Is it just me, or has VM's broadband service deteriorated into a slow and unreliable liability in recent weeks?
Actually, I know in my own neighbourhood in South East London I'm not alone in my frustrations with the service. TV and phone have been good but the broadband, when available (and it frequently isn't) has been unusable during the working day. For example, I've just tested my current connection and I'm seeing 45mbps download, 2.68 upload. Before lockdown I'd have daytime speeds of 200+ down and 35 up. I pay for 500mbps but don't get me started on that one. And I say 'when available' as, despite the VM app telling me that there are no problems in the area, my router is rebooting four or five times a day and struggling to reconnect.
For home working, that's unusable. For watching any on demand TV service, that's unusable. And all of the Virgin customers I know in neighbouring streets have the same complaint.
BT, Sky etc are rock solid. Virgin say in the press that they have more that enough capacity to provide a full broadband service to meet the demands of lockdown families and workers, but our experience suggests otherwise.
I can't get through to customer services on the phone but I have managed to book an engineer for tomorrow evening via the website. I'm not hopeful. I suspect there are over-populated street cabinets to blame and Virgin don't appear to be in any great hurry to resolve that issue. They just take our money.
My contract is up for renewal in August. I've been with NTL/Virgin since the 90s. I've run this blog since 2007. We've come a long way since the old 'NTHell' days but this current issue is a deal breaker for me and my family. We're have to use our phones' personal hotspots instead of the broadband we pay for.
So, is it just me or are you having issues, too? Please let me and this blog's readership know.
UPDATE: Just had a friend at Virgin confirm the following:
"you do have a signal fault. Poor SNR showing on some frequencies for both downstream and upstream. I checked a couple of your neighbours' modems and they don't show the same errors, so it does seem to be just your installation. Hopefully the tech will resolve it tomorrow.Your area is also flagged for a capacity upgrade"
9 comments:
We have been with Cable when it was Bell Cable Media here in Norwich the NTL then Virgin,I must admit we have had very few problems. I just ran a speed test,I get 350mbps and the test is saying 387.13 download and 37.22 upload. I have heard from friends who live in London also who have had issues with rubbish speeds.We live in the city centre,and apart from 2 issues since we have lived here and thats 11 years.
Living in the South East also, and just a couple days ago had to relegate my online watching to my iPad via hotspot. Saying that we had two weeks with no problems, prior to which, though, were more countless issues where my household would be using personal hotspots for days on end. At one point this went on for about 3 weeks. No idea what the problem is and router restarts won't fix it, and more often than not, there are no reported broadband issues on the my virgin media website so you're left stuck in the dark pretty much.
It’s been abysmal up here in Gateshead whilst WFH during lockdown. I have to reboot the hub multiple times every day just to get it to work (slowly) and if my wife and I are on VC at the same time one of us has to use our phone hotspot as it grinds to a halt.
I’m also considering a new supplier after being with them since the Blueyonder days. Just unusable.
I'm also in the South East and experiencing similar issues.. Speeds are OK when there is connection, but I'd say that at least 4-5 times a day, I lose connection completely for 5-10 minutes. The self test on their website simply states "You have not broadband connection" and it takes 2-3 rounds of tests before you get the option to book an engineer.
I now have an engineer booked for Thursday.
I'm in Cambridge, and Virgin Media has been flawless for me. Just as well as I'm now working from home full time. I pretty much always get the full 220Mbps that I'm paying for.
North London. Generally, the service has been fine. Very occasional brief drop outs. Speed test has varied between close to 500 Mbps and hovering around 200 Mbps download. So there is considerable variation but in practical terms it isn't having any adverse impact. Video conferencing works seamlessly.
It's working well for me in Brighton. Consistent 100Mb download, which is what we pay for and no downtime problems. The last time I had Virgin Broadband (around 10 years ago) we did have ongoing performance issues with I was told was a local capacity issue in the Brighton Lewes Road area. Speeds have been good since I rejoined 18 months ago.
Here in Bromley SE London, I have been working at home for three months and over this time I have noticed a deterioration in the advertised download speed of 200 Mbps, for example, this morning, using Sam Knows speed checker a few times, it fluctuates between 93 and 204 Mbps over a 10 minute period. I will ask VM to investigate.
My engineer replaced the outdoor connectors (20 years old) and moved us in the street cabinet. Now getting speeds of >400mbps
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