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News Virgin Media announces £3B network expansion

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 13 Feb 2015.

  1. damien c

    damien c Mad FPS Gamer

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    If Sky put the price up that it's cost Virgin to broadcast the channels then there is nothing they can do, not saying it's right but it's just Sky causing it.
     
  2. Atomic

    Atomic Gerwaff

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    Yes they are running new cable for 'fiber broadband', but this is just the last mile from Exchange to Cabinet (FTTC) that is being upgraded. Openreach already have the big backhaul network in place to bulk move traffic about, VM do not have this in place so it would cost vastly more for them to provide the service to those areas as they would have to lay the entire infrastructure from scratch.

    If public money was given to VM it would only benefit one company. But as Openreach are a wholesale provider who provide service for multiple suppliers... BT, AOL, TalkTalk, Sky, Pipex, Tiscali, Zen etc. the investment is driving competition.
     
  3. r3loaded

    r3loaded Minimodder

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    Call up and haggle with them (start by saying you're thinking of cancelling a service or two because it's too expensive). They're good sports when it comes to haggling especially if you've been a customer for a while. We're getting 100Mbps internet, phone line and M+ TV with a free TiVO box for £30 a month for the next six months, all thanks to negotiations on the phone with their retentions department.

    For some reason, it's a rather British trait to not haggle in general. Shame really, because more businesses than you realise are open to knocking a few quid off to keep you as a customer. All you have to do is ask!
     
  4. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    But that last mile can be many, many miles, just in the highlands that's 500 miles of new cabling.

    Like i said I'm not doubting that it would cost more for someone like VM to lay an entirely new network but in the long run this would (imho) benefit the consumer for obvious reasons.

    Exactly the same thing happened by giving the money to Openreach, the money is only benefiting one company, the fact that Openreach provides service for multiple suppliers means nothing as there is not incentive for them increase speeds, installation times, or improve anything.

    You only have to look at the amount of complaints from people and companies that they can do nothing about as they have no choice, swapping supplier from AOL, TalkTalk, Sky, Pipex, Tiscali, Zen etc, isn't going to get you a faster install, faster speeds, lower fault rates and faster fault repair times, as they all rely on the same basic infrastructure.
     
  5. runadumb

    runadumb What's a Dremel?

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    Call up and haggle with them (start by saying you're thinking of cancelling a service or two because it's too expensive). They're good sports when it comes to haggling especially if you've been a customer for a while. We're getting 100Mbps internet, phone line and M+ TV with a free TiVO box for £30 a month for the next six months, all thanks to negotiations on the phone with their retentions department.
    [/QUOTE]

    You're what! I'm paying £31 just for the (now) 100 Meg broadband!
     
  6. Syphadeus

    Syphadeus What's a Dremel?

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    Virgin need to ensure they're providing a decent level of service to their existing customers before they start another campaign of blowing smoke up various rectums of prospective customers.

    As a long time VM subscriber, service in my areas has decreased in quality drastically. Take to their forums and you'll see customers from various 'service areas' across the country who find themselves in an area with 'high utilisation'. In English that means there are too many people connected to a node and so when all those people are using it, their 'superfast broadband' becomes sub 1Mb broadband.

    To add insult to injury, there are concentrated areas where utilisation has been an issues for literally YEARS and yet VM still send out postal flyers and have street sellers selling the service in these areas to add yet more customers to the nodes thereby compounding the problem further. VM's answer to this if you complain is to give you a discount on your monthly bill. Some customers are discounted so much they barely pay for the service, but barely get a service in return.

    Touting a huge investment in a service that has chronic issues delivering in numerous areas in a bid to expand to more customers is, I think, extremely disrespectful to a great number of their dissatisfied customer base, which numbers in thousands, not hundreds. I myself am still awaiting my free speed upgrade since June last year, during which time they've increased my monthly charge twice - so it's not really free is it seeing as I'm paying more and my connection is slower now than when they started harping on about it.

    It'll be interesting to see what happens, but knowing their organisational practices I don't rate them and don't have high hopes at all.
     
  7. Margo Baggins

    Margo Baggins I'm good at Soldering Super Moderator

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    I've got XL everything :p I need to to get BBC Sport so I can watch the UFC. For the amount of services I get I don't think I am that much out of pocket, I pay about 60 quid a month
     
  8. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Isn't that a reason for having two or more competing companies providing the infrastructure ?
    If you don't think you're getting a decent level of service you can switch to an alternative infrastructure provider.
     
  9. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    You say that corky but it's not really accurate. I had AOL for 2 years and we had nothing but issues we moved to BE and the same line went fully stable on the exact same infastructure that aol was using.
     
  10. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    That's odd because from my understanding it shouldn't have.
    I'm not doubting you BTW, it's just that my logic tells me changing who in theory just administer the account and send you a bill shouldn't have, is it my lack of understanding on what happens when you switch provider on the same network letting me down ?
     
  11. 13eightyfour

    13eightyfour Formerly Titanium Angel

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    Similar to Rollo, I had a dire connection when I was with Sky, as soon as I switched over to BT my connection became more stable at roughly 3 times faster!

