Other The reliability of UK internet providers for gaming

If your on virgin I would check the quality of work on the cables at junction boxs etc. I had it for two years constant problems, engineers couldn't fix it blah blah, had a look myself and the cables where coming apart.

 

I know you work for VM, but there's really no need to be so defensive over VM's frankly terrible throttling system. Face facts, and admit that VM need to actually get off their rear ends and acknowledge they don't have enough bandwidth for their users in light of the headline speeds they provide.

Yes, "natural congestion" can occur, and has always occurred on consumer connections. Yet, despite the fact that I live in a highly populous part of the country (urban London), my Infinity connection has not slowed down, or been subject to this natural congestion - it works at the line speed it always has done. Why? Because BT actually put enough in to their backend to allow them to categorically remove all throttling/limitations and say outright that the reason for this is because they can cope with the load.

The funny thing is, you claim in the last bit I quoted that "they will get in to the situation that Virgin got in to where it is just not feasable anymore", which is absolute bunk. BT only removed their throttling (which was less than VM all along) a few months ago. So in fact, rather than the situation getting worse over time it has actually gotten better!

BT are going to need to expand their backend network as they add customers and bandwidth use goes up, but they already worked that out and took steps in that regard...unlike VM who simply decided to throttle their customers.

I think it is fair enough to call a connection unlimited when the user is allowed to download whatever they like, and as much as they like, only dictated by the link speed of their connection. VM need to back off from offering the 100/120MB speeds if they can't actually deliver this 24/7, and fix their network.

 

I am not getting defensive, I just know what it's going to take to get it to where people think it should be and I know the issues that other ISP's are starting, to suffer with which VM suffered from a long time ago.

I am in a position though where I know the network and how things are being done by VM and most other ISP's as well, whether you know how it's done or not I am not sure but I can assure you now it's as easy as flicking a few switches and changing some lines of code to give more bandwidth to a area, like some people seem to think it is.

Not saying you are one of those people, but I get it all the time from people asking me to increase there broadband speed by moving there cable up in the cabinet at the end, of the street or logging in to a hidden section of the super hub to enable a higher speed.


As for the unlimited thing, by definition yes BT, SKY and Virgin are all unlimited but it only takes someone with half a brain to work out that they are not unlimited because they have not, sold you a service that is None Contended instead they have sold you a Contended service meaning you get what you can receive and either take it or leave it because, they know that you cannot do anything other than pay for it and accept it, or move to another provider or lastly pay for a None Contended Business connection.


The link below is what I have started using to show people roughly what speed they will get from providers in areas through out the country.

http://maps.thinkbroadband.com/?utm...188&lng=-3.43597299999999&zoom=6&type=terrain

 

Be there for the record are unlimited I've downloaded 30-40gb a day on steam at max speed without any issues.

So there's at least 1 unlimited provider in the uk.

 

Why do you insist on saying that other ISPs will/are starting to suffer from the problems that VM have with over selling their lines? BT's change to no traffic shaping is a very recent thing, which means that they've actually worked out they can provide the needed bandwidth at all times, and in to the future as well. I've also been with BE in the past, and they don't touch the data either, and promise never to as well.

My parents are on VM, and have been since 2000 (when it was NTL). Since that time I've seen their connection yo-yo all over the place in terms of speed, ping and reliability, and they live in a relatively small town. Simply put, VM are obsessed with marketing the fastest speeds (ie: 100, 120MB) despite the fact that the infrastructure can't keep up with the heavier use that this entails, so they revert to traffic shaping. Sure, some people are lucky enough not to have issues, but nationally it's a pretty poor picture.

I agree that you'll always be limited by the actual speed to get down your line, and that the only true method is a 1:1 contention ratio on a very expensive business connection, but in the consumer world, an ISP not interfering with your data and allowing you to use it at full throttle 24/7 is as close to unlimited as you will ever get. It's certainly closer than VM's policies of throttling once you go over set caps.

 

Sorry you've had a bad experience with them but i've been with VM for over a year now on their xl package (60 meg interwebs, phone tv etc etc) and haven't had a problem except for when trying to get online at 0200 when they're carrying out maintenance every 6 months. This only ever lasts for 30 minutes or so anyway.

My pings are always in the low 30's and speeds are constantly as advertised 55-60mbps when speedtesting to the isle of man.

Living in a village about 13 miles outside Glasgow by the way.

