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Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.
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Old 26-05-2020, 00:48   #1
oscarandjo
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Unhappy Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

Hi,

This morning I renewed my contract.

The customer retention man sold me 200Mbps, but this was doubled to 400Mbps as a promotion because I took out a SIM Card as part of the Oomph package.

To be specific, I have the "Mix Bundle with Oomph", with M200 Fibre (which gets doubled as per promotion), Talk Weekends, TV, and a 2GB Oomph SIM.

The problem is, my speeds don't seem to have doubled to 400Mbps. See this speedtest:


My ping appears high, the download speed is not 400Mbps and the upload is also slower than expected.

Here's what my Router's Status page says...

Operation Configuration:
Primary Downstream Service Flow
SFID 154890
Max Traffic Rate 230000061 bps (looks like it's only 220Mbps provisioned, not 400Mbps)
Max Traffic Burst 42600 bytes
Min Traffic Rate 0 bps
Primary Upstream Service Flow
SFID 154889
Max Traffic Rate 22000061 bps
Max Traffic Burst 42600 bytes
Min Traffic Rate 0 bps
Max Concatenated Burst 42600 bytes
Scheduling Type Best Effort

Downstream:


It appears to have only locked onto 8 downstream channels. The RS Errors were reset ~5 hours ago. How many channels should I expect to be connected to?

Upstream:


Has anyone else got the Oomph package with a SIM to get the promotional speed boost? Did this come through immediately or after a few days?

Has the customer retention man lied to me about 400Mbps? I can see on this ISPreview page on the last paragraph that 200Mbps customers get boosted to 350Mbps, not 400.
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Old 26-05-2020, 03:04   #2
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

There is no 400Mbps package as such, but the 350Mbps is basically configured at (almost) 400.
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Old 26-05-2020, 07:58   #3
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

Quote:
Originally Posted by oscarandjo View Post
To be specific, I have the "Mix Bundle with Oomph", with M200 Fibre (which gets doubled as per promotion), Talk Weekends, TV, and a 2GB Oomph SIM.
The 'Big' packages that include Mix TV usually only come with M100:

https://www.virginmedia.com/shop/bundles

- so as an Oomph bundle that increase you get takes it to M200:

https://www.virginmedia.com/shop/bundles?oomph=on

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul View Post
There is no 400Mbps package as such, but the 350Mbps is basically configured at (almost) 400.
For which you need a Hub 3
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Old 26-05-2020, 10:57   #4
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

Even though the 350Mbit package is provisioned above 400, it shouldn't be sold as 400mbit, it's 350 with overhead to ensure you actually hit 350 - OFCOM would have something to say if Virgin started selling 400Mbit without further overhead.

That said, given oscarandjo is actually on M200, my suspicion is that there's been a miscommunication here and that he's been sold M100 that's doubled to M200. Either that or the agent flat out lied - either about 200mbit being doubled, or about 350Mbit being 400.

I would get straight onto CS again and clarify if you've been sold what you think you have, then abandon ship immediately if you have not. If they put up a fight, demand to raise an internal complaint against the agent.
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Old 26-05-2020, 11:17   #5
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kushan View Post
demand to raise an internal complaint against the agent.
and remember the phone calls are recorded so if they really did say that hopefully you'll be in a strong position for a free upgrade

Depending what you want dude you'll also need a new router. You have got a shub 2 atm and if you are happy to stay on 200mbits depending on what VM say then you'll be fine sticking with the shub 2. If however you are determined to have 350mbits, now that you have been teased with it, you'll also need a new shub. The Shub 2 can only bond to 8 downstream channels as illustrated in your screenshot. Whilst you could technically pull 400mbits from those 8 channels it is highly unlikely you would be able to do so reliably and consistently. When you do your next speed increase you'll need a shub 3. Shub 3's can bond to 24 downstream channels which means there is a lot more bandwidth available to you to use and achieve max speed. There will already be 24 channels or more available to you in your area however your shub 2 can only see 8 at any one time. Below are two screenshots so you can see what the downstream channel configuration would look like plus the config file if you decide you want to move up to 350mbits. You can see it is provisioned at 402mbits down and 38.5 up in order to achieve the advertised speed of 350/36. If you was in the shub's gui you could scroll down and all 24 downstream channels would be listed.




Last edited by General Maximus; 26-05-2020 at 11:21.
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Old 26-05-2020, 12:00   #6
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

Your on 200, you've not been sold what you think you have
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Old 26-05-2020, 18:40   #7
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

Very interesting. I'm going to call up tomorrow to clarify. I will speak to another person from customer retentions and point out these inconsistencies, then ask them to listen to the call recording and see if I can get the 400Mbps I was promised.

