I've had my broadband with only two companies in twenty years, NTL and then Virgin whom bought NTL. I've had them at three addresses and never had cause to really complain, sure for a while I had a junction box which would fill with water whenever it rained, so cutting me off, but they sorted that quickly enough.
However, for the last year I've paid for 200mbit speed, super speed, being who I am I immediately started to monitor the speed, and initially I did get around 198mbit download speeds with a constant 12mbit up.
Unfortunately over the last four months that speed has dropped off and off, so much so that my automated server started to report 4mbit. I tweeted VM about this, of course I received the standard line that this was my equipment. I called them about it and was told that "over wifi you get much less download speed than you pay for", except I'm using Cat 6 over a gigabit LAN... "Cat what?" the operator asked, as I was simply no longer on their lookup script of replies.
In the end things came to a head when I also noticed that the TV package I was paying for went from a stately total of £50 a month to just over £80. That's quite a hike, and I looked realistically at what we watched and found it not to be worth it.
The absolute soul cracker was my week away disconnected in Wales, where we had a freeview connected TV, and there was so much choice, right there, free to air.
We were both also sick of the recycled land-line number constantly rining with whoever only knows looking for past holders of the line for debts or catalogues or PPI, so much so I took up a distinct accent whenever answering my own phone to put people off calling.
So, no TV needed, no Telephone we just need basic broadband.
And the persuit began, I knew the name of the exact product I needed, I needed to go from Vivid200 Broadband to Vivid50 - why pay for something you're not getting - and that was it basically, the rest could go, but I thought I'd challenge them...
Now have you ever watched Morgan Spurlocks "Supersize Me!" and it's effect on the fast-food industry? Well, this same effect is underway within Virgin Media, they upsell, they upscale, they ask if you want to supersize, and they simply can not ever stop doing it, you say "no", you say "stop" you say "less"... And they do not understand.
You're stuck calling a gaggle of people who are not native English speakers, sometimes to lesser or greater effect, and they do not understand you want less.... Three point manefesto in this conversation was simply... "Drop the telephone line, reduce the broadband speed and I'll listen about the TV for ease".
The lines which came back to me beggared belief... "We can not give you a lower rate on your TV without your having the weekend calls"... "Having the calls makes the package cheaper".
The saving through the package £6, the additional cost in the package of a phone line £10.99... So how was I saving anything? That's right I wasn't, but on their screen the two HAD to go hand in hand, they could not, were unable to, untrained and not savvie enough to realise I had no need for and some concerns with the recycled number of the line we had, but they just could not figure this out. Extremely poor customer service ensued.
"Your bill is so high because you had the McGregor fight" yes we did have that ordered, yes... "This proves my point, I'm paying for this TV package and still having to pay more to watch the items I want to watch, so where is the incentive for me to pay for the package?"
Silence.
There was simply no answer to this, the chap then passed me without asking, to a "supervisor", with whom I had to go through this whole rigmorale again.
I'd had 15 minutes of this online, 20 minutes with the first chap, and over a year of issues with the broadband speed and phone line, so I simply snapped... "Cancel it"
"Cancel the TV, Cancel the Telephone, and drop the broadband to VIVID 50 whilst I look for an alternative supplier"
The guy didn't even argue, he just did this, they are so blasé about their customers, we are such sheep, decades of supply are but nothing, they're not interested in you.
Ten minutes later I had started to investigate freeview or freesat to my fancy Sony TV... It has both.
Half an hour later I have over 600 channels on Freesat, with one wire now at the back of my TV, and no additional power usage from their slow TiVo.
The only thing the wife and I are missing is pausing live TV, however, I think the TV will do this with the addition of a USB Harddrive... And I know I have several of them lying around!
In conclusion, fuck you Virgin Media, sick and tired of you.
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