OT: Virgin
Dave Plowman (News)
and a PAYG mobile on Vodaphone. TV free satellite and FreeView SD. I have
an HD TV and get the free HD services from satellite.
I'm not a heavy phone user and don't download high data stuff from
broadband much.
Virgin have the street cabled, and keep on bombarding me with offers. So
I'm wondering if it would be worth putting all my eggs in one basket, as
it were? They seem to offer some of the other TV channels I watch in HD
too - which would be a bonus. Any comments?
FWIW, I wouldn't give the dirty digger the dirt under my fingernails - and
that applied long before the current fiasco.
--
*Go the extra mile. It makes your boss look like an incompetent slacker *
Dave Plowman da...@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.
Malcolm
> At the moment I have a landline from BT, broadband from what was Pipex,
> and a PAYG mobile on Vodaphone. TV free satellite and FreeView SD. I have
> an HD TV and get the free HD services from satellite.
> I'm not a heavy phone user and don't download high data stuff from
> broadband much.
>
> Virgin have the street cabled, and keep on bombarding me with offers. So
> I'm wondering if it would be worth putting all my eggs in one basket, as
> it were? They seem to offer some of the other TV channels I watch in HD
> too - which would be a bonus. Any comments?
>
> FWIW, I wouldn't give the dirty digger the dirt under my fingernails - and
> that applied long before the current fiasco.
>
- for over 10 years. In the last two years Virgin have increased the
price by over one third. Although The service is good, I can &will) get
the same service from Sky for about half the price. Friends do this and
have no complaints. I would get any offers in writing before signing up
- they are about to increase theit connection fee for a call to IIRC 12p
per call which would put the price of a short local call to over 15p
Malcolm
NT
wrote:
> At the moment I have a landline from BT, broadband from what was Pipex,
> and a PAYG mobile on Vodaphone. TV free satellite and FreeView SD. I have
> an HD TV and get the free HD services from satellite.
> I'm not a heavy phone user and don't download high data stuff from
> broadband much.
>
> Virgin have the street cabled, and keep on bombarding me with offers. So
> I'm wondering if it would be worth putting all my eggs in one basket, as
> it were? They seem to offer some of the other TV channels I watch in HD
> too - which would be a bonus. Any comments?
>
> FWIW, I wouldn't give the dirty digger the dirt under my fingernails - and
> that applied long before the current fiasco.
The services themselves are good & reliable. But the company behind it
is still poor imho, expect little regard for anything at every turn.
NT
Bill
<da...@davenoise.co.uk> writes
>At the moment I have a landline from BT, broadband from what was Pipex,
>and a PAYG mobile on Vodaphone. TV free satellite and FreeView SD. I have
>an HD TV and get the free HD services from satellite.
>I'm not a heavy phone user and don't download high data stuff from
>broadband much.
>
>Virgin have the street cabled, and keep on bombarding me with offers. So
>I'm wondering if it would be worth putting all my eggs in one basket, as
>it were? They seem to offer some of the other TV channels I watch in HD
>too - which would be a bonus. Any comments?
>
>FWIW, I wouldn't give the dirty digger the dirt under my fingernails - and
>that applied long before the current fiasco.
>
He rings up every time he has a computer or audio problem.
He was with some ISP that I don't remember, but we got that working.
Someone persuaded him to change to Onetel. What a bunch of shambolic
incompetents they were. I think they were the ones who after my 3rd or
4th support phone call said " oh we found that the username we gave you
wouldn't work on our servers, so you have to change the underscore in
the name we assigned in our Welcome letter to a dot"..
They continued to be a disaster so, on being approached by a blonde in
the local shopping precinct, he announced he had changed to TalkTalk.
Once again, days of visits and time spent on the support line and
eventually he got connected. He spent some time with them with lots of
outages and hopeless service. Worse than Onetel.
Then he had Sky for a bit, but he told me the price kept rising and he
objected to paying money to that bunch. The service was better than the
previous providers once we got it going.
So he changed to Virgin, who he is still with. They dug up his lawn to
lay the cable, but had to leave " to do the other jobs we have to
complete today". To be fair someone came back a few days later and got
the cable in, but the sub contractor hadn't been given enough time for
the jobs.
