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Forum Newbie
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 2/2/2008 10:27:53 AM
Posts: 6,
Visits: 1
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I moved into a rented house with my partner and we needed the internet. How hard could it be?
After 16 (seriously) phone calls to BT to get the line 'reconnected', even though they disconnected it in between the month the previous tenants left, for no reason, we eventually had a working phone line (which then then tried to charge us £350 for leaving our contract early and installing a new line... unbelievable). Our phone number changed when a 'technician' came round and said he had to 'go under ground' to reconnect the line. It hadn't actually been physically disconnected as the phone line ran to the pole, but it sounded like he couldn't be assed to do it. Some days later another technician showed up who actually got our phone line working.
We looked around and found the Virgin Media Max ADSL 8mb offer. It was a 'free' wireless router, 'free' anytime calls to a UK landline and an unlimited* download service. They quoted that we could receive 4mb from the email they sent. We were happy with this, so we placed our order. Afterwards I would find out that we are 870m from the exchange.
This is when the broadband problems started. After the line was activated, during the 10 day testing stage our router would continually disconnect and struggle to reconnect. After 10 days, it was terribly slow - around 0.1 to 0.3mb - but our router was connected at about 2.5mb.
I then called customer support, who were useless and I had to pay 10p a min for the privledge. The only suggestion was to call tech support, at 35p a min with a 10p connection charge. Essentially, I had to pay for something that they had broken. Tech support were then equally clueless. I eventually worked out that our phone line might be faulty - so I took the BT tech gamble (that is, if your equipment is at fault, you get billed around £220, if its BT's fault, its free). It turns out that our line was running through some leaves, and we had a new master socket fitted and a brand new line installed.
However, nothing improved. This was because the line sychronisation occured on a faulty line, reporting it back to the exchange as being 0.5mb. After a ridiculous amount of calls to Virgin, they finally worked out that they needed to resync the line. After this I could then connect at around 4mb. Our connection was better, but still awful.
After £50 worth of calls to tech support, they were still completely clueless, and simply informed me that my line can only handle 0.5mbps. I mentioned that I was quoted 4mb, but they said that it was a post code checker, and not an individual line test.
Can you believe they sold me an 8mb service when they knew i could only get 0.5?
Eventually, after the new line went in our speeds improved - up to around 4mb during the day, but the test was erratic. It went steadily up, and then back down to around 2mb. Now, we get around 1.5mb to 2.5mb during the weekday and around 0.1 to 0.5 over the weekend. However, the connection is extremely erratic - websites appear not to be there until refreshing when it will eventually 'find' the site again. This was, so I was told by a senior technician, that the service was oversubscribed and too many people were using it. Thanks for letting me know, Virgin!
However, the plot thickens when another guy told me to ignore the 0.5mb quote as BT will update my details at the exchange soon. After 4 months, it still says we can only get 0.5, even though our IP profile is now set to 2.5mb and our router stays on at about 3.5 if it's been on for a few weeks. If I power it down just once, Virgin cans the connection down to 2.0mb which then slowly builds up again.
All this information has been accumulated by calling Virgin and BT for hours and wasting even more hours providing my own tech support for a broken service.
The final straw came when I managed to download a couple of game demos on the xbox live service. Our connection was shit-canned down to 0.1 and I thought our line had been damaged. It took three phone calls to tech support until some arrogant jobsworth chastised me for download 5gb of data (on my awful connection) and told me I'd been put on a cap list - limiting my service to 0.5mb. When I said I can barely get 1, and it's erratic, he explained 'yeah, that happens sometimes'.
When you read 'unlimited' on the Virgin website, actually read 'about 5gb data limit a week' or simply 'not unlimited' or 'we're greedy liars'.
Our connection is still terrible after 4 months. I've noticed some hiss on the line, but I'm not sure I want to gamble £250 in case it turns out to be working within limits or an equipment fault.
Here are some conclusions I've drawn:
* Virgin Media is over subscribed on the ADSL service- expect shit speeds.
* Customer service are useless and downright rude. Their aim is to put barriers in between you and achieving your goal in order to save money. Wait for the 'we can't do anything unless tech support have left a note on the system' chestnut for ultimate buerocratic confusion.
* Technical support contradict each other depending on who you speak to. Mostly rude, but a few people there do have their sense of humanity intact. Others are moral wreckages.
* After listening to the 'Hey, you' when you call and their falsified 'zany' crazy hip music for the 50th time, you'll begin to suspect they spend more money on crap ads with Uma Thurman than actually providing a good service.
If you've managed to get this far, then thanks a lot. Do you think I should get BT over (again) to check if my line is knackered or do they think I lucked out on the infrastructure and can only ever get 0.5mb? I can hear some hissing again when I make a phone call (on a wired phone), and do you think that doing a line test on a broken line reported back a reading to the exchange that should now be fixed since the new line went in? Do you think its Virgin's fault?
Thanks again, and I really hope you guys can help.
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Forum Newbie
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 2/5/2008 2:33:32 PM
Posts: 3,
Visits: 0
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have your neighbours got broadband. ask them what experinces they have and what isp they use but remember they all suck from time to time its just you have had more than your fair share.
I had issues with speed and disconections for a long time. i got disconnected when someone turned different lights on in the house until i plugged in to the master socket and removed all the telephones except one. The sheating to my telepone cable was suffering interferance and i got 2meg more by putting the router in the main socket.
Anyway good luck I hope things get better for you.
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Forum Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 7/24/2008 4:33:15 AM
Posts: 49,
Visits: 1
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Hello,
If you ask me please don't bother calling Bt as they would be least interested in helping you unless they are your Broadband service provider.
Your line might not be able to support more than 512 because of the following reason.
Your exchange still works on the Ipstream circuit rather than the new LLU network.
And the exchange would be upgraded as per BT's planning.
No one can do anything about it.
What i would suggest you is that for now try and check if any of your neighbors have a different connection and if their connection is better than yours.
Anyways all of them Suck for sure one way or the other.
If you can find out what kind of circuit you are on from Virgin i would be able to help you more.
Regards,
Brad
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