New STM/Virgin traffic managent confirmed - so that's why it's slow!

[Nicosia]

really sky now own them? kewl well they got higher upload so good on them, and for those who get a good service from ukonline

[The PIT]

Originally Posted by Nicosia

ukonline suck i was with them for a few years but the line kept dropping and they where 100 times worse then ntl

Apart from one poor India techie I found them a very good service. While Virgin in all truth sucks from the first week.

[Nicosia]

to be honest the pit when i had 2mbit ukonline it was ok then 8mbit was still working fine, it was when i upgraded to 24mbit and had the netgear router sent then it started to work like a yoyo constantly down

[The PIT]

Originally Posted by Nicosia

to be honest the pit when i had 2mbit ukonline it was ok then 8mbit was still working fine, it was when i upgraded to 24mbit and had the netgear router sent then it started to work like a yoyo constantly down

Yup my did that which says it's routers fault. Draytek connected straight away but the model I had wouldn't go above 8 meg anyway. So I contacted ukonline who tried a few things but could only get 8 meg max. So they put me down to the old service however they forgot to drop my upload speed so I'm getting 1 meg up and 8 meg down at 8 meg prices.

I've kept quiet about it of course.

[Nicosia]

nice! well if they have not noticed it why say anything u have the speeds ur adsl can handle and the extra upload faster then VMs 20mbit upload lol, if i dident mind about only having 8meg it would of been ok to be on ukonline or another adsl isp but i want faster and vm are the only isp who can give me anything faster then 8mbit, so ill stick with cable.

[Sput]

Originally Posted by The PIT

Yup my did that which says it's routers fault. Draytek connected straight away but the model I had wouldn't go above 8 meg anyway. So I contacted ukonline who tried a few things but could only get 8 meg max. So they put me down to the old service however they forgot to drop my upload speed so I'm getting 1 meg up and 8 meg down at 8 meg prices.

I've kept quiet about it of course.

Naturally. Isn't that what everyone would do

[law.tq]

Originally Posted by Angry@VMedia

This is where you are wrong.
What do you call STM then? they LIMIT your speeds, which in effect means they LIMIT how much you can download/upload per day.
And all this rubbish about ONLY being STM'ed if you are in the top 5% this is rubbish!

Say I am the only person in a village with virgin's internet, and I go over my LIMITS, how the hell can I be within the top 5%?
Virgin are just using this scamming technique so they can cram more people on the already well over-subscribed network, thus increasing their PROFITS while ripping customers off as they are in effect STEALING already paid for bandwidth, and as we all know, the more customers they cram on, the less speed we will get, and this is the ONLY reason why they are doing it.

Now anyone could just come back with "but they are constantly upgrading their network" answer: WRONG!!!
IF they are indeed constantly upgrading their network,then WHY are people STILL saying they have poor speeds?
Virgin IMO would NEVER do anything to help its customers, quite the contrary, they do EVERYTHING they can to screw us customers over, this is FACT!

Rant over now

Totally agree with you m8!

Hi all!! Newbie here

I got hooked up to VB's 20 meg service yesterday around 4pm. Getting 20.4meg downloads constantly, sometimes 21.5!!! Whow!! At 9pm I noticed some serious lag when beating people up on tekken online, when I had no lag minutes before!!

Speed test showed me at 5megs maximum haha. I purposely downloaded huge files from virgin gamefiles to test this STM rubbish, as I heard some people get away with it, not me though, first day, 5meg cap! lol

Anyway, already have Be and get around 14 megs max, who do you think I'm gonna stay with, virgin won't have me past the trial period. The 20meg is a nice upgrade, but not worth the thieving of bandwidth from VB, and £37?? Damn! Prefer the £18 for Be.

[bradkb]

Hi all! (newbie to forum alert!)

Well, having been on cable modem since Feb 2000, being one of the first in the country to get one (think I was the 2nd install) and originally beta tester for telewest back in the day, I have seen the network grow and go from 512, 1Mb, 2mb, 10mb, 20mb.... and now after over 8 years this has got to be the worst I have seen the network perform. During the beta testing they lifted the limits a few times and the speed was superb, and over the years I think in total I have had about 4 outages, most lasted 2 days. Of course thats not including the week of nothing straight after install, and 4 senior engineers later who still could not get this new cable modem thingy working (hooked up to the FM connector instead of digital service... I spotted it and wouldnt tell how I fixed it)... but this throttling is the pits... constantly I am being restricted.

I am an IT consultant and either work from home or on clients sites, I pay for 20mb, I expect the service I pay for, and like said before on this thread, you dont get money back for the bandwidth you dont get. Even my upload gets throttled back to 300k... try remote desktop to a server over that!

