Virgin Media Broadband Faults

ABBEYWELL_2

Virgin Media lose 70,000 customers

Aug 9 2007 by Alistair Houghton, Liverpool Daily Post
VIRGIN Media has revealed the impact of its row with BSkyB after cable and broadband customer numbers fell by 70,000 in the quarter to June 30.
The group, which has well in excess of 100,000 television, phone and broadband customers in Merseyside, estimated 40,000 of the subscribers were lost because of Sky’s removal of its basic channels from the Virgin Media television platform on March 1.
The two companies failed to agree terms on pricing for the channels, including Sky One and Sky News, but Virgin said yesterday it expected the impact of the row to be contained within the second quarter.
Virgin, which has about 2,000 employees in Merseyside, has sought to bolster its own content offering with initiatives including a partnership with sports broadcaster Setanta.
Virgin’s customer base stood at 4.7m at the end of June 30, down 70,300 on the previous quarter and causing consumer revenues to fall to £619.3m from £637.3m reported for the first quarter this year.
The company, formed from mergers involving Telewest, NTL and Virgin Mobile, said it remained the UK’s largest residential broadband supplier, with 3.5m subscribers.
BT has around 3.8m broadband customers, but an estimated 700,000 of those are from the business sector.
Fixed-line telephone subscriber losses in the quarter were 56,900, which was an improvement on the 63,400 reverse seen in the first quarter.
Virgin said it had changed the way it markets and sells its telephone packages, in an effort to reverse the recent poor performance of the operation.
Overall, the group posted operating profits of £3m, against operating losses of £15.3m a year ago.
Virgin Media chief executive Steve Burch said: “The second-quarter results show encouraging broadband and mobile contract growth, a resilient performance by our TV business and signs that our fixed line telephony business is starting to react to renewed management focus.”
On Tuesday, Virgin Media said it had given potential bidders more time to put together their takeover plans after receiving “strong” interest in a possible deal for the firm.
A month ago, Virgin said it had received a takeover offer for the business, a £5.5bn move which analysts say is thought to have come from private equity firm Carlyle.
alistairhoughton

jetsetwilly_2

Is it possible to cancel the TV package but keep phone and broadband?

BexTech

jetsetwilly wrote: »

Is it possible to cancel the TV package but keep phone and broadband?

Yes, you can cancel and leave yourself with any one product, or as you want just two products.


Saying that with a phone line it's possible to have free TV, if you call to cancel the TV they may offer it you for free, or let you have the free TV package.

Sugarcubed

They are beeping useless! After 3 callouts to fix my broadband last week and 'mud in the cable box' with other useless excuses the tech today said the only thing it could be was the cable or the modem, so he replaced them both and everything is working a-ok so far :T

jetsetwilly_2

That is another bug bear of mine.

I pay about £15 a month for the basic TV package. They neevr ring to offer you the better deal that new customers might be able to get e.g. Free TV.

I will ring up today and cancel my TV package. If they get funny, I will scrap the lot and do without.

Don't like to give them anymore of my cash

normanmark

jetsetwilly wrote: »

That is another bug bear of mine.

I pay about £15 a month for the basic TV package. They neevr ring to offer you the better deal that new customers might be able to get e.g. Free TV.

I will ring up today and cancel my TV package. If they get funny, I will scrap the lot and do without.

Don't like to give them anymore of my cash

Well i dont think any company phones up their customers to offer them a better deal.

The old saying goes if you want something doing, do it yourself. So get on the phone to Customer retentions (0800 052 0184) and get a better deal (i'm assuming you're out of your original 12 month contract here)

nikkiw68

Hi,if you ring the new broadband number for faullts,and they fine there is a fault,they will refund you the cost of the call.I have had two refunds already.:j :j

theadz01

Hi, wondering if you can give me some advice.

Joined Virgin Media yesterday (in Tooting area of London) on the L Broadband package. Have been less than impressed with the speed. Previously with Homechoice, and rarely had a problem. Using the same set up as before, our modem is connected to our Apple Airport, which serves 2 PC's and a Mac, as well as occasionally a games console.

Our speed totally varies all the time, from a really fast 4mb speed to something about 512kb. Have done speed tests online. This happens regardless of 1 or 3 of us being online at the same time. Our upload speed is always good.

Any ideas what is causing this?

jetsetwilly_2

normanmark wrote: »

Well i dont think any company phones up their customers to offer them a better deal.

The old saying goes if you want something doing, do it yourself. So get on the phone to Customer retentions (0800 052 0184) and get a better deal (i'm assuming you're out of your original 12 month contract here)

5 years with the useless lot

normanmark

theadz01 wrote: »

Hi, wondering if you can give me some advice.

Joined Virgin Media yesterday (in Tooting area of London) on the L Broadband package. Have been less than impressed with the speed. Previously with Homechoice, and rarely had a problem. Using the same set up as before, our modem is connected to our Apple Airport, which serves 2 PC's and a Mac, as well as occasionally a games console.

Our speed totally varies all the time, from a really fast 4mb speed to something about 512kb. Have done speed tests online. This happens regardless of 1 or 3 of us being online at the same time. Our upload speed is always good.

Any ideas what is causing this?

Could be the traffic shaping in the evenings? thats the only thing i can think of as its affecting the download speed.

Ensure if anyone is downloading any 'content' to do it outside of peak time