Virgin Media Broadband Users

So I have Virgin Media Broadband with cable TV and phone deal, and frankly, after just code=007ing out when trying to reconnect back into a UW HM clear, finding I can't get back in, ruining the run for not only myself but my team who were doing so well, I'm pretty pissed off.

EVERY weekend, Friday Night, ANY kind of peak time, my pings average in the thousands. This isn't JUST for GW, although I've noticed that GW is a particularly bandwidth-hungry game, and it is more noticeable with GW than with WoW or FPS games.

My average every-day ping never drops below 100.

I'm on 8mb line...

I want to know if anyone else using this ISP thinks they are, as Homer J says, "The suckiest bunch of suck that ever sucked."

This is even more noticeable during weekend events...lag spikes, yeah that's to be expected, but ping spikes of 40k-100k every time your group aggro's? There is something going on with that.

If anyone can recommend a totally awesome broadband service for UK customers (fast, cheap, no dicking-about to set it up), I am all ears. I'm considering running 2 connections into my house, and using a new one purely for gaming, and setting it up so everyone else can use the Virgin Line, because for browsing, you can put up with 10-second freezes.

To anyone who may have been in my UW run, I am deeply sorry. You have a complaint still? Well take it up with Virgin Media. Although good luck with finding their information, because (this is pure genius) the search on their site actually searches the internet, and not their own damn website.

This is half a rant, but mainly a cry for help. Anyone in my alliance can tell you that this is an on-going problem, and I'm sick of waiting for my connection upgrades etc, in the vain hope that they start to *actually* get faster.

Edit: And yeah, forgot to mention that not too long ago, Virgin Media actually managed to accidentally block all their users from logging onto GW, accessing a few websites, some messengers. Not the brightest bunch really. Most of my friends in and around college have already switched away because they are sick to death of the same things I mention here.

Any other suggestions are more than welcome. And once again, if anyone who was in my run reads this, sorry guys. Nothing I could do about it.

I'm with Virgin. I also get a lot of D/C. My ping never goes that high, couple k at most.

i must be one of the few people who have had no problems with virgin media except that one time when they blocked the game

that was so funny xD

but yea i do get a massive ping at peak times, idk what my mb is but i'd bet its smaller than 8mb VM suck lol

I've read a lot of complaints about what Virgin Media does and even some things they plan to do.

I'm with bt and should be on 8mb but the area I'm in can only handle up to 5mb. I used to get lagg issues during peak hours like last year but now its always fine 24/7 !

They advertise the cheapest and fastest speeds. They're true...it's the cheapest for the pipe-size. What they neglect to mention is that your "8mb connection" isn't exclusively yours. Many companies do this, or so I am lead to believe. However, I think VM must cram most of my local town onto the same pipe...it's dropped to the speed of 2x a dial up (I've been running speed checks every now and then using a variety of online sites). The laggy-times are ALWAYS the same...weekends and Friday night...peak playing time for gamers, browsing time for busy-bodies who work full time jobs, and research times for kids doing homework. Kind of fits really :/

My Virgin speed is 8MB and I receive just under 8MB.

I have Cable broadband 10mb (upgrade from 4Mb) and rarely have a problem, d/c happens once in a while. It may depend on your local installation, as they upgraded mine recently. Are you also downloading massively and subject to their speed cap (if download more thant 700Mo between 4pm and 9pm)?

Are you using a router? If so, it'd be interesting for you to try port forwarding (GW port is 6112). If not, try their technical helpline (not the most helpful guys, but they may help):
http://www.virginmedia.com/customers...vice-fault.php

I believe the most reliable ISP is Zen, but it's non-cable (only VM is) and a bit more expensive, but they got the best customer satisfaction score in PC Pro's annual survey for the last 3 years.

All i can say virgin media ( aka televest ) is bad internet provider. I've been with them for 4 years now and always experienced slow internet, DC and speeds not up to what i am paying for. In peak times they cut your line in half. I used to have 8mbps but never used to get that. 2-4mbps was the most. ( i used to live 100m away from exchange link ). Now since i moved, i have had 2mbps internet and it works just fine on everything since i get 256kbps down usually and sometimes half of that. I am going to be switching to bethere.com internet since they are single best company in the UK for internet. ( Just the activation time ect... is what bothers me )

I was on virgin Media 2mb connection and was getting rediculous pings at peak times, when i phoned em up to cancel my subscription they tried to say that 2mb wasn't big enough for online gaming as the upload speed was too low (rofl) anyway they offered me a free 40mb connection for a month to see if the problem eased off which it didn't. the top and bottom of it is that virgin Media's traffic management pollicy SUX.

Ummm, exchange? What would distance to the exchange have to do with cable speed? It's not lame ADSL, after all. And I don't think Virgin even do non-cable network (correct me if I'm wrong). I am getting stable speeds and low pings with them, the traffic management does suck, and the upcoming p2p monitoring will to, but speedwise it has been nothing short of amazing (I am getting my full 20Mb) :S

Yes they do:
http://www.virginbroadband.com/html/.../noncable.html

I believe this alone makes the point.

FYI there's a Virgin Media community boards here:
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/

I can't say ive noticed many problems *touch wood* but I am on 2 meg which might be a more reliable connection than the 8 meg.