Tagged: broadband RSS

  • Dave 7:28 pm on December 1, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: broadband, ,   

    BT I-Plate 

    A few weeks ago, I fitted a BT I-Plate to the phone socket that my ADSL router is plugged in to.

    This little plastic gizmo is supposed to, well, I’ll knick this bit of text :

    The I-Plate (also known as IPLATE) is a special ADSL filter that can be easily installed to improve the speed and stability of your connection. It works by filtering electrical interference created by TVs, lights, extension wiring and other everyday electrical equipment in the home.

    This interference is usually caused by phone extension wiring as it acts like a giant antennae picking up interference. Some lines have seen up to 4 Mbps increases in speed although improvements of 1.5 Mbps were found to be more typical in a benchmark survey of 36,000 filtered lines. This I-Plate can also help with poor performing long lines.

    I completely forgot that I’d fitted it after a day or two of checking that I’d not made things worse. I’ve been doing some checking though, and my connection used to reach a maximum download speed of 670Kb/sec – it now maxes out at about 830Kb/sec.

    This is almost a year after I was getting 15Kb/sec when using Virgin Media! Since I left Virgin Media, I’ve been using ADSL24 and I’ve not had a single issue in the 12 months I’ve used them.

    So, hooray for the BT IPlate giving me a near 25% speed boost and hooray for ADSL24 for doing a perfect job invisibly.

    I bought my Iplate from ADSL24 for a tenner.

     

  • Dave 7:34 pm on January 7, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: broadband, , service,   

    Crap service on wheels 

    Crap service on wheels [80/365]

    Having used Virgin Media’s crap broadband service and found myself going nowhere on the Internet, imagine my delight when I got stuck behind one of their vans on the way to work.

    I also can’t help thinking the phrase on the back of the van describes the broadband service performance rather than a hard disk video recorder.

    I’ve said it before, but good riddance to that bunch of clowns!

    Reference: The problems, The escape

     

  • Dave 10:50 pm on December 29, 2007 Permalink
    Tags: broadband, ,   

    The joys of not using a crap ISP like virgin.net 

    Yesterday I escaped virgin.net and started getting my broadband from a well regarded smaller company. The problems I had with virgin.net are gone in to here. Needless to say, they’re a horrible company who doesn’t do anything right and treats their customers like shit. When I changed the login details to use my new provider yesterday the crapness just disappeared and my connection has been going like the clappers! I live a few hundred metres away from the exchange and my ADSL rate has always been very high, but the actual data flow over the Virgin network has mostly been at near narrowband speeds.

    Every time I tried to watch a YouTube video, I’d have to pause it at the beginning and wait a few minutes for it to fill the buffer before it started to work, the BBC iPlayer was unusable as was 4oD – the Channel4 on demand service. Downloading anything remotely big – even 10Mb + really needed to be left and done either early morning or in the middle of the night on a timer. I may as well have been using a dial up modem or an acoustic coupler – I knew I should have kept a 1970’s style telephone – If you’re a current virgin.net customer you might want to get one of those from eBay to improve your performance ;)

    Of course, when I have used other ISP’s I know my connection is near 8Mbit because of how close to the exchange I live. So I have been used to very fast speeds prior to using virgin.net. Now that I’ve escaped, it feels like I’m back in the fast lane so I’ve been testing various things that just wouldn’t work before. Earlier on I watched a documentary called 638 Ways to Kill Castro which is both sad and amusing – the amusing element reminding me of the indestructible nature of Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films, the sad elements being some of the horrible terrorist attacks used to try and kill him that took out lots of other people and footage of a Castro ordered execution in the early days. I did watch a few comedies after that! Each of these played flawlessly and immediately.

    For the record, when I was looking to change, I used the site ispreview.co.uk and looked at the reviews and prices of each of the ISP’s in their top 10 list. I went to ADSL24. Not only am I impressed with the lightning fast speed, I’m also impressed with how they handles my order, the fact that their support phone number isn’t a premium rate cash cow and the fact that I registered to use their forum, posted a message and was answered and welcomed by a member of staff almost immediately. It’s a whole different world.

     

    • Roger B. 9:18 pm on December 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Richard Branson seems to be the opposite of King Midas – everything he touches turns to crap.

    • Dave S 1:22 pm on August 13, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Totally agree that Virgin.net is crap!!!! My broadband speeds are slower than dial-up at times. The combined phone service is a rip-off as well. I had better speeds with Orange and they weren’t great. Can’t wait to move on.