Thank you for the responses.
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Old 26-05-2020, 19:00   #8
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

CS agents are unable to listen to other agent's recordings while you're on the phone, but if you put a complaint in they might be able to do something and get back to you.

You won't be able to get the 400Mbps package as it doesn't exist (as far as anyone knows), there's 350Mbit, 500 and 1Gig (certain areas only at the moment) and the 500Mbit is a bit of a special one that's only available on some silly bundles.

However as others have stated, the 350Mbit package is effectively 400Mbit+, but don't let an agent try to sell you it as such, there's regulatory reasons for why it's sold as 350 but provisioned higher.
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Old 26-05-2020, 19:27   #9
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

Thanks for the details. Feeling quite annoyed that they've been so transparently misleading.
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Old 26-05-2020, 22:26   #10
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

You can try asking for 400mbits to demonstrate a level of ignorance in saying you just want what you was told but don't expect to get it realistically. I consistently get 378mbits out of my 350mbit connection because it is provisioned at 402 but it is provisioned at 402 to ensure I get 350 or above. Just because you are provisioned at 402mbits doesn't mean it is a 400mbit tier. If it was it would have to be provisioned at 450+. See what happens though, it is highly doubtful the first agent you speak to will be able to satisfactorily resolve your issue and you may end up having to put in a complaint. Imho a very good outcome for you would be to pay the same price you are now but be bumped up a tier/package to 350mbits. They would do this by moving you up to the next tier and charging you for it and then applying a discount to your account to bring the cost down.
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Old 27-05-2020, 15:22   #11
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

Just got off the phone with another customer retentions guy. He told me that it was probably an honest mistake and the package was supposed to be a doubling of 100Mbps to 200Mbps, not 200Mbps to 400Mbps.

He said there's no way to move me to the 400Mbps package as the highest I can get in my area was 350Mbps, but was also unable to increase my speeds to 350Mbps because it would result in the price going up.

I asked if I could raise it to someone higher, but he said he's not been able to refer calls to a manager for "months".

I also asked if the call could be listened to, and he said the call monitoring was handled by a third party and the company will only listen to 1 call every month per call centre employee, and my call was unlikely to be selected?!?

He's sending me out a SH3 as I only had the SH2ac.

His last suggestion was calling customer retentions again at the beginning of next month as each employee gets 10 discounts per month that renew at the beginning of the month. Then they might be able to give me 350Mbps at the price I'm paying.

Honestly, I'm angry because the only reason I'm paying £47/month instead of a cheaper price I was quoted before was because of the ludicrous speed of 400Mbps, which justified the increase in price. I've been ripped off.
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Old 27-05-2020, 22:53   #12
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

I think most of that is absolute rubbish and he is trying to put you off for a couple of weeks to get you out of the cancellation window. I don't know whether that is 7 days or 14 days etc. There might be a random quality control process where a specified number of calls are routinely screened but you are not telling me if VM get a complaint (and think of the legal ramifications) they'll say "sorry, we listened to a phone call from that dude last week so we can't do anymore". Retentions' job is to retain customers and each agent will speak to hundreds if not thousands of customers every month. Are you telling me that once he or she gives away 10 discounts on day one that they can't do anything else for the rest of the month? I don't think so. I hate bs like this.

Depending on how much you want this issue resolved and how high you are prepared to go you can email the CEO's office. I have had to do it before. Despite the excuses you get from lower down telling you everything is impossible, the CEO's office can make mountains move.

tom.mockridge@virginmedia.co.uk

Send a very nice and polite email to that address explaining what has happened, be very specific about dates of calls and exactly what you were told. Then tell them how disappointed you are and what you see to be a satisfactory resolution. Tom Mockridge obviously won't get back to you directly. You'll receive an email confirming receipt of yours and then somebody will contact you by phone soon so discuss the issue and they will be english so you should make headway.
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Old 27-05-2020, 23:09   #13
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

I agree, the call handler won, he managed to get you off the phone without giving you a discount or a upgrade
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Old 27-05-2020, 23:09   #14
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

Thanks for the suggestion. By the way, every person I've spoken to has been British
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Old 27-05-2020, 23:30   #15
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Re: Only 8 Downstream channels, and getting 200Mbps, not the promised 400Mbps.

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Tom left VM in June 2019. The new CEO is Lutz Schüler
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