No it's not, quite frankly I agree with them not allowing it. To many times people will buy something cheap and then complain when it cannot deliver what they are paying for. The amount of times when I use to install the broadband in customers houses and would get complaints of people because they, didn't have a wireless adaptor that could give the speed they were paying for, or the router they bought was a ADSL router and not a Cable Router. There are to many people who will always blame the company when it's not the companies fault it's down to them being idiot's. Although I suppose if you want VM to throttle the upload and download speeds again due to congestion from all the cloned modems then go right ahead and phone them, and demand that they allow you to put a modem on the network that can be cloned.
I use to, I was a Network Planner. I designed Buisness broadband connections, large scale business private networks so all sites could connect to each other, business park fibre layouts, fibre layouts for towns and cities including where the cabinets, civils and cabling went and what type etc. I also designed residential network build. Not to mention lot's of stuff using passive CWDM filters (was the first and sole planner of the stuff in the office I worked in and had to train others) and DWDM with the core network planners. I still get people to this day asking my why they cannot get the full speed on the laptop, tablet and even some pc's. It makes me laugh when I go round and see the pc they have only has a 100mb nic and they have a 300mb connection, or they have a old laptop with only a 54mb wireless card. There are times though when they have genuine issues, and I can test for that and then speak to the customer services for them, get shouted at for telling them what needs to happen and why, as I am not supposed to have some of the kit I still have Probably but I don't work there anymore so I don't know what the reasoning is now, don't get me wrong I would love to choose which I wanted to use but to be honest knowing I don't have to pay to replace it, should it go pop takes the sting out of not using my own.
They don't follow the scripts because they want to or because they can't help you without them, they follow the scripts because otherwise they will be fired.
Unless the US and European DOCSIS (including the VM-in-all-but-name LG subsidiaries) deployments are truly wastelands of cloned MODEMS, if VM's deployment is so laughably vulnerable to MAC cloning due to lack of any other authentication then we circle back round to 'lazyness and incompetence' again. "But consumers are dumb" is universal, and everyone else deals with it by supplying a stock crappy combo-box by default and allowing customers to self-select for the wherewithal to support their own kit by needing to apply for (or dig into the admin page settings for) the relevant authentication details to feed their own hardware. Besides, if the goal of locking out any device but the 'SuperHubs' was to reduce support issues, those rebadged dodgy Arris boxes were a massive cock-up. If only...
Actually you’re both right. First line are still called customer service representatives in VM. They are given scripts to follow and it is literally their ass on the line if they do not. They are given scripts and these are made disciplinary because to the management it’s simpler and cheaper to weed out the easy faults with a script than to pay the extra 25% the actual techies get. Source: I actually worked second line for VM.
Not even business customers get to do that. Even VM business has CSRs who log and forward, and run scripts. These scripts are slightly simpler / less patronising, but yeah. Your best bet is to have everything ready so the CSR can tick their boxes and get past the stuff they need to get past, and make sure you get some good information / diags ready for the second line lot to chew on!
Ironically many of the frontline staff are actually overqualified for the jobs they do, however the extremely brutal work conditions will have sucked the life out of them.
As I say I don't know the reasons anymore but I have been told that it is something they will likely never do. I personally for my own setup would like to run my own choice of modem but the one that is used for the 500Mb and then the one used now for the 1Gb seemed to work fine. I did have one issue with the 1Gb hub though, which was my work laptop would not get an IP. It turns out it was a conflict between the stupid security software on the laptop and the software on the VM Hub. Took about 2 days to sort it out but it's finally working although to be honest I have other connections that I can plug in to if needed, which today it is since my computer desk's legs decided to fail yesterday and now I have no desk
iv been with VM since NTL. Had a few small issues, all mainly down to there awful hub but 95% of the time i get my full 100mb connection that will top out at 14MB/ps on steam downloads and torrents so long i port forward properly. I pay £39 pm. I dont know anyone else that can offer me Fiber that fast for that price. And i ONLY want broadband, not phone or TV packages so i know i could get a better deal with a bundle but i dont pay TV licence and refuse to so dont use live TV or iplayer.
Let me clarify, the problems I've had with VM about 9 years go were mainly due to their traffic management and probably busy neighbourhood contention. At the time, I was on their fibre but the engineer gave me a model to use with my DD-WRT router. Off-peak times, zero problems; peak times between 6pm and 9pm, when I want to game, high ping, connectivity issues and getting throttled due to too much downloading. Also their CS inability to deal with anything not standard setup. So, my original OP was asking about their Hub in modem, because I will put it into modem mode no matter what. I was also asking about traffic management because although they say they no longer do this on their top package, I remain doubtful. I currently pay £45 for about 50 Mbps down, solid 12 Mbps up on Zen Openreach FTTC, Openreach modem, AsusWRT-merlin router. Very very happy with their service, but wondering if there's similar priced faster service...... that must offer same rock solid reliability. So far, the possibility of any contention issue puts me off VM.......
I've just ditched them, and moved to BT. The connection was fine, but the price was and is a joke. So I called them on Sat after black Friday to see if could reduce my bill and remove the TV and phone that I had been paying for, but no longer wanted. It took 3 agents and 30 mins of being on hold to be told I would have to pay more for just fibre than I had in total, and I wasn't eligible for any deals. I promptly told them I'll change. Had missed calls from them daily since. Sam
Those missed calls are how you get a deal. I called them up and said I wanted to leave because I don't need the package and they said ok. They called me a few days later and I've doubled my broadband for £27 a month, compared to the £32 I paid before. Price is discounted for 18 months.
I'm in the process of going to Virgin from BT. Quidco are doing £125 cashback on Broadband and phone packages so went for the M200 for £32 a month (12month contract). Apart from the £35 activation fee means I'll be paying £2 a month more than BT offered for their 73mb service.
