Virgin Broadband, High utilization in your area? Pay nothing!

Crosly · 29 May 2013 at 23:11

Been a Virgin Media/Broadband customer since it used to be Telewest and had no big issues with their service, until I upgraded from 30mbps to 60mbps in first week of January 2013.

My issue is that ever since I upgraded to 60mbps, I've been having speed issues between the times of 4pm-12am. Also known as peek times according to VM. I use speedtest.net and every evening I have tested my speed, wired and wireless to only be getting less than 3mbps out of 60mbps...

So that raised me to call VM and after countless attempts of being told to repeat the common troubleshoots, such as reseting router, changing channels blah blah. Nothing worked...
Took a few weeks to get it into their heads that it wasn't anything on my end. So after emoing a lot to them, they finally checked the cable in my area and ALAS! There was the problem... High Utilization... meaning that VM can't keep up with the demand of customers they have in my area. Yet they still try to sell packages even though they can't provide.
Now that they issued a ticket to the tech team to take a look, they gave me an estimated date when the service will be up and running. The date was and still is the 5th June 2013 and nothing has improved.

All in all, these past 6 months I have not been paying a single penny to VM. I kept calling them when I recieved the bill, complaining about the service and they kept crediting me. And until it is fixed (I have no hope for VM to get it done soon) I will refuse to pay.

I URGE people to check their speeds during peek times and if you think there is a problem, ring them and ask about high utilization in your area. Because I've been looking around on the VM forum and it's in many areas around the UK not just mine (NE34). And I also URGE that you refuse to pay if this is the issue because I'm getting the so called service for free even if it's fine during non peek times.

If the issue isn't fixed by August then I'm going elsewhere as I've given them 8 months to fix it.

spoffle · 29 May 2013 at 23:17

I've been having some speed issues, downloads are fine but websites can load painfully slow and seem painfully slow to respond as well as Youtube being very slow and constant buffering.

Gashman · 29 May 2013 at 23:18

aye, wish Virgin Media would fix his connection so he doesn't keep complaining about it all the time! thought it can lead to some amusing moments on World of Tanks with him driving Grille's into the sea for no apparent reason with 999 ping.

Crosly · 29 May 2013 at 23:31

Aye currently getting 0.76mbps. It's a joke...

geuben · 29 May 2013 at 23:35

Crosly said:
Aye currently getting 0.76mbps. It's a joke...

Just did a speed check 86Mb/s...looks like they finally doubled my speed.

Crosly · 29 May 2013 at 23:44

geuben said:
Just did a speed check 86Mb/s...looks like they finally doubled my speed.

Want to swap?

I may as well go back to AoL on dail up...

KIA · 30 May 2013 at 12:05

Why would you put up with a pathetic connection for six months, even if it's free!

Do you have ADSL & VDSL2 available to you?

iamtheoneneo · 30 May 2013 at 12:12

i got so fed up with VM that I left a month early and went to Sky Fibre (massive improvement) , they are so incompetant they couldn't even get my early termination fee right and charged me double - took 4 phone calls to get them to realise that their amazing computer system was completely incorrect.

Psycho Sonny · 30 May 2013 at 12:44

surely if this is as bad as you say it is, then more people in your area would be complaining, and on here someone else said that an engineer told them you should be hammering the system at peak times so more flags pop up on VM's system.

therefore surely if yours is as bad as that then there should be several flags on their system and they would have came out and fixed it.

it may just be the line to your home has been damaged in some way.

do you have any friendly neighbours or friends who live within the same block? ask if you can test theirs out or ask them to do it and see what they get.

KIA · 30 May 2013 at 13:51

Psycho Sonny said:
surely if this is as bad as you say it is, then more people in your area would be complaining, and on here someone else said that an engineer told them you should be hammering the system at peak times so more flags pop up on VM's system.

therefore surely if yours is as bad as that then there should be several flags on their system and they would have came out and fixed it.

it may just be the line to your home has been damaged in some way.

do you have any friendly neighbours or friends who live within the same block? ask if you can test theirs out or ask them to do it and see what they get.

It often takes VM many many months to fix over utilisation. 6 months of problems isn't unusual.

troops · 30 May 2013 at 14:29

Ive got till December for my high utilisation is fixed, i practically don't pay for it either, half price plus a loyalty credit every time i ring up

Crosly · 30 May 2013 at 20:46

Well I've been up all day and did a test this morning and again before work in the afternoon and I was getting 50+mbps before 4pm.
Got home and the test says:

I've also tried testing from different servers and also servers abroad and there is no improvement.

I've been on the phone every month when the bill is due to pay and they keep saying that engineers are working on it etc.
Also it took many many calls of complaints to even get them to check my cable to notice there was an area problem.

troops · 30 May 2013 at 20:58

You need to speak to retentions Crosly the option you are thinking of leaving.
Not sure but i think its option 5 then option 2.

snitcher · 30 May 2013 at 21:10

been having the same problem lately.

Crosly · 30 May 2013 at 21:14

troops said:
You need to speak to retentions Crosly the option you are thinking of leaving.
Not sure but i think its option 5 then option 2.

I plan to leave if the issue is not fixed by August. This is giving them 2 months over the estimate they gave me since January. Reason being is because I am getting 50+mbps during the day and still paying nothing and that the MMORPG I've waiting on releases in August.

FrenchTart · 30 May 2013 at 21:48

Had a similar issue a year back. Ended up taking them up on their free broadband..which was then not used at all as I got a "low speed" 11mbit Be connection that outperformed my 100mbit VM connection in pretty much all aspects.

iamtheoneneo · 31 May 2013 at 16:45

Psycho Sonny said:
surely if this is as bad as you say it is, then more people in your area would be complaining, and on here someone else said that an engineer told them you should be hammering the system at peak times so more flags pop up on VM's system.

therefore surely if yours is as bad as that then there should be several flags on their system and they would have came out and fixed it.

it may just be the line to your home has been damaged in some way.

do you have any friendly neighbours or friends who live within the same block? ask if you can test theirs out or ask them to do it and see what they get.

you seem to think virgin actually care. they dont.
with my neighbourhood it was massively ****ed but according to VM it was just under the threshold to send an engineer. this went on for months

amazingly the day after I cancelled I see not one VM engineer but two working on the box.

trickynickyuk · 31 May 2013 at 20:26

Crosly said:
I plan to leave if the issue is not fixed by August. This is giving them 2 months over the estimate they gave me since January. Reason being is because I am getting 50+mbps during the day and still paying nothing and that the MMORPG I've waiting on releases in August.

My dad is in the same area (NE34) and having the same problem he is on 100Mb and he is getting very pittiful VM said it would be sorte by June hopefully he has not had full speed since he got it hopefully they sort it soon

Crosly · 1 Jun 2013 at 00:10

trickynickyuk said:
My dad is in the same area (NE34) and having the same problem he is on 100Mb and he is getting very pittiful VM said it would be sorte by June hopefully he has not had full speed since he got it hopefully they sort it soon

Yeah NE34 estimated fix date is June 5th... They have 4 days until that date but I thinks is bs, because I am still suffering as much as I did 6 months ago when the problem was raised to the engineers.
You dad should complain to see if VM will credit him his monthly fee. I'm paying nothing for the internet and have paid nothing for 6 months.

The more people who complain and want refunds about the service, the more VM will lose money and probably pull their thumbs out their butts and get it sorted.

trickynickyuk · 1 Jun 2013 at 16:27

he gets £25 a month off his bill thats the date that they told him as well VM not bothered now because they sold the BB sector