3 weeks to finally get a BT engineer to come out due to connection dropping 10 times an evening. When you do get online there website is down
Will the switch to Talk Talk be any better?

I would recommend Talk Talk,Fish.
I used to be with virgin media and was not happy with them.

Sorry to hear about Virgin Media.

I'm with Sky and when my broadband went down they had it fixed within 48hrs and refunded me the days for lost connection.

Also offered me Sky movies free for a month when my phone line went down on several occasions.

Good luck.

I have been with TalkTalk for over 10 years and not had a problem at all. Touch Wood.

Why would you have a BT engineer for Virgin Media coming out.
Virgin Media use there own lines for telephone the last time i checked ??

The Switch
If your on Virgin they use there cables to get you on the internet via the Cab at the bottom of your street in most cases.

BT
Typically use the telephone cables that go from your house to the pole in the street.

So if your on virgin and use there cable to the box switching to a Telephone line up the pole may give you better results.

Note : Reactivation of a BT line can be very expensive, do your home work before you say goodbye to virgin.

Left talk talk years ago
Wasting life trying to get a human on phone.
Plusnet no better even uk based doesnt mean nowt
Fluctuating line quality

I've found Virgin Media to be very good. I have had a problem recently with wi-fi. We have several devices using this which from time to time fail to communicate. Resetting the wi-fi connections on the items restored communications - for a while.

I rang virgin and they sent a chappie round a couple of days later. He established that the incoming signal was too high, and inserted a 10dB attenuator in the connector to the router, and replaced some filter components in the incoming wall unit. He left, leaving a card with his number on it, explaining that if I had any problem I could ring him direct - quicker than going through the company.

It seems to have solved the problem. I am on a 100MB connection and although sometimes at busy periods it drops to 80, it is quite often around 110MB or more. I have not found waiting to talk to someone being a problem.

It is worth, by the way, asking them to reduce the cost if you've been with them for some time. They have a 'loyalty' scheme which allows them to cut the cost significantly, but you have to ask for it. I found it worth haggling even when this is offered. I got a bit more off, and they upgraded my speed at no extra cost when I asked them for even more!

I've been with Virgin for many years, back when they were Telewest, and before that C&W.

Despite the occasional brief outage and unsuitable router for my home I've found the service to be great.

I joined them when they were NTL.

Yes, I too have had brief outages, but these have generally occurred when they are upgrading the network and you get some warning if you look at their 'Service status' page.

They are expensive I think, even with discounts. But they are fast and in my case anyway the customer support has been good. I guess you get what you pay for, to some extent anyway.

Cable hasn't arrived in Irby so its internet down the telephone wire. Didn't realise that virgin is split into Virgin Cable and Virgin National (or something like that) They are dumping the Virgin National side onto Talk Talk. Virgin eventually request a BT engineer to call out after you have done a load of tests and left the router in the BT test socket inside your BT box for 24 hours. BT have been and said it is a faulty router (which I told Virgin because the exact same thing happened 2 years ago and they sent out a new Netgear router and things were fine. Will have to see if BT are correct

I sympathise with you fish5133. It is too easy when you are dependent on two companies for them to blame each other, but I think it is the people you pay your money to who are ultimately responsible.

Have you asked for compensation for poor service?

I think it is disgraceful that companies who provide internet over phone lines are able to get away with the 'up to' scam.You pay for what is advertised as 'up to' 20MB, say, and find that due to line length you only get 2MB. You should really only be charged 10% of the full fee in my opinion, but they have the cheek to charge the full amount!

I was with talk talk and I found them to be really bad. The connection speeds were really bad. I couldn't even play online games on some days because of constant disconnects etc . I switched to virgin media and all my issues disappeared. Everyone I know who has been with talk talk has left them.

Cheers guys. From all the replies it seems a bit hit and miss as to the quality of the service irrespective of ISP. Did a speed check for the area a while back and there wasn't one above 6mb which suggests a local problem at that time.
Just checked my download speed --a miserly 0.61 mbs and upload 0.06 mbs

I've been with Virgin for years & the couple of times I've had a problem it has been sorted out quickly. On top of that no one can beat the 152 megs download speed.

I too have been with them for years (26) but can't come anywhere near those results. Over the last 6mths it has varied between 10.01mbps and 57.7mbps depending on time of day and wind direction! Although not majorly happy I can't find an alternative taking into account the costs of installing phone lines etc. So for me its a case of better the devil you know.

