I finally got the upgrade to 10mb today.:) I didn't receive an Email or anything......I just noticed It when I logged into "my Virgin Media" account that it said I had 10mb Broadband. I did a few speed tests at different sites and the download speed tests seemed to be anywhere between 6mb and 9mb.
What I can't understand is I just tried to download a video as a test of my new speed from RapidShare as a free customer. I of course expected it to download much quicker than I was used to in the past but for some reason It was slower than even when I was on 2mb. The transfer rate seemed to be only around the 76kbs according to the dialog box. Surely that can't be right that It's taking longer to download with a faster connection.
I finally got the upgrade to 10mb today.:) I didn't receive an Email or anything......I just noticed It when I logged into "my Virgin Media" account that it said I had 10mb Broadband. I did a few speed tests at different sites and the download speed tests seemed to be anywhere between 6mb and 9mb.
What I can't understand is I just tried to download a video as a test of my new speed from RapidShare as a free customer. I of course expected it to download much quicker than I was used to in the past but for some reason It was slower than even when I was on 2mb. The transfer rate seemed to be only around the 76kbs according to the dialog box. Surely that can't be right that It's taking longer to download with a faster connection.
If you want a more accurate speedtest then try this below.
Here is how the speedtest works below.
If you are a Virgin Media customer then the best speedtest is from the links below.
click on these 2 gamefiles battlefield_2142_demo.exe and bfme2demo_english_final.exe and save them to your desktop, and then wait a couple of minutes then write down the transfer rates on the files that are running add them together then multiply them by 8 and you will get a truer download speed.
Remember to stop and delete the files.
i.e : 250Kbps X 8 = 2Mbps, 500Kbps X 8 = 4Mbps, 1250Kbps X 8 = 10Mbps, 2500Kbps X 8 = 20Mbps
Then add 10% to the final figure to account for any processes running on your computer.
What I can't understand is I just tried to download a video as a test of my new speed from RapidShare as a free customer. I of course expected it to download much quicker than I was used to in the past but for some reason It was slower than even when I was on 2mb. The transfer rate seemed to be only around the 76kbs according to the dialog box. Surely that can't be right that It's taking longer to download with a faster connection.[/quote]
I may be wrong but, your new download speed is now faster than the server at the other end.
2Mb would give a max download of around 250Kb/s,sometimes I'd be down to 50/60 kb/s, depends on the site, SpyBot could be really slow at times.
it does not matter when you register for the upgrade ....if your area is not scheduled to be done until ..ie .august , you wont be upgraded until then ..
it annoys me though that we keep getting emails or leaflets though the door saying please register for the upgrade ...shows a lack of personal customer care by Virgin Media ..
I wont be upgraded until july/august it seems ...live in the Romford area ...Essex .
it does not matter when you register for the upgrade ....if your area is not scheduled to be done until ..ie .august , you wont be upgraded until then ..
it annoys me though that we keep getting emails or leaflets though the door saying please register for the upgrade ...shows a lack of personal customer care by Virgin Media ..
I wont be upgraded until july/august it seems ...live in the Romford area ...Essex .
The website says I'm eligible to upgrade now (Richmond/TW10); Virgin call centres say the Mortlake region is not eligible for upgrade now, and I'll have to wait until the end of July.
Evidently, in addition to it making no difference when you registered, it seems the timetable itself is also a work of fiction (and, as I mentioned in the other thread that's popped up on this topic, not all staff are even are aware - or are willing to acknowledge the existence - of the timetable page).
I know a lot of people on here take a dim view of this kind of complaint - "it's disgusting that people complain even when they're getting something completely free" etc - but while I certainly appreciate the free upgrade, and commend Virgin for offering it, I certainly don't think it's ungrateful to point out how badly the whole upgrade process seems to be managed and put into effect.
And don't get me started on the utter folly of giving everyone on the network faster speeds, when the network is already limited to the point that they have to impose restrictions on usage to ensure it doesn't go tits up...
