Virgin Media – Speed or Capacity?

purple1969

I've been with Virgin Media now for two years and in that time I've had problems with my connection, most of the time its worked, true it's been slow but it has worked, but for three or four days every couple of months I've had no connection. Oh I've called technical support, I've changed ADSL filters and cables, altered settings and gone through all sorts changes but to no avail.

Last month I got to speak to Simon in technical support who finally got to the bottom of the fault. It seems the router which Virgin had supplied to me when I first opened the account had been setup as an ADSL1 router, now this didn't mean a lot to me so he explained that ADSL1 has a maximum download capacity of 8Mb. Now this is all well and good but for the past two years I've been paying £25 a month for a 20Mb service and yes I know it's highly unlikely I would ever get 20Mb but when the hardware is limited to 8Mb it has left me with a feeling of being cheated. On testing the speed I'm getting on average a download speed of 6.8Mb, nowhere near what I'm paying for.

So having thought about it for a few days I called customer services and spoke to Danny and voiced my concerns about paying for an unobtainable service due to the supplied hardware. But Danny informed me that all of Virgin's packages are sold on their download capacity and not their speed. Well I'm sorry but this just isn't true, when I opened the account we spoke very briefly about how much I wanted to download but mainly about the different speeds both available and what I could expect to get. At no point was the sales centred on how much I was expecting to download. Going on their website even today and the top item is speed with download coming in either second or third. TV adverts, magazine adverts, billboards and radio all highlight speed above all else so I'm left with the feeling that I'm being fobbed off. Danny went on to offer me a new router that could handle the desired speed but I would have to sign up for a new twelve month contract, he also offered to transfer my line rental over to them and reduce my monthly payment. So I'm currently paying £25.50 to Virgin and £13 to BT and the offer now is £12.50 for six months going up to £15.50 thereafter. Doesn't sound too bad and will certainly save me money but I still feel like I've been conned for two years and I want this addressed.

Danny gave me two addresses to contact, the first for the Complaints Department:-

Virgin Media
PO Box 333
Matrix Court
Swansea
SA7 9ZJ

And the other for something called Customer Concern:-

Virgin Media Ltd
Customer Concern
PO Box 238
Wythenshawe
Manchester
M22 OWJ

And a contact name at this second address of Mark Davidson who's the National Chief Executive Officer.

The only problem I have now is I'm not entirely sure where I stand in law. I feel I've been miss-sold the package being deliberately lead with expected speed not download capacity. On top of this have hardware supplied by Virgin that isn't fit for purpose that would never have been able to supply the speeds that I was expecting to get.

So does anyone have any thoughts as to where I stand in law and how I should proceed in addressing my concerns and hopefully get some sort of refund?

jadziad

I work on an IT helpdesk (not an ISP) and one of my colleagues is clueless, and I can imagine him saying things like this. I have doubts that "Simon" has given you accurate advice.

Your kit being "setup as an ADSL1 router" could mean a few things, and could easily be incorrectly diagnosed by an inexperienced engineer. What make & model router do you actually have, and how is it configured? What sync speed is it connected at, and what DSL modulation is it both set to use and currently running with? What firmware version does it currently have? What is the exact service called which you pay for? Are you connecting to your router via wireless, or with a network cable? How far away are you from your exchange?

There's no point going through the complaints route with Virgin until you have made absolutely sure that the advice you've been given is correct. If you did complain, then the person dealing with the complaint would need to review the technical aspects anyway, as people sometimes give duff advice.

purple1969

Hi Jadziad,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I've got a Netgear ADSL2+ DG834G v5 which should be able to handle ADSL2 but was configured before I received it by Virgin.

Can't say I know what a sync speed is but the downstream connection speed is 7936kbps and the upload connection speed is 608kbps. I've had a look through the routers setup but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere that these can be altered.

Sorry but I have no idea what a DSL modulation is.

Have done a flash upgrade of the firmware to the latest version which is V1.6.01.34.

My line attenuation is 30.0db for download and 13.0db for upload and my noise margin is 9.0db for download and 6db for upload. As far as I understand it line attenuation should be low and noise margin should be high to get the best from the line so what I'm running on isn't great.

Connecting to the router wirelessly from my laptop which is less than 12 month old, currently using a HP Pavilion Core I5 with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit.

I'm 1.4Km from my local exchange.

The package I'm paying for is the 20Mb unlimited download.

But I do know what you mean about clueless support, when I opened the account there was a delay in getting the router to me and when I called them I was told they were having problems with their supplier as there is currently a nationwide polymer shortage! Having been a design engineer for the best part of 20 years I've never heard of the industry running out of plastic!

jadziad

Follow the instructions for the v5 here, and let us know the information from "adsl info": http://www.kitz.co.uk/routers/netgeardg834_interleaving.htm

Note that Windows 7 doesn't have telnet enabled by default. A quick way of adding it is by running...

cmd /k dism /online /enable-feature /featurename=TelnetClient

purple1969

Right think I've got it, this is what it gave me.

BusyBox v1.2.1 (2009.10.23-05:41+0000) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

/# adsl info
Current Training Status : Showtime
Current trained adsl mode : G.Dmt
Current trained adsl patch : Interleaved
Downstream Bit Rate : 7936000 bps
Downstream Noise Margin : 8.5 dB
Downstream Attenuation : 13.0 dB
Upstream bit Rate : 608000 bps
Upstream Noise Margin : 6 dB
Upstream Attenuation : 30 dB
/ #

jadziad

OK, it's possible that your router is permanently set to G.Dmt modulation, otherwise known as ADSL1. It's easy to change this on other models of the DG834, but for your v5 I've done some googling and can't see any commands which would let you change it. There might be a setting on the router's web interface for "DSL Mode" - perhaps that will let you change it from G.Dmt (ADSL1) to ADSL2 or 2+. If you do change that, and the exchange won't support that, then your internet connection won't work again until you change it back to the original settings.

It's possible to set the connection type on the equipment at the exchange, so it could be either your router, or the kit at the exchange which is forcing (or either end requires) ADSL1.

Ideally you would need to try a known-good ADSL2+ router to check if it's the exchange or your current netgear at fault. To try another router you would need to know the username & password for your DSL connection & the settings to use - I don't know if Virgin does LLU (often no login details are required) or if it uses old BT-style logins, which often do need login details.

Otherwise, either ask for the correct suitable router anyway (if that's what another engineer verifies is actually required), or start the complaint process - you shouldn't really need to spend ages trying other hardware anyway.

If they ask whether you're on wireless or wired, give them the output of "adsl info" so they know that the router is connecting at a slow speed & this fault has nothing to do with wireless.

purple1969

Hi Jadziad,

I changed the DSL Mode to ADSL2+ a couple of weeks ago but it hasn't made any difference to the G.Dmt , the only other option in that dropdown menu is Annex M but I have no idea what that is.

As it's a saving of £26 per month I've signed up for the new twelve month contract so they should be sending me through a new router, must check what it is.

But I will follow up on a complaint as I could have had the cheaper connection of 10mb with unlimited download instead of the 20Mb unlimited and saved myself £10 a month. By my reckoning I'm out of pocket by £240 over the two years for a service the hardware wasn't able to support.

Thanks for all your help at least I know for sure that the router is capped at ADSL1.