Virgin Media broadband not working

[Heart108]

Anyone experience problems with virgin media broadband?

Mine has been intermittent for weeks months and totally

off today 20th June

[Jeremy]

Interesting... we've about to switch to VM, specifically because our existing broadband is unreliable.

[Freddy1929]

I have BT Broadband, and it's fantastic it never goes down, I know it may seem a bit more expensive but well worth it. I also have BT Vision, worth every penny, better than Sky.......

[Marmora Man]

I too have been exoperiencing intermittent problems. Have an engineer coming out to look see - one option it might be a loose connection between street and house being affected by excess rain recently.

[Heart108]

Thanks for your replies .. I upgraded last October 2010 to virgins extra large most expensive

Package 50mg ( which I need for sending work files) and the service

Is totally unreliable - you can never depend on a fast upload which makes

Guaranteeing delivery of files impossible.

I have monitored this constantly via broadband speed tracker

and the 50meg service is a ripoff to the point of being a joke

I have also got a file/ record of calls I made and end saying the

Same thing and doing the same system tests from some remote

Call centre abroad.

I have never been able to speak with an engineer that

Actually has local knowledge of the situation here in

East dulwich

I would appreciate if anyone local who uses virgin media

Can add info to this situation

[sunnysideup]

I've got Virgin broadband, the ?25 per month option which I think is either 10 or 20MB. Works pretty well most of the time & I use Sendspace to transmit large files which it handles easily. Can be slower at peak times, like 4pm on a weekday (millions of kids logging on after school) and Saturday mornings but otherwise quite quick. I know it's a cliche but turning the modem & your wifi router off for a minute or so usually reboots effectively and speeds things up if it's grinding to a halt.

[dbboy]

Am also on VM ADSL broadband, get about 3.5mb/s but expect upto 10. Generally ok, but when it goes wrong trying to get info from VM can be difficult and they tend not to have answeres, so far has always been a problem at their end. They migrated all mail to Google which during transition was problamatic, however recently has been ok including deleting mail.

[jimbo1964]

I thinks it's pretty poor. Our Virgin broadband is always going down. For a while it was everyday between about 2 and 7pm. An engineer came and it's slightly better but still falls over. If I was at home using it for work i'd have cancelled long ago.

[Heart108]

Just got through for a second time today to Virgin Media

- the same answer as this morning:

" the 'Application' for checking out customer details is down

And we cannot perform any tests on individual customers' lines"

In a previous phone call on 7th June I was told

"there is a problem with the frequency of the server

which is too low" and that it would be sorted by 16th June

And that once the problem was over I could claim a rebate

Of ?26

then received a non human computer call which left a message

Saying the problem was fixed and I could now claim the rebate

Which is negligible in relation to months of irregular service

***

I suspect that they have oversold their capacity

and too many people are competing for their available broadband space

Expert opinion would be much appreciated in reply to this

( BTw am involved in this thread thanks to a smart phone )

[geeza]

Sky is piss poor as well but what do you expect. It mat have somethiong to do with the area

[sophiesofa]

Mine didn't work at all from noon to midnight yesterday. I'm on Lordship Lane near the police station. It's a bit odd that mine didn't work yesterday and yours today - maybe they're doing maintenance or something. I haven't rung them yet as I really wasn't in the mood to be moan at some poor sole on the other end of the phone. I will email though as unless you log each fault you can't be/is extremely hard to be compensated when you get really peeved off and ask for money back.

[binary_star]

Same problems as reported above. Intermittent service, sometimes no service at all. Thinking of switching to another provider. The box knows something is wrong because when we lose the internet it always has a blinking led. No internet this eve (using 3G) but telly ok.

[curlykaren]

my virgin connection always plays up when it rains heavily, really shabby stuff

[ianr]

Are you folk who are talking about Virgin connections deteriorating in wet weather speaking about the ADSL (phone wire) service, or the optical fibre cable one?

[bow]

I have intermittent connectivity with the Virgin ADSL service which is definitely made worse during poor weather.

[ianr]

>I have intermittent connectivity with the Virgin ADSL service which is definitely made worse during poor weather.

I've had that. It's quite possibly not attributable to Virgin but to a bad joint in the BT wiring near you. The problem is it's often not bad enough to cause degradation below BT's standard of acceptability for voice calls. If your modem interface permits it, you could monitor your connection statistics, particularly for the number of line drops, errors reported, and the value of your download signal/noise ratio margin. Connections are liable to be dropped when the latter gets too low (less than six or so), as will happen if the line gets noisier because of damp or corrosion. It gives you something to pass on to the Virgin help desk. Noting times and conditions may also help provide clues as to the cause: sometimes signal degradation can be due to intermittent electromagnetic interference in the home.