  • Dave 2:04 pm on December 13, 2007 Permalink
    Tags: broadband, ,   

    Virgin Media Crap Service 

    A lot of this post is a repeat of the text that accompanied the photo above. Most of the text below won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s had the misfortune of dealing with the company:

    virgin.net adsl leaves something to be desired. Over the last few days, my download speeds have deteriorated to around 15kb/sec and before that only hit around 75kb/sec for the last few weeks.

    The BT speed tests reveal that the underlying ADSL connection is set at 8096kb/sec  (I could more or less hit the exchange by spitting at it!).

    Virgin.net’s customer service has been dreadful. I initially started using email but I got standard cut and paste replies that suggested that they’d not even read my questions and had just sent a one size fits all reply to fob me off. After several attempts they tell me that email support had reached it’s limit and I should phone their premium rate screw the customers line.

    The first person I talked to, whilst being generally clueless and finishing his advice with “All I can suggest is you use a different provider”, did offer some insights in to how they work. Highlights include…

    “You’re wasting your time with email support, the people are miles away, can’t see the system and just copy and paste replies in”

    “We’re testing our AUP/ bandwidth shaping by turning it on for some customers at random”

    The BT speedtester tells me that although my line is rated at 8096, throughput across virgin.net is around 236kb/sec – that seems to indicate a problem to me, but try telling their support people that.

    I’m currently gettings speeds equivalent of an ISDN line so I don’t think I’m even getting broadband – as for unlimited – to me that words means without limit – there are limits though – when you hit them they deliberately slow you down – although sometimes that doesn’t show on their systems apparently. These limits are apparently very low but they don’t know what they are – and can’t tell the customer what they are – because calling them limits would suggest that unlimited is a lie.

    If anyone has any tips for escaping the clutches of this shower of twats, please let me know.

    I am now getting to the point where I’m considering buying out the contract to get away from them. The service can only be described as shit so I’m making sure everyone I know knows how bad they are  – but their reputation precedes them and most people know already. Changing their name from NTL to Virgin to try and brush their ‘Worst Customer Service” crown under the carpet hasn’t worked.

    I can’t think of any other company I’ve ever dealt with who have been this bad. The people just don’t give a shit about the customers, will openly lie to you on the phone and charge you a fortune for the privilege of just talking to them – I only made 3 or 4 phone calls and my broadband bill went up 50% to cover the cost of the support calls that month. 

    So as much as I want to dig my heals in and get them to apologise and reimburse me, I’m so sick of the way they treat their customers I just want to get out by whatever means necessary, even if it means paying.

    Truly the worst company I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

    Incidentally, after my tests, I can find no problem at my end, my router reports that my adsl connection is at full pelt (I’m right next to the exchange). and in the morning before work, I can download files at up to 800Kb/sec which is what I’d expect it to be like most of the time with a good quality ISP, but during peak hours you may as well be using an old dial up modem. Absolute bollocks!

     

    • Jon 3:59 pm on December 13, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Ours isn’t too bad, but then I am right next to their building in Sneinton, so maybe they make sure their building gets a good connection and we’re lucky enough to get that one as well!

      On the one occasion that I rang customer service it was useless, the usual script consisting of everything you’ve tried already, and then after 10 minutes he warned me how expensive the phone bill was and did I want to stop, which seemed bizarre given the issue wasn’t actually sorted. Then he claimed to have been cut off! And started the whole ‘hello….hello’ thing down the phone!

      So yeah, that bit is utterly useless.

    • Hitesh Sawlani 9:30 am on December 19, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I was using NTL (which then became Virgin) in 2006-2007 in Reading and it worked quite well, I only had to use customer support once when my modem failed to activate (right at the start), other than that it worked flawless for the whole year.

      I also had NTL in 2005-2006 in Loughborough and again everything was fine except for a problem they had in grabbing the wrong details for our billing address.

    • The joys of not using a crap I 11:05 pm on December 29, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      [...] broadband from a well regarded smaller company. The problems I had with virgin.net are gone in to here. Needless to say, they’re a horrible company who doesn’t do anything right and treats [...]

    • Crap service on wheels « 7:34 pm on January 7, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      [...] The problems, The escape This entry was written by publicenergy, posted on January 7, 2008 at 7:34 pm, filed [...]

    • Clint 8:54 pm on January 25, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I’ve been on virin interest since about Feb’05. For the first year it was acceptable, but since they went to openly advertising unlimited broadband, the service has turned to shit (speed in the evenings is unbearable).

      Worst still, for the last 4 month it seems that their DNS servers are on their last legs, and literally for 1 minute in every 10, I cannot establish connections to new web sites. It sounds wierd, but ive tried multiple routers and pcs and it sure as hell aint my hardware.

      After a series of useless emails with their “support” people (phone support does not even seem to pick up?), Ive come to my teather and will change providers.

