[blue166]

Hi horseman (Tony),

It has been a tough time in the last 18 months with Virgin Media. First of all there is the period where you are on the phones complaining about speeds and latency. Next I found myself on the forums raising issues. I find the staff more helpful on the forums and have even taken phone calls from Ralph from level 2 support in the past regarding the high utilisation. I had to wait 11 months for Virgin Media to claim they resolved the high utilisation! You must have seen them give me around 5 different dates for the capacity upgrades to lessen the high utilisation.
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I spoke to CS on the phone back in September and they claimed that all the high utilisation on my segment had been resolved and there would be no further issues for some time. So I thought what the heck and upped my service to the 120mb package just for the sakes of wanting to try it. It did not take more than a month to see the old TBB graph starting to raise during peak hours and the "here we go again" sinking feel kick in once again.
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Also back in September I noticed that part of the circuit in the area was split from LANC6 to LANC7 which made a huge impact on those customers TBB graphs which I monitor. Virgin Media claimed that no such resegmentation had been done in our area. I know for a fact that my sister who lives about 4 roads away from me (15 minutes walk) was shifted from LANC6 over to LANC7 yet Virgin still claimed all they did was capacity upgrades and no resegmentation from one uBR to another. I gave up even questioning that. After all who exactly would listen. They said nothing took place so I guess that was final. Would I sound rude saying that from my geographic research I found most employees of Virgin who live close by to me (I see the vans parked) appeared to be on the circuit which had been split. >> Just my own conspiracy theory.
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I truely am of the thought that something real crude is going on in my area in regards to Virgin Media! There is not enough cabinets on the streets and I can not see Virgin installing anymore. I also seen one of the regular green cabinets on the other circuit replaced with a larger grey box - Again on the other circuit. Mine appears to have been given the bare minimum.
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I have complained on the phone, on the forums, the CEO office. I can't go on at them anymore! I just had to give up in the end. The latest call with the CEO office on Tuesday of this week with a chap called Ian and he said sorry about the on going issues and told me that they were hoping to get the issue resolved this September. Another 9 months.. arrrggghh!! And then he told me due to the history of the high utilisation he said there was every chance that this date could be pushed further back! - What am I not being told about the node/segment I am connected to? Something strange is going on for it to not be resolved in 18months and now a further 9 and still that may be pushed back. They clearly have more than enough custom where I live as the dear customer letters I get in the post claim to have 80% business in my road and near area. Is there a problem where they can not resolve the issues as they are cronic?
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I have tried hard to push them for fix dates but I can not make them spend money on the local network.
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BT Infinity went live back in December where I live so I was already of the thought of wanting to try it. Having been told on the VM forums that high utilisation was the cause of my recent issues (which I knew) just confirmed that I have to try FTTC. I just hope Openreach have done everyhing right in the area and that there will be enough capacity at street level and also at the exchange which is around 1 to 1half miles away from me. I have 2 FTTC cabinets within about 300-400 meters of my house so hopefully they are planning capacity at street level well in advance. I think another cabinet is soon to be installed within 100 meters north of my house also which will serve the other half of my road. so that will be 3 FTTC cabs within 300-400 meters from my house.
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I do feel it is a risk moving to another service but it is not as if I am moving from a great Virgin Media service so I feel I have to at least try another service. I stayed with Virgin Media and took montly credits in hope that one day I would look at the TBB monitor and see that my graph had gone red with a IP change and my connection shifted to LANC7. LANC6 has had so many issues in the last 18 months I barely paid a penny for the service as I made sure I complained at every issue I had. So I can not knock them for lack of credits or anything like that. I think Virgin were easy to get credits out of if you were happy to ride out the high utilisation. But now I would just rather have a decent service and not have to put up with there nonsense.
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I have no idea what FTTC will be like where I live nor do I know the quality of my phone line or the wiring. I will be speaking with the openreach chap when he comes out and will ask to go look in the FTTC cab and ask how many others are connected etc.. and just other questions in general. Just hope he is directly from openreach and not kelly communications as a contractor. I will complain if things are bodged or feel rushed.
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Is for services - well currently I have Sky TV (prefer it) Virgin BB & Landline - Soon to be BT Infinity w/BT Sport added to sky for free and Landline if all goes well. Worse case would be BT Infinity being worse than my VM connection and me having to cancel the BT package and sitting back with VM taking credits and waiting for a high utilisation fix which feels it may never come.