Kitz Forum
Chat => Introductions => Topic started by: Russell1 on January 06, 2022, 04:41:45 PM
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I’m newly registered so my question may have been dealt with before and I’d be glad of any opinions.
I’ve lived at my current address for 4+ years and at my previous address in another part of Birmingham for 34 years. I’ve been a Virgin/NTL/Telewest customer for over 20 years. At this new address Virgin internet was already installed so as I had been a customer previously I just carried on. It works on the whole. BUT, like many, I am absolutely fed up with paying almost £700 a year while new customers pay less than half that. Every time they raise their price I argue and sometimes I succeed in knocking a little off but now I really want to dump them. Problem. There’s no fttc at my address and Openreach decline to say when they might bestir themselves. Houses less than 100 metres from us have fttc but all queries about our house, which is on an ordinary residential road, are met with “No plans”. Translation: “Go away and stop bothering us.” They can offer a community partnership costing thousands while simultaneously spending hundreds of thousands on trumpeting their expansion of fibre to remote villages yet ignore an address 1.5 miles from the centre of Britain’s second largest conurbation. Fume, fume. Despite this dismal state of affairs I am going to do a trial switch back to ADSL internet. It may drive me mad or it may be fine. My needs are not really so great: regular daily browsing, streaming such as iPlayer, Netflix etc., Skype and Zoom, no gaming. Will I seriously regret this? Av. speeds supposedly about 8MB but could drop to 2MB. As I say, opinions welcome.
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Welcome to the kitz forum. :)
There’s no fttc at my address and Openreach decline to say when they might bestir themselves. Houses less than 100 metres from us have fttc . . .
Do you know the number of the telephony cabinet (PCP) for those properties who do have a FTTC service? With that knowledge (and your postcode) it should be possible to check the status via the Magenta Systems CodeLook (https://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm) site.
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They can offer a community partnership costing thousands while simultaneously spending hundreds of thousands on trumpeting their expansion of fibre to remote villages yet ignore an address 1.5 miles from the centre of Britain’s second largest conurbation.
Alas, it's not all about Russell - there are plenty of people in your position awaiting upgrades (myself included), but the powers that be simply can't accommodate everyone all in one go.
Yes it's annoying, but not the end of the world if you are only using it for mundane day-to-day stuff, as opposed to running a business requiring a high bandwidth.
Follow B*Cats requests and we'll take it from there ....
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Av. speeds supposedly about 8MB but could drop to 2MB. As I say, opinions welcome.
If you want HD on streaming then you'll need I think about 5Mbit, if you watch 4K you need 15 ideally 25Mbit.
So depends on what you're used to it may very well drive you crazy or make no difference at all.
Do you go all the way to the cancellations team on Virgin? I believe you have to be willing to cancel to get the good deals but they will do everything they can to actually convince you to stay at that point, which is when you'll be offered the best deal.
I'm a little confused at you paying nearly £700/year though as their website claims their "normal" price for M100 is £528/year with the new customer offer granted much more reasonable at £312.
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Many thanks for those helpful replies. On Alix’s puzzlement over cost, my monthly bill is £59.50, so £714 pa and soon to rise by a further £54 pa to £768. It includes M100 broadband and Virgin TV, with a TiVO box. As it’s a so-called bundle I don’t know how the total is allocated as to broadband and TV, but if Alix is correct that the broadband element should be £528, the TV part must be £186, or £15.50 per month. When we first came to the house there was also telephone in the bundle but we had it removed as it was so unreliable - constantly cutting off despite numerous Virgin visits. So we pay another £240 pa or so for a landline using BT copper cable + calls package with another (extremely reliable) provider The total is now almost £1,000, which is seriously expensive and I don’t know what I get on the TV element that I couldn’t get from Freeview. Hence the need to act.
I have previously argued with them but this time will cancel. I’ll see if they offer a better deal, but I might just let them go anyway. Meanwhile I’ll try and check on status for fibre installation using cabinet details etc. Thanks again.