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Virgin Media


LoveTheBobby
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Had Virgin Media when i lived in plymouth 6 months ago. The 50meg broadband was brilliant and the on demand from virgin was excellent - select what you want and it played instantly, full iplayer and random other stuff could pretty much always find something to watch.

 

Moved house and no longer in a cabled area so have sky and its crap in comparison. Their on demand is years behind virgins, as it uses the internet to download stuff so takes ages... End up just using pikey bit torrents as its faster and has more selection.

 

The only real benefit of sky is that the picture quality is better then what I had with virgin. Still got some old virgin V+ boxes and 50meg broadband modem kicking around as virgin never picked them up.

 

High def movies are ready to play after about 3 minutes, standard def even less than that. That's hardly "taking ages". What would annoy me far more is how unresponsive the Virgin menu system is.

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Had Virgin Media when i lived in plymouth 6 months ago. The 50meg broadband was brilliant and the on demand from virgin was excellent - select what you want and it played instantly, full iplayer and random other stuff could pretty much always find something to watch.

 

Moved house and no longer in a cabled area so have sky and its crap in comparison. Their on demand is years behind virgins, as it uses the internet to download stuff so takes ages... End up just using pikey bit torrents as its faster and has more selection.

 

The only real benefit of sky is that the picture quality is better then what I had with virgin. Still got some old virgin V+ boxes and 50meg broadband modem kicking around as virgin never picked them up.

 

Was having a bit of a general Nerdybopper chat with their customer services when I was carrying out my recent enquiries. I asked what was happening on the back of their 100Mb trials. They said they were fairly successful but not all of the trailed areas (Yorkshire & London i believe) could receive it. Said their expansion/upgrade plans generally have been slowed given economic climate. They did however say plans were afoot to trial 200Mb ! That's some pornpipe .

 

I looked into the whole 'modify your modem' thing a few years ago but I'm so far off understanding any of it I gave up after reading a few of the forums . Turned me brain inside out .

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If going the shared house route look to team up with folk who'd share the costs as it's not cheap .

 

Pretty sure that with either Sky or Virgin you've got to take basic package then it's all add-ons to get SSports pack plus ESPN .

 

Looking at around £70 pcm for the privelege either way . If end up going for it, just sign for basic (in terms of entering an initially required 12 month contract) then upgrade from there as then gives flexiblity to reduce month to month (for in the holidays, if you move etc.)

 

Might be initial installation charges of c.£50 too if property not already hooked-up.

 

Alternatively , the budget option is to try make sure your accommodation has Virgin and make use of their unlimited broadband for streaming .

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Had Virgin Media when i lived in plymouth 6 months ago. The 50meg broadband was brilliant and the on demand from virgin was excellent - select what you want and it played instantly, full iplayer and random other stuff could pretty much always find something to watch.

 

Moved house and no longer in a cabled area so have sky and its crap in comparison. Their on demand is years behind virgins, as it uses the internet to download stuff so takes ages... End up just using pikey bit torrents as its faster and has more selection.

 

The only real benefit of sky is that the picture quality is better then what I had with virgin. Still got some old virgin V+ boxes and 50meg broadband modem kicking around as virgin never picked them up.

 

High def movies are ready to play after about 3 minutes, standard def even less than that. That's hardly "taking ages". What would annoy me far more is how unresponsive the Virgin menu system is.

 

Takes at least 20 or 30 minutes before anything is ready to play on mine. More if you are using the internet for anything else. Hardly on demand... It's all down to the internet line as my place is about 4 miles from the exchange so the DSL is very limiting. IT can only cope with one thing at a time.

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If going the shared house route look to team up with folk who'd share the costs as it's not cheap .

 

Pretty sure that with either Sky or Virgin you've got to take basic package then it's all add-ons to get SSports pack plus ESPN .

 

Looking at around £70 pcm for the privelege either way . If end up going for it, just sign for basic (in terms of entering an initially required 12 month contract) then upgrade from there as then gives flexiblity to reduce month to month (for in the holidays, if you move etc.)

