Want to dump VM. Where can I go?

[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?

[old_andrew2007]

give them the required notice, then look to bt/sky but wait for thecall from VM with a better deal they always do

Andy

[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.

[gni03349]

VM... cable I take it? VM is the only cable provider. I would call them and ask them what you need to do to cancel the agreement. Their ears would prick up, and then you can negotiate a reduced price... no ISP likes anybody leaving, so you should end up with a satisfactory deal. However, if you are still in the 12 month period of the deal, you would have to pay cancellation charges etc.

If you really want to leave you would have to get a BT line first of all (at a rip-off price!!), and then decide on your ISP. I would take a look at the Consumer Reviews section of this site to see who recommends what, but the choice is ultimately yours.

Cap-Walker... why are you talking about Skype when the original thread was about broadband.. please keep to the topic.

[djgordyp]

The problem with skype is that you still need a home phone as a lot of people don't have skype yet. Also if you have unlimited anytime calls and a computer with windows live or some other messanger software then why pay for a second service?. I am with Talktalk and pay £30 p/m. This gets me free landline to landline calls 24/7, free calls to 28 countries (with access code) and unlimited broadband. Unfortunatly we can't get free broadband here in Northern Ireland. So in the rest of the UK the cost would only be £20 p/m.
Never had a problem with Talktalk. In fact, for agreeing to sign up for another 18 months they gave me a £5 discount for six months and 1000 nectar points (in place of free dvd rental).

I also have my mobile contract with Carphone Warehouse (same company). I rang them up when my previous contract ran out (£25 p/m) and told them I wanted to go PAYG. Because I had been with them for 4 years they credit my account with £180 on a 12 month contract.

[captain_walker]

The importance of skype will not be realised by those who cannot think outside the box. BB is simply a conduit for voice, video and other communication technologies.

Most people who know anything about technology will know that traditional landlines are on their way out. And feel free to debate that - because traditional Brits love their landlines.

What really matters is the integrity of your BB connection, which for good service providers, is currently capable of carrying voice and video with great efficiency - in many cases better than landlines. So for those who require telephony services those can be carried via broadband using Skype services.

Eventually much TV programming will come via the internet. We saw that with JumpTV and there are other similar services out there. BB services are not just about 'da intanet' (aka 'the internet').

In other words start thinking to the future. Start moving voice services onto BB and skype is simply a tool that will help with all this. It does underline the issue really, that the integrity of your BB provider will become extremely important. I'm afraid I cannot explain this further. Those who think I've simply veered off-topic are sadly the people who will continue to prop up poor service providers and the culture of 'Rip-off Britian'.

Oh and Skype via 3g can come as a home service too. In a few months we'll be getting 7.2 Mbps which can be totally portable between home and office i.e. BB that moves between home, office, the trains, the road.

I declare absolutely that I have no affiliation to Skype, any mobile provider or service or any bb service. I do not work in the IT industry. I'm simply amused by the degree of techno-illiteracy that allows British industry to continue ripping-off people.

The original poster asked for "any advice/ recommedations please" - so was happy to give mine. I therefore thought about the uses of BB rather than BB in itself, in providing my opinions.

[djgordyp]

I take your point about skype but if you have a computer a headset and/or a webcam don't you alrwady have all you need. I have used skype in the past but could not see any benefit over using the likes of windows live or yahoo messanger escpecially when you have to pay to call a landline from skype. Admittedly I never used skype with a handset. I suppose it's a case of whatever you feel comfortable with and what deal you can get.
I take it you use skype? Apart from being available via handsets. what does it offer that other messanger services don't?

[captain_walker]

"The problem with skype is that you still need a home phone as a lot of people don't have skype yet."

The amazing point is of course that I have skype and it's working - as I explained - on that which is not on a home phone.

But I do emphasise - ad nauseum - that my mention of skype was only as a tool to be used on BB services to cut past the monopoly of landline providers.

In all of this BB plus Vonage is also a reasonable alternative for some.

[captain_walker]

Originally Posted by djgordyp

..I take it you use skype? Apart from being available via handsets. what does it offer that other messanger services don't?

Yes I do - I thought I said so. I probably wasn't clear enough. I've also used regularly MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Gizmo.

Recently my wife is in Europe and we've found skype to be the best. We're saving tons on calls over what we might spend if we had to call each other. Because we all have Skypephones she can contact the three of us for 'free' over here. Yesterday for example we were on the way down from Sheffield - my daughter is in the car chatting to mom in Amsterdam on skype for 'free' - with no care in the world about cost or time. How cool is that? Very! That's some of the stuff you can do as well with mobile BB.

All I can say is that Skype started out as a voice/video telephony service and they have evolved amazingly. Our family finds that it is the best for carrying voice and video of the other messengers. We couldn't live without good BB service and Skype. We're regularly in contact with people in Africa, New Zealand and Japan for example by voice and video.

I could use 0844calls.co.uk for some cheap calls to NZ however, I've found that using skype via BB gives really excellent voice quality. My mate from Japan said that he thought I was in the room with him.

So what ever customers do, ensure that your BB provider is literally up to 'speed'. I would also say that it is worth going for true unlimited packages if you're going to do a lot of voice and video anything via BB.

Also look at the Vonage option (I have no experience with them) but they can give you landline simulation via your BB - at a rate roughly similar capped landline rates charged by UVTC.

