Virgin is the Best ISP

[oliver1948uk]

Been with NTL/VM 10+ years and am a generally satisfied customer. Most of the few problems I have had have been sorted out quickly, though customer services has often not been good, but definitely better than that of several other mobille phone and utility providers I have had the misfortune to deal with. I have been given a discount when very occasionally things have gone very wrong.

A couple of years back that were threads on this forum recommending people swap to Be. Then they stopped and from time time to time people were saying they were dissatisfied with Be. Surely, if lots of people transfer to a provider providing a reliable service, then they will hit the same contention problems as the other ISP's. I wonder how long it will be before people complain about the wonderful offering that O2 is bringing in

[ileikcaek]

I am on the wagon for people not saying it's the best ISP.

We've had nothing but trouble with them. mostly for billing.

Not one single bill has turned up from them. we're on paper billing and pay via pay-point. The only paper bills that have showed up are the ones that say they're adding a £10 late payment charge onto the account.

We have complained and they've given us 4 months of 20Mb broadband at our usual 10Mb price, and they've also sent us out the new D-link N router.

Still doesn't mean bills are going to start turning up though does it?

We were also told you're supposed to have 2 weeks to pay the bill, before our internet was cut off a day before even the bill was due, let alone 2 weeks after. I only expect we will loose services again on or around the 17th again

In regards to technical problems, they have been quite good. there was a serious utilization issue on the uBR so they've moved us and many others services to a new 'central location' Internet runs at top speed all day now, not even the evenings make any difference.

[Ignitionnet]

Threads like these that just make me think of one thing.

YMMV

Virgin's reliability has sucked so hard in this area I've an O2 installation going live in 2 days, Virgin are yet to manage to deliver internet service to me across any of their 3 component networks for any length of time without having outages of a week or more per year, but...

YMMV!

[Milambar]

Well, to add my 2p'orth to this thread.

We joined VM back when it was known as Nynex, originally getting cable TV. I was with BT dialup back then. As soon as they offered broadband cable (via the stb), I took that service too.

We had one problem in those early days, attrocious lag around 5pm. It took them a while to trace the cause with me phoning up daily, but eventually I got a call from someone calling himself "networks manager", who assured me that the problem had been identified, and fixed.

Had a few years smooth running, until mom died in 2005, when I had to get the billing changed over to my name. Customer services bullixed things up then (they somehow changed the contract to my name, but didn't implement my Direct Debit instruction, still tried to take the amount from my deceased mothers bank account which obviously failed). Got that fixed with the help of someone from another forum (chet...).

Had a few years more smooth running, when I started getting horrible speeds all day. The offshore call-centers were unable or unwilling to help. This was fixed with the assistance of someone on this forum (needed a repull).

Since then, have had only very minor issues which are to be expected, in reality, from a company of VM's size. Easily fixed by rebooting the modem usually.

Overall, I have to admit, that VM have given me good service at a reasonable price, and I am quite content with it.

Also, the posters here are usually knowledgeable, and helpful.

So, congratulations to VM, and congratulations to CF.

So what do people make of the Ofcom review from last July? That looks highly favourable to VM doesn't it?
Puts flak jacket on and retires to a safe distance.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by ahardie

So what do people make of the Ofcom review from last July? That looks highly favourable to VM doesn't it?
Puts flak jacket on and retires to a safe distance.

Get ready to come out fighting!

As VM have signed up to this

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/features/broadcodejy

Why aren't customers in oversubscribed areas being informed as required?

[bonzoe]

Certainly the best of the ISPs I have been with, not saying that they are perfect but who is?

[frogstamper]

Not the best ISP, but imo they are up there in with a shout, bring CS back to the UK continue upgrading the network and vastly improve u/l speeds, that'll put them on top for me.
Anyone who has experienced Tiscali's "super-fast broadband" will know who Britain's worst ISP is, that is backed up thinkbroadbands comparable speed test results....the words Tiscali and superfast broadband are a complete oxymoron.

[Burt-Kwouk]

"Best ISP" as in: Given a choice of being punched in the face or kicked in the spuds, being punched in the face is the best!

I was a very happy Telewest customer but am now an extremely disillusioned Virgin Media customer, along with many thousands of others.
Their provision is degrading by the month, to the point where I can barely get 5MBit down at any time of the day (on the 20MBit tariff), often as low as 2MBit.
That's when the service is there of course, which it isn't at least once a week now, along with random dropouts and hiccups throughout the day.

They even managed to palm me off with a phone deal (that we're stuck with for twelve months) in return for a cheaper deal for six months.
The phone actually does work, but from the first day it was connected we've had so much nuisance calling that the phone has to be muted and all calls (95% of which are spam) intercepted by the answerphone.

Just search Google for terms like "Virgin Media sucks", "Virgin Media are crap" etc.
You'll see (what's probably just a fraction of) people's disgust for this 'company'.