EDIT: I should add that before moving to Virgin, I was with BT and before that, Talktalk. BT were not great at all to say the least, but Talktalk. Just no.

 

Virgin Media has its issues. I don't have BT Infinity in my area yet as a competitor and ADSL here is pantgs...highest speed apparantly I'm likely to achieve is 8Mbps.....I have been on cable since the days of Blueyonder...and had pretty much the same ongoing contract. Pretty pleased with current day VM except for their annoying 10Gb evening limits on downloads....quite frankly extremely annoying to get throttled once you hit that mark.

Current speed is good tho:



Having said that I was surprised too by that result. The previous two attempts got my 88Mbps or so. Bit flakey but that's on the Milton Keynes server which always seems to give me the best results.

 

I say companies are starting to suffer from the issues that VM have and are still suffering from since those companies have said they are suffering the same issues.

http://www.techradar.com/news/inter...ny-new-users-are-slowing-down-network-1126787

Sky admitted it, but at the moment BT have not admitted it fully but instead have said it was a issue that lasted for a small period of time but is still affecting some areas in the country whilst, they carry out the upgrades to the network.

As the likes of BT start to offer faster and faster speeds, on the unlimited packages then you will start to see more customers signing up to them and as such BT and others will start to see, the high usage users come over to them and start to hammer the network and cause speeds to slow down, or even cause BT to introduce speed restrictions like VM but I think it will take allot for that to happen since, that is one of the big selling points for BT.

Where I live the maximum speeds people are getting on Infinity is around 40Mb down and 15Mb up and that is on the supposed up to 76Mb package, according to the site I linked to earlier unyet on Virgin the speeds that are sold are actually achieved.

I do know though that the pings and streaming on the BT Inifinity in my area are far better than those on Virgin Media, and if BT Infinity was available to me I would have tried it but since it's not and at the moment BT have no plans to offer it close enough to me so I can get it, I won't be able to try it compared to my VM connection.

Don't get me wrong here, I agree with you when you say VM should stop with the constant need to go for faster speeds when there current network struggles with the speeds that they offer in some areas, but I know that there is massive amounts of money being spent to fix that in all areas of the country to the point where people won't suffer like they are now, but until that work is complete there will still be issues seen.

I just think people need to understand that whilst all ISP's say one thing, those customers may not get what they think they are going to get due to the ISP's not being able to support it fully and that is for all the ISP's, not just VM which people seem to enjoy ripping apart for various reasons otherwise if you was told you are going to get 80Mb of BT then you should get atleast, 72Mb but people are not always getting that.

 

Virgin Media, connection no problems, fast and reliable using an old NTL modem with a 3Com/USR router. Customer service was shite and in my ex-NTL area all the cable boxes got vandalised from the start of my terrace block to the end of the street. To this day VM refuses to move the cable box higher up the wall if the first floor wants the service but not downstairs - at worst, said vandals could throw stones at the box but not kick it out again. Ex-Telewest areas or houses, the same company will ask where you want it, no trouble at all. Until they cut out that jobsworth crap they can send as much junk mail as they like, I'm not going back to them.

Plusnet - been with them five years, nearly quit but they finally started giving their advertised offers to existing customers. As with BT they also offer the single-hit line rental deal for around £127 so you're only paying the BB and phone calls, DD drops to less than a tenner a month doing it that way and if you make your 0845 calls with mobile phone credit, basically a fiver a month or in April £2.99 a month over the contract. They also have a whitelist of games that can be added to so that anything using P2P eg Supreme Commander 2, isn't treated the same as an illegal download site, and Steam is on there as a general umbrella title. No complaints here then again I've stuck to wired connection, DL 14 out of 16Megs max. Wireless, BT themselves would probably have more options due to Home Hub.

I put your comment in bold just because I wondered whether paying for a brand new standard line, installed properly (generally £130 or so from BT) would be one way to up your speed, even if it would mean a phone number change.

 

When half the uk is below 2 mb a sec all headline speeds do is cause anger and confusion in the customers who can't get even 1mb let alone 100mb.

Been with 3 ISPs in 10 years

Aol they were unlimited but unstable decent customer service though

Talk talk I left after a year annoying caps and awful customer service

Be there still with them to this day get around 1.1mb / sec download off steam which is enough for me, never had an issue, when the router broke spoke to a uk call centre and it got replaced instantly no questions asked.

Can't really comment On others ISPs and I'd guess most are just checking internet sites for info without ever been with them.

