Prices
 

Is it midnight or tomorrow the prices go up?

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I think they have already changed to October pricing on the website

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Still showing old pricing for me..

http://store.virginmedia.com/broadba...and/100mb.html

Just wondered so I know when the bill will hit.

Thanks for the reply Ben :)

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Broadband prices aren't changing for new connections, so the website is showing the correct price

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I see, SO it's just for loyal and old customers?

I'm not whinging. I think £37.50 a month is brill value I use about 500GB a month so I know I should pay that.

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That's how all business works. Their job is to get your money, once they already have your money there's less reason to care.

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Which is fair because they are getting it x2 soon!

As I said I use a lot so it's probably not enough but justified

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Taking everyday's point on board,I didn't see anybody whinge about the free speed doubling programme (other than the time taken to overbuild a particuar area to make it fit for the upgrade).

I do see others whingng about the pricerises though - small in relation to their speed doubling.

As for LOYALTY - that's a load of tosh when people whinge that their price should be cheaper because of their loyalty. How on earth would VM make money for profit and/or investment if they had to pay out on customer loyalty? Customers usually stay loyall if the service is up to the mark.

Customers whinge if their downloading is disrupted by everyone else downloading at the same time and then blame it onto VM for not providing unlimited capacity.

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Agreed. I might be one of a dying breed but I consider £37.50 to be a bargain for 120mbps and thus £75 for both is also good.

I mean £75 for 240 down and 24 up (on paper anyway) is a steal!

Even if I do double and hit say 1TB (probably won't) I still don't think I am paying enough.

I did look at, and can get business but I decided the £150 install charge per router was too much and I could just get a load balancer on res instead.

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i am glad your not in charge at VM

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There's a simple way out if you don't like the price rise - call retentions and they'll give you a substantial price cut on what you're paying now instead of the rise in exchange for a further 12 months minimum term. At least they did for me but I'm in an FTTC area which may have influenced their offer.

Just as caring for existing customers goes out of the window for VM so does any loyalty to them if they try to impose two price rises at way over inflation inside a year.

---------- Post added at 17:20 ---------- Previous post was at 17:17 ----------

As they have not got unlimited capacity maybe they should stop advertising an unlimited product then.

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If I was you'd all be paying full price but also getting a lot more!

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Nobody has unlimited capacity.

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You're being specious here, Kwikkie. All that VM have to say about "unlimited" is:

Unlimited downloads – no hidden charges

The web is bursting with exciting things to see and do, so don't hold back when you're browsing. You can stream and download as many music tracks, films, photos and files as you want without having to worry about hidden charges**.

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Which is true - even if the speed is dropped the data isn't

We all seem to have forgotten the days when ADSL came out. If you hit your limit your auth was cut off until you paid more or waited till the next month.

Compared to these days unlimited downloads is right. And okay it might be what 70-80mbps but that's still fast!

or have I got this all wrong? Are people wondering if I am weird. Because I

A. Pay full Price and don't mind and
B. Agree I get what I was sold and pay for

?

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VM can barely cope with what they are giving now lol

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I think some people just can't imagine that others might disagree with them, or be happy with something they themselves would not be happy with. For many of us, there's nothing keeping us with Virgin so if we are with them, it's for a reason - they're either cheaper or offer a better service than the competition. What you define as "better" may vary".

---------- Post added at 20:59 ---------- Previous post was at 20:58 ----------

I'm a heavy user and not only do I not suffer from congestion in the evening, I can't remember the last time I was STM'd (even when I should have been).

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In that respect I'm the same as you.

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This is certainly so for me. I can't get a better service for a lower price. If I could I'd be doing just that.

Regarding unlimited - I don't think any ISP should be allowed to advertise unlimited as it just gives an excuse to use the system beyond what any rational person would consider to be reasonable and the result is poorer performance and/or higher prices for everybody else.

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Even if they didn't say "unlimited" people would still thrash the thing to a standstill.

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I would be lucky to get 2mbps on my rusty old BT socket.

I get limited in the evening apart from last friday when it was off. So it takes me longer to download when limited but I get there in the end.

I just see people saying VM don't do enough for them and their network is slow etc. But I also see how they then get the service super cheap.

I am sorry if anyone takes offence to this but if VM grew a backbone and stopped giving refunds discounts and compensation to anyone who cried like a wet lettuce they might actually have some money to make the network better. (I know there shareholders too) but come on.. Can't make an omelette if you gave all your eggs away! (okay so bad use of words there)

---------- Post added at 21:39 ---------- Previous post was at 21:38 ----------

Fair play.

