RF Circuits

We've been with Virgin Media for about 10 months. We paid for (up to) 8meg ADSL with unlimited downloads. From the first day we weren't overly impressed with the speed, especially since we can see the BT exchange from our window so range isn't an issue. Nonetheless we put up with what we had.

Recently, during the day our speeds have been dropping off to next-to-nothing, which we just attributed to busy times and everyone clamoring to use the internet at once. Eventually though we heard about Virgin's "capping" of "heavy" users, and eventually got so pissed off with the speed that we phoned Virgin to confirm a few facts.

According to the girl on the phone, Virgin has implemented a new Fair Use Policy, which means that if you download more than 5GB in one week, your speed is capped to "next to nothing" (her words). I pointed out that we paid for unlimited downloads, to which she replied that I was allowed unlimited downloads, but according to the fair use policy after 5GB I had to be happy with a piss poor connection speed.

What is 5GB anyway? There are 4 people in our flat, which means 1.25GB each. If you take into account some heavy web surfing, iPlayer, youtube, etc, it's easy to hit that target after 2 days! And that's before all the music and movies off bittorrent ;)

That whole "next to nothing" thing is pretty accurate too. For example, just after I started my phone call with Virgin I tried to open the Virgin Media homepage. Approximately 20 minutes later I still had a blank screen. I mentioned this on the phone... Virgin's response? "Sorry about that, but since you're capped there's not much we can do"

I asked Virgin if we could upgrade to a heavier use package (note that we are already on "unlimited", but maybe a faster speed would have more reasonable limits). Apparently this would be no use, as all of Virgin's broadband packages are capped after 5GB. I sincerely hope this doesn't include their new Mother of All Broadband 28mb fibre optic package, since you could theoretically hit your limit after 24 minutes of downloading.

So long story short - if you live on your own and only use the internet once or twice a week, Virgin is for you. If you plan to use your internet for anything more than checking your emails, go with a good provider.

As a side note, I don't particularly blame Virgin for this kind of practise. Sure it's dishonest, sneaky, possibly illegal and a crappy way to treat your customers, but considering every man and his dog who owns an ISP is clamoring for a piece of the broadband provider pie, companies just can't afford to give you "good" broadband at the 50p/month price that people want to pay. My advice? You get what you pay for - go find a decent company that's willing to take £20 off you each month and give you an adequate service