Want to dump VM. Where can I go?

[locutus]

If you have a sky subscription, they have a big discount on broadband, as price seems to be the main issue that would be one consideration.

[nicolee2931]

Unmetered net access is a rare thing these days with ADSL products, however my advice would be, speak with customer relations at VM, tell them your gripes and what you want from them otherwise you will leave, if they can't help then give them notice which is usually a month, use this time look for an ADSL provider, BE offer a good fast service if you live close to your BT exchange, or try this link Broadband Providers Comparison for UK ADSL, Cable and Satellite it may get removed by a mod and would be unfortunate if it did as it only provides information on which providers provide service from your local exchange. VM to be honest are turning out to be a bad lot just lately, i'm seeing how things pan out over the coming months before I put them on notice.

[crem]

I spoke to the Sky sales desk in our local shopping centre today. According o her computer search on my landline capability, the max I would get out of their "up to 8MB" service would be 3MB. As I am on 20MB cable at the moment that would be taking the phrase "cutting your nose to spite your face" to a whole new level!

She said this limit would affect the other adsl suppliers too as it is my BT landline that is the problem (sounded plausible but if anyone wants to disagree with her feel free.)

What other options can I look at to dump VM please?

[gni03349]

Im sure you've heard of 24Mb ADSL, but how many people actually get close to that. It's down to how far you live from the exchange. Cable doesn't suffer so much from that problem as it has more bandwidth to play with from the start.

Based on what the Sky sales desk told you, you would be hard pushed to get anywhere near what you get now, even if you decided to go for 24Mb ADSL (assuming its available where you are, without paying the earth to get it). You are getting 37.5% of the "up to" speed on an 8Mb line, so using those figures, you would only get 9Mb/sec.

[sweetnsexyenglish]

:oWell Well Well:o what a rowdy lot Ok I am the freak for computers and technology so here is my input. Please don't crucify me

Originally Posted by crem

had the final straw with Virgin Media today when I got my latest bill. I've been with NTL Cable for years now but a couple of months ago they started moving the billing system over to VM invoicing.

I historically was paying £29/m for the 20MG/768K service but on the first VM bill I was charged £36.20 (weird figure I thought!) It turns out that my "£29" charge was arrived at by having a £37 charge discounted by £8.00 On this first bill someone inadvertently only gave me an 80p credit instead of £8.00. Fair enough I said, just put the missing credit on my next bill and we'll move on.

Next bill came and it did have the missing credit put on (great! ) but they now charged me £5.00 for not having a DD set up. I rang them again and said it wasn't my fault that VM didn't have a DD authority because they didn't ask me to sign a new one when they moved NTL account (which was on DD) into VM Again they agreed to credit the £5.00 back and set up an new DD

Now today, third month, I have received a bill for the full £37 charge. When queried they said my discount was for a limited period only and was now finished (First I bloody well heard of that!) I said I had been offered no such limited period and I wanted my credit back. She said she couldn't but would offer me a new discount from next month of £7 off for 6 months only.


Hence, fed up with the crap service and response from VM and want to find someone to replace them but with an equally fast down/up speed. I hear too many bad reports of how so many isp's are limiting downloads and throttling p2p connections (yes I use them) that I am nervous of who to consider though.

Any advise/ recommendations please?

As already said by gni03349 My first thing to you would be COMPLAIN COMPLAIN COMPLAIN....I too am with VM I call them Telewest and they are always quick to say they are not but at the end of the day all they have done is changed their name the game is still the same.

But for every cock up I have complained and had discount after discount and the reason why I stay....like the OP(hey what does that mean anyway...)I download a lot I want NO restrictions on my download amount and I want speed. Sky can not meet this, so if you have loved your freedom of use even though VW are crap unbelievable so....two bills back they over charged me and I realised the following month when I was in credit yep they mess up and I am not excusing them but I let them know about it with an ear full.

If you genuinely ain't up for the fight you have to give notice, my advice to you would be put in a complaint via internet and stick it in the post then call the number for disconnecting as you have to give notice, as they did with me, just before my time reached to disconnect I had a manager call me with an offer that was for half price for 6mths, sounded good to me so I took it....if you don't like your offer leave at the end of your notice.

I can not recommend who to take in place of them as speed and unlimited downloads has been my deciding factor.

Originally Posted by captain_walker

VM is going down. Get off now. Forget promises and fancy stuff in the post. Leave it mate.

For Broadband I went to BeThere These people are straight. All their terms an conditions are conspicuous. I now love my Broadband from them!! And when they begin to mess around I'll give them 3 months notice and leave without additional charge - or pay £40 and be rid of them in 10 days.

