Virgin Media kills 20Mb broadband service

[4me2]

Virgin Media kills 20Mb broadband service

New customers led through 30Mb door


Virgin Media is urging existing customers on its 20Mbit/s broadband service to splurge a one-off payment of £30 to upgrade to its 30Mbit/s offering, which launched today.
The company will no longer offer would-be punters the 20Mbit/s package, but existing customers do not have to upgrade to the new service as Virgin Media will keep both bases running.


It claimed the firm's 'XL' broadband offering had been "boosted by 50 per cent" in additional bandwidth without coming at an extra cost.
Existing customers might be attracted to hitting the upgrade button, if they agree with Virgin Media's blurb that the 50 per cent bandwidth increase would be good for households running several internet-connected devices at once.
The service will set customers back £18.50 per month when bundled with a Virgin Media home phone, said the network provider.
Existing customers who decide to upgrade from the 20Mbit/s service to the new 30Mbit/s offering, assuming they have access to its fibre optics network, will be charged £30, to cover activation and exchange of their old modem and router for Virgin Media's DOCSIS 3.0-loaded kit.
From today, the company is dishing up 10Mbit/s, 30Mbit/s, 50Mbit/s and 100Mbit/s broadband services, with 20Mbit/s effectively shelved by Virgin Media.
The firm has been slowly rolling out maximum downstream broadband speed available via its network to 100Mbit/s, and maximum upload speed to 10Mbit/s. The whole process is expected to be completed by Virgin Media in mid-2012. ®


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02..._20mb_service/

[rmj2663]

I got the 20mb line & get nowhere near what I'm supposed to in terms of speed.

There's no way I will pay any more for something else I wont get!

[funkyg]

I got the 20mb line & get nowhere near what I'm supposed to in terms of speed.

There's no way I will pay any more for something else I wont get!

Have you complained about it?
I've maxed out my 20mb connection many times when on big downloads.

[Possy_99]

meh.. upgrade 20mb to 50mb.. yeah... but why bother upgrading 20mb to 30mb.. not going to be that much difference.. however much it costs.. such a small upgrade should be free if they want to stop people using it.

[garagekru]

Hope this don't effect my 20mb clone

[diablos]

My 50mb only usually tops out at 30mb.

[Zoots]

They're also running trials for the same traffic management on P2P and NNTP for upload as they currently do for down..
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...m-p/310789#M25

We will be trialling upstream traffic management on our cable network on Tuesday 1st of February between 01:00 and 03:00. This is a technical trial during a quiet time on our network to ensure our upstream traffic management system works correctly rather than a trial of any new policy during these times.

Between these times P2P and Newsgroup upstream traffic will be managed in a similar way to our current downstream traffic management. The trial is planned to continue through the 2nd and 3rd of Feb but may be extended depending on the results of these initial tests.

[Shotgunjim]

They have been packet changing since last year. On advice from a fellow df'er, i SSL encrypted my newsgroup app and download at max whenever i need to. Although i avoid going too made in any month as there is no point drawing unecessary attention to yourself!

[flumperino]

I really hate the 'new customers treated like royalty, existing customers treated like shit' mentality.

As soon as you sign a contract with a company, they don't give a shiny shit about you.

[Mystical_2K]

Hope this don't effect my 20mb clone

well just hope whoever you cloned pays the money and upgrades

i get perfect speeds from virgin unless i download over the allowance (its 50MB for fucks sake how can you have it traffic shaped? grrr) then its about a third of the normal speed

will upgrade to the 100MB service when available if they guarantee it to be free of bandwith caps etc. but i doubt it

[burner1]

will upgrade to the 100MB service when available if they guarantee it to be free of bandwith caps etc. but i doubt it

They'll do the same as they did with the 50MB. Spout it's uncapped etc. initially, till they move onto the next level and fuck you over.

[DejaVu]

Just changed to Sky half way through my VM contract. Gave up on VM after upping my bill every month without explanation, within 3 months it has doubled.
I had their Anytime Unlimited calls and asked for an itemised bill, to only be told it's not possible! WTF?

As far as I'm concerned they have broke the contract without given notice to price changes so I signed to Sky (and now get a TV package worth having WITH HD!). VM are ringing frantically after the money I owe them for last month, but I'm going to make them sing for it (I'll settle up eventually), but Sky have promised to keep my bill the same permanently, albeit a little higher than the original quote from VM.

I've been with the Cable companies since the beginning. Blueyonder was the best as an ISP IMO. So long as payment was on time everything was perfect.

Richard Branson's love for Balloons has left Virginmedia blowing out Hot-Air... Fuck 'em!

--EDIT--
Refuse to pay the £18, you'll be upgraded for free within a few months anyway!

[DJ OD]

Been on the 10mb service for ages, and never had a problem or reason to upgrade. Apart from two major outages of a few days, I've had no cause to complain. Even then I kicked off and got some freebies.


DJ OD

[stimpy]

Been on the 50mb for a while and was thinking of dropping to 20mb to save some cash. I wonder if I'll go straight to 30mb now with no fees.

[Zoots]

Been on the 50mb for a while and was thinking of dropping to 20mb to save some cash. I wonder if I'll go straight to 30mb now with no fees.

Not right away. They're going to want to take as many thirty quids off people upgrading from 20mb to 30mb as they can. 20mb isn't actually on sale any more so the sooner you do it the better, before the call centre bods are told not to move anyone to it. Rumour from VM bods is, in 'a few weeks' everyone on 20mb WITH a superhub (since December, like 50mb users, new customers choosing 20mb were sent a superhub instead of a normal hub) will be upgraded to 30mb for free. No superhub and you'll probably remain on 20mb as a legacy connection.
Personally, I wanted the superhub for the gigabit ports and imminent firmware update so I paid the £30 to upgrade and my bill came down as 20mb price has dropped anyway saving £18 over the year - so the Superhub and upgrade to 30mb down/3mb up works out at only £12. 30MB Traffic management is pretty good too - 10GB through the day and 5GB in the evening, plus whatever you can grab in the 'happy hour' (another 12GB or so?).

[stimpy]

Still waiting on my superhub. Ordered it just before Christmas and had a new contract sent through but no superhub yet.

Must get on the phone to them (again)

[Zoots]

I'd be chasing that up. They're going out via HDNL like hot cakes, most people are getting 2 days delivery. Still, I wouldn't let waiting for the superhub halt any plans - it'll still be within a 20mb package.

[stimpy]

I'm only after it really for gigabit Ethernet. It saves me buying a new router now I need a faster connection between computers in the house.

[supraman54]

Don't bother with the superhub unless you're forced.. I was on a standard 50 meg modem and getting 50 down and 1.75 up until I changed to the superhub... bad move!! I and loads of others discovered the superhub has problems with upload speed and it dropped to a max of 0.5 meg.

Last night I reinstalled the previous 50 meg modem and had them activate it.. result ... back up to 1.75 meg upload again

[stimpy]

I haven't actually tested the upload speed yet, I'll give it a go tonight. I was upgraded to 5mb upload a few months ago.