Virgin Media problems

[Mirannan]

Well, I've now seen VM's attitude. Previously, I was on one of their bigger bundles; 200Mbit broadband, all the TV channels except sport and movie ones. For money reasons, now minimum of both. Coincidentally (or perhaps not!) I have lately started getting intermittent internet outages; 30 seconds or so at a time, so playing online games is right out and anything else is difficult.

I reported the problem late yesterday, and the earliest they can get anyone to me is Thursday. It's a 4-hour slot, too, so that's half a day wasted. Of course, I got all the usual guff which I had already done; reboot router, reboot machine, try a spare cable.

Customer service seems to be optional.

 

[HanaBi]

VM really does take the piddle sometimes: especially now that they're increasing prices AGAIN, by another £3.50 per month! This follows their so-called "free" upgrade to a larger broadband bundle, when in actual fact it was nothing of the sort.

To be fair though, customer support has been pretty decent on the rate occasion I've had to report a problem (usually a local exchange issue), and dropped packets are a rarity (touch wood)

Of course you could go elsewhere, but they're all as bad/good as each other; and then there's all the faff updating your wifi settings to your devices & AV.

 

[Mirannan]

An update: On the Wednesday before the engineer was supposed to be coming, the problem had cleared itself. On contacting VM (after 15 minutes of lift music) I discovered that the engineers had discovered an "area problem" (probably one of their street cabinets) and the engineer visit was actually unnecessary. If I hadn't called, I would have been twiddling my thumbs for 4 hours waiting for an engineer who probably would never have arrived.

 

[HanaBi]

That's good news.

Just out of interest, do you use VM Service Status website?

Service Status - My Virgin Media

Quite useful, and you don't have to create an account. Just enter your post code, and it will report back on any broadband, TV and phone issues in your area.

Always a good starting point before calling Customer Support

 

[Phyrebrat]

Whenever I have a problem with VM (very frequently, esp playing multiplayer PS4 games), I log into the Superhub (or whatever your 192 admin area is), and make sure the port channel is not on Auto. I usually change from Channel 2 or Channel 9 and my connection improves. Not ideal but better than waiting for them to evolve a customer service department.

Right now VM service are the equivalent of primates without opposable thumbs. Wait a few million years and we should get some kind of intelligence...


pH

 

[Mirannan]

Whenever I have a problem with VM (very frequently, esp playing multiplayer PS4 games), I log into the Superhub (or whatever your 192 admin area is), and make sure the port channel is not on Auto. I usually change from Channel 2 or Channel 9 and my connection improves. Not ideal but better than waiting for them to evolve a customer service department.

Right now VM service are the equivalent of primates without opposable thumbs. Wait a few million years and we should get some kind of intelligence...


pH

Thanks, and I have had WiFi problems in the past - there are at least a dozen setups in my immediate area, which sometimes causes interference. However, the problem wasn't that; my main machine is wired into the router.