For llandline phone, I've stuck with the old BT and hooked that up to uvtc.com

However I've been motivating all my friends and family in the UK and abroad to get onto Skype (Skype official website - download Skype free now for free calls and internet calls).

My 3G mobilephone has skype and I'm chatting (by voice and skypchat) with people all over the world (and in the UK) for a fee of £15/month including VAT. With a Three Skype enabled phone (paymonthly) you get some 5000 minutes of skype talk/chat included in the price. Very difficult to exhaust that. I'm not saying that Skype is a perfect solution - at all. I'm saying it is part of the toolkit to reduce cost. And you can get Skype on your home handsets too.

No disrespect to you on your keen admiration for skype but I have skype and dont use it, I have a nokia N95 it links to any AVAILABLE WIRELESS NETWORK and with the free software I updated to my phone I too have VoIP for free and can make calls to any land line and the person does not have to have it in order to get my calls. I can link anywhere as the N95 connects to any free to use or unsecured/secured network.

[locutus]

OP = Original Poster... Generally used when people have been hijacking a thread

Other technology is either really expensive (search for satalite broadband and you'll see what I'm talking about!!!) or not as fast as cable (as this is fibre optic, essentially sending data at the speed of light) the sky rep you spoke to seems to have it spot on really. This really is a case of "Rip off Britain" when you think of the people in Korea that have been complaining about their 100 meg connections! (the complaint is that very few websites can send info that fast tho LOL)

As has been said before, complain to VM. How I do this personally is ask the questions that lead them to belive you are looking into leaving seriously... 1st one is normally "Can you put me thrugh to the disconnections department?" they will then pass you to the retentions department who have access to all the great deals. Other questions to ask these guys to make them take you seriously, things like "When I go, how long can I access my email addresses?" and "How much notice to I need to give to cancel without incurring any penelty?"

[gni03349]

Originally Posted by sweetnsexyenglish

:oWell Well Well:o

What are you doing here... bored of your own problems?? lol

[sweetnsexyenglish]

Originally Posted by locutus

OP = Original Poster... Generally used when people have been hijacking a thread

Thank you sweetie lol so obvious I should have guessed lol

Originally Posted by gni03349

What are you doing here... bored of your own problems?? lol

Helps to take my mind off my own problems its a bad habit of mine

[crem]

OK, looks like it is the complaints letter route then I guess.

It is so annoying that they pretty much own a monopoly when it comes to fast BB which leaves the consumer with no choice. What happened to having decent competition in this area so that customers could make an informed choice based on package AND SERVICE that the provide should offer?

[gni03349]

When the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) system catches up and is widely accepted and reliable, things "might" change. BT are relying on technology (ie. two copper wires) that is 100+ years old. Cabletel/NTL/VM laid the whole cable infrastructure very recently in comparison. Their technology was always miles ahead to start with, not least with the amount of available bandwidth, and hence, speed, as I said before. It's only the hardware in the exchanges, and the end user hardware that is restricting the speed to 20Mb at the moment. It could theoretically go much faster (and faster trials are taking/have taken place).

It wasn't so long ago that BT had their monopoly, and now look whats happened.

[crem]

Originally Posted by gni03349

When the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) system catches up and is widely accepted and reliable, things "might" change.

It wasn't so long ago that BT had their monopoly, and now look whats happened.

But I'm getting old now gni, not sure if I can wait for good old BT to catch up to give me the benefit.

[gni03349]

WE talkin technologeeeeeeeeee here Crem.. blink and you'll miss some of it. I already did (I'm a very slow blinker... probably due to age.. like you)

[Conniff]

Originally Posted by gni03349

When the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) system catches up and is widely accepted and reliable, things "might" change. BT are relying on technology (ie. two copper wires) that is 100+ years old. Cabletel/NTL/VM laid the whole cable infrastructure very recently in comparison. Their technology was always miles ahead to start with, not least with the amount of available bandwidth, and hence, speed, as I said before. It's only the hardware in the exchanges, and the end user hardware that is restricting the speed to 20Mb at the moment. It could theoretically go much faster (and faster trials are taking/have taken place).

It wasn't so long ago that BT had their monopoly, and now look whats happened.

VM have 50Mb trials going on at this moment in the South East and plan to roll it out to all later this year.
Phone lines will never be able to compete with that.

[gni03349]

What modem are you using for that Conniff? (I knew it was happening somewhere, just didn't know where...)

[Conniff]

I'm in the Southwest gni so not on 50 yet. I am on 20 using Motorola SB4200. Will need a new modem when it gets here.
They have promised that the roll out will be this year.

[sweetnsexyenglish]

But we all no when VM bring out the 50 they will be over charging for it as no one else has it...there is no real competition out there for them, which is the saddest part for us as customers so VM will continue with there cock ups and I'll just have to continue complaining.