STM rates VM expect you to keep to

[Tiger33]

Originally Posted by pippincp

Not mad figures at all, do the math yourself.

If you are a power user and use the full potential then you speed will be cut by 75% for 10 hours, so for 10 hours you only get 5Mbps downstream. Add to the fact that there are quite a few oversubscribed UBR's out there and some have never got anywhere near the 20 Mbps they were paying for and then you can enter the real world.

So do the math yourself and by all means prove me wrong!

Tiger33

Yes you can cancel your contract although be prepared for retentions to contact you almost daily with offers etc to try and change your mind, also a promise of things getting better.

It is up to you if you decide to change but you may end up with a better deal if you hang on in there.

Personally I hung on for another month, got a £10 discount on my monthly rental costs but still went when the promised improvement didn't happen.

Like you I'm an old hand with cable having been with them since the days of Bolton Cable.

As such a loyal customer for all those years I believe I have a right to bash VM as I had no problems until they came along!

Customer loyalty means nothing to them.

ok thanks buddy

ill give them a call later today
so do i call and ask for retentions or cancellations?

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by cadire

Leaving aside the issue of so called 'power users' being, apparently, incapable of scheduling their downloads, I have never had my speed drop to 13.5kbps and I don't know anyone who has. That is the real world as far as I, and thousands of others, are concerned.

Having read some of your other posts, I can see you are on a crusade to educate us. I can appreciate the thought, but lets keep it rational for goodness sake!

I do try to be rational. For the thousands of others who are quite happy there are equally thousands of others who aren't.

There are UBR's which are oversubscribed just as there are those that aren't.

The dissatisfied customers are in areas where the oversubscription takes place.

As regards the real world here it is as I see it, Having been with cable from year dot I progressed to dial-up when the internet came on the scene, then BB came along and I signed up straight away. I always paid for the Max package and paid a premium for it which I would never complain about because I got the service I was paying for.

If anyone asked me who the best BB provider was I would always say NTL!

Then this shower called Virgin Media came along and everything went downhill from then. Speeds were a problem before STM, I was in a trial area for STM without being informed, my UBR became oversubscribed which led to more loss of speed.

Only once in the time from Virgin Media have I achieved a speed in excess of 10Mbps whilst always being charged for "up to" 20Mbps. Whilst with NTL there was no problem.

I would have been happy if I could achieve the average 13.5Mbps I mentioned earlier.

I live in the real world, I now have a different ISP who provides everything I pay for. I would still be a VM customer if they had only done the same.

VM could do with taking a leaf out of my current ISP's book, they will disable an exchange for new customers if it looks like becoming oversubscribed and then upgrade it before taking on new customers.

I live in the "REAL" BB world, I know that no-one needs more than 10Mbps for web browsing,streaming or gaming online provided the speed actually exists.

And yes I will continue to slag off that shower called Virgin Media as an ex customer for so many years I think I'm qualified to do so!

[brundles]

Originally Posted by pippincp

If anyone asked me who the best BB provider was I would always say NTL!

Then this shower called Virgin Media came along and everything went downhill from then.

You are aware that it's still NTL just with a (slightly tarnished) red Virgin Media logo?

The company is still NTL is just uses the Virgin brand.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by brundles

You are aware that it's still NTL just with a (slightly tarnished) red Virgin Media logo?

The company is still NTL is just uses the Virgin brand.

Actually you are wrong.

It is a new company formed by the merger of NTL and TeleWest.
Yes they pay for the use of the VM logo.

Any other observations?

BTW I'm waiting for the monopoles commission to rule on this, BT are forced to make their lines available to other companies. The same should be said for VM. Level playing field and all that?

[brundles]

Originally Posted by pippincp

It is a new company formed by the merger of NTL and TeleWest.

A new company with 75% of the shares owned by the former NTL and NTL execs making up the exec list of the new company (Neil Berkett, current CEO, for example).

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by brundles

A new company with 75% of the shares owned by the former NTL and NTL execs making up the exec list of the new company (Neil Berkett, current CEO, for example).

You've answered your own comment.

"A new company"!!!

[brundles]

A company being a new legal entity has absolutely no bearing on the reality of the companies day to day operations. On paper it's a new company, but it's controlled by NTL and still run by NTL.

I'm not suggesting that things haven't gone down hill (IMO they have) since they got their Virgin badge, but it is still NTL.

I'm not sure about your other comment on the monopolies and mergers stuff - the BT infrastructure was paid for with tax payers money but now provides income to BT as they re-sell to those other providers. That wouldn't exactly be level for cable opening their network would it as they paid for it themselves. Besides, if they did, we'd probably see greater STM levels or similar as they try and reserve bandwidth for those other companies who (will probably) have tied VM down with penalties if certain service levels aren't met.

(Mind you, perhaps that could be a good thing as it could force VM to review their infrastructure whilst giving them a source of funding to do it with.)

