Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Bloody Virgin

I was prompted to check out Virgin Media's broadband offering by their response to a BT announcement of a new 40Mb service (not yet available). They said more or less why are BT wasting their time with this, when we can do 100Mb?

I have a long history with Virgin and its predecessor companies ( Videotron/C&W/NTL ) not being able to deliver what they market.

I signed up for analog cable TV fairly early on and was reasonably happy.

I then moved and carried on with the service. I made enquiries about upgrading to digital cable and getting cable broadband. No dice. Because I lived in a flat it wasn't available.

I moved again, and still couldn't get digital TV or broadband so I switched to Sky for TV and BT Homehighway for internet and more or less gave up on Virgin.

I have since moved again an stayed with Sky and ADSL broadband over a BT line (although not from BT).

After the latest nonsense from Virin's marketing department, I went to their site and put in my postcode. Guess what? I'm not in a fibre optic area so the best they can offer me is broadband over a phone line. No better than I currently have.

All the places I have mentioned above are in Lambeth, which is central(ish) London and hardly a rural idyll. If Virgin can't provide their flagship services here, where can they?

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