indyjones

Hi all

A couple of months ago I changed from Tesco broadband which although I never had a problem with was not very fast (1mb) and was not very reasonable in price.
Eclipse seemed a much better deal 8mb (up to I get ~5) and it had very favorable reviews including from Speedy B.
Unfortunately the service with Eclipse has changed for the worst (since their buy out), with one of the biggest problems being Traffic shaping.
Due to the traffic shaping any peer to peer services are much much slower than my old 1mb connection, even lower than my old 512kb connection
We are talking 20-30kbs, that would be fair enough if that was on peak speeds, but off peak they are not much better (maybe 40 if I am lucky).
Problem is this effects nice programs like BBC iplayer, Channel 4 on demand, and even trying to download patches for old games like far cry as a lot of legit stuff is now on torrents.

Anyway I am rabbiting on......

The point is do I have any ground making a complaint and trying to cancel with them? I could find nothing on their site about traffic shaping.
I am totally unhappy with eclipse and even standard downloads (like nero for example) are really much faster than 140kbs which is just not quick enough for the service they claim to provide.

Anybody got any advice they could give?

It would be much appreciated.

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Dark Atheist

dont go with virgin try Be, depends how long ago you signed up and if its the standard 12 month contract, if it is you will either have to pay them to get out of it or pay the 12 months even if you dont use the service

ray_gillespie

Yeah I used to love Virgin but since their merger they've gone shat, and their customer service is literally the worst customer service I have ever come across. I have emailed them countless times and never had a satisfactory reply. Once I emailed them using their new online form and it took 2 weeks for them to get back to me with their reply of "Sorry, there seems to be some information missing from your form, please send it again". On another occasion (all the for the same problem of very slow internet) I got a reply saying "Sorry, there seems to be some information missing from your form, please reply to this email to let us know your account information" at which point I replied, only to find the email bounce back immediately with the automated response of "Sorry, this email account does not accept incoming mail".

They offer a very good price for their service, but I no longer get anything like the speeds I used to (or are advertised for that matter) and I would never recommend them unless you're somehow sure that you'll get a good speed and never need to use their awful customer support.

If you phone them, it costs YOU 25p per minute to speak to someone in India!

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Petros

Yikes! "traffic shaping" sounds like a much nicer term that what it actually is. Comcast recently caved under pressure about torrents under withering heat from consumers (and lawmakers), so they're dropping that policy. I've been with Roadrunner, who actually attracted me with an ad which encouraged filesharing!

Dark Atheist

you should be used to that being in brum

indyjones

I am not sure but I think I am tied into a 12 month contract with 10 left.........
Do I have any grounds to make them cancel my service for nothing? Due to them traffic shaping (currently getting 4kbs with only 40 mins to go till off-peak)

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tdinc

Did you read the fine print in the contract? It is possible that the company has some stipulation about the issue you are going though and you are stuck. you may have a case.

from the looks of many customers in the UK many seem very unsatisfied

http://joeanderson.co.uk/blog/2007/0...net-broadband/

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews103915.html

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LordOfLA

I'm with Be since my move to scotland.

I need to write to Virgin to dispute my cancellation fee.

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LeeJend

Read the terms of service in your contract. If they guarantee you a minimum bandwidth and they are not delivering it you have grounds for termination for cause. But only after you discuss it with them and give them a chance to make it right.

They probably just don't have the bandwidth to support the BBC on demand and other streaming services and will not invest in network expansion. SWBELL did this for a while a long time ago but a user group lawsuit straightened up their attitude.

If you annoy them enough they may agree to let you out of the contract. Or can you upgrade to a better service for some additional money. Possibly get a discount on the better service since you are dissatified with them under performing on your current service.

The US telecoms tend to be pretty good about this. Private operaitons like AOL or Compuserve were terrible. The difference is the telecoms are under governemnt regulator scrutiny more than the private operations.

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indyjones

Thank you all.
Time for some reading

Attached Files

Eclipse_Internet_Terms_and_Conditions.pdf (295.7 KB, 889 views)

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vern

Get a high speed VPN. Problem solved.

You don't get to use your entire pipe though since you are limited to the speeds of your VPN, but at least you aren't limited to 20-30KBps.

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indyjones

Hmmm interesting how would I go about getting one of those though?

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