Changing to a new broadband provider

iniltous

There are people who complain about the way the speed of ADSL is advertised, personally I think it's not unrealistic, to say what the technology is capable of (24Mb/s) and giving an estimate of what the individual line is capable of delivering,, the current 'rule' of saying upto 17Mb, as 10% actually get that, in my opinion is worse than the adverts that preceded , it's it that hard to comprehend, short lines faster than long lines,
Anyway, you get an estimate of the speed your new line should perform at, if you order and it doesn't perform at that level you should be able to leave the broadband contract penalty free, if you are thinking of this, you probably should get line rental and landline rental from the same provider, because if you get line rental from a different provider than the broadband the telephony part isn't distance dependent, and they wouldn't have to release you penalty free, from that separate landline contract
Obviously when you get an estimate of speed it's upto you to decide if it's suitable for what you want to do

Smodlet

It is not as if you cannot check these things before you move or commit yourself to anything.

cts_casemod

I have no previous experience with ADSL but have with mobile broadband where they always quote a ridiculously high speed. Go on charts and these values dramatically drop to an average of 6Mb on 3G and 17Mb on 4G. Thats the average. I very rarelly got 6M on a 3G network and even when I got over 3-4MB I was quickly throttled down.

Heck, I was trottled by streaming a 128Kbps MP3 stream within my allowances, which weren't even unlimited (had to do it trough a VPN)

I dont quite know why so much crticism, perhaps I'm comparing apples to oranges,thats the reason I opened this thread, to be able to make an informed decision.

iniltous wrote: »

Anyway, you get an estimate of the speed your new line should perform at, if you order and it doesn't perform at that level you should be able to leave the broadband contract penalty free...

Well, thats all the assurance I need then

Smodlet

Quote:
Originally Posted by iniltous View Post
Anyway, you get an estimate of the speed your new line should perform at, if you order and it doesn't perform at that level you should be able to leave the broadband contract penalty free..."

I would question this. This, surely, is the whole point of quoting "up to" rather than "you will definitely get", I would think.

OP, are you certain there is no BT fibre available? It is relatively unusual for V1rgin to have presence but not BT, though not unknown. Did you try negotiating with V1rgin? Just call them and tell them you want to leave and your contract expires next month. You are in the strongest position it is possible to be in with regards to your contract. If they want to keep you as a customer, they will do something. Just read the guides on this forum about haggling with your broadband provider, if you want help.

iniltous

Smodlet wrote: »

Quote:
Originally Posted by iniltous View Post
Anyway, you get an estimate of the speed your new line should perform at, if you order and it doesn't perform at that level you should be able to leave the broadband contract penalty free..."

I would question this. This, surely, is the whole point of quoting "up to" rather than "you will definitely get", I would think.

OP, are you certain there is no BT fibre available? It is relatively unusual for V1rgin to have presence but not BT, though not unknown. Did you try negotiating with V1rgin? Just call them and tell them you want to leave and your contract expires next month. You are in the strongest position it is possible to be in with regards to your contract. If they want to keep you as a customer, they will do something. Just read the guides on this forum about haggling with your broadband provider, if you want help.

There are two different things here, BT (and others) have to use a figure at least 10% of their customers actually get as the general 'headline' speed , that's why in the adverts it says upto 17Mb, ( not upto 20/24Mb, like the old adverts) but if you are on a very short line you would probably get more than 17Mb, possibly 20+ Mb, but no one is going to complain they get a faster connection are they ?
Second is the individual estimate for the actual line enquiring about service, the speed checker gives a 'clean' and 'impacted' figure, ( 1 for optimal internal wiring, and 1 for crappy internal wiring)
For example, if the estimate said something like 6 to 9 Mb, if you ordered and the line performs much worse, say 2 to 3 Mb, and the ISP try's and fails to get the line upto the original estimate, the rules were changed so that you can leave penalty free

Cycrow

Smodlet wrote: »

If you are with V1rgin, about to reach contract end date and concerned about costs, why don't you call them and negotiate? You probably do not need 50mb so ask them for options for lower speeds and tell them you will have to leave if the price is not lower than you already pay. Worked for me, back when we lived in V1rgin territory. We went from 20mb to 10mb and noticed no difference whatsoever.

That wouldn't work, 50Mbps is the lowest service VM offer now

cts_casemod

I'm framiliar with someone that used to install IPTV via ADSL for a major operator overseas in 2008, after selling the cable division to invest in a new fiber optic network. During the transition they used ADSL. As I've been told, sometimes a line synced fine, but had a very high error rate. This would either be solved by reducing the speed or exchanging the physical line to the cabinet in the street. If there was no line available they were instructed to swap the pairs with an internet only custommer! Long story short, they could claim to that custommer that the advertised speed was the maximun and go from 16MB to 2MB, justifying an increase in neighbourhood usage to keep the more profitable custommer with IPTV services happy. Who knew? This is to prove that, without having a physical line many things can go wrong... And good on iniltous for clarifying I would be covered if something like that happened here.

There is fiber from BT available. Vodaphone has a £25 deal. I'm considering this, albeit a bit more expensive and only up to 38M.

V!rgin... After being on the phone for 40 minutes waiting for someone, I mentioned I wanted to cancel, the only offer they gave was £28. I said I could get a better deal elsewhere and assumed he would transfer to the retention department but all I got was:" Its all set, your service will go off on the 4th and we'll send a pack trough the post to return the equipment".

Smodlet

"I had a familiar installing IPTV via ADSL"... was it a cat or a toad? :rotfl:

cts_casemod

So I gave it a few more days and just though I would double check with virgin whenever my service was due to be disconnected or not.

They confirmed it was, asked me why, but haven't offered any sort of offer to match a competitor (Vodafone fibre) again. Is this normal?

JJ_Egan

>>.They confirmed it was, asked me why, but haven't offered any sort of offer to match a competitor (Vodafone fibre) again. Is this normal?>>

No but they don't have to make you an offer and its possible that they have used up all this months offers or they don't want you as a customer .Looks like the £28 was the bottom line for VM .