Thinking of switching broadband from Talktalk to Virgin - tell me virgin is OK...

[Kewcumber]

My connection with Talktalk is so unreliable that I'm starting to come out in hives. It has been mysteriously fixed at their end once by moving me to "a more stable platform" after answering a zillion questions which were all obviously totally unnecessary.

Back to the same problme - I don;t care that much about the speed but spending hours (OK maybe minutes) clicking refresh hoping there might actually be a connection this time is driving me nuts. I have Virgin TV and mobile and am wondering if the marketing guff about cable being so much better is true?

I don;t do anything whizzy online - no games (except cbeebies!) and down download hige amounts. Just want something that works consistently.

Tell me if your virgin cable bradband (ie not through a BT line but via cable) works all the time at a half way decent speed.

[Kewcumber]

if the router has to be downstairs wheere the cable comes in (I assume) then how much loss of signal do you get on a PC upstairs. Its ot a big house but I can;t pick up the wireless signal at the moment on some places. Are the virgin wireless routers good enough to cope with PC's on a different floor?

[belledechocchipcookie]

It comes in through the phone line, there's a little box. The router's downstairs and I'm on the sofa. I wasn't lucky enough to get a wireless router from virgin. Sky gave me one though.

[Fairycakewithsprinkles]

Anything has to be better than the fucking joke that is Talk fucking Talk!

Hate the useless fuckers

Crappiest pieces of shit I have ever had to deal with.

Roll on November when we can tell them to ram their shit where the sun does not shine!!

Fuckers absolute fucking fuckers!!!

[ivykaty44]

I don't get a loss of signal in the garden with my router - it is a cheaper one I got free with virgin and is fine all around the house and garden - though I am not a large property it is only 24 foot to the bottom of the garden and we sit on the patio at times near the house

[Kewcumber]

Ooh fellow hatee, Fairycakes - come and join my gang.

I love when you know it is entirely their problem - never having previously had a singleproblme with previous ISP that you can;t get them to do anything without answering a million gazillion questions includig inside leg measurement. And when you've done that they say "we have checked and the speed/line/connection lok fine"

Yes well it would be if you checked it in one of the 10 minute (if lucky) bursts THATS ITS ACTUALLY WORKING!!!!!!

And breathe.

[Kewcumber]

And I just had to "try again" three sodding times to get that posted AND THATS NORMAL!

Will call virgin tomorrow see if I can extort a deal form them. As fairy says anyone must surely be better

[HauntedLittleLunatic]

Talktalk the pits.

If you are looing to through another one into teh mix though O2 are very good and chearp.

[HauntedLittleLunatic]

[bruffin]

Hardly ever had a problem with virgin. When it was NTL the customer service was dreadful but once Virgin took over their customer service has been excellent. Our cable box broke down at 10pm and there was a new box delivered at 9am the next morning and they rang us several times to make sure everything was working ok.
The BB speed is good even when we have 4 of use using it at the same time.

[greenrock]

Another Talk Talk hater here. Could anything really be worse?

[Kewcumber]

"Could anything really be worse?" give me a few days - I might come up with something.

I was an old AOL user and had maybe 2 or 3 problems with them in the 10 years of more I used them. The trouble is that of course they've now been taken over by talktalk I don;t even have the option of running back blubbing to the bosom of my old ISP and begging forgiveness.

Right. I have made my mind up will call virgin tomorrow.

[NetworkGuy]

for anyone not in a cable area, ie about 50% of UK there are some alternative deals going at the moment... on regular phone line ADSL internet access

Plusnet is offering their broadband at half price (under 4 pounds a month) for the first 9 months when taken with their line rental deal. I'm stuck on BT for line rental (18 month contract from me getting the line installed 'free' instead of paying them 125 quid !) so use Plusnet broadband. First moved to PN in about 2004 from some other ISP and they keep getting customer service awards (all their staff are in Sheffield, no foreign call centres) and they are genuinely friendly, even if their TV ads are pretty naff.

[NetworkGuy]

"having the same problem with Plusnet and a very crackling BT line"

Sorry to read that. Until September I had a crackly BT line and BT engineers came twice and tried charging their stiff call out fee but I got those refunded. I had weeks with slow speeds of 160 kbps - remember old dial up was often 40 kbps and expected ADSL minimum should be 500 kbps. Whenever it rained, I had up to 5 days with no broadband or voice calls (in or out!)

Eventually a lad from Liverpool was working Saturday overtime and up his ladder before I got to the front door. Saw the dropwire had perished insulation and fitted a brand new Master Socket in the small front bedroom [aka 'computer central'] and now I get downloads at 2500 kbps. it would be faster if the village wasn't more than 5km from the exchange, but it's a major improvement.