 

Might be initial installation charges of c.£50 too if property not already hooked-up.

 

Alternatively , the budget option is to try make sure your accommodation has Virgin and make use of their unlimited broadband for streaming .

Cheers! I'll hope to god I can get help then, or just scarper off to the local pub, only problem is I can't do that for the NCAA College "Football" :lol:. I'll find something hopefully

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Had Virgin Media when i lived in plymouth 6 months ago. The 50meg broadband was brilliant and the on demand from virgin was excellent - select what you want and it played instantly, full iplayer and random other stuff could pretty much always find something to watch.

 

Moved house and no longer in a cabled area so have sky and its crap in comparison. Their on demand is years behind virgins, as it uses the internet to download stuff so takes ages... End up just using pikey bit torrents as its faster and has more selection.

 

The only real benefit of sky is that the picture quality is better then what I had with virgin. Still got some old virgin V+ boxes and 50meg broadband modem kicking around as virgin never picked them up.

 

High def movies are ready to play after about 3 minutes, standard def even less than that. That's hardly "taking ages". What would annoy me far more is how unresponsive the Virgin menu system is.

 

Takes at least 20 or 30 minutes before anything is ready to play on mine. More if you are using the internet for anything else. Hardly on demand... It's all down to the internet line as my place is about 4 miles from the exchange so the DSL is very limiting. IT can only cope with one thing at a time.

 

Skys "On Demand" is a joke, it should be called "fancy watching a film? make a cup of tea, have a tommy tit and then come back, maybes if you're lucky it will be ready"

 

the menu on the TiVo isn't sluggish at all, the old V+ box was a bit of a nightmare, but the tiVo gives sky a run for its money

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  • 4 months later...

 

 

Virgin Media to double 4m fast broadband customers' speeds

 

Extra 20Mbps for flagship service

 

Internet News

 

By Patrick Goss

Wednesday at 09:28 UTC | Tell us what you think [ 0 comments ]

 

 

 

 

Virgin_Media_50mblaunch2-218-85.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember when Rachel Stevens launched 50 meg?

 

 

More than four million Virgin Media broadband subscribers will have their current headline speed doubled, with those on the flagship 100Mbps service given a 20Mb boost as well.

Virgin Media has explained that its 'ambitious initiative' is designed to meet the growing demand for superfast broadband.

The upgrades will be rolled out over the next 18 months after starting in February, and will see those on 10Mbps, 20Mbps. 30Mbps and 50Mbps packages speeds 'at least' doubled.

Virgin Media has confirmed to TechRadar that the upgrades will come at no extra cost to customers.

"There is no charge for the increase when we upgrade customers," said a spokesperson.

 

 

Track record

 

Virgin Media chief executive officer, Neil Berkett, said: "Virgin Media has a track record of leading Britain's digital development and this major initiative will meet the growing demand for faster broadband as well as provide significantly more value to our customers.

"The internet has become an integral part of our social, work and family lives, so we think our customers are going to love this.

"As people are increasingly doing more online, and getting connected to the internet with lots of different devices, having a fast, reliable broadband service should not be a luxury.

"We want to make sure that consumers have access to the best value broadband service and that means a superfast connection."

The initiative has been welcomed by none other than British PM David Cameron who said: "I welcome this announcement from Virgin Media; it will provide a great boost for the economy and change the way many households, consumers and businesses use the internet.

"Rolling out superfast broadband across the country is a critical part of our plan to upgrade the UK's infrastructure and build a new and smarter economy."

 

not bad, 100mb for me eventually then :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just bought a Tivo box to thank Dickie :D

 

Was paying a fiver a month for V+ so £3 a month for Tivo is a saving. Dunno why I waited so long. Was it more expensive before, I had a look last year but didn't bother.