(I think we might be getting slightly OT now though

[piggy]

Originally Posted by pippincp

You've answered your own comment.

"A new company"!!!

a new company = yes, but if your living in the real world then no its the same company different name.

[buckleb]

Originally Posted by pippincp

I would have been happy if I could achieve the average 13.5Mbps I mentioned earlier.

You actually wrote 13.5kbps, hence my disbelief.

As for 'slagging off' VM... whatever floats your boat. Many of us would have just moved on.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by brundles

A company being a new legal entity has absolutely no bearing on the reality of the companies day to day operations. On paper it's a new company, but it's controlled by NTL and still run by NTL.

I'm not suggesting that things haven't gone down hill (IMO they have) since they got their Virgin badge, but it is still NTL.

I'm not sure about your other comment on the monopolies and mergers stuff - the BT infrastructure was paid for with tax payers money but now provides income to BT as they re-sell to those other providers. That wouldn't exactly be level for cable opening their network would it as they paid for it themselves. Besides, if they did, we'd probably see greater STM levels or similar as they try and reserve bandwidth for those other companies who (will probably) have tied VM down with penalties if certain service levels aren't met.
(Mind you, perhaps that could be a good thing as it could force VM to review their infrastructure whilst giving them a source of funding to do it with.)

(I think we might be getting slightly OT now though

You are now getting there.

You agree that services have gone downhill since the rebranding-and they have.

Other companies would quite rightly buy and reserve X amount of bandwith on the system and pay for the same (Just as premium users do ATM without guarantees)

Who benefits in the end?

1) Customers-they are given choice and get what they pay for.

2) Companies - VM get paid for provisioning and from their own customer base and have the added advantage of bulk wholesale sales.

---------- Post added at 17:26 ---------- Previous post was at 17:23 ----------

Originally Posted by Tiger33

ok thanks buddy

ill give them a call later today
so do i call and ask for retentions or cancellations?

Ask for cancellations. Retentions will get back to yhou over the next few days trying to persuade you to stay with them.

BTW who are you considering going to??

[brundles]

Originally Posted by pippincp

You are now getting there.

You agree that services have gone downhill since the rebranding-and they have.

Other companies would quite rightly buy and reserve X amount of bandwith on the system and pay for the same (Just as premium users do ATM without guarantees)

Who benefits in the end?

1) Customers-they are given choice and get what they pay for.

2) Companies - VM get paid for provisioning and from their own customer base and have the added advantage of bulk wholesale sales.

I only said it might be useful. There is always of course the (more likely I suspect) possibility that if it did happen then VM would refuse to provide any QoS guarantees and just continue with the existing architecture prioritising their own traffic.

A company is always going to protect it's own customer base as best as possible over those of competitors that it's forced to carry. (I know suggesting VM might protect our service is a bit far fetched but you get the idea).

At the moment customers do have choice - to most people, broadband is broadband. Those that distinguish (or can distinguish or even care) between ADSL and cable are still in the minority.

The problem with bulk wholesale is the size of investment they'd need to make first to have the capacity to be able to bulk wholesale. Where's that coming from? Regulators forcing them back into Chapter 11 just to try and bring in competition that you could argue isn't necessary given the ADSL market, BTs plans and Sky's fibre to the cabinet ideas?

I have a vague recollection of a discussion on whether opening the cable TV network to competitors may be an idea during the Sky basics discussions - perhaps a thread on opening the broadband network could be interesting.

[ryuzaki]

STM has totally failed - speeds are still rubbish in the evenings, with YouTube not working properly and disconnects/high pings in games etc.

The basic problem - not enough bandwidth on the network - will not go away no matter how much STM they have. If a few people near you suddenly start a download or watching a video, the few hundreds of megs is under the STM limit but still overloads the area and causes problems for everyone.

Money spent on upgrade is the only option.

[SOSAGES]

sorry to be a pain but im on the XL package (20meg)
what are the current STM rules?
i cant keep up with all the changes..

[brundles]

Current rules can be found at http://www.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management.php

20 meg means a 6gig limit between 10AM and 3PM, then a 3GB limit between 4PM and 9PM.

[pip08456]

Here are things that stand ATM.

VM is the ONLY cable company available in the UK.

The Monopolies and Mergers Commission could quite easily force VM to open their network to other companies. That was not the case when there was 2 seperate companies (NTL & TW).

BT was forced to open up their network under the same rules and there are companies who supply faster BB than BT on their own network.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the future.

STM-Failed with power users

Value for money-Failed for power users

Service-Failed for power users.

Investment in the backbone-Failed

If and this is only IF the M&MC decided to force VM to open the network it would only have benefits for customers

VM has alreay said it cannot compete with Sky on the TV side. How about a deal which allowed Sky to use the VM backbone service and VM charged for it?