ISP Reviews by sdack

I have been with VirginMedia for 5 years now. Ever since I changed from a cable to an ADSL connection are they giving me grief.

2 years ago did I move into another road within Middlesbrough and about 2 miles from my old home. The move was anything but flawless. It took 3 months until I had my new VirginMedia connection. They were unable to move my connection, because there was no coax cable in the street of my new home, and they were not willing to change my subscription package from coax cable to ADSL. I ended my contract with VirginMedia and created a new one, which caused a lot of confusion with their customer service (they did not understand the issue, because they do offer a moving service for their customers). And because VirginMedia is also my telephone provider could I not do this from at home but I had to walk into a VirginMedia store each time and ask to use their phone. If it was not for me then VirginMedia would have lost me as a customer 2 years ago!

Now, for about a year is my connection dropping out and about every 1-2 weeks, mostly on the weekend and during the evening. These connection losses last between 5 minutes and 3 hours. Needless to say how annoying this is and asking their help desk just got me their standard explanation (that such things can happen).

I had given up on their useless help desk, when they changed some settings and my line speed went up by +2MBit/s and the connection losses disappeared. I was rather happy about the surprising change and assumed VirginMedia (or BT) had upgraded their systems. However, after only 2 months am I now back at my old speed, which is 6MBit/s out of the "max. 10MBit/s" advertised. Apparently, it is possible to achieve 8MBit/s with ADSL over my phone line and without these connection losses. So why are they holding back?

Knowing their help desk do I not expect to get an answer and therefore did not ask. Instead, I am now looking at other ISPs. I do not expect to find the perfect one, but it should be easy to find someone who will do a better job.

Edit:
I have decided to switch to Tesco. Because all ISPs need to go over the same copper line in order to connect me do I not expect much change. However, Tesco are noticeably cheaper than VirginMedia and their customer support seems to be as friendly as the staff in their shops.

Fun fact:
I asked VirginMedia for the cost of changing ISPs. Rather than giving me a straight answer were they trying to bait me with a price reduction and scare me with incomprehensible facts on changing ISPs. I asked them what they were talking about, but all I got as an answer then was that there would be no costs. They were being as useless as ever.