      To hell with virgin internet.

    • Wu 11:47 pm on April 6, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I’ve been NTL now Virgin media subscriber for ages no real problems. Now its fucked.

      I drop session based connections all the time, while my mates from around the world get to say: “laggy?? wtf lol no its fine. Why you keep logging in/out???!! wtf.”

      But what really pissed me off was playing half life 2 deathmatch its permanent lockup/lag death or cant even connect. I was running up some stairs after finally getting the xbow thinking ya u got ur back turned noob, watch this lol then I lock up, 60 seconds later Im dead and I didnt even see it. Not a happy bunny and it happened non stop till I hit fuck it disconnect. Now my server stats are gonna be affected and I was nearly ranked 3rd. Normally i get xbow fire 10 shots and I got 10 frags. simple. Not today.

      I talked to some guy in Asia on the phone he said yes everything it ok I said no its not he said oh yes they upgrade something it all working now, my name is (dunno couldnt understand dialect), thankyou for calling. Reminded me of when I rang up HSBC bank and spoke to someone I couldnt even understand properly to ask why I got £600 bank charges in one week and Im not even much over my limit.

      Thankyou for letting me come here type shit and tell you all I hate virgin media broadband.
      Gonna forget net for rest of day. maybe it works tomorow. duno

    • James 7:38 am on April 19, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I agree, Virgin is utter crap. I switched from BT (good service until something goes wrong and then you have to deal with A grade morans). The switch to Virgin was painless until you used their broadband. My line is 8 meg and through speedtester website, I can get 6 meg. Virgin works fine from 12:15 am until 12:15 pm then it drops to approx 8 kb/s – shocking! After informing Virgin of the speedtests, they agreed that the speed was unnaceptable and allowed me to cancel my contract without charge. Got my MAC code and switched to another provider on a short term basis until BE arrives later this year. Also cancelled my direct debit with Virgin and will not pay them anything until they reimburse my connection charge and calls to their premium rate telephone number. Like the old saying, you pay for what you get. £10 may sound like a good deal for unlimited broadband, if it worked! Shame on Virgin – they have just given me another reason to hate Richard Branson more!!!!

    • Gazmaz 10:18 pm on June 10, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Well I was actually with Telecential before they became NTL!, and until recently my service was never to bad, I am on a cable line, but for the last week, I’m on a 4MBs, I’ve only been getting between 500 and 900 kbits /sec. Shite shite shite response has been dreadful. Do these companies ACTUALLY care any more, no it’s all about numbers, and you and I are just a tadpole in a large ocean in which they do not care as long as people are coming on board. Retention who cares new numbers that’s what it’s all about. :-( :-( :-(

    • Dan 8:56 am on June 17, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      We never used to have a problem with our broadband before but since Virgin Media bought out our original supplier, the connection is up and down like a ***king yo-yo! I have not tried to call their technical support and I dont intend to, not so they can sit their and say, oh well thats your router which is at fault when I have already removed the router completely from the setup and just run the lead from the Modem into the PC and still had the connection go down. The only phone call Virgin Media are about to get from me, is the one advising them they may send around an engineer to collect their shitty webstar modem and make good the holes they have made in my house walls!

    • Anon 9:05 am on June 17, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Perhaps Virgin Media are unaware of what would happen if a customer where to attach a 12v car battery to their Broadband Cable!!!

      Revenge for the Masses!

    • Fedup 9:22 pm on July 3, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      We upgraded to the 20mg service recently, big mistake, I actually thought we would have a little better speed in the evening – daytime speed is no problem but who has time to sit and use the PC all day? – instead we manage about 1/4 of a mg most evenings – disgusting service. We had an engineer sent round after I said I would cancel, he told me there was nothing he could do from an engineers point of view and it is just network congestion. While I understand speeds will drop in peak periods, I would expect better than 1/80th of what I pay for!!

    • Bernard_Peel 11:58 am on February 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Virginmedia is the biggest load of rubbish i have ever had the missfortune to get with.
      I am on a 10mb connection speed,average under 1 mb upload speed,download almost zero.STAY AWAY FROM THIS MOTHER OF ALL CRAP BROADBAND.

    • ben 12:10 pm on February 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Verginmedia,worst broadband service on the market

    • Ben 12:14 pm on February 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Never mind a car battery,give it the mains,it cant be any worse,my broadband never works.I paid £20 yesterday for the privalidge of talking to an idiot

  • Dave 7:21 pm on July 23, 2007 Permalink
    Tags: broadband, , demoninternet,   

    Demon Internet Crap Service 

    Demon Internet Crap Service

    When I first started using the Internet at home, many many years ago, Demon Internet had a reputation as a good solid British company who knew what they were doing and had a healthy respect in the techie community. These days Demon Internet seems to be something that owners Thus are keeping on life support until it either dies or is taken off their hands.

