Virgin Media Broadband - ongoing fault.

Retrovertigo

I have the 50meg VM service and for over 8 months now there has been an ongoing fault where speeds drop to below 1meg at times, but worse, random disconnections can happen up to a dozen times a day - and on occasion can last for over a weekend.

The trouble is that VM are pulling a fast one. They brought Motorola in to fix the issue as it is their equipment at fault - something was done to supposedly fix it (although VM won't reveal what) and it was declared as resolved. This was despite the fact they didn't wait for feedback from the many customers suffering with the issue.

As a result of this - and what many suspected would happen - they have now opened a new ticket for the same fault, but rather handily for them, with a new fault number. Therefore making it look like this fault is only a few weeks old.

Worse still, if you go on the official forums, they are now censoring any mention of the CEO's email address. If you post asking for it, they censor it out of messages, and also completely censor private messages between members if the email address or contact details are mentioned.

Where do us many customers stand with this? Some have been told that they have now had the limit of discounts applied to their accounts and so have to continue to pay full price.

The final thing that sticks in my throat, is that where I live in Manchester (the worst affected area for the ongoing fault) they are still sending out mailshots for people to sign up. One of the flats here has had five mailshots this week alone! How can they be allowed to try and sign up new customers when they know there are ongoing faults to the service - in fact in my area there are two separate faults ongoing with no sign of being fixed.

Is there an equivalent of something like ofcom for broadband providers to answer to? I'm at my wits end, but don't really want to sign up with a new provider and get stuck on an 18 month contract when I might the end up facing new or similar issues.

If you were in my shoes, what would your next step be? Thanks.

spike7451

The trouble is that VM are pulling a fast one. They brought Motorola in to fix the issue as it is their equipment at fault - something was done to supposedly fix it (although VM won't reveal what) and it was declared as resolved. This was despite the fact they didn't wait for feedback from the many customers suffering with the issue.

As a result of this - and what many suspected would happen - they have now opened a new ticket for the same fault, but rather handily for them, with a new fault number. Therefore making it look like this fault is only a few weeks old.

If they bought in Motorola to fix the fault,then the fault would either be in the local Headend or the main hubsite.Any faults locally are looked at by VM's Network Engineers & would be at the local Mux or street cabinet.
As for the new fault number,this is common as the original fault would have to be closed off after the last visit by the engineer.It's not 'handy for them' as it still goes down as a repeat fault against the engineer,having been on the recieving end of a repeat fault thanks to a customer having a chipped stb & lying about it,I can tell you,it's not handy.
Anyway,
Have you had a Service Tech out to check your equipment,and I'm not only talking about the modem,but the whole set up from the street cabinet to the modem,including the splitter in the ETB (Gray box) & the wall isolator.
Secondly,how many services do you have in the house? (modem & Cable TV box)
Has the cable running to your home ever been damaged?
Lastly,are you useing any non NTL/VM supplied cable or fittings to connect the modem or TV boxes up anywhere in the house.

Spike (ex NTL/VM Service Tech)

Retrovertigo

Hi there. No damaged cabling or secondary stuff used on my set up. VM engineers have been out to my property, but they always say the same thing "it is an area wide problem. Manchester is a mess and there was no point them sending me to your house".

VM are admitting that there is a fault with the main equipment and so have stated it is a waste of time sending anyone out to check it. Manchester has a bad name with VM these days as it is - by their own admission - massively over subscribed and yet they still try selling the service to new customers.

On the official forums, someone was looking into legal advice down whatever avenues they could explore and was using the basis of the original fault number for their complaint. The general feeling was that it makes it harder to argue when that fault is looked at as being "fixed" when in fact it wasn't fixed at all. But you clearly have worked there so you know better than I as to how this reflects on them.

Nonetheless, to declare it fixed without actually waiting to see if it was fixed, by waiting for customers to report back seems totally off to me. I used the example on their forums, that if you took a car to a garage, and they thought they knew what part to replace, replaced it, but never actually tried using the car afterwards - you'd think they were negligent. That's why people are suspicious of VM changing fault numbers for the same fault.

Like I say, it goes deeper than just my street cab. VM messed around for ages, and for some reason kept it secret that they finally brought Motorola in to fix the issue. Only recently letting customers know that they hadn't been able to repair it so had brought them in. With 8 months having passed, and no end of it in sight, I must admit I have to question the competency of all involved.

I know no other utility company I have ever dealt with has had me hanging on for such a long time to have something sorted. But then, it is clear - and people who work for VM have told me - they aren't willing to spend money to upgrade the systems to cope.

Just stuck wondering whether to keep throwing money at this, or tie myself down to a new contract with someone else. But with money worries plaguing me at the minute, I'm loathe to do that.

Velcro_Hotdog

Im in the same boat although the connection is usually restored within hours rather than days. It is bloody annoying when surfing the net or working from home when the connection speed or what ever the techy term is drops or the connection is lost.

I have lost count of the amount of times I have had to unplug all the VM equipment leave for 5 mins and plug it back to fix the problem, which is what the VM support tell me to do each and every time it happens. Each time have to unplug is a waiting game to see how log before the connection comes back but always between 15 mins to 2 hours at least 4 times a week. I'm 8 months in to the contract and will be leaving ASAP as they have never delivered what they promised.

poet123

I am having this issue too, in the same area. Can I ask if the OP ever resolved it? I am at the end of my tether with it, it has been ongoing for six weeks and is intermittent. I have just spoken to technical support and they have finally agreed to send out a new superhub (after we have gone through weeks of remote access/ changing channels trying this that nad the other) and yet they consider that we are only entitled to £20 compensation because we have not complained enough.

Apparently, even though they accept that the fault has been ongoing and that sending a new hub is a last resort, that still doesnt mean we have had it every day.....we should have logged a call a day to get more redress. Not content with that when I mentioned my OH sometimes works from home the CS agent tred to frighten me by saying that wasnt allowed under the T&c'S!!

Then the tech guy said that although he was 99% certain it would solve the issue, there was a possibly that the issue was the firmware....so essentially,they have potentially installed and taken money for a service they knew may not work. The tech guy compounded this by saying this was a "minor inconvenience" for a "very few" customers and would "probably"be sorted by June.....as if this was acceptable.

So, where do I go from here? can anyone give the CEO address mentioned above?

kwikbreaks

neil.berkett@virginmedia.co.uk

http://www.!!!!!!/

poet123

Thanks, email sent.....