Its semantics as to whether this is a free upgrade or not. Is it a free upgrade that happened to coincide with a price rise or is it a product that you are paying for because of the price increase? Anyhoo.. the price rise was sweetened by the promise of an upgrade which for many has so far not materialised.
It is a similar argument with the 'Free Setanta' with XL. All channels could be described as free as long as you paid for XL subscription. The fact remains that you are paying more for a lesser service. But VM will argue different.
I requested the upgrade last week and was still on 2Mb until I rebooted my modem earlier today. I did a SpeedTest on my iPod touch (via a wireless router connected to my modem) and got 9178kbps download and 474kbps upload. This is with an ancient SB4100 modem I've had for years (it's probably over ten years old now and still going strong ). I think that rules out any need for a new modem for anyone, if that old SB4100 can cope.
I pressed the Standby button (probably unnecessary) then pulled the power lead out for about 10 seconds before sticking it back in. It started up as normal, but then after a few seconds of being connected, the four green lights (Power, Receive, Send, Online) turned off simultaneously whilst the amber Activity light remained permanently lit. I waited a couple of minutes as I'd never had that happen before, then pressed the Standby button to see if it would do anything and it immediately went online normally, now at the new speeds.
Just done a test on my PC with a large file I would have got anyway, the latest nVidia graphics-card driver from nVidia's servers (a whopping 102MB) and it averaged around 750KB/sec throughout, equivalent to about 6Mbps download speed. I'm happy with that.
This is in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne area, one which is listed as able to be upgraded immediately (well within 24 hours). I guess they should tell you you may need to reboot your modem to actually get the increase, otherwise you will be on 2Mb indefinitely (like I said, I requested the increase last week but only got it today by rebooting).
it does not matter when you register for the upgrade ....if your area is not scheduled to be done until ..ie .august , you wont be upgraded until then ..
it annoys me though that we keep getting emails or leaflets though the door saying please register for the upgrade ...shows a lack of personal customer care by Virgin Media ..
I wont be upgraded until july/august it seems ...live in the Romford area ...Essex .
Not true.
I registered and received my update weeks ago.
At that time we were not even ON the timetable, let alone any schedule.
They may very well 'say' they're upgrading your service, but if you've been a Virgin/ntl customer for a while, make sure they also upgrade your cable modem so that it's physically possible for you to get the increased speed - I've paid 35 a month for more than 2 years to find out the modem's only capable of max 6mb
I registered for the upgrade 4-5 weeks ago and still no upgrade. Im Area 23 - Leeds.
Anyone had their upgrade here?
Alex
My girlfriend is in LS9 6-- (Harehills / Burmantofts) and on rebooting her modem last night I found that her upgrade has happened some time during this week.
This might now be old news for you... but in case you haven't tried again recently you should restart your modem now and hopefully it will have been done!
At that time we were not even ON the timetable, let alone any schedule.
you may have just been lucky , they could have been due to upgrade your area when you registered ...i registered in May and after phoning at the begining of June to check was told my area will be upgraded in july/august .
May have another phone to Virgin tonight to check again ..:)
you may have just been lucky , they could have been due to upgrade your area when you registered ...i registered in May and after phoning at the begining of June to check was told my area will be upgraded in july/august .
May have another phone to Virgin tonight to check again ..:)
As I said we were not even on the timetable, I have just checked and Newton Abbot, is due to upgrade in August/September.
I am in Leeds too (Beeston Hill to be precise - LS11 6 postcode) and despite being told back at the end of May that I had already been upgraded to 10 Mbps, and a brief 6Mbps 'spike one evening, I'm now back to routinely getting around 1.7-1.8 from Speedtest.net. All this despite spending hours on the phone to VM whilst crawling under desks, rebooting modems, restarting computers and all the rest, and even installing a brand new VM modem (which looks exactly the same as the late model ntl version it replaced bar the logo) all to no avail. I've now given up expecting ever to benefit from this so-called 'upgrade', which is irritating as I spend a lot of time on the phone (Vonage) and IM (MSN Messenger with cam) and this would benefit me immensely. One more reason (besides the family of scallies who recently moved in next door) to sell up and move perhaps!