We got him connected and all worked well until the recent problem I've
been asking about here (see iPad2 thread).
"Support" were competent, local and friendly both when I asked them
questions originally and recently. For the iPad episode, they replaced
his router foc with a more recent model, and it cured the problem. He is
impressed with the speed. I've been pretty impressed with the support.
I hate the mess Virgin has made of the trains. I've been priced back
onto the roads, so I'll never know if they have fixed the rigid travel
arrangements, smelling toilets and narrow seats.
--
Bill
Adrian C
tony sayer
<em...@here.invalid> scribeth thus
>Don't
Why not?...
--
Tony Sayer
The Natural Philosopher
> Don't
:-)
The Natural Philosopher
> In article <985noi...@mid.individual.net>, Adrian C
> <em...@here.invalid> scribeth thus
>> Don't
>
> Why not?...
The ONLY thing virgin has going for it is cable delivered broadband.
In every other respect they are below standard of the competitors
If thats the only way you can get high speed connectivity and are
prepared to take on board arranging your won email service, DNS service
and fault finding your own installation, then its a fair enough deal.
Otherwise, see above.
Theo Markettos
> The ONLY thing virgin has going for it is cable delivered broadband.
>
> In every other respect they are below standard of the competitors
>
> If thats the only way you can get high speed connectivity and are
> prepared to take on board arranging your won email service, DNS service
> and fault finding your own installation, then its a fair enough deal.
Indeed... treat it just like a dumb bit-pipe and it's fine, don't bother
with their extra services.
Virgin service is also quite area dependent. Some local cablecos installed
decent kit, some fitted wet string. So ask around locally what experiences
others have - and it can vary within an area too (here in south Cambridge
it's rock solid, all the problems I hear of locally are in north Cambridge).
For phone calls from the landline they're really expensive (32p/min to Three
mobile anyone?), so don't let the cheap line rental lul you into a false
sense of security. Maybe it's OK if you stay within the inclusive calls.
I have no idea how their TV packages compare.
Theo
tony sayer
>onto the roads, so I'll never know if they have fixed the rigid travel
>arrangements, smelling toilets and narrow seats.
Well making a accurate comparison between a railway company and a former
cable Telco isn't perhaps that scientific;!..
That said we have used their phone and BB for many years now. The phone
has been absolutely reliable no crackles never once off service the only
problem now is rising call, and more annoying, connection charges which
make VoIP ever more attractive. We haven't had their TV services for
many years as here theres not that much of a call for it, we get some
furrign TV via satellite which keeps the furrigner here happy..
But generally their broadband is very good the cable delivered version.
We have their 10 Meg offering which every time we speed test it its
right on the nail, is uncapped and beats most all ADSL services we have
elsewhere some of those around 1 or 2 meg on long lines etc and even
ones that connect at high rates they are rather slow.
What does let them down is their customer services, they are around the
same as BT. However as we've only had to speak to them once or twice in
12 years not that much of a problem;!..
--
Tony Sayer
tony sayer
<t...@invalid.invalid> scribeth thus
>tony sayer wrote:
>> In article <985noi...@mid.individual.net>, Adrian C
>> <em...@here.invalid> scribeth thus
>>> Don't
>>
>> Why not?...
>
>The ONLY thing virgin has going for it is cable delivered broadband.
Phone service is OK ..Pricing isn't that good but use VoIP over BB and
sorted;)..
>
>In every other respect they are below standard of the competitors
Humm.. Was talking to a couple of people just outside town who'd kill to
be on their net, they manage sub One Meg services on their copper
delivered BB .. when its going that is!..
>
>If thats the only way you can get high speed connectivity and are
>prepared to take on board arranging your won email service, DNS service
>and fault finding your own installation, then its a fair enough deal.
Yep got our own domain and e-mail service but very cheap not had DNS
problems at all..
And one fault, modem upgrade, in 12 years not too bad...
>
>Otherwise, see above.
--
Tony Sayer
Theo Markettos
> >I hate the mess Virgin has made of the trains. I've been priced back
> >onto the roads, so I'll never know if they have fixed the rigid travel
> >arrangements, smelling toilets and narrow seats.
