This post is continued from the previous post Named Yet Another Day…35 Hours Wasted On The Phone With Virgin Media
It appears that if the net speed EVER reaches over at least 10mbps/ Then that’s your 20MBPS. It doesn’t matter if it never reaches that speed again. The point is that it has reached that speed at least once in its lifetime.
So although Virgin Media may advertise a 20mbps connection. You will never actually achieve it. I was told this by Michael Bradley at the broadband support.
The fastest connection i have had which lasted for a total of 25 seconds. was approximately 1400 kps Which by the maths of Michael Bradley is 14MBPS. Far from 20MBPS. But hey. Virgin Media don’t actually state you will ever get 20MBPS. They just say you can get ‘up to’ this speed. They also don’t tell you, that if your speed is below this on any other website/gaming/whatever. It doesn’t matter. As they say you will get these speeds form the Virgin Media network. A network which to be quite honest doesn’t interest me in the slightest.
Michael Bradley was supposed to call me back right away with his manager to speak to me. Which didn’t happen (Why doesn’t this surprise me in the slightest?) I called back 11:33 and spoke to a guy named Ian.
Now Ian seems quite smart. He explained to me that my speed is actually slower than it should be. And that there is a fault in my area. Not on my cable. But it is in my area. SO although it shouldn’t be affecting me. It might be. He raised a complaint to his managers and i should receive a call back from them with in 5 working days (Will it happen? I doubt it)
Ian was pretty pissed off with the whole thing. As he says it makes his job harder. He then advised me to call 150 and get the lack of customer support dealt with.
So i called 150. I was put through to a soft female voice which to be honest was quite refreshing. As all the voices in broadband tech support are male.
I asked to speak to a manager, who she went and got whilst i was placed on hold. The manager came back to me and said there wasn’t really anything he could do. He advised me to call back the broadband tech support and demand to speak to a manager and not wait fora call back. Which is exactly what i did.
You won’t even believe me when i tell you what happened.
When i called back the tech support for broadband. I was told i can’t speak to a manager as its illegal for them to put me on hold (Its a premium rate number or something along those lines.) SO why the manager at customer support told me to do this i have no idea. I just get the feeling that either the managers can’t manage. Or the entire company is just under trained monkeys. So yet another complaint was placed. And i was told to call back 150 and try and get this kind of problem sorted out.
SO now as i write this line i am on the phone yet again to 150 (Customer support). Where it seems another complaint is being placed. But still there is no one to address my Internet speed issue. The dude at 150 whose name was Gary and was a manager he said he was sorry for the hassles i have been receiving. (Isn’t that what they all say?) and to ring back tech support.
SO i called back the tech support yet again and got put through to an Indian guy. Now although the Indian guy didn’t even listen to my problem and started going on about zero connectivity (Which of course isn’t my problem). When i told him that no connectivity wasn’t my issue he seemed rather confused. I asked to speak to a manager and yet again was told that manager would call me back by 13:29…….. SO i waited.
At 13:45 i called back to find out the manager hadn’t called me back. Nobody seemed to be able to help me on this matter and i was talked through yet more diagnostic tests on the PC. This time with a lady named Anne.
During the tests i did with the woman named Anne. I was asked to run netstat in dos so she could see what established connections i had. Now she asked to do this whilst i had Apple.com open.(She asked me to download quicktime to confirm the lack of speed.) Now when i ran netstat and told her how many ESTABLISHED connections i could see. Which by the way was thirteen. She told me that was the problem.
The problem in her eyes was that there were 13 connections made. She wouldn’t listen when i said that those connections were to the Apple.com website. Some where ssl links and a couple were for the stats tracking that Apple.com runs. Even though explaining to this ‘Broadband tech support’ person that if i close apple.com those connections would disappear. Did she believe me? Nope. When i closed apple.com What happened? The connections went away.
This could either be called a miracle, or a dumb broadband tech support staff member that simply doesn’t understand. If the latter is the case. Then why is she in broadband tech support?
Eventually at roughly 15:15 she had finished running the tests and speaking to her managers. Apparently getting just 10MBPS is acceptable as they don’t guarantee that you’ll ever get 20MBPS or close. Interested at what i was told at this point?
“Well Sir, We can’t give you the speeds we advertise until the 28th of march if your lucky. You have three choices.
Put up and shut up
Ask to be downgraded to a speed we can provide.
Or disconnect and go with BT “
Yes that’s correct, Virgin Media Staff told me if i was unhappy to head to their largest competitor! How unbelievable!
After a few call backs and other hassle that i went through (Until 8pm the same evening.) I was given a months worth of free service and apologized to yet again.
Virgin Media now have until this coming Wednesday to contact me regarding my complaints. Will they call back? We can only wait and see.
Moral of the story? For a communication company. Virgin Media know very little about communicating within their offices or with their customers. The speeds they say you could get, you will never see.
And my final thought. Always get EVERYONES name you speak to at Virgin Media. Their first & last name is of importance for when things like this go wrong. I had 13 peoples names from the tech support section and only took 2 from customer support. But without those names you will never stand a chance of finding the person that tells you one thing and does another.
Virgin Media Sucks.
