Help with virgin media

sapanga

Hi, I currently have a virgin media home phone and broadband, I moved house in June and moved my virginmedia to my new address. When I rang up to move address I asked the advisor several times if there was any charge other than the standard monthly fee, and explained I wouldnt be able to afford to move it, if there was a fee. He assured me there was no fee, so I agreed to go ahead with the move. My first bill came and there was an additional £40 charge on it for phone line installation, which i thought was ridulous as there was already a phone line in the new house and an engineer didnt even come out to install anything. When I rang them up they said the charge was for activating the line, to which i said well i asked if there was a charge and advisor said no. They said that it stated on my account that i was informed of the charge and if i wanted to I could ask for it back in writing, which i did and am still waiting on reply.
Thats not the end of it. They send me a new wireless router when I moved, but it has never worked properly. I have rang them loads of times to complain and all they do is change a few settings in the router and it works for about an hr after the call and then the wireless drops. During my most recent phone call the advisor said yeah theres a problem with these router and windows pcs, they did a trial of them in the office and they never worked for us. He said its unlikely this will be fixed as they are just collecting all this information from customers and sending it to netgear. I said well how long is it gonna take for this issue to be resolved and he said how long is a piece of string. I rang to complain the next day to customer relations and he apoligised for advisors behaviour, but said that virgin media do not guarantee a wireless connection and he put me through to technical support. Technical support took remote control of the pc to check setting and again it worked for about an hour and then the wireless signal dropped again.

I'm totally at the end of my rope with this one, I have a laptop so I can be mobile with my computer but cant if i have to have an ethernet cable plugged in. Was wondering would anyone know where I stand with this, would i be within my rights to cancel and demand a reduction in my bill.

Sorry I know that was long thanks for reading

kwikbreaks

Don't know how you stand legally but there is a known problem with the Superhub and machines with Atheros WiFi hardware - you may need to update the WiFi drivers on your laptop.

Read this - http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-30Mb-and-50Mb-broadband/Super-Hub-FAQ-Updated-25-02-11/td-p/247111

Then register on the VM community board where it is and ask for technical help there - you have to wait a few days for a reply but it will be from 2nd level suport and not somebody who was probably selling double glazing on the phone last week.

Even if it isn't a Superhub and the drivers are OK I still suggest you ask on the VM board.

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I'll add a bit of DIY advice. Many WiFi problems are caused by local interference from other APs on the same channel.

Download InSSIDer and check for the channel with least powerful signals from other people's APs then alter your own channel to that one via the hub.

Superhub (for 30Mbps and over on VM) gui - http://192.168.0.1 user admin and pass changeme (iirc). There is another VM hub but you'll need to look up how to get into that one.

If it is a Superhub and you still have your old router you can set the Superhub to operate as a plain modem and use it with your old router which probably has better WiFi.