Must be because its not cable broadband but telephone wire broadband

If you are getting your internet over the phone lines, the speed you get is fixed by the quality of your line to your house. In general the longer it is the lower the speed.

Individual companies have access to the BT exchange, and install their own equipment there. It is pretty similar for all of them though and works the same way.

Individual companies may be more prepared to 'tweak' their kit to give you a faster service, but it is your line that really fixes the speed.

None of this applies to cable. You can expect full speed.

That said, all networks, however, tend to slow down at peak times when everyone is using it. Also, if you are using your network to down load tons of HD movies or other large files, you will be 'throttled back' by your ISP to stop you hogging the available bandwidth at peak times.

Distance from your home to the Exchange is always the main factor.
Quality of the line can also be a factor when things used to be ok and something has changed.
If you have BT Fiber then its to the Cab at the end of the road.

Your internet will always be as slow as the slowest connection.

* Note when performing Speed Tests you should trust in a Wired connection for an accurate result. Wifi speed tests can quickly telly you if everything is working but a true speed test is via a cable to your router.

Equipment can fail as you have mentioned.

Your right Excoriator and Mark. Last time it happened about 2 years ago the BT engineer said he tweaked some kit back at the exchange and it was much better---for a while.

My lad is suggesting using a mobile phone to get satellite internet and then use that as a router or something like that . Not sure if that would improve things or if it would work

The main thing to give problems is the cable I think. It is not well maintained, and the many of the connections are subject to damp and corrode.

Years ago, BT experimented with copper clad steel wires from the pole to your handset. These were much cheaper and worked fine until, inevitably with two dissimilar metals, corrosion started happening. We were with BT at the time and noticed a high level of hissing and crackling on the line as well as poor internet performance. I complained and linesman came out and replaced ALL the wiring from the pole to the phone socket. That improved thing significantly.

What the rest of the cable to the exchange is like I have no idea, but there are probably quite a few other points at which corrosion can occur.

I can't advise on your idea of using a mobile phone. It may well be better than ADSL, but won't it prove expensive? You can get 4G internet dongles too, but I think they are relatively slow (21 MB comes to mind) and have quite low data limits.

It may be worth your while writing to Virgin to ask them to consider spending some of the £3 billion they are spending to extend their network, on extending it as far as where you live. Cable is much better, and they can only say no! Its not a crime to ask.

text yesterday from VM asking me to ring them as they need more information to fix it. Finally got through after going through press option 2 etc etc etc. Was put on hold while he found another person to speak to who said its been fixed but monitor it again over the next 24hours. Mentioned BT engineer said problem was with router but they said router is fine if its got green lights.
checked speeds several times again and cant get above 1mbs. Getting the feeling they are just taking the p before they finally pass it over to Talk Talk. Which was due to be 8th March but now put back.
Off to cancel my direct debit with them and see how fast they act.

When you call them they have an optional number to press if you're thinking of leaving them. It may be worth trying that?

I'm confused as to who you actually get your service from fish as you mention VM, BT & Talk Talk.
Have you had an engineer call out and talk through the issues on site? When you phone up you don't usually speak to someone truly technical to start with (there are individual exceptions). Front line operators are trained to talk you through common faults which they are directed to do so from a screen led system.

anyone that doesn't use Virgin Media .. connects through a BT line as far as to the exchange ... i guess that its the outdated BT line that keeps dropping your connection .. .. changing to talk talk etc .. still use that line ,, virgin go straight out from your home , bypassing any exchange

Am with Virgin Media National but they have sold that bit to Talk Talk and I become a Talk Talk customer. The telephone lines still belong to BT. Bit like Virgin Rail and Railtrack. Different companies own different bits of the network.

Last 2 days download speed not got above 0.9. Apparently now it is the router and a new one on its way. Cancelled direct debit but just missed out on last bill being paid. Will wait to see what happens then complain and see if i can get some reimbursement on the line rental at least--they make enough out of me on call charges .

Thanks for that Fish, its a service I had never heard of. When I first got cable it was called NTL prior to being taken over by VM and they didn't offer a service to non cabled areas at that time. You live and learn.

I was confused also as there used to be a distinctive separation between cable under the path (NTL / Virgin) but also to reach more subscribers it looks like Virgin have been pretty smart about this Virgin National.

