Broadband ISP Virgin Media UK Finally Fixes Upload Profile Fault
Internet provider Virgin Media (O2) has finally fixed a fault that left a small number of their broadband customers, specifically some of those on top tier packages (e.g. 1Gbps), with half their normal upload rate (i.e. 50Mbps instead of 100Mbps). But it’s unclear why the seemingly simple problem took over a month to resolve.
The issue, which was raised by a couple of ISPreview’s readers (special credit to David) and via Virgin Media’s Community Forum, first appears to have started at the very beginning of June 2024 – after a period of normally routine network maintenance. This left some customers with a stuck c.50Mbps upload profile instead of c. 100Mbps.
Problems with stuck or incorrect speed profiles do sometimes happen on Virgin Media and in theory they should be a quick fix on the network side (note: a hard reset of the router won’t resolve this). But what’s surprising is how many weeks and hoops the customers had to jump through just to get the fault both recognised and then resolved.
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The provider’s support team initially denied that there was a problem and even questioned whether one of those affected needed 100Mbps uploads: “I called support to inform them, but they seem clueless and could only say they will monitor for 24 hours, and think it’s fine, and even asked why I needed more speed as if I should be happy with 50Mb (even though I’m paying for double),” said phonic2k.
One of the other customers was also sent a new router, which is unnecessary for resolving this sort of problem. But the good news is that, after a long battle, Virgin Media informed those affected on Tuesday this week that they’d finally managed to resolve the issue.
A spokesperson for Virgin Media told ISPreview:
“Due to a fault, a small number of customers were not receiving their normal upload speeds. This has now been fixed and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
As usual, VM gave no details to explain why the problem had occurred, how it was resolved or why it took so long to fix (stuck profiles should be an easy fix). Sadly such ambiguity is not uncommon among major ISPs.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Telephone support is absolutely useless, they have no idea what modem mode is, and are obsessed with WiFi. You have to re-explain every time you phone, like they don’t log anything.When I had intermittent connection issues I had to resort to filming the hub so they could see the LEDs change colour, and I had to use the forums. I don’t bother using telephone support if I have issues anymore.
You nailed it. When I was on Virgin, I was constantly blamed for keeping my Hub in Modem mode as the root of all evil, when their line faulty and introduced so much packet loss. I dumped them as soon as my contract was up and have significantly more reliable FTTC broadband even with just a fraction of the speeds I used to get with VM.
And they wonder why they get slammed for poor customer service.
Should it be 123?
I’m in 1Gig and only ever had
Max Traffic Rate 110000274 bps
Virgin customer service is abysmal. I’ve had WiFi issues for months on end. Finally got an engineer out a while ago to sort my WiFi out but left making no difference. It’s so frustrating. I’m changing to Sky when my contract is up
What are these “WiFi issues”? Many people use VM’s pound-shop freebie routers in modem mode, and supply their own better wireless kit.
VM’s customer support once tried to sell me a WiFi extender pack when I phoned up to report an auto-negotiation and port-flapping fault with my router.
Despite informing them that I use their Hub in modem mode with my own router and a pack of Ubiquiti UniFi APs, they’d decided the fault was due to “WiFi being turned off” on the Hub.
Classic VM support moment.
I understand people signing with VM if they have no other option, but signing with VM having other options even slightly more expensive is a masochism.
I remember being a customer of Three and TalkTalk the amount of crap their customer support tried to sell me was awful.
When I was with BT and FTTP you had to ask in the forums to get your upload speed fixed so you it could reach 110mbps as advertised for example.
No clue why these ISPs can get away with delivering half of the product that you’ve paid for.
Now that they have fixed this issue can they get the migration sorted for us Upp customers that are migrating over
Actgually thought they fixed the issue on the ms drops for the 2gig xgspon customers then, nope! going to be years before they finally find out they are doing some sort of auto testing.
VM still haven’t fixed phone number changes in Account Settings > Marketing and account preferences.
It must’ve been over a year now I’ve been trying to change the old landline number they hold, get the green confirmation message at the top of the page but navigating away and then back to Marketing and account preferences, the number’s reverted. Useless.
No wonder they daren’t roll out IPv6 when they can’t even append basic account settings properly.
And this is why they got appalling feedback from me (they got one or maybe two neutral responses for stuff that doesn’t apply to me as a broadband only customer and then mostly dislike or strongly dislikes as answers)
This company due to the way it both handles it’s customer base and it’s seriously wanting broadband and phone services, should have been kicked into touch by the Regulatory some time ago.