Biggest problem was the Openreach autpmatic test system always claimed the problem was with my wiring in the house while it was the last bit of their wire... from the gutter level down to the hall...

Unfortunately ISPs are stuck when it comes to possible phone lie problems because the customer is the one that has to pay any call out fees and the ISP can only do so much to try to identify the fault. In my case unless you were up the ladder looking closely at the wiring it was not possible to spot the insulation was knackered.

[NetworkGuy]

s/phone lie problems/ phone line problems

[GothAnneGeddes]

We were with virgin for a couple of years. Their Bb was excellent at both addresses. It went down once, then a pop-up help service got it working again. Fantastic.

[LaWeasel]

The cable TV was great, I loved it. But the internet was/is awful sorry.

I recommend O2 really highly, we'll be switching back when our contract is over.

Main problem with virgin is - they are useless if there is a problem. Tendancy to say everything is fine/they've sorted it/booked a visit on the phone and it be a complete lie. When we moved house I waited in for 3 whole days (rearranging each time) for them to pick up some kit only to find out they don't even do it that way - they post you a bloody box to put it in, and 3 different phone operatives hadn't known the correct precedure so had made it up!!

The speed deeps at peak times, which makes streaming jerky AND both with cabled internet and via the phone line (so 2 different hubs) we've had problems with the hub constantly disconnecting from one wireless point, and having to reset either the hub (with cabled) most days, or reboot the thing it's having problems with a couple of times a day.

Basically virgin suck.

[PigletJohn]

agree with a couple of previous posts.

I have Virgin (NTL) and the fibre is faster than you would get with copper. When it's working it's fine. When it goes wrong (luckily not often) they are incredibly useless. They score bottom of the league in "Which" review for cust service. Tesco score very highly so look at them.

When mine goes off I don't even bother phoning them any more, they have no more idea than I do, and it usually gets fixed in a day or two.

They now give a wireless hub which in my case works all over the house and in the (small) garden, and my smartphone gets 'net access from it. You can plug 4 lan cables into teh back of the hib as well to hardwire PCs if youy have several.

Avoid their TV offerings as that's where they make their profit. I get basic TV free with phone and Broadband. If you place an order, ring a few time AFTER YOU'VE RESEARCHED THE MARKET so you can say "oh, I don't know, Orange are doing 50Mb for £5 a month" or whatever (they know all the competitive offers so will know if you are bluffing. Always end by saying, well, it's a bit dearer than I expected, I will have to have a think about it" to see if they try to sweeten you or ring you back with a special offer.

[PigletJohn]

LaWeasel

"Basically virgin suck"

[sb6699]

We have just changed from BT to Virgin - wish we hadnt.

It is seriously slow and we frequently lose connection.

To top it off, we are supposed to be charged £30 per month but have just received a bill for £122

[MedusaIsHavingABadHairDay]

I've been with Virgin for about 10 years now.. cable.. would never go to ASDL now....

Over the years have had the odd issue but nothing that persistance (and insistance on and english speaking techie) hasn't fixed. never been without internet for more than a day..:)

[LaWeasel]

Piglet

[Ryoko]

I'm on shitty Talk Talk, Can't say I've really noticed much difference since I was on Nildram that they bought, but the customer service is absolute shit, had a few billing issues due to there own stupidity, idiots the lot of em.

I was going to move to PlusNet until I found out BT own them now so they will go downhill I don't want my connection throttled so sod them.

Frankly I think all the big names are shit, they are all owned by about 4 main companies and they probably all use the same contracted call centre, every time a new company raises it's head and gets kudos one of those fuckers buys em and screws em up.

[NetworkGuy]

I could write an essay on PlusNet (as a happy customer) because although they are owned by BT they have bent over backwards to remain independent in the range of products they offer. They charge only 6.49 or 11.49 for many customers on their 'Value' [10 GB] and 'Extra' [60 GB] accounts (they pass on the discount from Openreach which applies to exchanges with competition from Orange, Sky, TalkTalk etc) so unless you are in a rural area, they should be among the cheapest. ISPreview mentioned they are offering a phone calls and broadband deal where the 10 GB/month broadband is costing under 4 pounds/month for the first 9 months, where they can.

Yes, they do throttle some traffic (mostly from 7pm to 11pm, to ensure those who are browsing are not slowed down by high traffic downloaders) but they also ignore all traffic between midnight and 08:00 so although I pay for an account offering 60 GB/month in peak hours, I usually download between 125 and 175 GB a month, most of it during the night, of course, and they have an option for those who hate any drop in speed to pay for priority traffic (an extra fiver a month, but they are still cheaper than many of the 'unthrottled' ISPs).

I think they were taken over by BT around 3 years ago (ThinkBroadband.com should have some article about it if you want to check). Customer service, in Sheffield, wins awards, although it is rare that I've needed to ask for any help.