Originally Posted by Burt-Kwouk

"Best ISP" as in: Given a choice of being punched in the face or kicked in the spuds, being punched in the face is the best!

I was a very happy Telewest customer but am now an extremely disillusioned Virgin Media customer, along with many thousands of others.
Their provision is degrading by the month, to the point where I can barely get 5MBit down at any time of the day (on the 20MBit tariff), often as low as 2MBit.
That's when the service is there of course, which it isn't at least once a week now, along with random dropouts and hiccups throughout the day.

They even managed to palm me off with a phone deal (that we're stuck with for twelve months) in return for a cheaper deal for six months.
The phone actually does work, but from the first day it was connected we've had so much nuisance calling that the phone has to be muted and all calls (95% of which are spam) intercepted by the answerphone.

Just search Google for terms like "Virgin Media sucks", "Virgin Media are crap" etc.
You'll see (what's probably just a fraction of) people's disgust for this 'company'.

Searching google for "Virgin Media sucks" brought up 67 hits. If I put in a similar company I got thousands of hits even after putting in filters to reduce the amount of false hits.

That doesn't help you with your complaint of course and I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble. I'm just saying it doesn't prove they are worse than other companies.

[Turkey Machine]

While I was with them, I had 3 gripes:

They wouldn't transfer the MAC address for the 2Mbit cable modem to my account for a 10Mbit service, so I ended up with both 2Mbit and 10Mbit cable modems. Virgin simply didn't want to know about the 2Mbit one, so it's sitting in a box in my room in a non-cable town until I move.

They sent a letter claiming that a file was downloaded from the IP address supposedly registered to our account. I passed it to the flatmates and they filed it under "bin".

When they get their billing wrong, you will never ever get the same bill twice or the one you originally signed up to (VAT change December 2008 meant my bill were interestingly adjusted for VAT credit month to month as they played catchup), but boy do they put you through the wringer when gods forbid you miss a direct debit or card payment! My word, took 2 members on here to sort my problems out with cancelling a service and stopping being charged for things I wasn't using!


Other than that, the service was fine. Pings solid, transparent traffic management, and unlimited downloads as advertised. Gaming on the 2Mbit modem was fine! The flatmates never complained about the 10Mbit service we shared.

[newbie1001]

Virgin may be the quickest but i was paying a premium for a managed service. I am still finding myself downloading just as much on my 4MB ADSL as i was on my 20MB Cable service but with ADSL i am paying less than a 3rd. True a lot of my downloadingetc was during the day and i may have been able to download more overnight but the fad of downloading everything on the web soon wore off with me. With all my years on ADSL (UKONLINE,SKY,O2) and cable (NTL,VIRGIN) i can't say i've had a problem with any service with at most ones days outage.

The only time i have only been capped or restricted is with Cable though which does leave a bitter taste in the mouth considering the premium you do pay for cable.

[xpod]

3 years 11 months i`ve now been with Virgin Media.
In fact it`s only been 3 years 11 months i`ve been using a computer & Internet so Virgin are the only BB providers i`ve ever actually had. We kept with them even after moving home back in late 2008.
We had some absolutely laughable billing & communication issues to start out with back in 2006 and some speed problems with the jump from 10Mb to the new(at the time) 20Mb. We also had one or three other little issues along the way but nothing too major. It was often just the communication that was the underlying problem.
I have of course done the hours & hours on the phone trying to just communicate with the poor sod on the other end and i did actually come close to sacking them(vm) on more than one occasion. Also came close to pishing myself with laughter on that phone too mind you although i never actually did that either.
When all`s said and done they`ve not been tooo bad in reality and i doubt any other provider could have done much better over that time. Some more home grown Call Centres would have helped with earlier frustrations no doubt.
We very rarely get any actual downtime though and with seven of us here at home there can be quite a lot of devices needing connected including Desktops, Laptops, Netbooks, PS3, Wii and DS/i`s so the connection can get a wee bit busy of an evening but nothing it dont cope with.

[Burt-Kwouk]

Searching google for "Virgin Media sucks" brought up 67 hits. If I put in a similar company I got thousands of hits even after putting in filters to reduce the amount of false hits.

That doesn't help you with your complaint of course and I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble. I'm just saying it doesn't prove they are worse than other companies.

Did you read all the comments (if any) associated with those sites/pages, and try other searches?
Each comment is a disgruntled customer.

I do know that BT (for example) are actually worse, which is why I'm stuck with VM.
Scanning the threads here, I just took offence to someone having the nerve to post a subject exclaiming: "Virgin is the Best ISP".
It's like having a discussion about who's the best genocidal dictator?
Hitler, Stalin or Chairman Mao?

[fireman328]

Those of us who are on ADSL might disagree with that.