I was on 2mb and tried registering my interest in receiving the free upgrade but the website claimed I had to ring up and request it instead.
I begrudgingly rang up customer services and they said they had logged it on the system and I would get the upgrade probably by late July 2009 at the latest.
Within a day my speed had increased and it seems I was getting the full 10MB service!!!
I have just received an email from VM stating:-
Thanks for registering for our up to 10Mb broadband upgrade!
Our teams are working flat out to get our customers upgraded from up to 2Mb to up to 10Mb and they’re working from region to region. They haven’t reached your area yet, but they’re on their way!
Have a look at our schedule and find out when we’ll be coming to your region.
So essentially is this list a list of places that has already upgraded or will possibly be upgraded? It doesnt make any distinction at all.
Also looking at my Ebill online I am now being charged for Broadband L rather than the Broadban M I was previously on. Do they change this on your account to reflect the free upgrade or has something gone wrong?
So essentially is this list a list of places that has already upgraded or will possibly be upgraded? It doesnt make any distinction at all.
If it says you can benefit straight away that is what it means (well within a few days)
Also looking at my Ebill online I am now being charged for Broadband L rather than the Broadban M I was previously on. Do they change this on your account to reflect the free upgrade or has something gone wrong?
Something has possibly gone wrong, it should still say BB M. How much has your bill gone up by?
Comments
What I can't understand is I just tried to download a video as a test of my new speed from RapidShare as a free customer. I of course expected it to download much quicker than I was used to in the past but for some reason It was slower than even when I was on 2mb.
Here is how the speedtest works below.
If you are a Virgin Media customer then the best speedtest is from the links below.
click on these 2 gamefiles battlefield_2142_demo.exe and bfme2demo_english_final.exe and save them to your desktop, and then wait a couple of minutes then write down the transfer rates on the files that are running add them together then multiply them by 8 and you will get a truer download speed.
Remember to stop and delete the files.
i.e : 250Kbps X 8 = 2Mbps, 500Kbps X 8 = 4Mbps, 1250Kbps X 8 = 10Mbps, 2500Kbps X 8 = 20Mbps
Then add 10% to the final figure to account for any processes running on your computer.
http://www.virginmedia.com/testmyspeed/manual.php
What I can't understand is I just tried to download a video as a test of my new speed from RapidShare as a free customer. I of course expected it to download much quicker than I was used to in the past but for some reason It was slower than even when I was on 2mb.
I may be wrong but, your new download speed is now faster than the server at the other end.
2Mb would give a max download of around 250Kb/s,sometimes I'd be down to 50/60 kb/s, depends on the site, SpyBot could be really slow at times.
http://www.speedtest.net/ will still show 10Mb or thereabouts.
I upgraded through the VM website, and soon after downloaded the Windows 7RC in 35minutes, and that's 2.4Gb.
Anyone had their upgrade here?
it annoys me though that we keep getting emails or leaflets though the door saying please register for the upgrade ...shows a lack of personal customer care by Virgin Media ..
I wont be upgraded until july/august it seems ...live in the Romford area ...Essex .
The website says I'm eligible to upgrade now (Richmond/TW10); Virgin call centres say the Mortlake region is not eligible for upgrade now, and I'll have to wait until the end of July.
Evidently, in addition to it making no difference when you registered, it seems the timetable itself is also a work of fiction (and, as I mentioned in the other thread that's popped up on this topic, not all staff are even are aware - or are willing to acknowledge the existence - of the timetable page).
I know a lot of people on here take a dim view of this kind of complaint - "it's disgusting that people complain even when they're getting something completely free" etc - but while I certainly appreciate the free upgrade, and commend Virgin for offering it, I certainly don't think it's ungrateful to point out how badly the whole upgrade process seems to be managed and put into effect.
And don't get me started on the utter folly of giving everyone on the network faster speeds, when the network is already limited to the point that they have to impose restrictions on usage to ensure it doesn't go tits up...
