Can you believe Virgin I'm barred

[buttons]

Been having problems with my broadband recently, diabolical speeds, I pay for 200bps and lucky if I'm getting 15bps. Anyway phoned first to the problem number and told that unless I connect my laptop through the ethernet cable then these low speeds are inevitable. I said I have had my equipment for a decade or more can they come out an change my boxes and check it out. His words were absolutely not unless they are faulty. OK so have decided to look around for someone else to pay my hundred pounds a month to. I contacted disconnections the lady offered to replace all my equipment without me asking and reduce my bill to 75 pounds a month but it would require another 1-2 year contract to be signed.
I said I need time to look around at what is about so can you put my disconnection through then if I change my mind I will get back to them within this month...….Now wait for it. She said if I cancel today, I will be barred from rejoining Virgin For six months. I aired my view on this six month ban and requested that she puts my cancellation through from today. She then said that I wont be able to change my mind even if I want to within this month...I'm banned for six months. It is a pity as I have been a good virgin customer for the past 30 years so now looking for a package with better wifi speeds, any suggestions..

 

[sdc77]

Surely you just need a decent router.
Our current house is a converted stable and long and low. We're currently using the bt whole home mesh system (other systems are available) and we now get awesome wifi everywhere ..including the garden and behind big thick walls.
We also have an extensive lan for cameras and streaming tv etc.
So... a decent router ... maybe a wifi repeater ... depending on size of house possibly a mesh system

 

[davanne]

Surely you just need a decent router.
Our current house is a converted stable and long and low. We're currently using the bt whole home mesh system (other systems are available) and we now get awesome wifi everywhere ..including the garden and behind big thick walls.
We also have an extensive lan for cameras and streaming tv etc.
So... a decent router ... maybe a wifi repeater ... depending on size of house possibly a mesh system

We have those too and before bt sorted out our speed we used them for Max to be able to get a decent speed in his office which is at the opposite end of the bungalow to the router.

 

[SpeedyDux]

Anything with the Virgin brand is barred as far as I am concerned. Until that tax-dodging Branson pays his fair share.

 

[two]

I'm always suspicious of someone approaching who does not know me yet wears a broad smile across their face.

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[DuxDeluxe]

I'm always suspicious of someone approaching who does not know me yet wears a broad smile across their face.

.....maybe he has a bad case of wind

 

[clanjones]

I think you will find that once you elect to go with a new provider and assuming you transfer your phone number, that the outward bound team will contact and should offer you a much better deal.

They are not contactable by you and only contact you once they have a request to transfer your number.

If you elect to stay with VM you have 14 days to cancel your contract with your new provider provided you took the contract out online.

I go through this every year with them.

 

[DBK]

They all use the same wire going to your house so no company can claim a huge advantage over their competitors by offering some magic speed boost.
I think you should have posted earlier before your divorce. Too late now.

 

[Lenny HB]

One of the biggest problems with WiFi range is 5g, devices like laptops phones etc will always select 5g if it is available. Problem with 5g is it does not like going through walls, if you are close to the router you will get a very fast connection but put some walls in the wall and it will be slower than 2.4g.

In my house with a hard wired connection I get the full 38mb/s, take my laptop to the end of the lounge about 35' from the router and 3 walls in the way. On 5g I get 10mb/s, on 2.4g I get 20mb/s

I always disable 5g on my routers.

 

[ivorantony]

Unfortunately you have no choice with the router from virgin, you have to use theirs, otherwise it won’t work,
came back after spending the winter in New zealand and found my virgin router1 had gone kaput, after contacting them for a replacement there engineer arrived with a super hub3 after reading about how crappy the super hub 3 was i asked for a 2 or 2A instead, he smiled and said no can do it’s the superhub 3 or nothing even thought he admitted he uses the 2A himself,
so it was changed! needless to say started having problems, first my WI fI printer wasn’t recognise and still doesn’t work, the router keeps locking up and needs a hard reboot to work again, and it also corrupted my password, Just a real pain!!
long story short,I Changed the Superhub3 to a Modem only and run a CAT6A cable to a tri band Asus Router and that works faultlessly,
much better wi-fi coverage a printer that now works and no more hard booting the router,
Can you beleave that Virgin is aware of the problem for 18 months and have done nothing to sort it out,
If it wasn’t for my complete package Phone/internet/TV i would have drop virgin like a ton of bricks,
Sorry rant over

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[Rob Hammond]

Got rid of virgin mobile after 20 odd years ,now bt family sim for 3 people just over £10 a month 5gb unlimited mins and texts ,not heard anything good about virgin internet,I’m sure others will say different £10 a month each .

