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Hello peeps

I am wondering if there are any tech peeps on here that can help with a broadband issue that is crippling my business.

Until about 2 months ago I had BT Yahoo 2meg connection that I was very happy with. As they are very expensive we decided to swap providers to Virgin 8meg service. About 5-7 days before the line was swapped our download speeds really started slowing down, but we knew that we were upgrading so we didn't report it.

Since we have installed Virgin the internet has been somewhat unusable on some occasions. Firstly I had to spend an hour on the phone with the Router people and install the latest firmware. Then once connected it was slow as anything.

I had to wait 10 days before I could report a fault, once 10 days was up reported it straight away. They said there was not a fault and that my line can only handle a 2 meg connection.

I have done a BT search on my postcode and it shows I can get a 6.5 - 7meg connection. I have done every thing they have asked and spend hours on the phone to tech support costing me a fortune.

I have just done a speed test and the results are 72k/bits. This is at nearly 9pm at night on an 8meg line. It is so slow I can't watch videos on YouTube without having to load the page and pause the video for about 5 minutes.

As I run online businesses my poor broadband speeds are having a crippling effect. Virgin are no help at all and keep telling me to reset my router and come back in 14 days. I have disconnected all the wires and plugged in at the master socket so it creates a new profile, but as you may imagine I am getting a little frustrated and I don't have 14 days all the time to spare.

If anyone can help me out it would be much appreciated.

Please post on here or email me at info@mkprinting.co.uk

Thanks

Matt

Check your BRAS Profile at speedtester.bt.com

If it's low then Virgin need to pull their finger out.

Also check your SNR (Signal to Noise) Ratio with something like DMT Tools (this will also give you your actual line length). A low ratio will be unstable i.e. 6db or so, as will a high ratio.

Hello MK Printing ,

Well BT is maybe in the position to offer you a 6MB connection but maybe you are connecting with Virgin not to the nearest DSLAM or they are
in the rollout phase for higher speeds.

Cheers


Francis

if its your business line - you should get a business package

Virgin are on a 50:1 contention too!, no business should accept more than 20:1, but you pay the price for it.

Also you can ask BT to increase the gain on your line, which may help.

Also BT don't know their ass from their Elbow, they tell me 4mb, I download at 1.2-1.4MBps (11,400kpbs) on a regular basis.

Your distance from the nearest exchange that Virgin have hardware in, also affects it.

My advice, threaten to move for breach of contract, the product they are selling you, does not match the description, and berely usable for the reason it was sold, they either fix it, or you walk.

Virgin in the New AOL

Hi peeps

Thanks for the responses.

I use the home line along with others for the business. I am sorting out serviced offices at the moment so hopefully I will get a decent connection there anyway.

To give you an idea of the download speed I am getting, I can download a file at between 4-6k. My mobile phone is literally faster.

I am the most relaxed and calm person I know, but I have had to send a really nasty email to Virgin. I will also send an email to them once an hour until a manager calls me to resolve the issue.

Their online help system simply does not work. I have tried to log in over 25 times and it worked only once. Plus the person I spoke to was useless.

I am going to consult my solicitor about this as it is driving me mad. I tried to run a speed test, but it timed out! It is too slow to even do a speed test, that isn't good.

Night night all

Matt

I've been here before with my Broadband when i switched form BT to SKY. I already had 8MB but SKY offered 16MB for half the price so I changed over. I was sent a new router by SKY, has this happened with you? Ultimately BT still own and manage the exchanges we run from so nothing has happened there. The router had firmware that had been designed for SKY, it was rubbish as was the router provided. My download speed dropped below my upload speed which is so wrong and the router would freeze literally every 5 minutes. I'm tied in on a 12 month contract so I had to do some thing, are you? It seems there are a lot of problems out there with Virgin, read this
I resolved my issue by going back to my own router, I had to hack-out the usernme / password from the SKY one to connect to the SKY network but that was not a problem. Now I get a steady 15.3 MB download and 3MB upload which is great. I cannot get support from SKY anymore but that is no loss. Good luck with your problem, I reckon you will find a solution on broadband forums but you can check on your router by logging into the admin page what it thinks you are capable of downloading / uploading. The username and password for this HTTP page would have been provided when you bought it.

About a year ago i kept losing my connection and when i was connected it was very slow so i changed all the internal fittings including cables and filter but it didnt make any difference, in frustration i phoned BT and got through to their call centre in India i explained the problem to this women who said she would do a check on my line and would get back to me which she did only to tell me there was no fault on the line and that she could send a BT engineer out but it would cost me as the fault must be internal, at this point i just wanted to get it sorted so i arranged for the Engineer to come out within minutes of the Engineer being there he had established that the fault was external and replaced the cable to my house at no cost to myself and i have had no trouble since.

with home connections you have no sla. If it's a business line you need business support

I found the answer - Virgin are shite

Sorry it's not the one you were looking for.