Let us know the switching process. Whether it went smoothly. Do you call BT provider to cancel everything on the date VM is due to start? Or like switching within BT providers, have VM tell them you want to switch? Do you lose internet for the day during the switch? (I've never ever switched ISP before) I've just "regraded" my internet package on Zen, from £47 per month with line rental, 2014 price, down to £35 per month. Feels slightly better now. Will look again in a few years time.
It's Coax so you can have both services running at the same time as a overlap if you want. You only loose service when it's one BT Wholesale provider swapping to another.
I'll certainly give an update when the switch has been completed. Spoke to BT initially to cancel and see what deal they could offer. They advised that when I chose my new supplier (virginmedia) they would contact BT to cancel the current connection. Went online to signup with Virginmedia through Quidco so I get the cashback and arranged the install date for the 20th. Couple of hours later had an email from BT confirming the service with them will stop on the 20th. So it appears that the cancellation can be done that way. I am expecting to be without a connection for a short time, virginmedia are arranged for an am appointment on the 20th to install as there is no previous connection in my pad and need an engineer install but I'm sure I can survive for a couple of hours.
I posted this in another thread a while back, will do so again... First got cable in mid 90's, moved from 128k (bonded ISDN) to 10Mb with Cable London, which became Blueyonder, which became Telewest, which became Virgin Media. Moved house twice, taking the cable with me each time - just got lucky with availablility. By the time I was at the third place in the mid 00's, I was on 30Mb, still paying the same other than inflation increases. I had the TV package and in the mid 00's, the phone package as well (triple play). Mid 00's I was working from home and the cable had problems, massive contention in the evenings but was acceptable as daytime was perfectly fine (for work). Then there came a technical "hitch" - between roughly 3pm and midnight I had basically zero upstream which caused havoc. If I got an upstream connection, downstream was fine(ish). Turns out the CMTS I was plugged into had a faulty port (mine) which was made much worse by busy times (contention). I only found this out by actually posting messages onto a VM engineer Usenet group and getting responses from third line engineers - normal support routes were simply useless, told me nothing and constantly fobbed me off. This was around the time that VM announced a massive investment programme to upgrade the CMTS's all over the country for "next generation cable". Basically they wouldn't replace or repair my existing CMTS as it was scheduled for replacement "sometime in the next two years". Nor would/could they move me to another port on the CMTS due to it being full. In the end I was getting my broadband for free as VM just refunded/discounted me each month. Whilst acceptable for work purposes for about six months, I got sick of it in the end and left them, moving to ADSL with Be broadband, which became Sky - I kept the TV with VM until I moved to a non cabled area at the end of the 00's. In 2017 I moved from a poor Sky ADSL service to a BT Infinity service, getting a bump from around 20Mb to 36Mb, keeping the Sky TV I went with after moving to the non-VM area. About 2 years ago, I registered internet in getting cable in my street on the VM website. Just over a year ago a leaflet came through the door saying they were about to lay cable in my street. In February last year I moved from BT 36Mb to a VM triple play package, getting around 380Mb on a supposedly 350Mb service - the kids were happy. All in all I ended up saving nearly £50 a month and I got the movie channels as a bonus - I didn't have these on Sky TV previously. To cap it all off, last month I moved 3 EE sim cards onto Virgin Mobile, one of which is an add-on to my VM package meaning I get it for an extra £10 per month (unlimited data) and the other two for the kids are 8GB data per month, compared to the 250Mb they were getting. Doing this gave my cable internet another boost to 550Mb on a 500Mb service (top package available in my area) and I am now saving nearly £900 per year compared to what I used to pay Sky, BT and EE combined. All in all I can't complain, the internet speed to mind bending and as I am a first mover in my street, I have a number of years before VM over-subscribe the service causing slowdowns. The lesson here are these; Shop around Don't be afraid to switch Use a decent router (I have always used my own) Look at the bundle deals they offer at sale times All providers have crap/scripted support, learn how to navigate these to lessen the pain, you can't avoid them so just play the game Don't be afraid to make a noise if you are not getting traction in getting faults fixed Threaten to leave if the faults are not fixed - this usually puts you through to a non-scripted "retention" team who have the authority to give you a deal or discount to keep you as a customer - great if they eventually fix the fault In my experience over the years, cable trumps ADSL for streaming, gaming, downloads etc. I had one serious problem with cable when there was a localised hardware fault that they wouldn't fix quickly enough for me so I moved to another service. When the family really started hammering streaming services, I simply had to have faster speeds so I moved back to cable as it was the fastest option available to me bar FTTP/FTTH (which is still cost prohibitive for me). The upstream/downstream ratio is poor compared to other services but if you have the right package, is reliable and stable. The only real downside in an existing cable area is contention, if your area is full of VM customers, you will get slowdowns. I am not sure if there is a way to find out how long your particular area has had cable for to try and work out saturation levels. I was lucky in all of my cable installations across the first 3 houses - It was only after a few years in the last house that I ran into issues. I got really lucky being a first mover in my current street, I expect in a few years I will start to experience slowdowns but hopefully FTTP/FTTC may be an option by then.
Well the install of the new virgin connection has been done this morning. Took about an hour and all set up, BT is being shut down at the end of today so didn't have any downtime. Speed test is showing 215mbps so a fair chuck better than the 50 I was getting with BT. So it's so far so good. One slightly annoying bit is that BT wanted to bill me from 18th Jan until 17th Feb due to them billing in advance even though they had been aware of the cancellation. Wanted me to make payment and then refund the overpayment after they had given a final bill. (This would have been at £52 per month) DD has been cancelled after speaking with them and I'll just make payment when the final bill comes through. Will have to see how it performs during peak times but I'm happy so far.
