Compensation for service disruption

Arj12 · 02-02-2010, 15:37

Hi. I'm fairly new to this forum and have a question about the compensation I could expect to receive from VM for service disruption without being told.
Basically what has happened was about 2 weeks ago an engineer came round to fix a fault with my tv service but he took lots of things out of my brown box on the outside of my house and he moved our cable to a higher frequency/power level on the cabinet. Since then our broadband speed has been wildly fluctuating between 5Mb and 12Mb throughout the day (i'm paying for 20Mb). After many phone calls I managed to get an engineer to come and look at the problem today. He came here for 5 mins, checked the power levels on my router and I explained to him my story to date. He said that the analogue signal had been switched off in my area recently and it has caused a lot of problems hence my fluctuating speeds.
So for now I'm left with an internet service that isn't stable. The engineer told me to moniter my speeds and if it doesn't improve in a week then I can give him a call on his mobile (the guy was very good and explained the situation well

)
I feel I have bored you now after writing so much

Is there anything I can do?

**Chris** · 02-02-2010, 15:40

Nothing much, except do as the good man told you. He didn't have to give you his mobile number, most techs wouldn't. I'd take that as a sign you're getting top-rate service from him.

And you won't get any compo, I'm sure of that.

Arj12 · 02-02-2010, 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris

Nothing much, except do as the good man told you. He didn't have to give you his mobile number, most techs wouldn't. I'd take that as a sign you're getting top-rate service from him.

And you won't get any compo, I'm sure of that.

Ahhh. I thought they had to warn you about service disruptions. I checked on their website but there isn't any service outages/ disruptions in my area according to the service status page on VM's website.

Yes, I knew he was doing more then he should when he gave me his number! If only VM had more tech's like this dude!

That was a very prompt reply by the way! I'm impressed

broadbandking · 02-02-2010, 16:08

I really can't see how the analogue signal can affect the broadband signal, I maybe wrong, the tech shouldn't give out there numbers to customers, but a lot do to stop a repeat call.

02-02-2010, 16:09

The only time i have ever got a refund is when there has been a total loss of a service ,this did happen over the christmas period for about 3 hours but we did get a Â£2 reduction in the bill .If you still have a service albeit not the full 20meg they will only say you still have a service just slower because of a fault

Arj12 · 02-02-2010, 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by broadbandking

I really can't see how the analogue signal can affect the broadband signal.

That's what I was confused about as well! I let it go anyway as it wouldn't have made a difference what I said! Hopefully they'll get it sorted soon.

roger skillin · 02-02-2010, 16:15

I received compensation once when my internet had been down for 6 weeks, they gave me 2 months free

Sephiroth · 02-02-2010, 16:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by broadbandking

I really can't see how the analogue signal can affect the broadband signal, I maybe wrong, the tech shouldn't give out there numbers to customers, but a lot do to stop a repeat call.

Isn't there an overlap on the RF spectrum between cable broadband upstream and Analogue TV?

broadbandking · 02-02-2010, 17:37

I always throught it was a different delievery type which doesn't overlap

Arj12 · 02-02-2010, 20:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by roger skillin

I received compensation once when my internet had been down for 6 weeks, they gave me 2 months free

So should I ring up virgin and ask for compensation for the degraded service?

Nedkelly · 02-02-2010, 20:33

Which area are you in ? Not heared of the analouge signal affecting broadband can you get digital tv from VM ?

roger skillin · 02-02-2010, 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arj12

So should I ring up virgin and ask for compensation for the degraded service?

Can't hurt to try, that`s all i did and rightly so, if you are paying for a service and not getting it then you legally should be entitled to compensation

Arj12 · 02-02-2010, 21:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nedkelly

Which area are you in ? Not heared of the analouge signal affecting broadband can you get digital tv from VM ?

I'm in Leicester I got TV phone and BB from VM. I'm not saying that the analogue signal is affecting the B/B, all I am saying is that the tech that came told me they switched it of and they are having problems!

---------- Post added at 20:03 ---------- Previous post was at 20:02 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by roger skillin

Can't hurt to try, that`s all i did and rightly so, if you are paying for a service and not getting it then you legally should be entitled to compensation

Sounds like a plan. I'm going to do that tomorrow morning... fingers crossed I get a uk call center

Which department did you ring and what did you say btw?

Nedkelly · 02-02-2010, 21:09

Leicester is having a lot of work done on the network getting rid off the old analogue network and building a new one along side off it .Have you got digital tv ? Also what are the levels like on your modem ?

Arj12 · 02-02-2010, 21:17

I know, the tech told me about the work. What do you mean a new one along side it? You mean they're going to add extra capacity or they are going to have another node or something (my knowledge is limited there =P). As far as my TV goes it is crystal clear with everything working. The tech said my power levels are fine on my modem but here they are anyway:

Downstream Lock : Locked
Downstream Channel Id : 48
Downstream Frequency : 299000000 Hz
Downstream Modulation : QAM256
Downstream Symbol Rate : 6952 Ksym/sec
Downstream Interleave Depth : taps12Increment17
Downstream Receive Power Level : 1.5 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 37.0 dB

Upstream Lock : Locked
Upstream Channel ID : 4
Upstream Frequency : 47000000 Hz
Upstream Modulation : QAM16
Upstream Symbol Rate : 2560 Ksym/sec
Upstream transmit Power Level : 46.5 dBmV
Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 2

---------- Post added at 20:17 ---------- Previous post was at 20:15 ----------

Also, I thought work and scheduled maintenance was shown on the service status page. That was the first place I looked before ringing VM and it's not even up there!!