It is a similar argument with the 'Free Setanta' with XL. All channels could be described as free as long as you paid for XL subscription. The fact remains that you are paying more for a lesser service. But VM will argue different.
I pressed the Standby button (probably unnecessary) then pulled the power lead out for about 10 seconds before sticking it back in. It started up as normal, but then after a few seconds of being connected, the four green lights (Power, Receive, Send, Online) turned off simultaneously whilst the amber Activity light remained permanently lit. I waited a couple of minutes as I'd never had that happen before, then pressed the Standby button to see if it would do anything and it immediately went online normally, now at the new speeds.
Just done a test on my PC with a large file I would have got anyway, the latest nVidia graphics-card driver from nVidia's servers (a whopping 102MB) and it averaged around 750KB/sec throughout, equivalent to about 6Mbps download speed. I'm happy with that.
This is in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne area, one which is listed as able to be upgraded immediately (well within 24 hours). I guess they should tell you you may need to reboot your modem to actually get the increase, otherwise you will be on 2Mb indefinitely (like I said, I requested the increase last week but only got it today by rebooting).
Not true.
I registered and received my update weeks ago.
At that time we were not even ON the timetable, let alone any schedule.
Cheers
The ntl250 should be fine for 10Mb/s and 20Mb/s.
See: http://www.chetnet.co.uk/articles/index.php?page=index_v2&id=91&c=4
Alex
My girlfriend is in LS9 6-- (Harehills / Burmantofts) and on rebooting her modem last night I found that her upgrade has happened some time during this week.
This might now be old news for you... but in case you haven't tried again recently you should restart your modem now and hopefully it will have been done!
Andrew
you may have just been lucky , they could have been due to upgrade your area when you registered ...i registered in May and after phoning at the begining of June to check was told my area will be upgraded in july/august .
May have another phone to Virgin tonight to check again ..:)
As I said we were not even on the timetable, I have just checked and Newton Abbot, is due to upgrade in August/September.
now getting
Swansea SA5
Chuffed!!
I wonder whether Cardiff has been upgraded yet?
I was on 2mb and tried registering my interest in receiving the free upgrade but the website claimed I had to ring up and request it instead.
I begrudgingly rang up customer services and they said they had logged it on the system and I would get the upgrade probably by late July 2009 at the latest.
Within a day my speed had increased and it seems I was getting the full 10MB service!!!
I have just received an email from VM stating:-
Thanks for registering for our up to 10Mb broadband upgrade!
Our teams are working flat out to get our customers upgraded from up to 2Mb to up to 10Mb and they’re working from region to region. They haven’t reached your area yet, but they’re on their way!
Have a look at our schedule and find out when we’ll be coming to your region.
Looking at the linked schedule at (http://www.virginmedia.com/myvirginmedia/gofaster/timetable.php) it seems that Cardiff is under the list headed "If you live in one of the regions below you can register to benefit from the upgrade right away.
So essentially is this list a list of places that has already upgraded or will possibly be upgraded? It doesnt make any distinction at all.
Also looking at my Ebill online I am now being charged for Broadband L rather than the Broadban M I was previously on. Do they change this on your account to reflect the free upgrade or has something gone wrong?
Many thanks.
Lee
Something has possibly gone wrong, it should still say BB M. How much has your bill gone up by?
TV XL £20.50
Broadband M £18.00
with deductions the monthly price was £34 - which was quite reasonable (December 2007)
This went upto with deductions to £38.50 in Feb 2008
TV XL £31.50
Broadband M £18.00
This went upto with deductions to £42.00 in June 2008
TV XL £33.00
Broadband M £18.00
Now the total bill after deductions is £43.06 in June 2009
TVX L £34.00
Broadband M £20.00
So between the end of 2007 and the current prices in 2009 my costs have risen by around 30%!
Also I think I got the claim wrong about being charged L rather than M for the broadband! Maybe I just imagined that due to the huge price hike!