Virgin Broadband

steady__eddie

I was on Virgin dialup @ £12-49/month until about March when they contacted me and said that they were increasing the cost but if I transferred to 2 MB broadband, then I could pay £12-49 until Christmas. I did this and everything was fine until about 2 months ago. Now it is like the old days of cheap and cheerful dialup ISPs. The damned thing keeps disconnecting about every 10 minutes. Typing this, I see that the little 2 telly icon thingy on the toolbar has disappeared so I'll have to copy this text, minimise the windows, get online again and paste to save typing it all out again.
This only happens after about 6 o'clock every night, I thought that you were permanently connected with broadband and contention ratios or whatever they were called only applied to dialup.
I don't think that I'll be using them when the cheap trial is over, wonder if I'll have to pay fifty quid ?

Paul_VW

Snow_Dog wrote:

I've just signed up on this deal, we already had mobiles on Virgin (pay as you go).

Took about 10 minutes on the phone (freephone) to Virgin to change one phone to £15 per month, English call centre, knew all the answers no probs.

Takes 48 hours from the phone being changed for their system to update the virgin.net, you then phone them, give them the phone number and your DOB and they sort out the broadband (also english call centre).

So £15 per month for 4 to 6 meg bband and 300 mins + 300 texts on the mobile.

English call centres, phones answered within several rings by competant knowledgeable staff.

Equipment arrived exactly when they said it would, no problems.

Compared to NTHELL who I hate very much they are a dream to deal with.

Hate to break this to you but Virgin are now owned by NTL :eek:

snaffler

Is virgin going to the dogs ???? I am about to choose a BB package now we have had virgin PAYG for ages with no probs but as the net gets bigger broadband is a must to move an where quick.

I am at the moment choosing between Virgin / Telewest (I know they are co-owned now / IDnet

dodman

Well, I signed up for this £15 sim deal with free broadband. The sim arrived and I'm using it daily. The broadband connection was supposed to be set up within 7-10 days. I'm transfering from Pipex. I got my migration code and everything seemed sorted. Logging on to Virgin just now to check up on my account to see what was happening I find that my new broadband order has been 'cancelled'. Allegedly, by me!!!

Half an hour on the phone and nobody's yet answered. I tried another number and got an answering maching telling me to dial an 0906 number. I've sent them an email instead.

My Pipex contract finishes on the 27th ...

Colinwr5

To reinforce an earlier posting, be very careful of the Virgin misleading advertising - "Why should you join Virgin.net Broadband? There's no 12 month contract" They DO enforce the clause buried in their Terms & Conditions regarding the £50 penalty if you cancel within 12 months. I spend 6 months each year abroad and have used Virgin for the past 3 years when in UK. The first 2 years were fine with no extra charges but this year when I rang to give the 30 days notice of cancellation after 6 months subscription I was categorically told it would be applied. This despite my earlier history with them.

tawnyowls

FTD wrote:

Can anyone tell me what happens after you have used the 6GB allowance?

You'll get charged extra for what you use above the allowance. There are details about it somewhere on their site.

GeoThermal

I think they just advise you to change to a package with a higher download allowance if you go over the cap a few times.

Just had a look at their T&Cs which state:

Usage Allowance: If you exceed your usage allowance we will provide you with a minimum of 2 notifications by email to your Virgin.net email address giving you an opportunity to either reduce your usage to within the monthly usage allowance or upgrade to a Plan with a higher usage allowance. If you fail to reduce your usage or upgrade, we reserve the right to take action to reduce your usage, which may include temporarily reducing line speed or temporarily suspending access to the Service. In extreme circumstances, or where usage allowances are consistently or repeatedly exceeded in spite of notification, Virgin.net reserves the right to disconnect the Service in accordance with clause F(16) of this agreement.

meadowcat

soolin wrote:

I've been with virgin for a couple of years now on the £17.99 deal. I have always found their customer services very helpful, which is great as I'm a complete non techie.

I have found I lose email via Outlook express quite a bit, at least once every three or 4 weeks outlook is not available for a few hours. Two weeks ago it was down for about 18 hours in total but at least they put up a note to that effect on their webpage.

I also lose Internet explorer sometimes, I had a really bad run a few months back with losses every few hours and they eventually sent engineers to the house as there didn't seem to be any reason. They said everything was fine, and then about two weeks after their visit i stopped having any problems!

I'm just waiting for my free upgrade to 8meg now..

Soo

I have been with Virgin.net since about 1998, initially on dial up pay as you go, then 24/7 and when I moved almost 3 years ago I was able to get broadband. Everything has been fine during this time until 8mb was rolled out a few months ago. Since then the service has been very unreliable. I lose my connection numerous times every evening and have to turn the computer off and on again. I am on the £24.99 package. As I have had the email address for so long, I am reluctant to change, but I am thinking of going down to the £14.99 package, as that is all it is worth.

Their helpline will blame it on everything but the real reason - they are not coping with demand.

tightrs

i am trying to get in touch with virgin.net and i cant ,ive got the virgin sim at £15 and i am trying to register for free broadband all i get is in a queue telling me how good virgin are well there not doing too well at the moment.
and there costing me a fortune on the phone.

chairman_miaow

Been with virgin.net since 2001 and ever since they "upgraded" to 8Mb it's been awful....even slower than dial-up !

Shame , cos it used to be a decent reliable service....but their customer service will never say the problem is anything to do with virgin....I read somewhere they suggested a customer had too many electrical appliances on and perhaps they should try switching the Christmas lights off ! And that was in September !

Hopefully they'll sort out the problems (the connection speeds drop considerably at night , so it's pretty obvious they can't cope with the demand)...but until they acknowledge that , they are losing loads of customers...