 

[mikebeaches]

Unfortunately you have no choice with the router from virgin, you have to use theirs, otherwise it won’t work,
came back after spending the winter in New zealand and found my virgin router1 had gone kaput, after contacting them for a replacement there engineer arrived with a super hub3 after reading about how crappy the super hub 3 was i asked for a 2 or 2A instead, he smiled and said no can do it’s the superhub 3 or nothing even thought he admitted he uses the 2A himself,
so it was changed! needless to say started having problems, first my WI fI printer wasn’t recognise and still doesn’t work, the router keeps locking up and needs a hard reboot to work again, and it also corrupted my password, Just a real pain!!
long story short,I Changed the Superhub3 to a Modem only and run a CAT6A cable to a tri band Asus Router and that works faultlessly,
much better wi-fi coverage a printer that now works and no more hard booting the router,
Can you beleave that Virgin is aware of the problem for 18 months and have done nothing to sort it out,
If it wasn’t for my complete package Phone/internet/TV i would have drop virgin like a ton of bricks,
Sorry rant over

Both sorry, but also interested, to hear about your Virgin woes.

We've had Virgin broadband since 2004, and generally it's been pretty good (until recently), if somewhat expensive. Like you we came back from holiday to discover our old router was stuffed and a new super-hub3 was posted to us. And since then, the wi-fi has become totally unreliable and requires regular re-boots.

And only last night there was a programme on TV that had supposedly tested routers and the superhub 3 was one of the poorest ones. They gave top results to a Linksys router, that cost £149; and performance of the BT set-up (speed, range and reliability) wasn't far behind it.

 

[two]

My wifi has become exceedingly poor over the past two years. I think it's due to interference from somewhere. Few devices have facilities for linking by wire, so you have to put up with it. Not very satisfactory...

 

[buttons]

They all use the same wire going to your house so no company can claim a huge advantage over their competitors by offering some magic speed boost.
I think you should have posted earlier before your divorce. Too late now.

Not sure they all use the virgin fiber...Do they?

 

[DBK]

Not sure they all use the virgin fiber...Do they?

Does the fibre come to your house? If not, as with our BT system, it will end at a box somewhere and then the GPO wire will bring the signal to your house.

My point was it would have been worth running a few tests to try and identify where the fault lay.

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[EssexBoy]

Just a couple of thoughts if I may...

The 200mbps is from the VM router in your house out to the VM network (and will be shared by all your devices). The slowest part of your internet connection is the WiFi from your laptop to VM router (dead slow), so that is what any speed test will reflect, hence the suggestion to use a wire (a lot faster) for the speed test.

You can put the VM router in "Modem" mode and the use your own router. I know that you can do this as I have been for the last few years...

Hope this helps

Steve

 

[buttons]

Does the fibre come to your house? If not, as with our BT system, it will end at a box somewhere and then the GPO wire will bring the signal to your house.

My point was it would have been worth running a few tests to try and identify where the fault lay.

Yes the fibre does come to the house, they laid the cable some years ago and T off underground to the house but it is still crap.. I have run all the tests that I could do and the last time we had this problem the engineer came out tested the connections and the signal but it was only a short term fix. Refusing to change my antiquated equipment today was their first black mark then being offered a complete change of equipment by another department as long as a signed another contract was the second then being threatened with a six month ban was the third and final strike.

 

[DBK]

If the fibre comes to your house you should get a faster connection than what you've quoted. But there are a lot of variables.

 

[buttons]

Not sure if I have already said but the six month thing is to stop good existing loyal customers being offered the much nicer new customer package. Can you believe that prior to this ban some loyal crock customers were cancelling there contract then getting the new customer package for the same house under a differant name. My word there are some crooks out there. I think I have a way around it still. Now if I tell them I'm moving they will disconnect then I can get one of my wives to sigh up in a differant name saying they have just moved in. How about that, do you think it will work

 

[buttons]

If the fibre comes to your house you should get a faster connection than what you've quoted. But there are a lot of variables.

There are indeed DBK so many in fact that even their own engineers don't know what they are.

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[Ninjabob]

Exac

Just a couple of thoughts if I may...

The 200mbps is from the VM router in your house out to the VM network (and will be shared by all your devices). The slowest part of your internet connection is the WiFi from your laptop to VM router (dead slow), so that is what any speed test will reflect, hence the suggestion to use a wire (a lot faster) for the speed test.

You can put the VM router in "Modem" mode and the use your own router. I know that you can do this as I have been for the last few years...

Hope this helps

Steve

Exactly what I do HUB 3 in modem mode and use a decent ASUS Router - can max out my 100meg connection using wireless. As Lenny said modern devices will try and connect to 5ghz which is very effective at short range but not through walls 2.4ghz much better for greater distance.

 

[RogerThat]

Just to add my name to the list of people running the "super hub" in Modem Mode, with a proper router attached to the lan side of it

And also to echo the posts around the WiFi to your device being the slowest link in the chain. A network cable will give you flawless speeds, albeit not the most practical these days...