    I live on a new housing development that is served from the tiny exchange in the next village, I put the difference in connection/speed down to the fact that almost everybody here has Sky for TV, and assume probably for their BB too, whereas I'm one of the few with BT.

    No idea if that's got anything to do with it, but it's the only thing I can think of though.
     
  12. Atomic

    Atomic Gerwaff

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    Changing supplier is not just who administers the account, but often who's equipment and network you use. The whole point of LLU is that it enables suppliers to put their own network equipment at the end of a customers line so it's only the Exchange-to-home part of the network that is supplied by Openreach.

    So in 13eightyfour & Rollo's cases, one supplier has an oversubscribed their network in that area, but another supplier is using their own network which may not be as busy.
     
  13. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Ahh so they have finally started unbundling the local loop, last i heard BT were dragging there feet and fighting it all the way, so much so in fact that people said it wasn't working they way it was intended to.
     
  14. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Think it depends on the subscriber for Adsl at least most are reselling but some use own equipment.
     
  15. dancingbear84

    dancingbear84 error 404

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    I'm on an exchange that isn't llu'd
    I used to be on tiscali, got sub dial up at times, complained and complained but no good. I moved to PlusNet and that jumped to 4Mb over night.

    I'm a rural user, it sucks. I'm 2 miles from work, where I get 40Mb here I just get 4. I'd be happy with up to 24 rather than up to 8. Obviously I'd prefer fibre but as a second class citizen (in open reaches eyes) that won't happen for a while... If at all which sucks!
     
  16. rainbowbridge

    rainbowbridge Minimodder

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    This is great but reflect that on the 21st of January 2015 Virgin disconnected 98k
    Adsl customers completely with out proper plaining

    I am in nw9 and I am still with out Internet having to manually try to engage talk talk then having
    To cancel it, it was meant to be a 20 min migration which 6 days later I had to personal intervene

    You guys are totally out of line and also did not offer any kind of fair sensible reimbursement,

    Instead of cutting me a four year customer off in a perfect customer region you had a responceabilty
    To enable this prem site for fibre and give me an upgrade path.

    Instead you just cut off my Internet,

    As far as I am concerned i m still a virgin Internet customer with Virgin outstanding to provide a months supply
    Of Internet and a suitable migration route with min down time

    You guys at Virgin after cutting off 98k people of national adsl Internet have nothing to proud of.


    You spend the money like it says in this release before you harm your customers and enable as many as possible to stay with you or have a better route than disconnection...


    Virgin are not impressive at all and their customer care is horrible. I deserve at least m final months money refund and or a letter of apologies

    Go and look up what you did to customers in nw9 heck everywhere on the 21st jam

    These guys are idiots and deserve to be sued on mass by a h thousands of people they butchered in this failed
    Talk talk customer sale.

    Virgin have taken money from my account for a service not delivered. Have not
    In any way shape or form cared for me as a supposed valued customer. Ideally I would like to see three months of monies reimbursed and a letter of applogie from their national switch project manager and a public admittance of their incompetence

    Should have thief license to provide Internet revoked.

    I will pay £25 to an agreed charity if some one from Virgin comes into this thread
    And explains themselves over this national switch hell they caused.

    Please some one from Virgin come into the thread and explain what they did to some near 100k people
    Your biling team told me all about the complete disaster.
     
    Last edited: 15 Feb 2015
  17. flibblesan

    flibblesan Destroyer

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    You would be better off posting on the virgin media forums really.
     
  18. Fingers66

    Fingers66 Kiwi in London

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    ^ this.

    I was a Cable London > Blueyonder > Telewest > Virgin Media customer and moved the service with me through 3 house moves.

    In my last house the service started deteriorating massively in late 2008, basically a faulty or overloaded piece of equipment that they would not replace or repair because they were about to roll out the next generation upgrade in 2009/10. They would also not move my connection to another port in the device so my gut feeling is that it was over utilisation rather than a fault.

    They massively discounted me for a number of months trying to string me along, basically I was getting (supposedly) 20meg for a tenner a month but in the end I had to cancel. The main issue was almost zero upload capability at peak times which meant even downloads would not work - you have to be able to upload a download request before you get anything, even trying to view websites failed due to the upload timeout.

    I switched to what was BE ADSL at the time and enjoyed very good service and speeds, albeit nothing like the cable speeds (when it worked) due to the antiquated telephone network.

    I am currently not in a Virgin cabled street although they are just up the road. I have registered on the "cable my street" site and will probably take the cable internet service from them when it becomes available. My theory is that I would get a few years great internet speed out of them before they over-subscribe my area.

    It is really the only choice I have other than BT "fibre". BT "fibre" will still utilise the very old and crappy twisted wires that run from my house meaning that the BT "fibre" option is still paying for a service that I cannot fully utilise - they don't discount the package if the crappy wires from my house mean that I cannot get full speeds.

    It is really the only option available to most people - switch providers if you are getting crap service. Switching doesn't help those with limited choices (i.e. rural areas) but voting with your feet is the only power that a customer ultimately has.
     

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