[Heart108]

No offense but I think the rain as excuse won't wash - Virgin

Has highly touted dedicated cables laid in the days of

NTL completely independent from the phone network

This is why they claim to offer ( rightly in principle) such

Massively superior speeds.

But the fact that their service is still so dire Cannot

Be Attributed to the odd rainstorm or flooded green roadside box

I will bet that they have oversold their capacity

On the basic servers that supply this area

If you do an online broadband speed test - you get a good result

If you choose a far away server like ashford Kent or somewhere exotic

The worst thing is that there is no reliable source of information

About when the system will be down and this turns running

An internet dependent business from home into a nightmare

[Heart108]

Update 12.00pm 21 jun 11

There are number of positive outcomes here objectively

Speaking a about Virgin Media:

1 - i discovered a direct freephone number for tech support

With no mindless gok voiced menu of options. You get straight through

On: 0800 052 0431 to clues up helpful call centre people abroad

2 - on the standard virgin modems there are 5 blue lights from left

To right

- a tick ( if this is not lit the broadband connection is dead)

- upload activity arrow

- download activity arrow

- computer ethernet connection ( unplug the cable and it goes off)

- power symbol

----/

Our personal broadband issue appears to be a hardware fault from the street

They are sending a technician within 24 hours

-----/

They acknowledged the broader months long issue of speed and reliability for the whole area

I mentioned the previous deadline thAt hey said it would be fixed by 16th June

The job has been extended and the new deadline is that it will

be fixed by 5.00pm 24th June

[PhilPhilPhil]

I've had Virgin Media at home for years and it definitely seems to have got worse in the last year or so. I've had broadband issues a lot recently, hours or days when I get no service at all. And my cable TV has been getting worse as well, I frequently have channels missing or freezing. I had an engineer round yesterday and he admitted that it was due to the number of Virgin customers in the area... the box that the information flows through can't cope with the demand so some of us are not getting a strong enough signal. I'm very close to ditching Virgin altogether but I get the impression that Sky are not much better. I can only hope that Virgin are taking steps to deal with the problem, especially as they were recently leafletting in the area to attract new customers. I hope they don't have any luck with that.

I also had to take yesterday off work to wait for delivery of a wireless router from them... "any time between 7am and 7pm". Thanks for being so specific.

[Grotty]

we have sky and have to admit it sounds pretty similar to all the virgin problems though our TV fares worse than the internet - missing channels, no channels at all, can't record/pause stuff. But internet slow/intermittent and seemingly getting worse. No matter how many times we try to call and rectify the problems there is never any improvement.

[apples]

Thanks for that update heart108

Our broadband has also been out since yesterday morning and I have learnt more from your post than five years of phone calls to the Virgin techs who in the past, after very long waiting, have told me nothing is wrong (when it was) and that the fault was with my Apple wireless(when it was clearly a problem with them and in the wider area).

At work now which is why I can read this, will check the lights and modem tonight and try that number if they're still answering.

Update: broadband was working again on return home - I will make a note of that 0800 number.

[DulwichFox]

I get regular correspondence through my door from Virgin Media.

Goes straight in my waste paper recycling bag.

I use BT.OpenWorld Not the cheapest but very reliable and competent Engineers available to speak

to if something does go wrong.

[Willard]

I've heard a lot of bad things about Virgin media, mainly unreliability and poor customer service.

I have also filmed "break-out" groups with Virgin customers talking to Virgin management about these issues. Glad I did because I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole now.

For the record I use o2. Had no problems, quick, good customer service and cheap if you use o2 mobile.

[dulwichquine]

I am also increasingly fed up with intermittent Virgin broadband service. Been like this for many, many months. One minute it's there, the next it isn't.

We had an unrelated visit from a BT engineer last week who said that my connection to the BT grey box was a copper wire. I'm now wondering where, oh where, is the fibre optic cable that is supposed to be giving me faster broadband?!

Interestingly, the BT engineer said that super fast BT broadband was about to be launched in Forrest Hill. 80-100mgs. It's part of the new Infinity scheme. Apparently we'll get it in Dulwich by end of the year. Could be the answer to all our problems?

[milliemum]

I've not had any problem with my Virgin broadband until yesterday when I couldn't get online all day and evening. The TV is playing up at the moment too.