I use about 500GB a month - I bet that costs VM a fair whack! £37.50 is nothing!

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Looking at VM's 2012 accounts, they've got c. 5 million residential broadband customers and they are in profit. So the cost of you 500 GB/month annualised will be around 90% of what you pay!

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£405 a year.. and £45 profit.

Well if they let me they can have £900 a year and £495 profit. Ill still do the same only faster :D

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To be super pedantic the way they drop your speed is by dropping your data.

---------- Post added at 00:34 ---------- Previous post was at 00:33 ----------

And if the ISP is perfectly able and prepared to provide that level of service, why should they be banned from doing so?

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according to Google VM have already been investigated by the ASA about this unlimited thing and cleared.

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If they can then fine but I doubt that there are many that can support downloads and uploads at full headline speed by all their customers 24x7 which is what "unlimited" implies.

Every utility that supplies a measurable product (such as gas electricity and water) does so at standing charge + price per unit volume. If ISPs did the same it would get rid of the "unlimited" nonsense and all the sniping between high volume users and low.

---------- Post added at 11:30 ---------- Previous post was at 11:22 ----------

They had to drop their letters threatening disconnection for excessive use to do so. Now they just send advisory letters which get filed in the bin. There are still plenty of complaints about congestion proving that their capacity isn't unlimited. The ASA also made questionable rulings about what can be called fibre optic broadband. IMO neither cable nor FTTC legitimately meet that description but both can be sold as such.

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Kwikkie

You still misapply the term "unlimited" to the current VM offer. They are quite sepcific on their web site as to how the term "unlimited" is to be applied. It's unlimited volume and no other claim is made.

Anyone who infers otherwise has no case.

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Bandwidth isn't the only thing that is sold in "unlimited" quantities and yet I can't think of a single thing sold in this country as "unlimited" that is as unlimited as you describe.

When I go into Subway and get a drink with Unlimited refills, I'm well aware that if I and every other customer in the place drank to excess, they would run out.

If I go to a buffet where I can eat an unlimited amount of food, I'm well aware that occasionally some items may run out before I've had my fill.

If I pay British Gas for boiler cover, then every single customer has an issue and demands an engineer right away, they may have to wait - despite the unlimited call outs.

This "unlimited" nonsense has less to do with excessive usage and more to do with knowing what your bill is going to be every month. It's incredibly easy to accidentally download a lot of data without realising it - all it takes is a rogue program (For example, there's a bug in Windows 8 with Outlook 2013 whereby IMAP sometimes gorges on bandwidth - happened in my work and we lost 30-40GB a day of our 100GB Monthly quota). When it comes to gas or electricity, how likely is the same thing to happen? You might leave a light on or forget to switch off the oven one evening but you'll notice before it starts costing you hundreds and hundreds of pounds.

Perhaps Virgin could do with being clearer on their STM policies, or being more proactive when warning customers of congestion before they sign up - I have no quarrel with this, but to blame them selling "unlimited" bandwidth is the wrong argument. Nothing is truly unlimited, but we all understand that unlimited really means no bill shock.

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These days with all the hype on the term "unlimited" it means:

1. What the FTTC suppliers mean by the term

2. What VM means by the term

Both make their meaning clear and nowehere does it say anything along the lines of "no bill shock".

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I understand fully what "unlimited" as used by VM means. It doesn't take much reading of this and other boards that plenty regard "unlimited" to mean precisely what the dictionary says it means and no ISP can deliver that.

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"unlimited" is used as an adjective, the subject of which is then declared in the sentence. Such as "unlimited data volumes"; "unlimited speeds", "unlimited head in the sand". Then when you go to the dictionary, the term used ("unlimited") fits the definition in respect of the subject described.

Simples..

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[QUOTE=kwikbreaks;35627532]If ISPs did the same it would get rid of the "unlimited" nonsense and all the sniping between high volume users and low.[COLOR="Silver"]/QUOTE]

One tried.. Metrone did a monthly fee with allowance and then you paid per MB up-to a ceiling where the price stopped but the connection didn't

I guess it didn't work as it was killed off when plusnet bought it.

@Kushan, Water is unlimited and unmetered hence the fixed rates.

The planet will never run out of water. Probably.

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So hosepipe bans and even cutting off water supplies during a heatwave doesn't count?

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A great analogy to STM, Kush!

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Tell that to everyone that has a water meter ;)

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Why? Anyone with a water meter knows it's metered. I have one!

I was referring to people who pay full rates!

