ISP Reviews by kmanpilkers

Virgin could be brilliant for all I know, but I never got a chance to find out (reading the reviews here I feel I had a lucky escape).

I applied to be connected to their cable service, and they said "no problem - you are in a cable area". As I live in a protected residential avenue off the road I was sceptical, and assumed that cable must have already been laid somewhere that was not obvious. After all, I supplied Virgin with my postcode and exact address- they should know whether or not they can supply a postcode shouldn't they?

Well it turns out they don't as they contacted me 1 DAY before my service was due to be installed to tell me, "sorry, we are going to have to apply for permission to get the cable to your house". Predictably they were unable to get permission, which would have been fine if they had only let me know this in the first place instead of acting like it was definitely possible to supply me. This has now inconvenienced me as I will have to find an alternative ADSL provider and will be without internet for at least another week.

In addition, when they sent me the contract through the post to sign it listed "£35 manned installation fee" on the costs, despite the fact that their website told me they offer free installation. I called them and mentioned this, asking them to send another contract. I was passed around 3 different departments, and no-one bothered to introduce me or pass my details on, so I had to explain myself 3 times. No one wanted to send me an amended contract and assured me I would not have to pay the £35 charge. Not satisfied, I demanded to receive another contract. They sent one, but it was identical to the first! No one I spoke to wanted to send me an amended contract, which suggests to me that it's hassle for them and/or they just can't do it easily at all. Frankly appalling customer service on top of everything else!

Have been with Orange for about 2 years as they were/are extremely cheap, especially when combined with an Orange contract phone. Things did not go smoothly from the off. They throw in a free router, but it's terrible. The interface is slow and unreliable for changing settings and it takes an age to reboot.

I initially had a problem with the internet dropping out at my flat, and when I rang technical support they were unable to offer any advice at all (foreign call centre worker reading from a script). I solved the problem myself eventually with a few Google searches.

More recently they began to throttle my broadband connection during peak times - it is so slow during peak hours that it cannot stream a video from Youtube smoothly, or even run Spotify properly. Though I am unaware that anyone throttles http:// traffic, even web-browsing was slow. When speaking to them on the phone about this, they not only did not know what throttling/packet shaping was, they lied about the connection we should be getting in order to try and keep me as a customer. Needless to say I have not renewed my contract with them and it runs out at the end of this week.

It may be tempting if they are the cheapest - but I'm begging you, please don't do it! Pay a few quid more for an open fair use policy provider with better service. You really do get what you pay for.