>
> Well making a accurate comparison between a railway company and a former
> cable Telco isn't perhaps that scientific;!..
Indeed... Virgin rail is actually 49% Stagecoach. As in most industries
they pay for the brand and slap it on to whatever product, with minimal
involvement from Branson. Virgin Media is actually NTL Telewest (of NTHell
and similar 'fame') rebranded because NTL was a bit too toxic as a brand
(and they absorbed Virgin Mobile at the same time too).
> But generally their broadband is very good the cable delivered version.
> We have their 10 Meg offering which every time we speed test it its
> right on the nail, is uncapped and beats most all ADSL services we have
> elsewhere some of those around 1 or 2 meg on long lines etc and even
> ones that connect at high rates they are rather slow.
Tony is on a nearby bit of string to me, so our good service reports aren't
necessarily independent :) Service has been pretty solid with roughly 1-2
small (few hours) outages per year which usually fix themselves after a
modem powercycle. We've had one service call for a modem replacement in 8
years, I think that's been it.
> What does let them down is their customer services, they are around the
> same as BT. However as we've only had to speak to them once or twice in
> 12 years not that much of a problem;!..
They've got a lot better, particularly if you contact them via their forum
where the real techies reside, instead of the 'have you plugged it in?'
callcentre. 45 min waits on the phone and 25p/min premium rate support
lines thankfully are a thing of the past. The real techies don't always
have clue, particularly with things like traffic management[1], but it helps
to be able to dump your cable modem stats there and say 'my SNR is low, oi,
fix it!'. They can book service calls direct from the forum.
[1] You did know Virgin have traffic management? They managed to screw this
up (as a matter of policy) and essentially block Usenet (since it's
'filesharing') for some months: now fixed, but I would watch further
developments like a hawk.
Theo
Roberts
extra for a paper bill is one and I need that as I often work from home and
must be able to sort out which is work calls. Another is the free mobile
which you then find you cannot cancel for two years.
The service side is pretty, awful when complaining about the loss of a
channel I was told that they did not do that channel despite me having had
it for several years I think the best is to cherry pick what you want but
do not be totally dependent on Virgin. I do not fancy Sky because of who
runs it. Anybody suggest another firm?
Alan
"The Natural Philosopher" <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:ivkc47$e2r$1...@news.albasani.net...
The Natural Philosopher
>> I hate the mess Virgin has made of the trains. I've been priced back
>> onto the roads, so I'll never know if they have fixed the rigid travel
>> arrangements, smelling toilets and narrow seats.
>
> Well making a accurate comparison between a railway company and a former
> cable Telco isn't perhaps that scientific;!..
>
Virgin is a former cut price vinyl record vendor. Somewhat in the Big
Issue arena. The original venture was a bunch of stoned hippies loading
boxed of wholesale albums of trucks onto shelves and equally stoned
students making a bob or two buying them in bulk and selling them to
their mates at 'uni'.
After that, it became a record company in its own right, and somewhere
along the way Branson's image changed from stoned hippy to businesslike
entrepreneur, and all the hippies got fired or wandered off in disgust.
Feeling had, which they had been. well and truly 'work for almost
nothing, its against the fat cat distributors, man, really subversive'
I forget what followed. Stores probably, then aeroplanes, then trains
and now media distributions and banks.And a formula one team.
Just a rich boy with rich man's toys. Mostly harmless
Richard Colton
<snip>
> But generally their broadband is very good the cable delivered version.
> We have their 10 Meg offering which every time we speed test it its
> right on the nail, is uncapped and beats most all ADSL services we have
> elsewhere some of those around 1 or 2 meg on long lines etc and even
> ones that connect at high rates they are rather slow.
It may be uncapped, but it is heavily throttled between the hours of
10am to 9pm. Usenet and Torrent traffic is throttled pretty much all
the time now as well.
> What does let them down is their customer services, they are around the
> same as BT. However as we've only had to speak to them once or twice in
> 12 years not that much of a problem;!..
Customer dis-service is dire (at best). Support is outsourced (mostly
to India), news server is outsourced to Highwinds, mail is outsourced to
Google etc. etc.
