I just received a letter from virgin media, it basically states something long the lines of some rubbish excuse about reducing the speed of heavy users. It says in the letter that they will be reducing between 10am and 3pm. This is what they are going to do it says on the table:

Size M - up to 2mb The daytime threshold 10am-3pm will be 1gb, evening threshold 4pm-9pm is going to be 0.5gb, they are reducing the maximum download speed to 1mb.

Size L - up to 4mb The daytime threshold 10am-3pm will be 2gb, evening threshold 4pm-9pm is going to be 1gb, they are reducing the maximum download speed to 1mb. (Now he's the cheeky bit in little letters it says note people on 4mb will have there speed increased to 10mb!)

Size L - up to 10mb The daytime threshold 10am-3pm will be 2.4gb, evening threshold 4pm-9pm is going to be 1.2gb, they are reducing the maximum download speed to 2.5mb.

Size L - up to 20mb The daytime threshold 10am-3pm will be 6gb, evening threshold 4pm-9pm is going to be 3gb, they are reducing the maximum download speed to 5mb.

So once again the poor suffer in a rich mans world, come to think of it you never got speed of 2mb anyway! So god help us how slow it will be when its reduced to 1mb. We are in the stone ages enough as it is without Virgin rubbing it in by doing this. All i can say is well done Virgin, you really know how to lose customers and screw them goodstyle. I was going to say does this mean i'll be paying a 5er a month instead of 10er a month if i'm only getting 1mb instead of the 2mb i signed up for? Or are you going to upgrade mine to 4mb without any further cost? But no cause somewhere in your terms there'll be something that says you can legally screw people over.

Unfortunately when the say speed, they always say "up to" So any lower speed is OK

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Circumstances alters cases!!

Great now i'm downloading, rather than it doing it at about 238kbs per second like it usually does and takes about and 1hour and 30 odd minutes, its now reduced my speed to 100kbs per second meaning its going to take about 2 and half hours to download, not good when you need quick downloading for your job.

I guess they would like you to upgrade.

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Circumstances alters cases!!

Not in any way condoning the scandalous misrepresentation of ADSL Max subscriptions in this country, but...

At least Virgin had the good grace to send you a letter about this. I can imagine many ISPs would take the "easy" way out... ie just chop the speed and then answer all queries about it with "we assure you nothing has changed sir, have you tried a different modem or called BT out?"...

I do feel your pain though. That sort of reduction in service level is shocking.

I know the UK compared to the speed of other countries downloads speed is that we are like way behind, maybe its just Virgin have had that many complaints about slow internet usage that they realise they have a problem, why they can't upgrade the whole system i'm not sure, money maybe, they havn't done there homework on upgrading, or just cutting back costs rather than having to spend millions on doing it? I have been told of a problem where BT won't let them put upgrades or lines near there's but not sure whether this is just myth or not or whether it affects the situation.

So it seem's to me that they are in a dilemma, and rather than just admit they have a problem, they just make up some excuse and try to level things out, only problem is the more and more customers they get, its going to do nothing to resolve the problem, just make things worse.

Can anyone shed some light on whether the BT thing i mentioned is true or not? I can't see it been if Virgin are already in the area anyway, but i suppose i mentioned it just out of wonderment.

I'm sure the experts here will give the full story, but my understanding is that the problem is simply that since the advent of home internet usage, and people's insatiable hunger for bandwidth, BT's physical infrastructure can no longer cope. It's a massive country-wide problem, and one which is being addressed, but there is no quick fix.

The scandal really is that ISPs sell "up to 8Mb" services knowing full well that 8 Mb is a nominal "best possible" speed of service, and that in 99% of cases is it totally unachievable, and that actual achievable speeds at the user end are never likely to get anywhere near that. They knew this right from the get-go.

In their quest for our money, ISPs disguise this fact in some quite breathtaking Campbell-esque spin and small print.

Virgin's letter to you, whilst still unacceptable really, was a refreshing moment of honesty! At least they admit there's a problem. That's more than most large ISPs will do.

I respect them for there honesty, they are been up front and telling me what is happening rather than just hiding the fact and trying to make excuses when i ring them. I think in the letter they did say this would only be on a temporary basis but they don't have a timescale, but as you said there never is no quickfix for this type of thing. After all the romans didn't rule the roost in one day did they LOL