 

Not being fixed up until March like :(

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I've got Virgin, moved from Sky, I've got TiVo in my front room, 50mb broadband, calls and a V+HD upstairs in the bedroom, sky simply can't offer me a package that compares, their Broadband is a joke (its just LLU from easynet) their Boxes aren't as good and they don't have anything that can touch TiVo, which is f**king awesome it really is

 

I priced it up, the closest Sky can get would cost me just over £120 a month (and thats still not as good as TiVo and with shite internet) where as with Virgin I'm paying less than half that (although with skys new prices that could change but I can't see it getting close to Virgin like)

 

Forgot to mention, I am on the XL package and I take all movies and sports

 

hey can i ask buddy do you live in a multiple area where you have virgin and sky

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  • 1 month later...

Just got my broadband back on after 3 days - fuck me what a carry on.

 

It first went off last Thursday and I got through to one of the blokes in their north west call centre who actually know what they are talking about and was told there was an area fault which might take days to fix. However it was back on when I got in on Friday.

 

It went off again on Sunday so I rang them from work on Monday morning as I needed to know when it was going to come back on as I cover a support rota. This time it was unforunately the Indian call centre and of course his script didn't handle someone calling from elsewhere, knowing there probably an area fault which had been temporarily patched then failed again and of course someone who sort of knows what they're talking about.

 

Anyway eventually I persuaded him to check if there were known faults and surprise, surprise there was - intended fix date March 2nd so of course I went off it (though toned down dure to being at work).

 

Tonight the lights on the hub looked about right so I did a bit of messing and found that the bastards had reset it to factory defaults (including the local address) remotely. Phoned them again mainbly to ask them why the fuck they did it and got an Indian lass who putting politely was fucking clueless - "you can't set the IP address yourself sir, its set dynamically" - Me: "Not the WAN address the LAN address" Her: "No Sir you can't set it yourself". I decided to be patient but when she started telling me to forget wireless for a moment and see if I could find a cable to connect the modem to the PC I gave up.

 

Next time I'm going to sod politelness and ask them first off if they have a fucking clue.

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You any idea what the levels are before they start putting a cap in your ass Deadabyte ?

 

I've noticed it slow down after downloading a fair chunk of stuff but wonder what the limits are before they restrict you ? I guess it's package dependent tooEdithttp://help.virginmedia.com/system/selfservice.controller?CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=389387&CURRENT_CMD=SEARCH&CONFIGURATION=1029&PARTITION_ID=1&USERTYPE=1&LANGUAGE=en&COUNTY=us&VM_CUSTOMER_TYPE=Cable

Edited by LoveTheBobby
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id personally stay away from virgin they cap your speed badly

 

can't say Ive ever noticed a considerable slowdown on my end.

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  • 4 months later...

Was out of contract recently so phoned to 'see what they could do' etc. and part of it included a Tivo to teplace existing V+ box. I think they're rolling them out nowadays . Anyway, are they any good ? The Youtube feature sounds good but on downside read bits on picture quality possibly being poorer for general TV ?

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Aye the ratings programming sounds an interesting feature .

 

Can you apply a thumb or three to the integral metadata within a programme ?

It seemingly has lots more info available to hand so you could bring up the metadata and rate specific actors or directors in the same way you'd be favouriting 'football' as a genre in your example ?

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Aye the ratings programming sounds an interesting feature .

 

Can you apply a thumb or three to the integral metadata within a programme ?

It seemingly has lots more info available to hand so you could bring up the metadata and rate specific actors or directors in the same way you'd be favouriting 'football' as a genre in your example ?

 

You can't apply the ratings to specifics like that, not that I know of. You just do a search on an actor, director, word or whatever and set it to record anything to do with them. So, for example, Wolfy can set "conspiracy" as a topic of interest, he'll get any films, documentaries and TV shows that relate to conspiracy theories recorded automatically.

 

The thumbs only really work for non-specific stuff. Give The Simpsons and Geordie Shore 3 thumbs up and it will record Family Guy and twatful programs.

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