Virgin Media Launch 5Gb Broadband

Your right they have done, I’m getting 5.46Gbps down and 230Mbps up and it was 541Mbps on Nov 7th, so they changed it sometime after that.

The change happened in and around the 13th of November. That evening my real world uploads where reduced to 1/3rd of what they where the previous days.

Last week a friend had service staff out to fix what he thought at the time was just an isolated issue affecting his upload speeds. After testing all, the installation was found to be technically fine but the previous upload speeds could not be achieved.

The service engineer made a call to his supervisor to see if there was an issue elsewhere. The supervisor returned the call to service engineer. The converstaion was not meant to be overheard by the customer but he picked up enough of it to figure out that a decision was made by Virgin management to reduce the upload for fibre customers to 4-5% of downloads speeds. The supervisor advised the engineer to leave the job, mark it as complete and to query any further call-out's for upload speed problems. Over the weekend we contacted other friends and work colleagues to confirm if they had the same issue and they all did.

Today another friends who happens to works in the industry got word that the 4%-5% is going to be normal and things won't change as it's within the limits of the T&C's set out by Virgin.

Regardless of T&C's this upload speed reduction is a material change in what we all where recieving when we first signed up.

I've given Virgin notice to restore the service I had or reduce the cost I pay or an offical complaint will be lodged to Commission for Communications Regulation. If the service I'm recieving now had of been the what I recieved when I first signed up just 4 months ago I would have cancelled within the cooling off period.

As far as I'm concerned Virgin have in effect mis-sold all fibre package by reducing the speeds.To do this to thier flagship broadband service that's less than one year old is a complete joke and a failure of the service.

I'd suggest everyone here make an offical complaint to Virgin on the basis the product was mis-sold, the service is not now what we recieved during the cool off period.

You can make a complaint here - https://www.virginmedia.ie/customer-support/code-of-practice/ They must supply you with a complaint refrence number and offer a solution within 10 days. After which you can raise the issue with comreg here comreg.ie/advice-information/consumer-care/#1

Wow this is interesting.

Mine does seem to be slower.

Well this will be an easy fight. I specifically asked and ordered because of the upload.

Changing it without notice and approval.

There's a thread on Reddit, I don't do social media so if you guys do social media please post details there. I'm contacting The Irish Time Tech journalist Ciara O'Brien. I suggest we all do similar stuff and spread the word.

I also intend to contact my local TD's and ask for a PQ to be asked to the Minister for Communications. We have been shafted but also every customer who uses Virgin's network, this included customers on previous packages and those on Sky, Eir etc.

I initially thought it was an issue from the bad weather the week it all started and if it was and Virgin held thier hands up and said so I'd be fine as long as an ETA was given but this is totally different.

How many of the 5Gb users were tearing the ar*e out of the 500mb upload though? surely only a very small % ?

I cannot find any reference to upload speeds on the VM website, other than 250/500mb legacy products in the T&Cs

I did similar first thing this morning but gave another address nearby which has just 2Gig broadband in. I told them I was moving into the area and wanted to see what was the best package availible. I was told I'd get 10% up 200mb's on the 2Gig. The address I gave was my parents and the broadband upload at that house is currently 4-5%, I tested it before making the call. So it's fair to say that 10% is the norm and it's what sales teams advertise when asked so the T&C are BS. BTW I recorded that conversation on my phone as evidence should it be needed.

Strangely afterwards I phoned customer service on 1908 and recieved an automated response that the service in my area is down and under repair with an ETA of 13:00. I'm working from home and I can tell you my broadband is working, albeit with with the degraded service.

So maybe at 13:00 thing will go back to normal, maybe there was an issue caused by the bad weather and Virgin had no intention of fixing it hoping it would go unnoticed and people start kicking up a fuss.

Or maybe it became clear that I and others who noticed the downgrade to service and complained had evidence of the 10% being the norm and they've had to reverse the decision to downgrade.

Given what my friend in the industry was told I'd say this is the case, but i'm getting ahead of myself. I suppose thing will come clearer at 13:00 if normal service resumes I don't really care.

The 500mb up is just an ideal/testing figure when connected to speedtest servers. Real world uploads are different again. The servers and service I upload to are throttled. If it was P2P protocols, FTP, Usenet server or uploading to work servers via VPN the max I could achieve was 64mb. I was happy enough with that, but since the change my ideal testing uploads to the likes of speedtest are 45% of what they where and my real world uploads are worse still closer to 1/3.

I have legitimate uses for the servers and services I upload too, they where already throttled but now it's worse.

Yea I seen some people on reddit post their online chat log saying they are aware of the issue and people will be compensated! I'll believe that when I see it! I logged a complaint with CCPC for the craic anyway just to see where it goes.

My guess is it will need a lot of people to complain to the right people to get them to either reverse it or give people a chance to get out of their contract.

It’s not right, but it’s not of the scale where it would get media attention in my opinion.

Very odd business decision. They should have enforced this for new contracts only.

Next step is everyone giving 30 days notice. Might not be a huge number but they have altered the contracts and that means your allowed to leave without penalty.

While this may not have huge impact on some, like myself, many only signed up because of the upload speed. It's standard bait and switch. A company changing the terms after the fact and pretending everything is fine is absolutely unacceptable.

Also made complaint to comreg. ill be informing virgin media of cancelling and blocking direct debit.

I requested a document to be sent by email as to cancel my contract.I will ask for a discount as the services provided are changed from their end.

Cancel the service ? Hmm..unless i can get Eir with their 5Gb,im not sure,to be honest.Is more feelign like a "virgin betray" than a downgrade of 250Mb "virgin fcuking speeds" ! ;)

Not on my time and money ! Happy to chat with the lads on the ground… ;)

If they cancel the call out without a valid reason or me requesting it, then that means they take liability of service degradedation and opens a different door.

Thanks

To be honest …

i never had near to 5GB either way…best i reached 2Gb.

IMHO cancelling just gets them off the hook and where do you go ? Better to push them via the comreg and CCPC