@kush

the 1991 Water Resources Act, which explicitly prohibits their use only for watering gardens and washing private vehicles. Dozens of other uses of hosepipes are still allowed, from filling hot tubs to washing the patio.

What's banned

· Using a hosepipe to wash a private car, caravan or trailer

· Using a hosepipe or sprinkler to water a domestic garden or enclosed gardens on commercial premises, such as next to a car showroom

What's not

· Everything not explicitly banned above: filling private swimming pools and hot tubs, hosing down patios and driveways, commercial car washes, golf course sprinklers, fountains, water cannons

So. What you need to be doing is filling up your £14.99 swimming pool and then extracting the water from it via an electric pump whereby indirectly watering your garden. :D

Or simply washing your path and fence, any overspill that flows on to the garden being only happen-stance

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If that were broadband, people would call it traffic management (or traffic shaping). Again I stand by my point - NOTHING is truly, utterly unlimited.

Well, aside perhaps from human stupidity.

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And oxygen.

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There's a finite amount of that, too. More than we can possibly use, but still a finite amount.

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well that's just being pedantic.

Space is unlimited.. we still haven't used all that up yet and our probes keep going :)

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The point isn't that there's more than we can possibly use, it's that people are arguing that Virgin is falsely advertising something as "unlimited" when the harsh reality is that EVERYTHING is limited. I don't think there's a single residential ISP out there that has enough capacity for every single one of their customers to max out their connection at the same time - but you know what, that's ok. That will rarely, if ever, happen. Adding that capacity would only serve to increase the expense and for no real gain, you won't notice that extra capacity if you're already maxing out your connection.

Now having said that, Virgin could definitely do with adding extra capacity in some places and as far as I can tell, that's exactly what they're doing. They haven't quite fixed every area yet but there's been a marked improvement over the last 12 months or so. I still don't feel they're falsely advertising anything by saying it's unlimited, it's unlimited in every sense it physically can be.

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Kush

How many times do I have to point out that VM's use of the term "unlimited" is explained in their advert. In no other respect is it unlimited. Indeed, STM is a limiting mechanism but that's also made clear in the ads/web site.

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I really dont think we need two pages of arguments to define "unlimited". Get back to the topic please.

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I really think we do. Especially when it is Joe Public being taken advantage of by big ISP's

---------- Post added at 02:42 ---------- Previous post was at 02:42 ----------

You surely mean limited?

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Hi,

Have I missed something, what this about the prices going/gone up?
Does it affect everyone regardless of package?

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It affected those with standalone broadband or Sky Sports only

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No the price rise was for broadband only customers and if anybody doesn't feel like paying it all they need do is call retentions and they'll be offered a fairly substantial reduction on their current price in exchange for a fresh 12 months minimum term - unless they are already on some really low rate of course.

Sorry for mentioning "unlimited" several pages back. I promise I wasn't trolling although the result may have suggested I was....

====

I see I missed SkySports only customers - I'm guessing they can dodge the increase too.

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I'm going to duck out out on this one as I'd rather not disagree with the mods. I agree with them that debating limited/unlimited has nothing to do with price rises.

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There are two separate price changes.

One for Broadband only customers

One for customers with Sky Sports

Not connected to each other, just happening at the same time

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Not that a couple of quid matters too much, but I get BT Sport free from BT! Now I get it twice and pay extra for it once.

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I'd disagree, as been said before, unlimited != uncontended. I don't think anyone expects at this price point (even post price-rise) to get 100% of their rated speed all the time, if most people can use their connection as much as they want then that's fine by me.

Well that's wrong in two ways, not every utility company has a standing charge and not every utility has a price per unit volume. Water is unlimited for a flat fee (council tax) in some places.

Then there's "Unlimited" calls on telephone. "Unlimited" refills on food/drinks. "Unlimited" mobile data. "Unlimited" mileage. Etc. etc. Again I'd expect most people to have some common sense to maintain reasonable expectations at given price points. Unlimited at £35 a month and Unlimited at £350 a month are going to mean different things.

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The "unlimited" discussion was ruled off-topic by a moderator a few pages back so I will only say that on point 1 we are arguing semantics and on point 2 you are nit picking - replace all with most and all is well with my comment.

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There's a reason "all" and "most" are two separate words.

Also, not bold = not a moderating decision.

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There's also a reason I had you on ignore until recently.

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I'm sure you've said that before, block me or don't, make up your mind already.

I may be a moron but at least I'm consistent.

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kwikbreaks I do disagree with you on this one, going to a metered broadband model is like taking 10 steps back and will cause more problems than it solves, payg internet is now very obselete practice.

