MSE News: Virgin Media begins notifying non-cable customers of transfer

zacchaeus_2

My mother-in-law has Virgin ADSL and has received a letter. Because I'm slightly less in the dark about these things than her, she's asked me for advice about what to do.

I've not actually seen the letter, so does it say anything about whether customers get to keep their existing Virgin email address? Or, if it's not in the letter, has anyone seen any other announcement on this point?

(As it's my mother-in-law, I naturally want to ensure I give the duffest advice possible...!!)

Many thanks in advance.

kwikbreaks

observer16 wrote: »

Considering a complaint to the telecoms ombudsman – has anyone got any thoughts please?

The only thought I have on that is that you'd be wasting your time. VM decided to stop offering any ADSL services. Nobody can force them to change their minds and do so. They will not be doing anything that isn't covered by their contract.

observer16

Sorry kwikbreaks, I may not have made my point clearly.


While they have the right to sell that part of the business to TT the T&Cs do not make it clear that they can take away the email address. VM seem to be saying they will port my VM phone service number to TT and I understand I have that right. Why then will they not let me do the same for my email address? After having it 15 years it is going to cause me a lot of hassle to change it.

venna

After a long telephone trail I was told they are obliged to let us keep our email addresses for a year after the account moves to TalkTalk. However as I don't need their landline they insist they can't tell me how much my next bill will be for or what service I'll be paying for.


Due to the trouble I've had getting any information I decided to move to another ISP but they are not making it easy. So far, on subsequent days, I've had multiple assurances that my MAC code would be emailed to me. Nothing has arrived. One person did read the MAC code out but it was useless as it was just the code to move to TalkTalk and not suitable for any other provider. I will be giving them until Monday then start a complaint process.


If anyone is thinking of moving I'd advise starting early and noting down every phone call (I've been through the phone system so many times I believe the options you need are 1, 1, 4).

buglawton

kwikbreaks wrote: »

VM stopped providing ADSL to new customers and presumably house movers quite a long time ago.

They won't be cabling much in the way of new areas any time soon although they still occasionally do small "fill in" areas. Cabling the areas that were done bankrupted many of the cable companies involved. All that's left now is Virgin Media (a rebranded NTL) who are carrying a massive debt burden and nobody is likely to be pumping money in to finance expansion.

VIrgin Media cannot even be bothered to look into cabling new build or conversion blocks of flats that are 3 metres from their own existing junction boxes. They are only interested in endless repackaging of the exact same number of households that they cable to today.

Nilrem

minislim wrote: »

oh dear! time to ditch and run!
never really heard bad reports on virgin. so why they a throwing a way customers and passing them on to talk talk i don't know?

talk talk are one of the worst performers in the the sector.

IIRC VM have wanted to concentrate on the cable customers for a while.
ASDL is a cutthroat market, with many people only caring about the lowest possible cost, and for VM it's harder to deal with, and probably not as profitable as their own cable service.
Besides anything else with ADSL if there is any issue with the physical line it requires them to deal with BT openreach, and have a host of additional training for their staff to know how to deal with ADSL equipment, at a time when they've been trying to reduce the number of device they support for their cable services (they've gone from about 10+ supported modems and 6-8 models of TV box on 3 back end systems to about 4 and 3 or 4 on a single back end from memory over the last few years).

Basically their ADSL service probably isn't profitable enough for the effort it takes when they've already got an (arguably superior) different system that can provide internet access more easily for them.

observer16 wrote: »

Complained to VM about being "dumped" and requested some undertaking of level of service TalkTalk would provide. Several friends have had a very bad time with TT. Also requested to be allowed to port over my email address of 15 years. No joy. Unhappy with being otherwise being forced to go to BT.



Considering a complaint to the telecoms ombudsman – has anyone got any thoughts please?

It's technically nearly impossible to port over email addresses - the domain name resolution system has zero support for it, so if you change provider for whatever reason the email address cannot go with you, as there is no way to move just the email address with any reliability (you have to move the domain name).
It could potentially be forwarded to a new provider, but that would be an utter nightmare for the ISP's as it could mean them having to keep updating the records for ex customers (and continue to pay to support that email address, in which case they'd be better off just letting you to continue to use it FOC).
It would also cost a fortune to do for individual email address.

Telephone numbers can be ported because the systems behind them don't generally care about who 1234 567890 is provided by, the area code is effectively the domain, and the rest is just billing/routing and done at the central system on what is effectively a single network.