Had enough, BT line installed today, ordered Be* and confirmed, box on way, and should be activated next week, I know many people on it, and to be able to have up to 24Mb with 2.5 upload, static IP and same phone deal as VM for £18 less a month.... no longer rocket science is it?

Never had ADSL before, so going to be a new experience, but according to BT engineer today the Hawk says I am 700m from exchange... fingers crossed. VM it was nice before you became VM, now its just rubbish, CS dont care, and if you are no longer going to invest and just keep grabbing customers on board, drop the 10Mb and 20Mb service as you will only ever be able to give 4mb....

Might be better if they advertised it as 4mb burstable to 20mb off peak? Might be a bit more honest and more appealing to customers...... but then ....

Good luck all.

[Zhadnost]

Good luck, on VM I get the full 20MBit mostly, on Be I sync at 6.5MBit down, 1.2 MBit up (or 5.5 down, 1.2 up on upload plus).

Of course I didn't get the full 6.5Mbit until a while after the installation (exchange needed upgrading).

It's been a pretty good service, but not as reliable as the VM one.

[rossdagley]

Downloaded 1.65Gb of data earlier this evening (16th August 2008). Then went and watched a film on TV, come back some 2 hours later, now capped at 600kb/sec.

So - it looks like I've been capped again, way way under the limit VM claim to cap people. This isn't the first time this has happened - in fact, only about 6 weeks ago did I complain I was inappropiately capped to receive an apology and be told that indeed I'd been wrongly restricted.

Thankfully, my years contract is up in 6 weeks - I'll be serving 6 weeks notice of my cancellation on Monday morning. I've had it up to my eyeballs with this bunch of idiots.

The UK's most expensive consumer grade broadband - it's 00:30 and I'm getting one of the slowest commercially available speeds in the UK. Again.

But remember kids - it's unlimited. Like a dripping tap - it's unlimited water folks. Just don't expect to survive in the desert when those drips come once every 60 minutes or so.

[bradkb]

Thats what got me - paying £37 a month for what? 20Mb when you are lucky, and in between getting forced down, sometimes I have had less than a meg, which is rediculous. Got confirmation from Be that my modem is on its way and should be here Monday, get it in, on and sync'd. Then providing thats all ok my cancellation is going in to virgin for both broadband and telephone, so thanks to this they will loose over £55 a month from me, after 8 years STM has killed a good thing.

[frogstamper]

Don't forget though comparing VMs £37 with Be* at £18 isn't like for like, you'll have to add the price of BTs line rental. Anyway keep us informed, and good luck.

[rossdagley]

I moved from Sky+ to V+ and from Be* to VM XL. On ADSL with Be* I "only" got 16mbit, rather than the 20mbit I do get with VM, but VM is twice the price.

With SkyHD I'll be getting a whole swathe of HD channels (including free-to-air channels that VM don't provide) - with VM I get BBC HD. A whole channel!

What a mistake. Combine all the negatives, and I'm yet another rat leaving this ever sinking ship.

Goodbye VM. I'd say it was nice knowing you. But it wasn't.

---------- Post added at 00:54 ---------- Previous post was at 00:50 ----------

Just got my uncapped line back - thanks VM - it's only 1am...

At least I can now catch up on the downloads they were inappropiately throttling an hour ago...

[bradkb]

Originally Posted by frogstamper

Don't forget though comparing VMs £37 with Be* at £18 isn't like for like, you'll have to add the price of BTs line rental. Anyway keep us informed, and good luck.

Yes, but on VM I pay £18.95 for phone with unlimited calls, on BT I will be paying £15.45 for phone with unlimited calls.

So tallying up -

VM
Broadband £37
Phone £18.95

Total £55.95

BT/Be*
Broadband £18
Phone £15.45

Total £33.45

Saving £22.50 per month and get Static IP and no STM.....To be honest I am 700m from the exchange, and by road its 1.4km, as long as I get a stable connection of 8Mb or faster I will be happy.

Had enough of throttled connection, working from home has become a nightmare lately, and found that sometimes I have to use works 3G modem just to remote desktop to a clients server, never had these issues before STM.

[frogstamper]

Don't forget though if you take XL-BB and XL-phone together you get it for £28.95pm for the first six months, then £38.95pm after that.
OK its still cheaper with BT and Be* at £33.45 but its about a fiver not £22.50.
Anyway it doesn't matter much now as your moving, don't forget let us know how it works out at Be* and what sort of speed you get, I might follow you in time
The one part I am in full agreement with you though is VMs TV service and paltry lack of HD, it truly is appalling, I shall give it to the end of the year and if there is no improvement I'll reluctantly go for Sky.