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Broadband - Virgin or BT?

Broadband - should I stick with Virgin or move to BT? We signed up with Cableinet when broadband was first planned for Croydon. About a year later we got it and life was good. Cableinet then became part of Telewest, that nearly became Blueyonder, which later merged with NTL which bought out Virgin Mobile allowing a change in brand to Virgin Media. Now Virgin generally have a good name and I was an ardent supporter when Sky withdrew some of its channels.
However my support has been firmly shaken today due to some technical issues with the Broadband service that Virgin Media are currently upgrading to a new super-fast broadband service - which means technical changes to their infrastructure I am guessing.

Over the weekend my Router failed. I traced the fault eventually (difficult to test as I lost all internet connectivity at 1am) to the power pack and replaced that on Monday evening. However the internet service had been very sluggish/glue like before I lost the router. So that Paula could get some work done on Monday I patched the Ethernet network cable directly to the Cable Modem and reset the IP addresses.

When I got home Monday night Paula complained that that the Internet had been very patchy all day - sometimes very good, sometimes nothing at all. So I set the router back up and everything was working fine until later when I went back to look something up on the web it just would not resolve web pages properly or pick up email. I started testing. I reset caches, restarted the cable modem, router and all computers several times and in the correct order. I removed the router again and plugged the computer directly into it and still got the same issues - intermittent access to the internet. Considering that I had proved it was not the router at fault we decided it was time to call Virgin Media and see if they had any outstanding network issues.
I even reset Paula's Nabaztag and that received several messages and then it lights showed that it had lost connectivity with the Violet servers.

Paula called and was told that there were no service issues and when she described the problem to Virgin was told that she would have to ring the Broadband support line. Since this last weekend the Broadband support line now costs 25p per minute. That's £1 for 4 minutes to let Virgin know they might have a problem.

So I got involved.
I found the Virgin Customer Support - Broadband form on-line and proceeded to fill it in. The very first question, and it is * required, is Your Virgin Media username: *. I have no idea what my Virgin Media User Name is - they have never supplied me with one. So I rang the Virgin customer support line and asked them what my Virgin Media User name was - but despite the fact they know who I am, I gave my account number and telephone number, address and post code, they were unable to tell me. However the Broadband support line would be able to tell me - that's the £10 for 40 minutes line for information they require from me. I explained this was ridiculous and was told that I could not be helped.

However I did come across an option on the initial call that I wanted to explore. On first dialling 0845 454 1111 I then input my phone number, then chose option 3, and then chose option 2 for Thinking of leaving Virgin Media, then chose 3 for Leaving Virgin Media and then I got a very helpfull man. Obviously the best support staff are on the end of this option - that's where I would put them to try and retain customers.

I complained about having to pay to find out my Virgin Media name so I could fill in their support ticket. The nice man asked my about the problem and I explained but he was not technical so tried to resolve the issue by contacting the Broadband support desk (probably internally crossed charged at £15 per hour!) and relaying the issue between myself and the Broadband support - how silly did he feel and how frustrated was I? He could not transfer me to support, I think he was not allowed to even.

The first question from support was:


  1. Do you have a router, my answer yes,

  2. Then I was told I needed to remove the router and connect directly to the internet - I replied that I had already done this and pre-empted the next question by stating that I had rebooted the Cable modem on several occasions (been here before...) and the issue persisted

  3. Next I was told that that should fix the problem - I replied that it had not.

  4. I was asked if it is happening now - I replied it had been happening intermittently all morning

  5. I was told to ring the help desk the next time it happened - that's the 25p per minute, £1 per 4 minutes, £10 for 40 minutes at £15 per hour support line.

  6. I said that this was just not good enough and the nice man said he would talk to his manager - after about 5 minutes on hold they hung up. Am I that horrid? (rhetorical)

I have not called back yet - I did not want to spend another 22 minutes telling someone else the issue. I still don't have any idea about what my Virgin Media name is so I just put my name in and sent the form - I would hope that they do not bin the form because it has not got a correct User name on it - I did put my account details and phone number etc. on the form to be as helpful as possible. I also told them that I would be publishing my thoughts on their service so far and that they were welcome to comment here.

So Virgin - earn your stripes - give me a reliable broadband connection or I start looking into other service providers including comparing BT's home Broadband service with Virgin Media's broadband offering - after all these years I may actually move providers because of this.

More later when I get home tonight.

Posted by Simon at July 4, 2007 1:05 PM

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Comments

1 August 4, 2007 10:02 AM simon

yes, i have the exact same problem as you said.

im a tech savvy person myself and done all the diagnostics myself before ringing thoes idiots.
response i got from them was exactly the same as you they dont resolve anything.

what i would suggest is to ring them up on the non-premium number and speak to some1 on it about the charges on the calls and tell them your problems were not resolved and u WANT your $ they charged on the 090 number.

i got mine back(or so they said that they would do it i guess i need to wait to the end of the month to know)

2 September 24, 2007 6:49 PM Michael Fawbert

VIRGIN MEDIA
Has anyone out there managed to setup thier virgin email account within three weeks , not th three steps virgin say it will take.
I am trying to set up for a friend using Vista.. This is somthing Virgin dont know about as there is nothing to suggest how to set up using Vista, even their setup disc is rejected by Vista.

Virgin dont supply any email account detais, How do you set one up ?..
No user name
No server addresses.
And their technical advise line is disconnected !

They have no one who has been able to assist in any form.
DONT GET VIRGIN.... You will die of dispair before you get it set up