Issues with Virgin Media - anyone having similar problems?

[Caesi01]

I have only just had Virgin installed and so far do not experience any problems. Will keep monitoring.

[Sue]

I got so fed up with Virgin bombarding me with glossy advertising material that I got taken off their mailing list (much to my surprise, it worked!)

It's a bit blooming bad if they're bigging themselves up so much in this area and then can't even provide a decent service.

[Willard]

I think this could be a luck of the draw thing as my Virgin service is good. I regularly get 50mbps down & 3 mbps up. (speedtest.net).

The superhub is good too as it's both 5ghz and 2.4ghz. I bought a USB 5ghz wifi adapter for my laptop as it's 5 years old. The 2.4 ghz bandwidth can get clogged with your neighbours' competing routers. Also routers tend to default to certain channels so its worth looking at software like inssider which identifies all the routers you can pick up in your house and what channel they are on. You can then switch your router to an empty channel. Other factors like proximity to other electrical gear (especially cordless phones and microwaves) can affect it. I hope this isn't grandmothers and eggs.

[Jeremy]

Our service is fine - always has been.

The "superhub" is a piece of crap though. Need to restart it every couple of days, and the range is rubbish. Think I'm going to buy a proper router, and run it in "modem-only" mode.

[Tractorlad]

Jeremy, out of interest where do you live? We had faultless service from 2012-1214 but has been dreadful since the beginning of last year with Virgin customer service giving me the run around every time there's a severe dip in speed (which is regularly).

[uncleglen]

My son put some kind of signal booster plug in the mains socket on the landing and has no probs with the signal upstairs even for gaming unless someone shields the booster. Virgin is going up by quite a jump per month this Feb too

[rodneybewes]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> Our service is fine - always has been.

>

> The "superhub" is a piece of crap though. Need to

> restart it every couple of days, and the range is

> rubbish. Think I'm going to buy a proper router,

> and run it in "modem-only" mode.

Definitely the way to go. The superhub is hopeless.

[Caesi01]

keep us posted which router you'll get and how you get on

[Jeremy]

Tractorlad Wrote:

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> Jeremy, out of interest where do you live?

Sort of between Goose Green and Peckham Rye station...

[Tractorlad]

We tried watching a film on Amazon prime last night. Hopeless. Whilst the connection was 45 Mbps at 9am it had slipped to 2.14 by 9pm. Constant buffering and utterly useless. A fairly typical experience with Virgin Media of late.

[colbol2010]

Update - they have apparently opened up 16 new downstreams and 6 new upstreams today (not sure exactly what this means). This may make a difference. I'll try again tonight and report back. Tractorlad, let me know if you notice any difference. I'm not holding my breath!

[Tractorlad]

colbol2010 Wrote:

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> Update - they have apparently opened up 16 new

> downstreams and 6 new upstreams today (not sure

> exactly what this means). This may make a

> difference. I'll try again tonight and report

> back. Tractorlad, let me know if you notice any

> difference. I'm not holding my breath!

Thanks I'll take a look tonight. Sounds like you've been given the run around too!

[Tractorlad]

colbol2010 Wrote:

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> Update - they have apparently opened up 16 new

> downstreams and 6 new upstreams today (not sure

> exactly what this means). This may make a

> difference. I'll try again tonight and report

> back. Tractorlad, let me know if you notice any

> difference. I'm not holding my breath!

Colbol2010 - I'm in the office right now so just got my wife to check the speed at home. 69.75. The highest its ever been. We have BT installing beginning of Feb. Decisions decisions!

[Bic Basher]

I get the feeling that capacity will soon be utilised and once again Virgin will suffer from overcapacity problems.

[Tractorlad]

Useless. Amazon Prime video still buffering. Great speeds earlier in the day but now not worth having. Hello BT

[colbol2010]

Yip. Me too. Hopeless. They are a bunch of charlatans.

[Bic Basher]

Tractorlad Wrote:

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> Useless. Amazon Prime video still buffering. Great

> speeds earlier in the day but now not worth

> having. Hello BT

Ridiculous how I can stream Amazon Prime Video using a crappy cheap as chips TalkTalk ADSL connection with no break in connection during the evening, yet Virgin customers who pay for a 'premium' service can't do that.

[traveler2]

Hi. Not sure if this is related but the virgin switchbox cabinet on corner of Lordship Lane across from the butcher has been open for 2 weeks now with internals spilling out. I called the number twice to have someone from virgin come to close but no action in 14 days.

[tiddles]

sorry to be dim, but how does one test speed?

[85volga]

In addition the engineers leave the street cabinets open which opens everyone's cable feeds to attacks of vandalism, the techs only work Tuesday to Saturday , so if you have a issue with your service on Sunday you have to wait until at least Tuesday to have someone come around. Sometimes they don't even bother attending ................

Who TF came up with that agreement the Corbynestor politburo?

I am so fed up with the service, the product is ok, however the customer service well ............ overseas based I think in India and polite but totally useless sigh......

[Bic Basher]

tiddles Wrote:

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> sorry to be dim, but how does one test speed?

Go to http://www.speedtest.net

[Tractorlad]

tiddles Wrote:

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> sorry to be dim, but how does one test speed?

Tiddles. Do you have smartphone? I use Speedtest by Ookla for the iphone. I find myself testing the speed at hourly intervals with increasing levels of paranoia. The nice thing about Speedtest though is it logs a history of the speeds and allowsyou to email the data in a CSV file. It shows a nice pattern of high speeds during the day which are throttled to pre 2000 levels in the evenings after 8am. It is useful data to send to Virgin if you're looking to leave before your contract concludes.

[Loz]

If you test speed on a wireless connection and the speed is good, then fine. But if you test it on a wireless connection and the speed is bad, then retest it with a wired connection, otherwise you can't be sure if the problem is your broadband or your wireless.

[Bic Basher]

Loz Wrote:

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> If you test speed on a wireless connection and the

> speed is good, then fine. But if you test it on a

> wireless connection and the speed is bad, then

> retest it with a wired connection, otherwise you

> can't be sure if the problem is your broadband or

> your wireless.

I'd also turn off all devices that use wi-fi before doing the speedtest too.

[jonnywalker]

I live in Nunhead - Ivydale Road area and we've been experiencing the same issue. Have called them today to complain again and told they're aware the issue has been on going since APRIL 2015 with a date for fixing it of 30th MARCH 2016. So a whole year of paying for 50mg download but only getting around 10mg with it sometimes dropping down to 2mg. The fella I spoke to was up front about the problem they have with 'High Utilisation' saying its worse between 6 > 12pm, essentially anytime you want to use it when you return from work. They would only offer me ?7.50 as a refund and not back date. As they are in breach of contract and unable to provide a service that's been paid for I explained I'll be terminating my contract with them and notifying Ofcom.