Phone is expensive, TV is nothing special, Broadband is pretty reliable
(apart from the throttling), but they use every trick in the book to
worm more money out of their customers. Want a paper bill? That'll be
Ł1.50, wish to pay by any method other than direct debit? That'll be Ł5
per month.
--
Unlock Your Phone's Potential
www.UselessInfo.org.uk
www.ThePhoneLocker.co.uk
www.GSM-Solutions.co.uk
tony sayer
Richard Colton <newsg...@uselessinfo.spambegone.org.uk> scribeth thus
>On 13/07/2011 17:10, tony sayer wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> But generally their broadband is very good the cable delivered version.
>> We have their 10 Meg offering which every time we speed test it its
>> right on the nail, is uncapped and beats most all ADSL services we have
>> elsewhere some of those around 1 or 2 meg on long lines etc and even
>> ones that connect at high rates they are rather slow.
>
>It may be uncapped, but it is heavily throttled between the hours of
>10am to 9pm. Usenet and Torrent traffic is throttled pretty much all
>the time now as well.
>
Which network build are you on then?, this ones ex Comcast and quite
frankly if it stopped me doing what I want to do with it it'd be junked
for Bethere or Zen or similar. We have usually Two Iplayer users with a
couple of Skype calls going on most evenings let alone what I want to do
with it, so doesn't seem like its throttled to me?.
We do by somewhat unusual means have access to ADSL thats a claimed 8
meg service thats actually 5 meg down usually, and its deffo worse than
the 10 meg VM feed...
>> What does let them down is their customer services, they are around the
>> same as BT. However as we've only had to speak to them once or twice in
>> 12 years not that much of a problem;!..
>
>Customer dis-service is dire (at best). Support is outsourced (mostly
>to India), news server is outsourced to Highwinds, mail is outsourced to
>Google etc. etc.
Well the news we get of E-Sept and no problems except with a SMTP server
hiatus last week..
>
>Phone is expensive,
Agreed they seem to me like BT to be shooting themselves in the foot
with this one..
>TV is nothing special,
Nope we get what we want off Freeview and Sat plus other sats..
>Broadband is pretty reliable
>(apart from the throttling), but they use every trick in the book to
>worm more money out of their customers. Want a paper bill? That'll be
>Ł1.50, wish to pay by any method other than direct debit? That'll be Ł5
>per month.
>
BT I believe are the same as are some mobile Telcos...
>
--
Tony Sayer
tony sayer
scribeth thus
>I agree with don't. The prices keep going some in very sneaky ways. Paying
>extra for a paper bill is one and I need that as I often work from home and
>must be able to sort out which is work calls.
Can't you get the PDF one of their website now a lot of firms are doing
than now?..
> Another is the free mobile
>which you then find you cannot cancel for two years.
No great loss ...
>The service side is pretty, awful when complaining about the loss of a
>channel I was told that they did not do that channel despite me having had
>it for several years I think the best is to cherry pick what you want but
>do not be totally dependent on Virgin. I do not fancy Sky because of who
>runs it. Anybody suggest another firm?
>
What's wrong with what's available on Freesat or Freeview then?..
--
Tony Sayer
Hugh Jampton
> It may be uncapped, but it is heavily throttled between the hours of
> 10am to 9pm. Usenet traffic is throttled pretty much all
> the time now as well.
I have no problems with throttling. They briefly throttled usenet on port
119 but realised they'd made a mistake and un-throttled it.
Absolutely no problems with throttling on Virgin Broadband.
--
Regards,
Hugh Jampton
brass monkey
"tony sayer" <to...@bancom.co.uk> wrote in message
news:6dYtJFOE...@bancom.co.uk...
> In article <4e1dfca4$0$11347$c3e8da3$fb48...@news.astraweb.com>,
> Richard Colton <newsg...@uselessinfo.spambegone.org.uk> scribeth thus
>>On 13/07/2011 17:10, tony sayer wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>> But generally their broadband is very good the cable delivered version.
>>> We have their 10 Meg offering which every time we speed test it its
>>> right on the nail, is uncapped and beats most all ADSL services we have
>>> elsewhere some of those around 1 or 2 meg on long lines etc and even
>>> ones that connect at high rates they are rather slow.
