Another Virgin Media Issue

[John Marwood]

Can someone link a reliable speed tester please?

 

[Andreas Rex]

30! 30! My 10 Mb has been upgraded to 20 so I am getting about 19.4, I thought that was ok, but if your right about 30 I shall be shouting at virgin on Monday!!!

I just called them to ask the same question as was on 10MB too. The bloke made me switch my modem off for a bit, then I turned it back on and he'd upgraded it to 20MB.

Speedtest results before & after:



I then went through to customer services who said that they could upgrade me to 30MB for free, but I'd need to pay a one-off fee of £20 for the SuperHub, which I've done.

If you're calling them from a mobile, always use 01256 752000 and get them to pop you through to the relevant department.

 

[Andreas Rex]

Can someone link a reliable speed tester please?

http://www.speedtest.net/

 

[wmrcomputers]

I pay £20.50 for 30Mb but I don't have the TV or the phone line... we literally just have their broadband and nothing else. If anyone else has JUST broadband from VM I'd be keen to know what you pay for what speed please if you don't mind sharing that publicly.

Regarding the Superhub, Andreas, complaining that you were forever having to reboot your modem might have got you one sent out for free (worked for us / friends / family)

 

[wmrcomputers]

Can someone link a reliable speed tester please?

TOP TIP...
Use the one that Andreas linked, but a word of advice - you are highly unlikely to get anywhere need the correct result if you connect wirelessly. When truly assesing what speed you are getting from your provider be sure to use a computer connected directly to the hub / modem / router using an ethernet cable.

EDIT: My laptop wirelessly gives an average speedtest of 19mb - but if it's cabled up I get 30.5 every time.

 

[Darren]

I was also wrong i did a check on there website but it appears 100 mb doesnt go to 120mb until the end of 2013

 

[Jonah]

WM - thanks for pointing out that 30Mb is slowest for new customers. I should have added that to my earlier post.

I have been a cable customer since the 90s and had completely free no cost dial up first, then we were charged £10 a month for it despite it being "free forever". Then 'broadband' came along and I was getting speeds of 128k which seemed unbelievably fast. It was then doubled to 256k, then 512k, then 1Mb, then 2Mb and eventually 10Mb without me changing my package. After years of being on the 10Mb package, I upgraded to 30Mb late last summer so I could eventually get 60Mb speeds when it was doubled.

I remember when I downloaded the Phantom Menace trailer from Apple on dial-up and it was 26Mb in size. At that time there was a two hour limit on dial-up before it automatically disconnected and you had to re-connect. It was touch and go whether the 26Mb file would download within the 2 hour limit. Luckily it finished downloading about 2 minutes before the 2 hour cut-off. Watching the trailer I was marvelling at the wonders of technology. Now we can stream a video on our mobile phones whilst sitting in a coffee shot. How times change hey?

#oldgitalert

 

[Jonah]

Wireless

Wired

I must say though that speeds do vary far more on 30Mb and 60Mb speeds than they ever did when I was on the 10Mb service.

 

[Jonah]

I pay £20.50 for 30Mb but I don't have the TV or the phone line... we literally just have their broadband and nothing else. If anyone else has JUST broadband from VM I'd be keen to know what you pay for what speed please if you don't mind sharing that publicly.

These are the Virgin Media prices for just having broadband. Just toggle the Yes/No for the prices.

http://store.virginmedia.com/broadband/compare-broadband/index.html

 

[tek-monkey]

Its usually cheaper to have a phone line and not use it, if you average out the costs over a year. Plus topcashback give an extra £30 or so if you have both TV and BB, over just BB.

EDIT: Very little in it, the BB is just cheaper but topcashback will actually make the phone one cheaper if taken as a 1 year contract.

Broadband Only
30Mb - £255
60Mb - £315
100Mb - £405

Broadband + phone
30Mb - £266.88
60Mb - £326.88
100Mb - £416.88

 

[wmrcomputers]

I chose not to have a phone line as we have 7 kids between us. Now for the maths part...

7 kids + phone line = WOAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not paying THAT bill!


@bigbluewolf - my god that took me back some years! Haha!! I remember buying a dial-up internet card from the Stars shop which gave you an 0800 number to connect to and then you entered the number off the scratch off panel. I can't remember exactly what it was I got for the £10, but it meant needing no internet contract.
I also sometimes wonder how long it would take to load basic pages such as ebay etc these days but at dial up speeds. I suppose there must be a simulator somewhere online? I'll have a search later when i'm not busy

 

[age'd parent]

Can someone link a reliable speed tester please?

This is what I use mostly, among others, but they all seem reliable.


http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.marsden/newspeedtest.html?1224787208

 

[tek-monkey]

I also sometimes wonder how long it would take to load basic pages such as ebay etc these days but at dial up speeds. I suppose there must be a simulator somewhere online? I'll have a search later when i'm not busy

http://www.dallaway.com/sloppy/

 

[Gramaisc]

I also sometimes wonder how long it would take to load basic pages such as ebay etc these days but at dial up speeds.

I still keep an old dial phone in the hall, the sound of the bells carries through the house and I can turn the bleepers off on the other phones.

Every now and then I dial out on it - it is truly remarkable just how long it takes...

 

[wmrcomputers]

http://www.dallaway.com/sloppy/

For some reason I can't get sloppy to run on my PC tek, tried it before you'd linked it.
:/

 

[Jade-clothing]

we went into the VM shop today as our broadband connection has been shite since before Christmas and we asked when our speed would be doubled . we were told there's been a problem with doubling speed in Stafford and it won't be done until June . I pointed out I knew some people had already had theirs doubled and he said its possible if you ring up . why isn't it possible to do everyone then ?

 

[Jonah]

we went into the VM shop today as our broadband connection has been shite since before Christmas and we asked when our speed would be doubled . we were told there's been a problem with doubling speed in Stafford and it won't be done until June . I pointed out I knew some people had already had theirs doubled and he said its possible if you ring up . why isn't it possible to do everyone then ?

Put your postcode into the box and see if your area has had the upgrade. If it has ring Customer Services and complain. You will get it increased. It's what I did.

http://doublespeed.virginmedia.com/

 

[wildwood]

We're having Tivo problems. For days we've had the message "Network Availability - Some features may not be available" and we've been unable to watch On Demand stuff.

I've checked https://my.virginmedia.com/faults/service-status and seems it's a known issue.

 

[Withnail]

What with the whole BT Infinity affair, there is currently a lot of delving about in interchanges - could this be a factor? They hooked me up to it a couple of weeks ago - still not getting anywhere near the speeds of all you VM folk, but QF ( can i start a campaign to instate QF as a shortcut for 'quite frankly'?) i don't think it would make that much difference on this *looks at this noisy, whirry, old, slow p.o.s* thing anyway.

Far be it from me to suggest that, if so, it might be in some part deliberate, but could it, if so, be in some part deliberate?

 

[Darren]

I got told my increase wont happen until near the end of 2013 but i just run a speed test and got this

So who knows.