EDITOR'S COMMENT: Sort out broadband and give a full refund

“This Editor's comment is extremely unhelpful. This is a technical subject, and no amount of misguided analogies will help simplify it. The service is sold as an "up to" service, ie you may get speeds of up to X. This is because the movement of data through a network is quite hard to predict due to there being so many links in the chain. Dont get me wrong, I am in BS7 and am livid at Virgin Media for their handling of this situation. I also started the 27 page thread on their community forums, so am not afraid to voice my vitriol.

However making sweeping statements about coats with one arm is completely pointless, and more is expected from someone in position of editor. I was with you all the way until that point.

At the end of the day, most broadband users are now aware of factors that affect their download speeds/quality - distance from the exchange, quality of cabling, congestion from other users, etc. All Virgin had to do here was be remotely transparent about the problems they are having, and in admitting them, allow people to decide to leave or not. Instead they have customers stuck with them who now hate their guts and will leave as soon as they are able.

It comes down to quite a simple thing really - putting customer service on an equal footing with profit-chasing. As many have commented, they are VERY visible and prolific when it comes to their marketing, but as good as invisible when it comes to providing useful and truthful information to their customers when a problem happens. People have been outright lied to, and that can never be justifiable.”

“There used to be a lot of discussion about this over at digitalspy.co.uk esp. back in the days of NTL/Telewest. Sadly, it's often the case that you have to threaten to leave them before anything actually gets done, otherwise you get a fob-off answer like the above.

A while ago my broadband speeds had dropped to around 2 mbps at peak times, checked using speedguide.net, so slow that (for example) most YouTube videos were unwatchable. I phoned tech support, and someone (presumably) in India confirmed my slow speeds - but then told me if I wanted a faster connection I would need to upgrade! He wouldn't even admit it was a problem or capacity issue. I then sent in a complaint, saying that this was unacceptable and if it could not be resolved within 2 weeks I would be cancelling my contract. A few days after this, I FINALLY got a call from someone more senior (not in India) who was all too happy to admit there was indeed a problem, and a new router was sent out free of charge. As soon as I plugged in the new equipment, my speeds (according to speedguide.net again) were exactly where they should have been.

The solution was so simple, and they were obviously aware of the problem before, that I suspect customers are being deliberately misled. If you complain and accept their BS explanation, they gain by only having to provide you with a VERY bandwidth-throttled service, saving capacity for other customers. Only if you threaten to leave will you get what you pay for. I believe 3 (the mobile network) do something very similar by limiting their 2G coverage to keep costs down - only if you complain about bad signal strength and threaten to leave will you get your 2G service restored.”

“Or even "journalists"...”

“@Lone_Ranger

"Obviously written by someone who knows nothing about the subject he/she is commenting on. Nodes are called nodes because that is what they are called. Would you describe a pencil or a road as "so-called"?"

H'mm. Don't forget the the Post is produced by so-called "jpurnalists"...”

“If they are over-subscribed, why do I keep getting unwanted junk-mail from them after telling them twice I'm not interested? Wouldn't deal with them ever”

“@tomcribb

"Lots of cancellations of contracts I predict."

Have you ever tried to cancel a contract with Virgin?”

“brisbob - agreed, Virgin need to rememdy the situation or recompense their customers. My point was about the uneducated comments from the (BE)P on the suject. You'd expect at least a little research and an indepth comment rather than "something must be done".”

“Should have said south glous”

“In south gloss it's fine”

“Lone Ranger - it's not about knowing your nodes from your packet loss, if you sell something that doesn't do the job it's been sold to do then you're a con-merchant. You can't just hide behind the "well it's too complicated for you to understand" excuse.

I fully sympathise with the probably poorly paid technical people who've been landed this mess and wish them all the luck in fixing it. Whilst they are doing it though, the very large multi-national that we pay a considerable amount of money to each month need to realise that if they are a tech company then they need to invest more in tech and less in leaflets and sprinter endorsements. And if they want any customers left next year in BS6 they also need to start compensating.”