>>
>>It may be uncapped, but it is heavily throttled between the hours of
>>10am to 9pm. Usenet and Torrent traffic is throttled pretty much all
>>the time now as well.
>>
>
> Which network build are you on then?, this ones ex Comcast and quite
> frankly if it stopped me doing what I want to do with it it'd be junked
> for Bethere or Zen or similar. We have usually Two Iplayer users with a
> couple of Skype calls going on most evenings let alone what I want to do
> with it, so doesn't seem like its throttled to me?.
Here is the throttling info -
http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy.html
Hugh Jampton
> They briefly throttled usenet on port 119
Should have said *text* only usenet groups.
No idea what they've done with the others.
--
Regards,
Hugh Jampton
Mark
But Richard Branson and the Virgin Group have nothing to do with Virginmedia
he simply licenses the brand to them, and is an minority shareholder.
It was just a marketing re-branding when NTL,Telewestmerged and acquired
Virgin Mobile.
But did make Mr Branson £961m richer
Not too bad for a stoned hippy ;)
-
brass monkey
"Hugh Jampton" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:o22trq4ui2pm.1s...@40tude.net...
Depends how much you download -
http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy.html
Dave Liquorice
> But Richard Branson and the Virgin Group have nothing to do with
> Virginmedia he simply licenses the brand to them, and is an minority
> shareholder.
Hum, wikipedia (yeah OK) says Virgin Enterprises Ltd he has 10.7%
less 37pc so 6.7% of Virgin Media and Virgin Entertainment Investment
Holdings Ltd has another 21 million+ Virgin Media common stock making
them the 1/3 largest shareholder. Not what I would call a "minority
shareholder".
--
Cheers
Dave.
Adrian C
>
> What's wrong with what's available on Freesat or Freeview then?..
>
"when I switch that on, there's nothing worth ever watching except
repeats, and I'm a thickie as me don't know how to programme my PVR (who
does?), or can't have it plugged in anyway as it uses electricity when
in standby and might burn my house down when me and the cats are asleep..."
--
Adrian C
Hugh Jampton
>> Absolutely no problems with throttling on Virgin Broadband.
>
> Depends how much you download -
> http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy.html
I guess you're right.
I use it a lot but don't download a lot.
--
Regards,
Hugh Jampton
Bill
Richard Colton <newsg...@uselessinfo.spambegone.org.uk> writes
>Customer dis-service is dire (at best). Support is outsourced (mostly
>to India), news server is outsourced to Highwinds, mail is outsourced
>to Google etc. etc.
calls on behalf of this friend were dealt with by
1. a man who gave us his direct dial in number and when we chatted about
where he was and where we were, we discussed whether he could do
foreigners and call in on his way home. We got it sorted, so we didn't
discuss this further.
2. a man who might have been foreign, but with excellent English who did
a test from his end, took control of the router and couldn't get it to
load later drivers either. He arranged the replacement.
3. another man who sounded English who, when I had trouble following the
instructions sent out with the new router, confirmed that following the
instructions was not the way forward and stayed on the line until I got
it going.
Maybe I was lucky. My own experiences with Demon have not been as good
as this.
As for whether Virgin is Virgin, I don't care. If it's branded Virgin, I
think of a screwed up rail system, and start from that base.
--
Bill
Mark
too many Virgins
“Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Entertainment Investment Holdings Limited
owns a _minority holding_ of 21413099 Virgin Media common stock as of
December 2009, ...”
-
Lobster
> [1] You did know Virgin have traffic management? They managed to screw this
> up (as a matter of policy) and essentially block Usenet (since it's
> 'filesharing') for some months: now fixed, but I would watch further
> developments like a hawk.
I know about the traffic management thing; but don't know what you mean
about them blocking Usenet: I've been using their server at
news.virginmedia.com for years, essentially without problems.
David
Richard Colton
> In article<4e1dfca4$0$11347$c3e8da3$fb48...@news.astraweb.com>,
> Richard Colton<newsg...@uselessinfo.spambegone.org.uk> scribeth thus
>> On 13/07/2011 17:10, tony sayer wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> But generally their broadband is very good the cable delivered version.
