Virgin Cable Free upgrade to 50mbs, is there a drawback?

back_ache

I am currently on Virgins 30mbs service and am underwhelmed and plan to leave it 6 months when the contact is up. (It can't even stream iplayer in HD)

Virgin have just emailed offing a free upgrade to 50mbs following them upgrading the network locally, as far as I can see there is no drawback.

However, if its so great why are they asking? My biggest worry is does accepting it extend the lock-period on my contact?

donnac2558

If you upgrade you will be signed to a new contract.

kwikbreaks

They were supposed to be free upgrades and 50Mbps is the slowest current product offered to new customers so it should be penalty free but you need to call in and confirm that.

Why isn't it automatic? Clearly because the network still isn't really up to it - witness your complaint which suggests it can't even reliably deliver 30Mbps in your area.

Any drawbacks? Yes if it extends your contract and you want out.
Any advantage? Yes - some of the time it might actually be able to deliver faster speeds although whether that happens when you want it is by no means guaranteed.

I was on cable for several years and suffered at least two longish periods of local congestion. I eventually got sick of negotiating a price only to get an increase notification a couple of months later. Frequently negotiating would drop the price to pre-increase then I'd find somebody or other got the same product cheaper still. Horrible, horrible company IMO.

latecomer

I asked the same question on the webchat and was told that it did not mean a new contract - there is also nothing in the linked T&Cs to suggest that there is.

I am in my cancellation period and hence dont seem to be getting the upgrade despite requesting it via my account page. Fair enough I suppose but hopefully they are going to come back with better deal and convince me to stay

Nilrem

We got an email offering us a free upgrade to 150mb, no mention of any contract extension anywhere (we were getting 120 but paying for the tier that had moved to 150, and our old modem wasn't suitable).

I think it's them basically getting customers all onto the same levels so they can do away with the older configs and equipment for the various billing tiers.

At the moment they've got people who are paying the same as others but getting a lower level of service (despite them being on the same package), because either the account needs an update to move users over to the higher speed on the moden, or to replace a modem that can't cope with the speed the person is actually paying for.

IIRC VM these days are being fairly proactive about getting users up to the speed they're paying for when it comes to moving them to the right speed settings, but don't always do it automatically because it can often need hardware replaced (which they're offering free/delivery only in many cases as they are trying to reduce the number of older/obsolete modems on the network).

C_Mababejive

There is clearly something wrong. I'm pretty certain i can stream iplayer on my 7mb ADSL line which i think is running at around 6.5Mb.

Blackpool_Saver

back_ache wrote: »

I am currently on Virgins 30mbs service and am underwhelmed and plan to leave it 6 months when the contact is up. (It can't even stream iplayer in HD)

Virgin have just emailed offing a free upgrade to 50mbs following them upgrading the network locally, as far as I can see there is no drawback.

However, if its so great why are they asking? My biggest worry is does accepting it extend the lock-period on my contact?

Have you done a speed test? sounds like a problem with your computer really

http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/tv/HD_video_performance

visidigi

back_ache wrote: »

I am currently on Virgins 30mbs service and am underwhelmed and plan to leave it 6 months when the contact is up. (It can't even stream iplayer in HD)

Virgin have just emailed offing a free upgrade to 50mbs following them upgrading the network locally, as far as I can see there is no drawback.

However, if its so great why are they asking? My biggest worry is does accepting it extend the lock-period on my contact?

Depends how you are trying to stream HD, if its over wireless and you have the original superhub then it might be your equipment/property thats causing you speed issues for streaming.

If its at 7 oclock at night through a TiVO, V+ or VHD box then the VM apps on the boxes are not particularly good.

As for the upgrade, ring them and ask them. 150 from a VM home phone.

latecomer

Virgin media have had long standing issues wth BBC iplayer - we've certainly had issues on our 30Mb connection but its not all the time. I'm hoping our impending move to 50Mb will improve things.....