Virgin broadband

[JTrader]

Virgin.net broadband

Hi

I am now finally on broadband. Today is my first day with Virgin. Not a bad deal at £17.99 a month with no 12-month contract for 512kbps. However, i did waste about £10 on the phone to their technical support staff @25pence per minute. The problem turned out to be at their end as I was able to connect when they refreshed my username and password on their system. So i am trying to get them to compensate me for this expense.

Anyway........ although it is meant to be 512kbps, my Speedtouch connection is showing a 'speed' of 2.2mbps, 'sent' of 179706 bytes, and 'received' of 655,703 bytes. I am unsure as to what the sent and received numbers refer to, and how important they are to the overall connection speed. Could someone please translate this information for me?

Many thanks

jtrader .

ps. I am using a Belkin high speed connection RJ11 cable - capable of transferring data at up to 100mbps. Perhaps this is responsible for the seemingly over quick connection?

 

[roguetrader]

You'll find a speed test here, left side of page.
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/

The figures you quote are probably total bytes sent and received since you logged on

 

[JTrader]

Broadband Speed Test Results

Results from broadband speed test recorded on Thursday, 17 February 2005, 17:27.
Your Connection

Direction


Actual Speed


True Speed (estimated)
Downstream 320 Kbps (40.0 KB/sec) 345 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream 243 Kbps (30.4 KB/sec) 262 Kbps (inc. overheads)

'Actual Speed' is the amount of useful data that your connection can transmit/receive per second. The 'True Speed' figure includes an approximation of data overheads (non-useful data) and is estimated to be around 8%. 'True Speed' is for informational purposes only and is not used in any ISP rankings.

Thanks RT

here are my results from the speed test. Certainly nowhere near 2.2mbps or even 512kbps.
I guess that 2.2mbps is just the maximum that my adsl modem is capable of.

jtrader.

 

[JTrader]

ADSL filter with 2 female BT connector slots

Hi

we have one pnone line and socket in the house. We have two phones - one next to the socket and one in a bedroom. Prior to installing broadband - we had a splitter in the socket - enabling a cable to run through the loft to the phone in the bedroom. However, I have been told not to use a splitter with the broadband - as it was causing interference on the phone and could cause problems with the ADSL connection............However, I've just connected both phone lines and the ADSL line via a filter - plugged into a two way splitter, and although it did cause interference on the phoe line - it does improve the speed of the connection (at least for now)

Your Connection

Direction


Actual Speed


True Speed (estimated)
Downstream 481 Kbps (60.1 KB/sec) 519 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream 242 Kbps (30.3 KB/sec) 261 Kbps (inc. overheads)

'Actual Speed' is the amount of useful data that your connection can transmit/receive per second. The 'True Speed' figure includes an approximation of data overheads (non-useful data) and is estimated to be around 8%. 'True Speed' is for informational purposes only and is not used in any ISP rankings.

Therefore, in order to run the second phone in the bedroom without any interference - i require an ADSL filter with 2 BT slots, as opposed to the 1 BT slot that I have in the 2 filters that came with the modem. Does anybody know if these exist, and where I can get one of these from? I could not find on on www.ebuyer.com or www.aria.co.uk

Many thanks

jtrader.

 

[JTrader]

In my experience, Virgin.net has EXTREMELY POOR, non-cooperative customer service. They remind me of a bunch of cowboys. If you send them a complaint letter saying that you should not have to pay for X, because X was not your fault, they send a reply stating a completely different and FALSE version of events - denying your claims.

You have to make complaints by physical letter, rather than email. They will not include contact email and phone nmbers in letters, making complaints proceedure very slow, defficult and expensive for the customer.

If you say to them if you don't refund X (X being what you should never have been charged in the first place) I will cancel virgin.net and virgin mobile, they are fine with that and do absolutely nothing to try and retain your (potential 50 years+ of future) custom.

Customer services make arrangements to call you back, when no team leader is available to speak to, but they never call you back.

Virgin.net = completely useless budget operation in my opinion.

OK, theres no 12 month contract, but there is a £50 cancellation fee if you cancel within 12 months, introduced in the last year or so, and you also have to pay for a 30 day notice period.

 

[rossored]

I sympathise!

After singing the praises for my current ISP (www.freedom2surf.net) for the past two years, I've finally had to move elsewhere.

Last few months the service has been very poor (unreliable, v.v.slow, emails going missing etc) and I found out that they'd been taken over by Pipex some months ago - all ties in.

Needless to say, I'm off, and after some research at www.adslguide.org.uk, I have plumped for these fellows: http://www.keconnect.co.uk. They've got the highest ratings on the aforementioned site and the phone is answered within a couple of rings (we'll see how that goes!) - not that I ring up very much at all to be honest. Migration takes 5 days according to BT (make it ten) ....

 

[roguetrader]

Potentially one of the big problems with broadband at the moment is that there are a huge amount of companies around, theoretically that should be a good thing for the customer, however it creates a great deal of instability in the market place as many of these companies are being eaten up by larger companies, this often leads to integration problems, and what was a great provider at one time turns to cr*p.
The second thing to avoid in my opinion is companies that offer free broadband or no download limits, free obviously may attract way too many subscribers to the ISP ( though that may be offset by the fact that there's a lot of that out there now) an unlimited downloads attracts what I call the full-time file-sharers, who have their PC's hooked up 24/7 exchanging masses of data. So unless you are a heavy user yourself I think its better to go with restricted download setup.

 

[JTrader]

Hi rossored

Virgin was my choice because of the lack of the 12 month contract. But now they have the £50 cancellation fee, alongsie the 30 day notice period, this is equal to a 4 month notice period.

The virgin.net attitude seems to be - we are one of the few ISP's who do not tie customers into a 12 month contract, offering reasonable monthly package rates. therefore we will, and we can get away with shoddy customer service.

We have had two virgin.net accounts, one at my house, one at my other premises. The one from home was opened B4 the £50 canc. fee was introduced. The one at my other premises was subject to the £50 canc. fee. I no longer required the connection at my alternative premises. So i cancelled it. Virgin in their small print say that they reserve the right to charge the £50 - not that they definately do.

As a longstanding customer i said I will not pay it, if they charge it they will go elsewhere. They were supposed to phone me to discuss this. One month later, they took the £50 without telling me. I could have probably blocked this payment with my bank.

What i should have done is cancel the connection at my home, not subject to the £50 charge, then moved the connection from my alternate premises to my home for FREE. But did not think of this till after. This would have created more work for virgin.net. Now they are responding to my complaint by just repeating their standard terms and conditions, saying that they will not refund the £50 and that if i go elsewhere then thats fair enoough. Utterly crap customer service.

......I wouldn't mind so much, but the fact is i'd payed for the cancelled connection for 5-6 months, but NEVER actually used the connection! I just had it as a spare in case i needed to move premises. Its not like i cancelled after a week. And i've held the other account for 20 months.

Virgin.net do not deserve any customers, with such s**t customer service in place.

I'm considering broadbandquest.co.uk, who also charge on a monthly basis.

 

[JTrader]

seriouslyinternet and adsl4less also can come without a 12-month contract.

 

[wheezergeezer]

seriouslyinternet and adsl4less also can come without a 12-month contract.

I would recommend BT, although you have to sign up for 12 months, but the service is reliable, unlimited support is included 24/7 ,if you use an exsisting telephone cable to recieve your broadband, all virgin and other companies do is to lease the line from BT anyway , good competitive cheap reliable ISP's, are thin on the ground, Ive yet to find one...........Good Luck