andyspacerous

Dear Virgin Media

I am writing here because I want to have my own personal record of events. Sorry, but I don't trust the complaint form on your web site. Reading this may help you to understand why I have no confidence that my feedback would be lost in some interminable mass of not-giving-a-damn.

Over the last few weeks I have been suffering with an increasingly unreliable broadband service in the Bicester area (OX26). At first it was short, intermittent outages that were easily fixed with a router reset. Or maybe the router reset had nothing to do with it and the service just had a short term blip that resolved while the router was rebooting.

I understand. These things happen. They are frustrating, but easy to "fix".

More recently the outages have been occurring with more regularly with a longer duration. For the past three weeks we have seen long term service failures on Sunday. Last week, particularly frustrated as I was unable to place an online grocery order (which, by the way, meant that we were unable to get the delivery slot we wanted which caused additional inconvenience), I called the helpdesk.

This was the most frustrating helpdesk call that I have experienced in the last decade. I am an experienced server and network administrator so I think it's fair to say that I have more than your average experience of helpdesks. This was, without a doubt, one of the most frustrating.

The call started off with the first line operative trying to connect to my router. "I can't connect, you must have a fault at your house. We can book an engineer to see you."

"Ah, actually, let me interrupt you a second", I politely interrupted, "for somebody else that we know in the area lost service at exactly the same time." (True. Please see mentions to @virginmedia from @rainbowros.) "This indicates an area fault, not a fault at my house. Are you sure an engineer visit to my house is required?"

"Yes, I cannot connect to your modem. Should I book an engineer?"

"No, really, it's an area fault. I called recently and was told there were power problems in the area that were being resolved. Please check your records.|

"No, it's a fault at your location. I can book an engineer?"

"Look, seriously, your helpdesk told me a few weeks ago that there was an area fault. My service failed at exactly the same time as a friend across the other side of town. I am a network administrator. I understand that coincidences happen, but at least two people in different parts of town at exactly the same time is not a coincidence, it is an area fault."

"Yes sir, there is no power to your modem..." (YES!) "...so I need to book an engineer to visit your house to fix this."

I was feeling quite vexed by this point. I counted to ten. "When will that be?"

Your first line "support" person checked - "Thursday, morning or afternoon."

"So I am going to be offline for five days while you fix this?"

"Thursday is the earliest appointment I have. Would you like to book an appointment?"

At this stage, an interjection. Reading between the lines I was hearing this as "Book the appointment or, even though *our* service is failing you, sir, are shit out of luck."

I checked with my wife to see if she could be available that day.

"Book us in for Thursday."

And I left it at that.

At no stage did your online status page acknowledge that there was a problem. @RainbowRos also tried to call the helpdesk but was not able to get through.

The next morning, Monday, at 0907 I received a text message. I quote:

"Hi there,

You recently called us and booked a technician due to a problem with your Virgin Media Services. We have identified an issue in your area which is affecting your services. Your technician has been cancelled and we aim to have your services restored as soon as possible.

Virgin Media."

I checked the status page. It had been updated to say that there were problems in our area with receiving email. No mention of "or anything else that needs a working Internet connection".

At this stage you should take a moment to appreciate how I felt, having reported this as an area fault 12 hours earlier. I had said to my wife following the helpdesk call "I tell you, it's an area fault, and as soon as somebody who has a clue arrives in the office tomorrow it will be fixed."

I guess somebody figured out which access router needed a restart as we were back online that morning.

Fast forward to yesterday.

We lose service again in the afternoon. It's out for about 10 or 15 minutes and I'm busy doing other things. I restart the Super Hub and service is still out. Like I say, I'm busy, and have to go and do something else for a few minutes. About 15 minutes later I check status before calling the helpdesk and we are back online.

"Another bloody blip!"

And life goes on, for about an hour, and we are out again.

I check the status page and it says (and still says today, Monday morning):

Broadband feature interruptions

The following issues may be affecting some aspects of your Virgin Media Broadband service.

  • You will currently be experiencing problems accessing the My Virgin Media area on our website. Our engineers are aware of this issue and are currently working to fix it fast. We apologise for any inconvenience this may be causing.

