Solomace: "I know this shouldn't be said here, but should I go back to Sky for gaming and browsing etc or BT for gaming?"
Of course it should! It is a valid question, and if VM don't like it, all they need to do is sort out their grotty and disjointed customer service, and then have the technical teams get round to first time resolution on local faults. It's a shame, they have the makings of brilliant company (most UK staff are good, network is excellent when its working, strong brand, huge resources), but due to nincompoops for senior managers, they throw away all of that by knowingly perpetuating dreadful, incompetent, under-resourced customer service, and insisting field operations are run on a shoestring, meaning the technicians don't have time to do a proper job.
But, before you fell to Sky, remember that all the big telcos are the same for customer service. When things work and you don't need customer service, that's fine. When things go wrong, that's when you find out if you've made a mistake, and all the resources are poured into sales and marketing, not support and service. Take a look on Trustpilot or ISP Review, and you'll see the same proportion of disappointed and angry customers for all the big ISPs and telcos. If all you want is a good Openreach line and a company that understands customer service and tech support, then try Zen Internet. Ultimately you do pay a little bit more, but not much after you take into account the big player's out of contract price hikes. Aquiss, uno and IDNet also have very good reputations, and if you really want the best technical support of any ISP, then check out AAISP. With some of these you buy your own modem and router, which certainly gives you choice and control, so make sure you understand the deal. Although the local loop is always operated and maintained by Openreach, what differentiates these smaller companies is their ability to diagnose problems and pursue Openreach to resolve them, as well as far better customer service. I can personally vouch for Zen.
Something else to know is that there is hope on the horizon for VM gamers. The Hub 3 firmware problems have been sorted for about a year now, and the residual DOCSIS latency appears to be sorted - from discussion in another thread ("Latency shocker!") it seems most people don't have this yet, and we don't know if this is just in test, or in rollout - but have a look at my glorious BQM below
The questions you need to ask yourself are:
1) If VM fixed my connection issues, would I still stay? If the price isn't acceptable, then no point hanging around.
2) Am I happy to wait (possibly months) for the sort of BQM shown above? It's infuriating waiting for network tests to be completed and a national rollout, but these things do take time.
3) Am I prepared to put the effort into partial diagnosis of my problem (starting a new thread) to ensure that I know what needs fixing, and then put the effort into working with VM's shoddy customer service to grind through to a resolution?
4) If leaving, am I prepared to take my chances with other dreadful large companies like BT, Plusnet, Sky, Talktalk, or do i want to explore options with the smaller ISPs listed above?
Hope that helps with your choices!
