Virgin Media Broadband Problems
February 9th, 2008 at 11:40 pm by Tim
For the past week or so, I’ve been experiencing slow Virgin broadband performance. That is, I’m on Virgin Media’s XL Cable Broadband package (20Mb), but I’m getting speeds that are worse than the old days of dialup. I’ve tried everything I can think of (restarting different components, changing computers, etc.) but to no avail. I reached the point where I was sure it wasn’t anything on my side, but it was either - one, the external line was faulty, or two – the modem they provided was starting to die.
I was getting more and more frustrated and finally decided to call their broadband support line.
All phone lines 0906 212 1111*
*Calls are charged at 25p per minute. There is a 10p connection fee from Virgin Media landlines. Charges from mobiles and other networks may vary.
Wow, support doesn’t come cheap anymore does it?
Now when it comes to computers, I would like to think I know what’s going on. And with that in mind, I really don’t need someone from technical support explaining to me that I might have spyware installed on my computer (actually rephrase that, I can’t afford to be told that at 25p/minute!). So after several minutes patiently listening to the guy explain what spyware was, I asked he stop insisting it was something on my end, and check Virgin Media’s end. Namely, if there was anything wrong with the local switch and so on. “No” was the response.
During this whole conversation, I was pinging the trusty google.co.uk.
C:\Users\Tim>ping google.co.uk
Pinging google.co.uk [216.239.59.104] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=1854ms TTL=241
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=1890ms TTL=241
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=1885ms TTL=241
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=1714ms TTL=241
Ping statistics for 216.239.59.104:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1714ms, Maximum = 1890ms, Average = 1835ms
So wait, there’s absolutely nothing wrong on either end? That can’t be right, look at my average ping times! So I requested another check. And the man returned with “oh there’s no problem I haven’t done anything”. What? You haven’t done anything? Before I could question what I meant, he kindly requested I wait another 24 hours before calling back. So I left it at that. Conversation ended. Now I couldn’t resist another ping.
C:\Users\Tim>ping google.co.uk
Pinging google.co.uk [216.239.59.104] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=241
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=36ms TTL=241
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=38ms TTL=241
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=241
Ping statistics for 216.239.59.104:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 34ms, Maximum = 39ms, Average = 36ms
Hang on, you’ve got to be kidding me! Within the 10 minutes the telephone conversation lasted, nothing was touched yet my connection improved by 51x? What’s going on?! Has anyone else experienced anything fishy going on with Virgin Media? Slow broadband that (for no reason) speeds up after calling technical support by any chance?
2 Responses to “Virgin Media Broadband Problems”
By Hermes on Feb 10, 2008 9:04 am | Reply
Sounds like a coincidence
By Matt on Feb 10, 2008 11:41 pm | Reply
I have had a varied service from Virgin Media. Slightly less than half the time my hardware has been at fault, and time Virgin Media have been the ones at fault.
Most of the time I just cut to the chase with the Tech people, and tell them my computer literacy, just to try and speed things up - this helps.
Another thing to remember is that if the problem is found to be something with the Virgin Media service and there isn’t a problem with your hardware/software, then they will reimberse you the money spent for the phone call.
My advice to any customer experiece difficulty with any internet serivce, Cable or ADSL, Virgin Media or [other ISP]:
1. Restart the equipment. (The modem, the router, the pc, the network switches)
2. Try a different PC
3. Try a more direct connection. i.e. plug straight into the router if you can, rather than going through switches
4. If you are with Virgin Media, plug directly into the cable modem. If you have having speed problems here, the problem 99% of the time lies with Virgin.
Hope this helps…