My virgin broadband connection which i have taken was 10mb unlimited access. But now i am getting a speed which is even slower than a dailup modem. Virgin media says that there is a problem in their server(have more connection on a single server). Still i have to pay the whole amount which is bad.

Vijay devineni, london, Middlesex

I became involved in the problems and expense caused to my 8-year old great niece by Virgin Broad Band. First, they wired an outside box neutral wire to power! Broadband didn't work. Next they had to change the router box with its pretty flashing lights, as it was (now) faulty! Meanwhile, whilst all this hi-"engineering" was being organised they told her mother that the computer software was faulty, so everything was re-loaded, including a new copy of MS Windows XP Home. This wiped all her existing files. Still not working. I took the computer to a real expert and paid to be told that the faulty Virgin router had almost certainly corrupted Windows XP and Internet Explorer. Our expert rectified the problem for a solid fee by reconfiguring the Microsoft software online via Microsoft. Of course, my niece could not have done this, as she only had a broadband connection for about 3 seconds since she was "connected" to Virgin several weeks ago. Virgin? On your local bike!

Tom Astill, Nottingham,

i signed up for a up to 8 meg Virgin broadband. The gaming is impossible, the ping is a joke. I let them know my concerns BEFORE the cancellation period was over. They kept asking for more time, now I'm supposed to pay for a full year before I can go to someone else. Not really fair. And today they said, this broadband is not for gaming anyway, don't even hope to get a better service. How can they do this and get away with it? Even the browsing is too slow in peek hours.

R Fabian, London, UK

I have been a customer for many years and have now been on the so called 20mb broadband but I do not get that speed at all, I have been doing a speed test 3 times a day now for over 2 months and the max download speed is 8.2mb, and betwwen 4pm - 12 midnight it is 3.7mb. I pay £37 a month for this service. I have phoned them etc and they say I am wrong but how can 3 different speed tests that give the same results be wrong. Im looking at other broadband packages now as I am very unhappy with virgin. They are taking all this money and giving such a terrible service to customers.

Sharon, ST Helens, Merseyside

virgin broad band is absolute garbage! I have been a customer of theirs for over a year now.

I had a much faster connection on dial up!
Their so called adsl service is getting slower and slower..

Avoid like the plague

leaving these clowns as soon as i can

matt, leicester,

After moving house, Virgin Media promised installation of broadband, TV and phone line. After taking at least 6 separate days off work for various 'site visits', 'engineer visits' and 'installation visits' and spending hours on our mobiles to try and resolve the situation, Virgin media finally told us after 3 months that they didn't actually have any cable in our road. Surely they could have told us this straightaway and surely a business cannot be that stupid? The service was absolutely apalling; each time we called we were passed around 6 or 7 different people and none of the 'advisers' knew what they were talking about. We never received a phone call back despite being promised one each time. No one took ownership of the problem. The 'service' we received from Virgin Media is the worst we have ever received. We had a BT phoneline, broadband and Sky installed within one week and it is far superior to Virgin's service we received in our previous property.

Natasha Bowcott, Backwell, UK

Performance benchmark,

Virgin Media 'true 20Mbit service', 96MB download.

5 minutes, 29s.

IDnet 'up to 8Mbit service', 96MB download

2 minutes, 47s.

Same file, same server. The 'up to 8Mbit' service is over twice as fast at the 'true 20Mbit service'.

Peter Stevens, Cambridge,

virgin media talk the talk but you get serious slow speed! Up to 8 meg is a joke speed is very very slower maybe 1 meg if you are lucky . If you cannot sleep late at night speed maybe ok at 2 meg but that is "shite" we need proper broadband .Games are a real problem on line we are still in the dark ages. I may try BT maybe slightly better? Who knows ....trouble is contract maybe required so need to think..................dragon

John Toomey, white waltham, berks.

After being ripped off by NTL for long enough, gave Virgin Media a chance. Just as bad television stations hardly ever work, was promised broadband for 12.50 but was charged 18.99. The so called 'expert' in trying to keep customers that I spoke to when asking to leave, was extremely rude and told me not to interrupt him when he speaks. Advise anyone to avoid Virgin Media.

Jo, Mansfield,

The claims from Virgin are spurious. Having been a customer with NTL (and even C & W beforehand) I can only emphasise the dramatic fall-off in speed,and more notably increase in pop-ups and spam since Virgin Media took over. It is clear that they are doing everything possible to improve their own financial returns at the expense of their customers. The net is bordering on usable with them now, unless you want to spend ages managing pop-ups and cookies- I don't and will be switching very soon.