[gni03349]

The whole problem in the first place was about BROADBAND!! Once the OP has BROADBAND then they can do what they like.

You assumed he wanted it to chat and nothing else, with your rant about Skype, and hijacked the thread.

If you want to talk about Skype, make your own thread about it, or else keep ON topic here.. thank you!

[captain_walker]

Broadband is about the use he might put to Broadband. He said "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?"

The limiting of downloads is an issue relevant to the uses he might put broadband to. In reality 'downloads' means bandwidth limitiations. You may have noticed that at now point did crem notify any of us what use he might put his BB to i.e. things that might contribute to 'download' limit.

I responded in a way that might make him and others think more broadly about the issue. BB is no longer separate from telephony, video, TV, music etc etc.

What's happened at VM from my personal experience is that they do some kind of amazing discounting that locks the customer into a package. The discounts are tied into the various services and the customer is 'trapped' for the next year of the discounts (only to get out by paying a 'surcharge' of some kind).

My 'advice' asked for by the original post was to assist in disentangling not just him but others from this very sneaky (but legal) manouevre that VM does. In total know what you use your BB bandwith for, what eats up the most bandwidth - and don't think of telephony or TV as distinct from BB. You can have it all through good quality BB.

Think outside the box and beware of those who try to fit you back into the box. There are many out here who have undisclosed or covert allegiances to various companies. I have no allegiance to any one or anything other than a good deal and good customer service.

[djgordyp]

Admittedly we have been getting slightly off topic here but my initial post was meant mainly as a recommendation based on my own experience.

[gni03349]

The OP was merely asking about other BROADBAND suppliers.. nothing to do with what to use it for.. all you did was rant on about Skype, and ASSUMED the use it would be put to!!!

You have given your views on VM too, which the OP wants to leave, so that doesn't help either!

As for your response, you mentioned to think more broadly about it... and yet only mentioned Skype, so...

Nothing to do with thinking outside of the box!

None of this helping the OP at all really is it?

[captain_walker]

"As for your response, you mentioned to think more broadly about it... and yet only mentioned Skype, so.."

This must mean that Vonage is Skype - surely.

You seem to have a gripe mate. Just call in the mods and have my posts removed. I'm used to it. This one especially will be removed - and I'll probably be banned. Do I care. Score your point. You need it. The forum is for all who read it and wish to be informed. The likes of you seem obsessed with putting things into boxes. Good for you and Rip-off Britain.

Your strategy will work - you seek to effect removal of these posts by goading me to respond so as to attract the mods. It's a well known trick. Printout of thread kept - just in case.

[djgordyp]

Captain Walker what are you on. gni03349 is merely pointing out that this thread is about choosing a different service provider yet you seem insistant on bringing the chat back to voip which is a completely different thing. Without a service provider you can't even consider using skype, vonage, voipcheap or whoever your favourite may be.
You have every right to rave on about skype if you so wish so wny not start your own thread in the review section.
Right, lets see now if we can help crem decide which service to go for.
I have to admit I am as guilty as captain walker for getting caught up in the discussion on voip.

[Rooster-UK]

Now then, Gentlemen (and Ladies).
Petty squabbling and insults are hardly going to assist the OP in solving this problem, are they.
Instead of argueing about what the OP means, if you are unclear, ASK the OP to be more specific. After all, you can not supply a valid answer to a question you don't understand.

These forums are here to allow us all to help each other. Not as vehicle for sniping and back-biting.

Be warned. My pruning knife is very sharp and works in more than one direction. Please don't make me use it.

Regards, Rooster.

[captain_walker]

The original post stated - and I repeat - "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?"

Those who need equally fast down/up speed need to consider how voip will perform in selecting a provider. I happened upon Skype because it is one of the most common voip. In addition I considered the OP's post in the totality of what BB might be used for - taking into consideration that there was concern about limiting of downloads and throttling of p2p connections (of which many voip systems operate).

I also considered VM's packages which are arranged in a particular way to make it difficult for customers to leave. I compared VM against BeThere. For the poster's benefit and the benefit of others in similar positions.

I have declared that I have no interest whatsoever in any particular service or feature - something that no other respondents thus far has been able to do.

I am not insistent on bringing back this forum to voip - in the slightest. I am writing for the benefit of the OP's post and those who may have similar interests. The use of BB bandwith is and inseparable issue and the OP post made no mention or restiction on what the concern was about. I was therefore free to consider all uses of BB that might impact on BB bandwidth.

I considered voip purely as a method of avoiding the trap of having to purchase landline telephone services as part of a package - be it VM, BT or any other service provider. I also rightly considered alternatives to fixed-line BB - by making mention of mobile BB.

It is clear that some choose to keep an usual focus on voip by some where I intend none. There is an evident plot to have my posts appear belligerent to the moderator and to effect removal.

What remains is that my posts are objectively informative to anyone who needs good BB services and it adds balance, consideration and options for the uses of BB, and strategies to avoid discounting traps created by some providers. I'm aware of the risk that the moderator(s) will find against me or bring the forum thread to a close - and my posts will be removed - thereby effecting the patent ulterior motive of the rather loud illogical and narrow-focused majority.

Whilst traditional telephony services (via landlines) have until about 10 years ago been largely limited to carrying mainly voice, BB is about total data, media and information transfer. A BB service is not merely about download speed - it is also about integrity of service and good customer service.