Read about Virgin Media National Click Me

So now a Virgin Customer could be Dedicated Cable or Copper Wire to the door. So now I'm also educated WOW clever move Virgin media.

So your max speed via Virgin Media National could be as much as 20Mbps (There web page says).

* This would be if there was Fibre to the Box at the end of the street.

Dropping Connection :
Also considerer the environment for the problems.

Damp ground can cause problems with cables,
Cables from the pole passing through trees can cause problems too.

4G
you may get a good speed, but you will be capped at the amount of bandwidth you can use. Your Son is thinking about "Tethering" not all phone providers support this.

You can buy a dedicated 4G dongle to hang on your wall at about £30 a month, but if you have netflix or similar you will be lucky to watch a movie or two before you have exceeded your limits.

As frustrating as the situation is, via your copper wire telephone line is going to give you the best Internet experience.

Dont Cancel your Direct Debit : They can still claim back the money as your still in contract. You should ring up and say you want to leave and say you have not had the service you expect and don't see why you should be paying in full for a service your not getting. If they still do not give you peace of mind, tell them you are now looking at moving to BT as they have a deal on at the moment.

Your Own Tests :

[youtube]29r1NnuD30Y[/youtube]

Try this Performing the Quiet Line Test : Click Me
The number listed is :

1. Once you have your telephone connected to the BT test socket dial 17070.
You will reach BT's line test facility.
Choose option 2 from the menu presented - "Quiet Line Test".
If your telephone has the option, put it on mute.
You should hear nothing through the handset.

Hope that helps. . .

Yes Virgin Media do piggy back BT,for non cabled areas, I got offered this when I first moved in. parts of new Brighton is like this, a Virgin engineer said are road In particular cant have cable TV because of the tunnels around new Brighton, somethink to do with how deep they have to put the cable in to the ground

New router arrived and duly connected with Ethernet cable. First speed check the dial hit 1.0mbps. Ooh looking hopefuly. Blurb says "it takes a few hours to get up to maximum speed and may fluctuate over the next 10 days , but after that you will always receive the fastest speed we can deliver down your phone line.."

Tested 6 hours later 0.9 then 0.6 uhm! we will see.

Sounds good Fish, a mate of mine just outside Ipswich never gets over 0.5mbps. I never new he was on VM National till talking to him about your situation. So you are not alone.

Now we understand that your virgin broadband is over copper wire via BT.

What does Virgin say the speeds you can expect?

When I've changed providers they have always committed to a min download and upload speed.

If they have given you that information you have a ball park number to expect to go past.

Oh well the saga continues--not even sure I am with VM or Talk Talk now. Presume its still VM as that's who they say they are when they ring from some distant call centre.

Well we had an engineer - a young girl who said I was router
New router worked for a bit then same problem
A proper Broadband BT engineer came next slagging off the young BT girl engineer. He fiddled around with the BT box refitting some extension wires and low and behold it was working fine getting 7mbps but then started dropping connection again.grr

Agh! Fine weather.. noticed during the warm still weather it was behaving itself ---full speed around 7mbps and not disconnecting all the time.

Wind and rain again last few days and back to 1.5 mbps but at least its not repeatedly dropping the connection .

This suggests to me the fault is in the BT line above ground where getting blown around in the wind or affected by water ingress?

Today is reasonably still and not raining. Speed test and back at 7mbps. . we shall see

When ever a new router is installed allow 7 - 14 days for it to fine tune its self. Its the initialisation period that happens with all ISP dial up routers. I swap mine out for a decent Router and its been the same each time I've called up and queried the line speed and drop lines as it settles in. After that I find its a decent speed and pretty solid connection.

Its good you have also noticed a speed drop in wet / windy weather, keep a log of weather and speed, as your argument could be your not getting the service your promised as they will offer you a min line speed upon sign up.

Your not alone I know a few homes that suffer with 1.5mb which is stone age in today's world.

One final thought, are you connecting to the master socket or slave socket, I presume the master as you have had a couple of engineers on site.

Watch the weather forecast and ring them up ahead of the bad weather to perform line tests.

You will probably find the problem is underground cables being / getting wet and its a job Bt don't want to take on. Your only hope may be true Cable connection to your home.

The upside summer is coming and the underground cables will be dryer and a better speed more often than not.

My thoughts.