The INQ's too harsh on Virgin Media

RECENT CRITICISM from the INQ of Virgin Mobile service here has triggered a whole bunch of readers to add their voices to the debate.

One reader said: "There's no excuse for Virgin Media about the first situation regarding the phoneline ... but the rest?

Is the email service being down for 36 hours really worthy of being mentioned? After all, couldn't the woman do the same as you and check the website.

Or actually think of phoning them to find out what was happening? I'm no fan of Virgin Media but there's certainly a lot worse ISP's out there!

And you're also wrong about the traffic management thing. It's not limited until midnight, it's limited for four hours. So, if the limit is reach at 11.59pm then the speed will be reduced till 3.59am."

That's interesting because another reader points out that following this link here takes you to Virgin Media's broadband offering.

Our reader claims the page " clearly states on all their packages that they do not throttle speeds unlike rivals. What is actually says is "No download limits (unlike some of our competitors)."

He obviously didn't notice the disclaimer that this is subject to Virgin's 'acceptable usage policy'. Which, of course, most people wouldn't be bothered to read.

But getting capped down to 5 Mbit/s is something which one of our American readers would die for. He pointed out: "Lucky Brits.You get capped down to 5MBit/s. Around here 5Mbit/s is about the fastest you can buy unless you are lucky enough to live in a subdivision with Fiber straight to the house."

Another reader claimed the TV service is actually the worst side to Virgin Media's offering.

He said: "The set-top box has a high rate of freeze ups. It has been completely failing to play 'on demand' media since a big software update a month or two ago."

That's possibly because the Northants network appears to be in meltdown ever since and has been off as much as on for the last month or two."

The INQ tried pressing the infamous 'red button' to get 'on demand' programmes and was, indeed, informed that the service was temporarily unavailable.

The INQ had to smile when Virgin Media cheekily pointed out that if our reader that couldn't reach it had managed to secure a BT line, Virgin was then in a position to supply him with a broadband service.

Given that the cheque for his refund is still in the post, somehow we don't see him pursuing that particular route.

The general consensus is that Sir Richard Branson might have bitten into something he couldn't quite chew when buying into the old NTL/Telewest cable company. µ

See Also
Never mind the last mile

L'INQ
Virgin Broadband