM so am not expected to complain too much am I? :)

That said the service normally works as intended with few faults. When I do have issues they are sorted, usually rapidly.

I think the nature of forums is that unless there is a real interest in the topic people come there because they have a problem hence there is a bias towards "complaint" rather than praising. Once here though it would be good to see more "well done" type messages - this would apply to forums on other topics too.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Indeed. It's called "Negativity Bias" and is something I have been "shouted down" for mentioning in the past by certain people. Usually the ones who complain the most about VM :D

Re: Why all the hate?
 

l cannot complain about my service as apart from the odd blip its been A1.:tu:

Re: Why all the hate?
 

I have always had nothing but excellent connection and service from VM .. connection has always been rock solid for last 11 years ..
Only slight probs we've had have been with phone or tv box ..
I think it does depend on where in the country you are .. certain areas are perhaps a little oversubscribed .. maybe we are lucky here as we live near a BT exchange so a lot of people in our area dont have virgin .. dunno just a thought ...

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2012/07/6.png

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Been with NTL / Virgin Since 2000 and had broadband since 2001 with them. I have never personally had any real problems with them, I could always connect to the dial up internet back in the day, something that couldn't be said for Freeserve.

With regards to broadband the connection has always been solid, right from 512k all the way up to 100mbit, always got the speed I have paid for. I only remember it been down for a random day twice in the last however many years.

Service has always been second to none around here, my only complaint would be there customer service department. The foreign call centres are terrible and dont really understand you. The UK based ones don't speak to each other and generally say anything to get rid of you.

Customer service aside the actual product you pay for is great.

Solid 100mbit cable with Virgin or 2mbit ADSL2 with BT... no contest.

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Never had a problem with virgin but since the speed upgrade my ping and line quality have not been is normal best.

http://www.pingtest.net/result/67174459.png

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2012/07/5.png

Re: Why all the hate?
 

Apart from one blip a few weeks back I have always had an excellent, trouble-free service from VM. Even with their 10Mb service over 5 years ago I got the speed it said on the box. Naturally I am disturbed by all the poor reports about the SH, but since my router is better than the SH I have always used modem only mode.

Customer services have generally been adequate, in my case, although I have trouble understanding some off-shore operatives. Problems have been dealt with, eventually, and by friendly helpful operatives.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2012/07/3.png

Re: Why all the hate?
 

I've been generally happy with them. The few account and delivery issues have been sorted out with persistance on both my part and that of VM employees.

Currently, since the 100meg upgrade I have noticed massive speed drops in the evenings back down to 50meg. They seem to have improved a bit, lately, now dropping to around 60. This will be capacity issues as my power levels etc. are excellent and it works fine most of the day (when I'm at work...) and late evening (on the run up to midnight). I would complain, but since we still have only 4 channels down in this area and have only had the speed doubles for just over a month I expect VM are still working on enabling further channels and capacity in my area.

Doubtless speeds will improve soon, as there were no capacity issues on 50meg so this is doubtless all about bedding in the new speed doubles.