All ISPs have a horror story customer or 2 that's life.

 

My internet is terrible I don't live in a Virgin Media area though who can I move to?

I'm currently on sky broadband

 

i don't see why are you so annoyed with throttling, the slowest speed you are likely to get fro VM due to Throttling is 18mbs which to be fair is still better than most people. and way better than me.

ask someone like bt to provide high speed broadband to as many people as VM. and 8 mbs doesn't qualify as high speed broadband

 

Try PlusNet

 

Infinity is just BT retail's name for their FTTC product but its the best advertised as aside from Plus net, Sky and TT have been pretty poor with the advertising.
FTTC is a distance based product, so people on the larger package are really wasting their money if they cannot get more then 40 down, but prehaps they want the greater upload.

Again as above FTTC is a distance based product and will decrease in speed the longer the copper line is from the from cabinet, those closest sync at over 100Mbps but this is resticted until Openreach use the next profile.
Crosstalk will also reduce speeds slightly till vectoring is introduced in a few years time.

The greatest benefit of the Openreach FTTC network is that its the next step to a full FTTP network which will be consumer lead once fibre on demand launches in the next few weeks.
The costs will vary on distance from the aggreation nodes but for those that are willing to pay full FTTP is possible no more copper or coaxial cable connections for broadband.

 

Has anyone had any experiences with TalkTalk complaints and could give me a direct phone number or contact name here in the UK that I can approach concerning the issue stated below. I just can't get anywhere with them and if I have ring India again I am going implode.

Last year a Taltalk salesman contacted me telling me I could have a new line with unlimited downloads and the service would be min 8mb/ max 17mb and that I was capable of receiving 14mb

The engineer came on the day and swapped my line over to a new one in the CAB. After he left I did a speed test and found that my speed had decreased to 6mb and my ping had qaudropled.

I complained several times and each time I got a mesaage from them saying this issue is now resolved, but when I checked my speed I find nothing has changed at all.

So 3 weeks ago I rang up India again and ranted. They sent and Engineer around, he tested and told me that the problem was with the incoming line and not my equipment. He said he will report the issue and it will be esculated to BT.

After 2 weeks I had received no reply so I emailed them. The reply was that it will take a bit of time to get any answers so pleae be patient.

I have still heard nothing so Friday I relplied to that email asking them what is happening. The reply was automated saying we have no related incident for this account so please contact our customer services department, in effect I have just been sent back to that starting postion.

I have just logged into my TalkTalk account to notice that they have charged me £50 quid for the Engineer visit, so now I am raging and the air has turned blue in my house hold.

I advise everyone to stay away TalkTalk. They are the worst company I have ever dealt with.


Cheers

 

This is the main problem. Virgin have such effective marketing that they never get their infrastructure fully suitable for the number of users.

The other problem is the Superhub. Just like any other 'free with subscription' box, it's a POS that has serious reliability issues. Their engineers are on contract to say otherwise, but once you've put in a solid ~£100 router you'll never go back.

 

moose67 with TT its best to go through the members forum, have to be a customer to use it (unless thats changed recently) but its the best way to get the support.

I would advise moving away from TT and either go to BT/Plus Net or Sky for llu if you want mainstream pricing and unlimited- otherwise Zen etc will give good speeds/support but expensive.

 

The same is true with Sky. Multiple problems for months with no fix, one post on the Sky forum and everything was sorted. (SNR Margin issues, I told them what they needed to do and they did it. Perfect since).

 

I did try sunday evening and got an error saying "Account number and Phone number not recognised"

Yesterday I rang the UK sales number and spoke to a guy there. I kept my cool and spoke really politely while I explained the situation. I pleaded with him to put me through to an english speaking UK based complaints department.

He said please hold while I have a word............... after being on hold for a minute the music stopped and I was greated by that old familiar little faint Indian sounding voice from across the Ocean.....

Anyway, to cut a long story short (45 mins on phone). I got put through to a fault manager who turned my speed up to 11 Mbps. I've been instructed to monitor it and then call back in 48 hrs with my report. I complained about the £50 engineer charge and was refunded and also got 3 months free rental as compo.

So what you need to do with is say you want to open a complaint case. This is when they will act it seems.

There is an erratic ping spike that's been present for the last 5 weeks, so it's still not quite 100%, but I will try and sign up to the forums again now as it will be the best way to get little issues fixed.

They are a bag of crap, there is no doubt, but I will just suffer them for now until the contract is out.