Likewise, I've been with Virgin since the mid-nineties when they dug up 90% of London pavements to install their coax cables. They were called United Artists then, before going on to become CableiNet, BlueYonder, Telewest, Virgin, etc. They'll probably be called something else by the time I finish typing this post

 

[buttons]

Just a couple of thoughts if I may...

The 200mbps is from the VM router in your house out to the VM network (and will be shared by all your devices). The slowest part of your internet connection is the WiFi from your laptop to VM router (dead slow), so that is what any speed test will reflect, hence the suggestion to use a wire (a lot faster) for the speed test.

You can put the VM router in "Modem" mode and the use your own router. I know that you can do this as I have been for the last few years...

Hope this helps

Steve

Thanks Steve yes I intend do the Ethernet cable test this week, the man on the phone was convinced that I would get 200mbs to my lap top doing it this way but I wont hold my breath.
I haven't also mentioned yet the problems that we have been having with the virgin TV reception. at times of the day really bad pixilation. They have also been around for that and changed one of my three boxes but it has reappeared soon after. All in all not the best reception on any of there stuff.....

 

[buttons]

Just to add my name to the list of people running the "super hub" in Modem Mode, with a proper router attached to the lan side of it

And also to echo the posts around the WiFi to your device being the slowest link in the chain. A network cable will give you flawless speeds, albeit not the most practical these days...

Likewise, I've been with Virgin since the mid-nineties when they dug up 90% of London pavements to install their coax cables. They were called United Artists then, before going on to become CableiNet, BlueYonder, Telewest, Virgin, etc. They'll probably be called something else by the time I finish typing this post

Sounds like a similar history to my own, I think we started with Jones cable, blimey that was some years ago..

 

[EssexBoy]

Also, be careful... its easy to get caught out... I have many a time.... Broadband speeds are in megabits whereas memory, storage etc is in megabytes ie. 100 megabits is only 12-ish megabytes...

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[DangerMousy]

They all use the same wire going to your house so no company can claim a huge advantage over their competitors by offering some magic speed boost.

Most companies do use Openreach's underlying infrastructure in order to provide DSL and fibre (FTTC) services to your home, but VM are one of the few providers in the UK who have their own separate network. Its a hybrid fibre coax network so whilst its not as good as a proper fibre connex, its better than DSL and should be able to achieve better speeds than the other "fibre" offerings from other providers.

Thanks Steve yes I intend do the Ethernet cable test this week, the man on the phone was convinced that I would get 200mbs to my lap top doing it this way but I wont hold my breath.

The estate where I live has full fibre to the premises (no BT or VM available here) which is rock solid reliable and can deliver very high speeds. But despite that lots of people on the estate have reported internet dropouts and slow speeds (we did ourselves for a while).....turns out 99% of the issues were due to the crappy wifi router supplied by the ISP. When people did a hardwire test or changed the router to a decent one all their problems disappeared. Wifi networks are subject to all sorts of interference.....for example if a neighbour has just set up a new network on the same or neighbouring channel to yours then that often explains a sudden drop in wifi performance. So I can understand why VM want to know the results of such a test before send out a field engineer or agreeing to change equipment.

 

[EssexBoy]

Oooh... Yes... almost forgot.... Make sure your wired connection is set for gigabit, or you'll only get 100mbps - so again won't be able to see your 200mbps

Interestingly, I just tried mine with two test sites and got 67mbps with one and 90mbps with the other... Which ones correct?

 

[Camdoon]

Today 225Mbps Down and 18.5Mbps Up. Previously I could only achieve anything acceptable in the room the router was in. Bought a BT Mesh and now happy as. Occasionally needs rebooting but rock solid all over the house, garages and garden, and tends to light up if not working. Virgin delivers to the room you are in - you just need to find a better way of sending the signal round your home depending on the size and layout; thickness of walls; electrical wiring and user needs.

 

[RowleyBirkinQC]

Another VM customer here, there is nothing ‘super’ about their erroneously entitled ‘Super Hub’ routers. As others have said, for decent WiFi coverage the best thing to do is put it modem mode and get a decent router. We use one of these tri band routers at home...

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/products/details/cat-9_Archer-C3200.html

However, you also need to pinpoint whether the issues faced are external to you in the VM infrastructure, hence the need to test and compare when directly connected via Ethernet cable.

If in a reasonably highly populated area, something else which could play a part is WiFi channel contention. There are apps you can download which highlight this and enable you to pick a low used channel frequency in your router settings accordingly.

When we first joined VM circa 7 years ago the real world speeds in our area were woeful, well below those advertised / contracted. Due to over subscription in our area at the time, it took a VM infrastructure upgrade to address this.

 

[buttons]

Thanks for all this invaluable knowledge and experience, I am now in some doubt as to whether to go hat in hand back to VM and resolve the issues myself with your help or just continue into the abyss. I Will of course be doing some testing next week myself just incase.....

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