Simon, west byfleet,

the reality is that all the companies are bad as each other - it is all about spin and ripping people off - none of the broadband companies provide a reliable, customer friendly and value for money service. Their call centres are all severely undermanned to save as much money as possible without a care for how long a customer is kept holding

danny, warwick, england

How strange. I complained about Be claiming that their service is "up to 24Mbps". I got a letter today telling me that the ASA's code of conduct doesn't cover online ads. ASA like the UK broadband industry is stuck in the last millenium

James Dey, London,

I upgraded to their XL package which internupgraded my broadband to 10 meg and then to 20 meg but my speed is nowhere near the speed advertised. If I get 2meg, its a lot.

Wildman, warrington, cheshire

It shocks me how virgin can advertise saying that ADSL customers may not be achieveing the speed they are paying for/expecting with their package. my 20mbit VM package for the last week has been sitting at less than 1mb for most of the day, only seeing nearly the full 20mbit at 5am. I'm not alone here as there are several internet forums with cable sections devoted to posts about VM broadband issues and they are full of people all over the country complaining at the slow speeds/drops outs of their broadband packages. not to mention the 25p/min technical help line to an indian call centre. I've been on the phone to them several times over the past couple of weeks and one for nearly 20minutes. Engineer has been out to ''fix'' the problem and it wasn't fixed. Normal browsing in the evenings after work is made nearly impossible. I had a trouble free 4 years with NTL and before that, diamond cable. since virgin media took over and the 20mb ''upgrade'' its been unnacceptable

Guy, Grimsby, UK

I signed up to the 2MB virgin broadband offer in May and recently tried to test the speed (go to speedtest.net) of uploads and downloads as I suspected I wasn't getting what I was paying for.

My suspicions proved correct. After testing it out almost daily for one week I found that my download speed during the day was around 1.6MB (reasonable, but I'm usually not at home) and during the evening (when I am home) I'm lucky to get around 0.7MB. One evening, my download rate was a paltry 0.3 MB.

Who can I complain to about this lack of service which I am promised and obviously paying for? Each time I call I'm put on hold for a very long time. On one occasion the message told me to call back later.

Andrew, London,

I have been a user of NTL/Virgin for over a year. Since Virgin took over, the broadband is erratic with connection going off suddenly many times. This increases scope for fraud as if one is on a bank account online and broad drops dead(this is frequent with Virgin these days), you cannot log out of your bank account. Now I am searching for alternatives to get out of Virgin. Really poor quality and no value for money. Luckily my contract is over with them. Stay away from Virgin till they do something to improve. Take overs mean poor quality broadband at Virgin(NTL was better).

See, woking,

"Regardless of where you live, if you’re in a cabled area" - aren't these two statements contradictory?

Yet more marketing spin and lies from Virgin. I can't believe that Branson has allowedd himself to be associated with such a badly run company.

Simon, Epsom,

I agree that the broadband service has deteriorated since the Virgin transfer. My 4mb is rarely correct, and at £25 p.m., far too expensive. I am changing.

leslie, nottingham, U.k.

i thought it was just me im supposed to get up to 8mb but between the hours of 7 and 10 it goes down to 128kb..Id rather go back to to a fixed download limit and have the correct speed than what i have now.

imacomputerbuddie, millport, scotland

I don't know how the broadband industry gets away with using terms like 'up to 8Mbps" for ADSL and "up to 24Mbps" for ADSL+2. It's impossible to get these speeds even if you squatted in the exchange as there's an overhead which would knock at least 1Mbps from these figures. In the majority of cases because speed is dependent on distance from exchange and line quality, the speed will be much lower. The ASA prevent advertisers using the "up to" term when it comes to prices but apparantly not when it comes to service.

James Dey, London,

Funny that no one mentions that Sky's adverts incorrectly stage that the cost for TV, Phone and Broadband is £26 when actually after line rental is paid to BT it is £37.

Perhaps a complaint should be made to the ASA about sky?

Dave, Preston,

Many adverts claim "unlimited" service, but VM has 'STM' which limits the speed of transfers if the user has download too much. (This isn't limited to VM, many suppliers use similar claims)

Customers need clear information about what traffic management is used, and what the "Fair Use Polices" are to allow them to make an accurate comparison of the services offered.

Companies need to start being much clearer with their disclaimers about "Fair Usage Policies".

Adverts are misleading customers; adverts are true but not truthful.

Dan Beale, Cheltenham, UK

I have the VM 20mb product which is much faster than any ADSL product I have erver used.

Ted Taylor, Cardiff, UK

Virgin didn't take over NTL.

It is still NTL running the business, NTL bought Virgin Mobile and now simply pay Virgin to use their name for all the business.

However the company has gone downhill since the name change, it started going downhill for xTelewest customers when NTL bought TW, now it's going even more downhill.

The service status page is showing more faults as they now list more of the faults, however they still don't list all faults.

It seems the network is falling apart and they have said they have no plans to improve their network, hence the throttling at peak times.

When almost all the income they receive is simply paying off debts, it's no wonder the service is failing.

C Parkes, West Midlands,