>>> We have their 10 Meg offering which every time we speed test it its
>>> right on the nail, is uncapped and beats most all ADSL services we have
>>> elsewhere some of those around 1 or 2 meg on long lines etc and even
>>> ones that connect at high rates they are rather slow.
>>
>> It may be uncapped, but it is heavily throttled between the hours of
>> 10am to 9pm. Usenet and Torrent traffic is throttled pretty much all
>> the time now as well.
>>
>
> Which network build are you on then?, this ones ex Comcast and quite
> frankly if it stopped me doing what I want to do with it it'd be junked
> for Bethere or Zen or similar. We have usually Two Iplayer users with a
> couple of Skype calls going on most evenings let alone what I want to do
> with it, so doesn't seem like its throttled to me?.
Ex Telewest here. I suppose it does depend on what you do with the
connection, but if you are a heavy torrent or usenet user, then it may
be better to consider someone else.
Also, anyone wanting to move to VM had better have a read of this:
http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy.html
>
> We do by somewhat unusual means have access to ADSL thats a claimed 8
> meg service thats actually 5 meg down usually, and its deffo worse than
> the 10 meg VM feed...
>
>
>>> What does let them down is their customer services, they are around the
>>> same as BT. However as we've only had to speak to them once or twice in
>>> 12 years not that much of a problem;!..
>>
>> Customer dis-service is dire (at best). Support is outsourced (mostly
>> to India), news server is outsourced to Highwinds, mail is outsourced to
>> Google etc. etc.
>
> Well the news we get of E-Sept and no problems except with a SMTP server
> hiatus last week..
The problem is that the service is being eroded quite rapidly. Support
used to be onshore, Telewest used to run two news servers (ok, the
binary server was always a bit flaky) one of which was fast with good
retention and strictly text only. The support newsgroups were good,
generally well staffed and with a prompt response - these are now long
gone and replaced with an online forum where dissenting posts can
quietly disappear and the response times seem to vary between weeks and
eaons.
Dave Liquorice
>> Virgin Entertainment Investment Holdings Ltd has another 21
million+
>> Virgin Media common stock making them the 1/3 largest shareholder.
>
> Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Entertainment Investment Holdings Limited
> owns a _minority holding_ of 21413099 Virgin Media common stock as of
> December 2009,
Differing interpretation of the words "minority holding" I think. I
get the impression that all shareholders of Virgin Media are
"minority holders" in that no single entity has a majority. As in the
number of votes they have determines the outcome of anything put to a
sherholder vote.
However the major shareholders all seem to have somewhere between 10
and 20%. Between them Virgin Enterprises Ltd and Virgin Entertainment
Investment Holdings Ltd have a significant number of votes and I
wouldn't be surprised if the combined holding puts them further up
than 3rd. Which to me isn't really a "minority holding".
--
Cheers
Dave.
Richard
It may be that they don't have the binaries on their server. I am doubtful
that many ISPs provide those binary groups.
dennis@home
"Richard" <smit...@btinternet.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:4e1e9fab$0$2485$db0f...@news.zen.co.uk...
They used to run a binary server in house.
I think it went when they became Virgin.
It made sense at the time as it stopped lots of people going off net to
download stuff.
With the increased use of torrents having a binary news server is less
advantageous anyway.
They restrict bandwidth as the cable network can't cope with lots of heavy
users.
Its a shared media at the subscribers end and it costs a lot to add new bits
of shared media if a segment becomes overloaded.
Not like ADSL which is not shared at the subscribers end and costs peanuts
to add new subscriber modules.
Both may have choke points deeper in the network and that varies from ISP to
ISP.
SKY have vast amounts of spare bandwidth in their network (its easy to max
out my 18M adsl link on Sky from almost any source at any time of the day. I
could probably do it 24x7 if there was anything worth doing it for). ;)
Mark
I don’t see Virgin Enterprises Limited listed as a Share holder
Virgin Entertainment Investment Holdings is listed as only having 4.8% share
or were you looking at Virgin Media Investment Holdings Limited
which is the top tier company for Virgin Media, Virgin Mobile, which was
NTL Investment Holdings before the branding change, and not part of the Mr
Bs Virgin group.
-