    • Date Issue raised:July 20 2011, 16:58
    • Estimated repair time:July 25 2011, 09:00
    • Fault reference:F001676675

No. Actually, I am experiencing problems access *anything*. Once again the status page is displaying incorrect and misleading information that downplays the nature of the fault. The Super Hub status says that access is "Denied". Power levels are zero. Symptoms are exactly the same as last week.

I call the helpdesk.

"Hi, my internet service is out again. It's the second time today, and the third Sunday in a row. I suspect it's another area fault, can you please check status in the area?"

To his credit the helpdesk tech skips the usual "Have you switched it off and on" and checks things out.

"Yes, we do have a problem in that area."

"OK, you can understand that this is a little frustrating. Can you tell me how I would go about escalating this within Virgin Media? Do I need to speak to your Line Manager to get things moving?"

"Yes, sir - I will put you through to him now."

(Things are moving much better this week. I think I've caught the day shift and they seem to be much more clued up.)

I speak to "Peter" (quoted as, going from other clues, I don't think his parents really called him Peter, but I understand why we do this) and we have a calm, grown up conversation about the history and why this is so frustrating. I point out that I use your service for  remote access and, with a major upgrade happening in two weeks, I might have to bill Virgin if I have to come in to London to do that.

(Seriously - this work can take place from home. If I have to get into the office then the perilous state of public transport into and around London at the weekend will mean an overnight stay and additional travel costs. Somebody is going to pay, and it's not me or my client.)

Peter understands. He can see that engineers are due to fix the problem but says that he will try to get more information about what the problem is, and if this round of fixing (the third, at least, in my experience) is finally going to fix things.

Needless to say I didn't get that call. I'm not blaming Peter. There are limits to what he can do and share. I understand that. But to not have, at least, a call back to say "Look, sorry, I can't say any more other than it is being worked on" was disappointing.

To put my levels of disappointment into context Virgin Media has been my first recommendation for friends and family looking for fast, reliable consumer Internet service. I have seen other people having problems and frustrations with your services but my recommendation has been "In my experience, the fastest, most reliable service I have had from any provider to date."

It only took one terrible helpdesk experience to change this. The only reason I am sticking with your service is that you are the least unreliable service in the area, and still the fastest.

I will understand if you do not want to include that as an advertising reference quote.

I hope that you also understand why I will not, as planned, be switching my TV service to you. This, and the systemic Tivo fail that also happened this last weekend, have zapped my confidence in Virgin to an all time low.

In finishing, my questions to you, Virgin Media.
  1. Is the current round of fixing for (current) fault reference F001676675 going to be a final fix for this recurring area fault? Putting my network admin hat on again, I am struggling to see how anybody internally at Virgin can think that having the same recurring problem is acceptable.
  2. If more work is needed when is this work scheduled to take place?
  3. What steps are you taking to ensure that this fault is fixed for good?
  4. What are your plans for compensating people in the are who have had multiple service outages over the last few months?
I am happy to discuss this further in whatever manner works best for you, and I aim to post updates here. My email address is andy.bold@gmail.com and I am on Twitter as @AndyBold.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

Andy

So. I asked @O2 about iPhone tethering tariffs (again)

No response (even though they aim to reply within 24 hours) to my query last week about iPhone tethering charges. I thought I'd give benefit of the doubt and try again. Will report back in a few days...

Hi. I submitted a question last week but the Internet appears to have eaten the response so I thought that I would try again.

Can you please explain why the cost of using the new Personal Hotspot tethering option for 500Mb costs 50% more than an equivalent 500Mb of additional mobile data?

This appears to discriminate against iPhone users for several reasons:

1) Android mobile hotspot is not subject to this restriction.

2) Tethered data volume is the same as mobile data volume.

Thanks in anticipation of a rapid response.

Safari

A Question To O2

I just submitted this in response to my frustrations with discriminatory pricing by O2.

Will keep you posted on updates...

 

Can you please explain why the cost of using the new Personal Hotspot tethering option for 500Mb costs 50% more than an equivalent 500Mb of additional mobile data?

This appears to discriminate against iPhone users for several reasons:

1) Android mobile hotspot is not subject to this restriction.

2) Tethered data volume is the same as mobile data volume.

Thanks in anticipation of a rapid response.

Update 1: No response from the online "Submit your complaint" form yet, so no idea if they even received this. Will try again if no response in 24 hours.
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo
  
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