I've just cancelled VM and moved to YouFibre.
Here's the story.
Wed 25th Sept
Internet dies at 9am, hoping it's a glitch but it's not back on by lunch. Reported the fault and the soonest I can book a guy is for Saturday. Already vexed by that, although I'm not a business customer I am trying to run a charity here.
Sat 28th Sept
Bloke arrives, ferrets around with my wiring for a bit, mumbles to me about signal, then disappears off in to the street.
He returns looking quite pale.
Turns out that due to either an admin error or some dick technician, I've had a 'noise limiter' fitted to my connection in the street cabinet, for no reason whatsoever, since Wednesday. He's removed this thing and sure enough, I've got connection back.
He says he'll query why this happened because a 'noise limiter' should never be fitted without informing the contract holder, and I didn't even need one in the first place.
Anyway, we're back on.
Monday 30th Sept
I'm out for the morning but when I get home at lunchtime, the internet is down again.
I report it again, and I can't get anyone out until Wednesday.
(Much swearing ensues)
Wed 2nd Oct
A different guy arrives, does the same ferreting around with my wires, mumbles about signal, then disappears off to the street cabinet.
This time I tagged along.
The lid is barely fitted, totally insecure, and he flicks it off with one hand.
Now I used to work in CCTV for 10 years, and the type of cable and fittings is much the same, it's not the easiest to work with, so I've seen some spaghetti messes in my time but what I saw in that cabinet far surpasses anything I've ever come across.
There's simply not enough room in the cabinet. One of these serves an entire street of 3 tier flats so you can imagine the number of cables in there, it's a complete squash, and if that's the trend, how they must deal with what I can only guess must be a constant stream of strain faults and water ingress, is beyond me.
Regardless, the guy manages to locate my cable, and would you believe, there's another 'noise limiter' refitted. For no reason.
I can see it with my own eyes, and it's clearly brand shiny new so presumably was fitted by some tech, while I was out, on Monday.
He removes the limiter, and sure enough, connection is restored.
I get the same burble about querying it with management, and he's gone.
Thu 3rd Oct
Yep, internet goes down again, bang on 9am. I can't see anyone in the street so I guess that something's been disturbed or left intermittent by all these guys messing in the cabinet previously.
This time I phone VM, sit on hold for 40 minutes, and eventually explain what's happened.
I ask about compensation for a start, and I'm told that because there have not been any full days of lost connection after a 48 hour grace period (for them), I don't qualify for any.
So then I quip about leaving, and I'm offered a chat with some other lady about my deal.
Now bear in mind I've been out of contract with VM for 10 years and stayed totally loyal, I'd never even pondered on anything else because I've never been a fan of the antiquated twisted pair network or more importantly "fair usage policy".
With VM I was on M125, broadband only, and it was £53 a month. Realistically I'd get 80-90Mbps down, and a very lazy 10Mbps up.
The best they could offer me is a reduction of £10, and only for 12 months. And no engineer until Monday. And at that point I'd had enough.
I'd been plagued by a barrage of YouFibre promos, they've been all over the socials and at my door. I was dubious because they are quite new and reviews are mixed, Trustpilot is mostly positive while Google the opposite. Any rate, I gave them a call and threw millions of questions at the guy, from router customisations like port forwarding, to other anal stuff like the cable routes. The chap knew his stuff, explained how their partnership with Netomnia works with regards to install and aftersales, and told me they could have me connected, on fibre straight to the router, in 2 days, with nothing more for me to do as they deal with the VM cancellation for me.
Since VM couldn't even offer me a tech in that time, at that point I'm sold. I pick the 500M deal, which is 500M both up and down, and it's just under £30 a month. That's £10 less than what VM were offering as a "loyalty deal" and five times the speed.
Sure enough I'm on by the weekend. A Netomnia chap comes out early doors, straight up the pole and within 20 minutes he's already poking the fibre through my wall. And sure enough, I'm getting exactly the quoted speed. It's been flawless since. I suppose the true test will be if a fault does occur and then we'll see how they respond, but so far so good. I can actually see my entire cable from the pole to my router this time to inspect it myself, and that's very reassuring in some dull way.
I can't believe, looking back now, that I let VM bend me over for so long, and I'm kind of thankful that their techs, or admin, or whoever it was that had a limiter put on my line, did what they did, else I would have simply stayed in that rut. Conversely, a shame that it took all that to wobble my head.
Of course, VM just needed the last word, so I had an email telling me that I need to post their equipment back in a pre-pay they are sending out. They've only asked for the Superhub, but they are also going to have all the junction boxes and cable. And a Superhub mains adapter. And a spare Superhub mains adapter. And 'some' ethernet cables. It's going to cost them a fortune in pre-pay. (chuckles menacingly)