For the most part unlimited broadband in the uk is in a much better state than it was a couple of years ago, VM is now the only major wired broadband uk isp left who uses protocol shaping and usage based throttling on its unlimited products. They are the odd one out not the norm.

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I'm not suggesting that metered broadband is a good idea but neither is going back to relying on congestion if they aren't prepared to invest in the capacity to support what they are advertising. I don't really know what the answer may be. The fault lies with the ASA allowing "unlimited" to mean just about anything that the ISP decides it may mean. Very Alice in Wonderland.

---------- Post added at 08:53 ---------- Previous post was at 08:46 ----------

Bye again....

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Chrys is right. I've always said that BT will win in the end because it's like the Russian army, if you know what I mean.

HFC in its current form brings congestion to a point close to the consumer - the optical node. FTTC doesn't. HFC can get out of this hole through investment at the local level but PRICE wars that BT (and its FTTC dromes) can sustain constrain VM's ability to increase local capacity quickly.

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I think that's pretty much it in a nutshell except I don't see it as a price war. To reach new customers with FTTC must cost considerably less than it would for cable as the phone lines already reach the majority of premises in the country. One fibre to a cab somewhere can reach 100 or so (I forget how many lines each FTTC box can support) but to reach them with cable you have at least a new conduit and cable(s) to install passing certainly more premises than will ever take the product plus quite probably a new optical node which must cost as least as much as the FTTC cabinet to install.

The only real way VM can expand is to increase takeup in areas already covered and push more product to each customer.

The situation is even worse on paid TV - much of the install cost is paid by the consumer.

Were any of the earlier failed cable companies debts written off or did VM pick up the tab for all. I know that they are running with a huge debt mountain which must place pretty big constraints on what they can do.

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The debt was never really paid off, it was just restructured to have lower ongoing costs. Liberty Global took all of that debt on in the takeover, which seems barmy considering how much debt LG were running with from their existing operations.

Both LG & the VM subsidiary got credit downgrades following the takeover, if I remember rightly.

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However their share price has gone from 55 dollars to 80 since they bought VM and is expected to reach 100 in the not too distant future, so clearly people who understand how all this stuff works, have confidence in the decision.

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Yes, because rising share prices is the sole indicator of a financially sound investment. You came out with this utter bollocks last time this discussion happened.

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Oh, ok then, last I heard it indicated the value of a company.

Btw just seen all your posts baiting posters re BT sports. all in can say is ha ha, what a fool you must be

Regards

Mr utter bollocks

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I think one is 140 and one is 288? Might even be a 96 one I did a quick google search.

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Isn't it 128 (small), 288 large? And aren't there two types of cabinet (and modem), Huawei & ECI?

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I honestly don't know i did a google for the cab sizes.

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There are certainly two sizes - they pick whichever they think is likely to be needed for all the FTTC lines from their partner phone cabinet.

I'd put an FTTC cab as the equivalent of an optical node as it has fibre back to the exchange, active components, and needs a 240v supply. The thing is once the FTTC cab is installed apart from a short link to the parent phone cabinet all the links to customer premises are already in place but for VM unless this is a capacity upgrade there is still a lot of expensive work needed to take the service to customers.

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Known troll, don't waste your breath with him, we don't.

288 sounds about right.

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I'm pretty sure that's a 288 one

http://prntscr.com/1vpyt7

Smaller one..

http://prntscr.com/1vpywx

Either this one is huge or the granny is tiny

http://prntscr.com/1vpz2h

As family pics go - that's a whole new level of saddo...

http://prntscr.com/1vpz71

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My one response , you are wrong on many levels. Please don't get yourself banned again, you have been behaving lately, don't spoil it now.

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I put a rhetorical question! It's actually a statement.

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theres also the smaller wall mounted eci unit

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Wall mounted VDSL2 cab? This I have to see!

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no I think they mean a smaller unit they put on telegraph poles at the top and bottom when they do it overhead?

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Im sure it was you who posted the link to it some months ago, I cant find the documentation on the openreach website, but if you skip to about 2:45 on this video it shows the wall mounted ECI unit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53NcsctuxV0

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Nope, wasn't me. But thanks for the link

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whoever posted it a few months ago posted a link with more info with a few pages on the openreach website, but if you look at the videos on the 0penreach youtube page it has a lot of interesting videos

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yeah those cabinets exist but they seem very rare in deployment.

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such small capacity I presume they are for end of line industrial estates and areas with a small number of properties