It's one of the reasons if you wish to keep your email address "forever" or near enough you tend to need to register a domain, as if you register "mydomain.com" you can move it to whoever you want (but you will pay a fee every year for the domain name, and possibly for the email service behind it).

observer16

Nilrem wrote: »

IIRC VM have wanted to concentrate on the cable customers for a while.
ASDL is a cutthroat market, with many people only caring about the lowest possible cost, and for VM it's harder to deal with, and probably not as profitable as their own cable service.
Besides anything else with ADSL if there is any issue with the physical line it requires them to deal with BT openreach, and have a host of additional training for their staff to know how to deal with ADSL equipment, at a time when they've been trying to reduce the number of device they support for their cable services (they've gone from about 10+ supported modems and 6-8 models of TV box on 3 back end systems to about 4 and 3 or 4 on a single back end from memory over the last few years).

Basically their ADSL service probably isn't profitable enough for the effort it takes when they've already got an (arguably superior) different system that can provide internet access more easily for them.






It's technically nearly impossible to port over email addresses - the domain name resolution system has zero support for it, so if you change provider for whatever reason the email address cannot go with you, as there is no way to move just the email address with any reliability (you have to move the domain name).
It could potentially be forwarded to a new provider, but that would be an utter nightmare for the ISP's as it could mean them having to keep updating the records for ex customers (and continue to pay to support that email address, in which case they'd be better off just letting you to continue to use it FOC).
It would also cost a fortune to do for individual email address.

Telephone numbers can be ported because the systems behind them don't generally care about who 1234 567890 is provided by, the area code is effectively the domain, and the rest is just billing/routing and done at the central system on what is effectively a single network.

It's one of the reasons if you wish to keep your email address "forever" or near enough you tend to need to register a domain, as if you register "mydomain.com" you can move it to whoever you want (but you will pay a fee every year for the domain name, and possibly for the email service behind it).

Thank you Nilrem, I am sorry it is getting a little technical for me. I am just horrified with all the work I will have to put into telling all my contacts and changing stationary etc.

I would have thought that when converted into data the email address would have been just like a phone number. To take your example did not many UK exchange codes change a few years ago. E.g. Reading was 01734 and became 0118. It is surely only a simple matter of number recognition and translation?
This exchange upgrades from ADSL in few months so I think the cost element of the argument fails.

I am not really interested in excuses. I have a registered domain. I have just not used the email function as Virgin have been so good. One of the reasons I chose Virgin was that their good brand record and the fact they were likely to stay the course - unlike many others that have fallen by the wayside. I understand they had plans to convert to fibre in many national areas anyway until Liberty Global got involved. (BTW is not Liberty now liable to become Vodafone ?)

I see Tesco net customers are now going to be facing the same problem. It is not a trifling matter for users.

ZiQi

Ever since having internet back in the 1990s, I never bother using internet provider email address as my main email address, was often chopping and changing provider.

ISP email address should never be a main / priority email address, as you may move providers.

I've always used my own domain for a few quid a year, also have email from the likes of GMX too.

I had TalkTalk previously, managed to escape penalty free as their service and broadband was worse than useless.

Limara

I am on virgin national, I pay my phone bill to Bt, I wonder how they will suddenly have the right to transfer me over to talk talk which is line transfer as well.
Not happy, if I had wanted Talk Talk I would have took advantage of some very good cash back deals they have offered, Surely they cant just transfer accounts without customers knowing exactly what we will be paying, and no doubt it will be a new contract, the only reason I haven't got rid of Virgin a long time ago is I didn't want to get into a new contract as I intend to move house.
Its already a shambles surely we should at least have a choice of what we are being changed to.
Researching it looked like tesco would have been my best bet for short term, lol now they are going to talk talk as well.

RichardL

My main concern at present is one which has not been raised so far so probably will not apply to many other people but I will throw it in as a possible issue.

Because I have VM phone / broadband and am also a Virgin Mobile user I currently get :
Free "unlimited" landline calls to Virgin Mobiles &
Free 50 minutes of VM to VM call for each of three mobiles which are registered to our home phone.

Due to this allowance all our phones are PAYG and my annual bill for three phones is £50~60 per year.

Once I move to TT I would presume these concessions would end and I would either have to make these as charged calls or move our phones to TT mobile.

However when I check the TalkTalk mobile web page they do not appear to provide PAYG so I would have to take out a contract at £5 per phone per month ( £180 annually ).

Admittedly I would have a much higher call allowance and calls within the family would be free but I do not require these extra minutes and would be paying three times as much as present. The only consolation would be that I would probably get a new phone as my VM phones would all need unlocking.

Does anyone have any further information about this or suggestions ( possibly GiffGaff etc. ) ?

Oh and I also currently have line rental with BT so might end up with this being moved.