    I’m not exactly sure when my current problem with Demon started, but I can see my BT reported fault history on the BT web site, and the first one was logged on the 22nd June. Today is the 23rd July and the problem still exists and I don’t feel any closer to it being fixed. That opinion is mostly down to the conversations I have with people at Demon internet who have been consistently clueless and unhelpful.

    The rest of this sorry tale continues after the jump…

    (More …)

     

    • Ollie 7:47 pm on July 23, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      …life’s too short to spend a month chasing people who obviously don’t care about their customers.

      I hear ya’ bud, I hear ya’. Unfortunately, most companies are the same. The small ones do care, but don’t have the resources to help in a timely manner, and the big multi-nationals just don’t give a rat’s bottom about your £x/month subscription.

      I hope your next supplier works out better than Demon, but don’t be surprised if they don’t. Such is life, forever spent navigating stupid help-desk menus just to be told I’m the problem. No wonder some folk go insane…

      (Oh, I think the graphic is just about right ;-) )

    • publicenergy 8:51 pm on July 23, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I don’t really expect perfect service anywhere, I just like it not to be quite this bad!

      Another small email exchange from today…

      I sent this

      Was there any explanation given for missing the appointment on Saturday 21st?

      They replied with this

      Further to your email dated on 23rd, we confirm that a BT engineer will visit your premises between the hours 8am to 1pm and sort out the matter.

      I have lost the will to argue.

    • brendadada 11:20 pm on July 23, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Nightmare. Good riddance.

    • David Salter 1:45 pm on August 20, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Here here. The help desk just keeps lying to me. Excuse after excuse. In away all they are doing is showing contempt. In my case it has taken them three months and my complaint is still not resolved.
      Such a shame as Demon used to be so good.
      If I do not get satifaction shortly, I shall jump ship as well.

    • Steve R 12:43 am on September 2, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      I have had the same problems with Tiscali. I was trying to upgrade my account from 1mb to 8mb and after 4 months I am still on 1mb. The customer service is non existant and the technical service is clueless. I am just about to transfer to Demon because I was with them in 1995 on their tenner a month dial-up and had no problems and I thought they would obviously know what they were doing.
      Thanks for the warning. Where do I go now for decent broadband with decent customer care.

    • andrea f 9:27 am on September 3, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      Hi

      We have same problems with connection disconnecting all the time demon were no use at all so we have put up with it for a while. As we have a second line we are having sky broadband on that (it’s free) so we can run it and check its ok, then we will cancel demon as the are also too expensive.

    • Chris Swinson 2:00 pm on October 12, 2007 Permalink | Reply

      We left demon after the 12 month contract had ended, they are still billing us and they even signed us up for a second contract and billing us the top price per month even after admiting it was a mistake. I have countless letters demanding payment, and now its in the hands of a collection agency. After 40 emails and hours of phone calls talking to idiots, and several letters to demon we are getting nowhere.

      How they can threaten us with bills for 2 contracts while we have been with BT for the past 4 months is beyond me. We will be taking them to court soon as it seems the onyl way to get them to understand simple facts that we left 4 months ago.

    • publicenergy / Infrared Fishey 8:14 pm on February 23, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      [...] period of bad weather and another Saturday spent waiting for an engineer to arrive to fix my long standing broadband problem, I really needed to get outdoors. Saturday had some really nice weather which was hugely [...]

    • Bryan Stone 8:49 am on April 8, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      We currently use Demon for our internet accesss and web hosting, but will be moving both as soon as is practical. They are unquestionably the worst organisation I have ever had to deal with. Any administration errors (of which there are many) take at least 6 months to deal with, and the hosting becomes less reliable by the week. Stay away at all costs!

    • steve 4:31 pm on April 29, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I echo Bryan Stone’s comments entirely. Demon are abysmal.

    • Tony 4:36 pm on August 5, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Demon are one of the ISPs which has a strict and rather unfair 12-month contract policy. Example: If you are a student and end up moving unexpectedly into a house with existing broadband or onto the university campus then you can expect to lose upwards of 200 quid. Most ISPs just charge a disconnection fee of 50ish quid, which is a lot fairer. This happened to me and the Demon helpdesk were totally useless: took ages to connect, got randomly hung up on, voice quality real bad, didnt understand questions, never called back, failed to update records, didnt understand basic things like remote disconnection, sent bills to the wrong address and then hired a debt collector etc etc. These guys were really good in the late 90s, but have gone to pot ever since.

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