Snazy

There is huge demand for it lol. Live cam watching the dogs sleep is more popular though.

Im honestly not bothered about the up speed too much. When I had my website and uploaded updates etc it mattered but not bothered these days. Other than for uploading pictures to Facebook and other picture sites.

Now its time to start calling all the other services and cancelling them.

bigsinky

hey i resemble those remarks. i dont download terabytes of ****. i may have terabytes of **** but that has taken me a long time to build that collection.

Les, to give you an idea

800 MB DIVX movie - 2 mins 10 seconds

1.5GB HD Divx - 4 minutes

4.5GB DVD Image - 13 Minutes

I hear they are trialing a 200 Mbit in Kent somehwhere

bigsinky

Snaz

The 20Mbit is uncapped but you will be throttled during the day to 5Mbit if you exceed a certain amount. Don't think it will be a problem with you but you never know.

Snazy

I did 8gb in total yesterday lol, just catching up on stuff.
I cant see myself doing much more than that. But I will be keeping an eye on speedtest.net to see what im getting for the next week or so, to see how reliable it is.

5mb would suit me fine lol

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

VM in terms of quality of the user interface and reponse of the set top boxes is beneath Sky, also the level compression on some SD channels is questionable (mainly ITV), but I'm with them for a number of reasons, mainly: If the equipment messes up, Virgin fixes it at their cost not mine. Unlike Sky where it will be a call out charge just to even sniff at it. Taking into account Virgin worked out cheaper, this is an added bonus. They are alsomore negociable when it comes to getting you onboard with a deal for your package, be it discounts or free extra boxes or extra channels.

Broadband; spot on. (assuming its cable/telewest's infrastructure, although I belive some virgin users use ADSL, which, obviously will not be as good).

Problems? Yes we've had a few, I had problems with losing the upstream link. This affects both on demand and internet connectivity, and was random in nature (which I suspect is what M4RKG's problem is).

This took quite some time to fix properly and was time consuming for both parties as it involved new cable to the house, new modems, and new boxes of later more advanced models (Samsung). The main hindering problem was the call centre staff could not comprehend and link between the lack of on-demand and lack of internet. Thinking and insisting it was two seperate issues, when actually the root cause was the same problem (upstream signal dropping out), once we got to talk to someone higher up in the chain, we found a guy who knew what he was talking about and therfore could dispatch someone versed enough in troubleshooting to fix it properly.

Problem surfaced to be a cabling issue between the green boxes on the end of the street. However, to diagnose that, they had to replace the cable to our house and our equipment to confirm it anyway. I'm quite smug that through my persistance, I've fixed the whole streets internet; it seems everyone else (who obviously aren't as IT literate) just accepted it as the norm when I knew differently.

I'm not complaining, as all this has cost us is time; Virgin credited our account for any duration that we were without internet or TV (providing we kept a detailed log of events, and reported faults at the first instance). Can't say any fairer that that.


IMO the only thing that lets them down is the call centres; the staff are unable to deal with any trouble shooting. Although usually they probably deal with customers who are unable to divulge any info other than their TV/internet is not working, whereas I was able to give more helpful info on signal strength and which interconnected services were affected and isolating outside influences (router, computer etc). So obviously it was alot more annoying for me than some plebeian who phones up saying "oi, me telly ain't wurkin', fix it!"

When my Sky box and LNB failed (on seperate occasions) Sky were not interested; despite being a customer for 4+years. Seeing we could not use any of there services, they were unwilling to credit us for services we could not use, and were unwilling to offer any goodwill for being a customer of 4+ years (hence the switch to Virgin TV, we already had Virgin internet since the Telewest days) Nor were they willing to offer any sweeteners or concessions to upgrade (other than what was already advertised). Yes its tecnically my equipment, but it was purchased from Sky, branded by Sky, and installed by Sky (via their affiliates) and can only be used to recieve Sky broadcasts. Its not as if I had a choice of dishes or boxes...I mean for example, if Sony made compatible satelite recievers and I could buy them off the shelf like in the analogue days, I'd opt for one of them over the branded Pace or the flakey Thompson units I was sold, I would accept them as my responsibility to maintain. I know that seems semantically flawed, but I feel to offer good customer service, a company needs to offer more goodwill to longstanding customers (But then Sky have no other competition other than VM, so there is no need ).

bigsinky

^^^^^ whoa there fella. glad you got that off your chest

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Its Friday; Stuck inside. Its either type that or surf for **** (which I'll do later).

Anyway, its only about 10 lines on a widescreen monitor

bigsinky

unfortunately i am stuck with a crappy 15 incher here

Butkus

I have Virgin going in next Friday - the house we just moved into is in a cable area so it seems silly not to have it. I have the TV, phone and 50mb broadband. Can anyone tell me how reliable the broadband is? I can handle losing the TV etc, but I need to internet connection for work. There's no BT line, so no back up ADSL...

Snazy

lol cheers Ali. I agree with the fixing thing. Never liked the way Sky would take your money but no responsibility, hey ho.

No trouble with anything yet, other than human error, but its only been 2 days lol

Current connection is

riiidaa

iTrader: (2)

cable is a damn sight more reliable than ADSL

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Would you belive for the first time ever that my Virgin email has crapped out

Sod's law. Its on their status page, so I guess it'll be sorted soon.

Snazy

lol what a pi$$er. Sods law eh.
I just ripped out all my Sky stuff, and taking the other PC out, along with the Orange BB tomorrow. That will be the day MINE bombs out lol

Mine has gone super slow... Ant did warn me

IanW

Yup I've registered to be part of the trial

Just done a quick speed test of mine now on my 50mb link

Snazy

Oh come on thats just showing off lol.
I was reluctant to even bother with the 20mb to be honest as I dont use it that much. Most PC's in the house have not been turned on for months now.

IanW

If i get onto the trial I will do you another speed test

BTW that was via WIRELESS from my Laptop too!

Snazy

Yeah my wireless comes up the same speed as my PC too. Not speed tested the Blackberry lol

I like having the best I can get, but recently just got tired of paying more than I need to to have things I dont need lol

+Doc+

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010...media-channels

Good news, Bad news? I dunno...

Snazy

Appears to be good news. BSkyB will take control of the advertising on the channels they have bought. In return, Virgin customers will gain access to Movies Sports and Sky News all in HD