Virgin Media Community

[jem101]

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@darmo wrote:
Snip…
i can only hope he did in fact research coaxial/docsis and the difference to true FTTP using fibre optics after our call, and perhaps, with gods help, learnt something to make him better at job.

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And you make a good point, however I’m not entirely convinced that the call centre(s) that VM have decided to use, (surely not just because they were the cheapest), are entirely dedicated to VM customer issues, ie, the support agent you speak to right now, will never, ever suddenly be be a Hoover agent dealing with a vacuum cleaner issue on their very next call!

Oh, and by the way, I have in the past, worked on the back end infrastructure for call centres, so, yes, I do have some experience of what I am talking about!

However, moving on, you are quite right, the average call centre staff, in general have about as much understanding of the underlaying technology and how it all works as my cat does, and he is not the brightest cat on the planet, shall we say? It’s all menu driven, and when a customer calls up with an issue which isn’t covered by the script then immediately it all falls apart, no?l

In a way, this is fine, VM are a commercial entity, and their main, in fact only, concern is to make money. If, as part of this, is to run the world’s cheapest and less competent support provision, then so be it! To be honest, I’m sure we’ll all agree that often the fix for an issue is a simple ‘turn it off and in again’ and if this works for, say 90% of the calls, then why would they invest in getting a better situation, 10% of our customers are unhappy with the support provision, tough, of those statistics will say that %x will leave, but the lose of their subscriptions is less that what it would cost to improve the CS provision and keep them?

So, as the CEO of the company, (with half an eye on your exit package, which is based (simply) on costs v’s expenditure), what would you do?

[darmo]

Yeh you are spot on, the cost to appease us gamers is not gonna be worth it for them. After going through the ringer with VM, I've finally come to the realisation that they simply don't care about us gamers and the service will not improve, which is i have left (albeit the deal BT are doing on FTTP and the quidco cashback did help somewhat)

[darmo]

Created a live BQM to track my last three weeks on VM network before switch to Openreach network (BT FTTP) for comparison. 

[legacy1]

Not a bad BQM...so far...

[darmo]

Yeh i'm in a relatively good area (by virgin media standards). and i still can't cope with my inconsistent gaming, god knows how gamers in other areas are coping, iv'e seen some absolute nightmarish BQM's on this forum lately.

[legacy1]

May be its a UDP problem and a hub 5 would of solved it.

[darmo]

lol doubt it. but what do i know, not as if im a subject matter expert like a VM retention agent.

[IPFreely]

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@darmo wrote:

@IPFreely Said: ... and randomly spammed threads with nonsense.

Nothing nonsense about it, if a VM customer is having issues with latency effecting their gaming. There are truly only two options for them.

1) Get used to it

2) Leave move to FTTP

The numerous threads and posts in this forum very much prove this. We have all upgraded our routers, we have all had engineers come out and tinker, yet, the poor BQM's persist, meaning my two options above, are TRULY the ONLY OPTIONS for 95 plus % of VM customers.

I guess the third options is wait until VM upgrade their area to FTTP but that could be upto 2028 or more.

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I'll let the capacity planning manager know that he can take a break over the HFC network. The completion of the spectrum upgrade on the upstream taking the last areas up from 50 MHz returns to make room for an OFDMA channel at the top isn't necessary, the work on an OFDMA channel at the bottom in the noisy part the SC-QAMs can't use for more capacity isn't necessary.

He'll be relieved. HFC capacity upgrades remain a big part of his workload.

[IPFreely]

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@darmo wrote:

Yeh you are spot on, the cost to appease us gamers is not gonna be worth it for them. After going through the ringer with VM, I've finally come to the realisation that they simply don't care about us gamers and the service will not improve, which is i have left (albeit the deal BT are doing on FTTP and the quidco cashback did help somewhat)

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The cost to appease gamers isn't worth it for anyone. I recall working for an ISP that was threatened with legal action by a gamer because he didn't like the route his traffic was taking.

VM is a poor choice for gamers. It always has been. Even after XGSPON it might well remain that way, however gamers consciously choose this, they could cancel, in return for the higher download speeds over FTTC.

I canceled VM's 50 Mbit service way back when because I was unhappy and went to a 16 Mbit ADSL service. Rather quality over quantity. You made the bargain, the download speeds for the dodgy latency. You could've left earlier but waited for FTTP to give you at least somewhat higher download speeds.

Your BQM by the way is pretty good. The odd expected spike but average is okay, though of course it being VM somewhat higher than BT will provide thanks to BT's better routes. BT is about as good as Openreach FTTP gets for latency thanks to how they connect to the Openreach network.

If you're a gamer don't use VM. I've said this in the past I'll say it again. If you can afford it leave VM there to download games and updates and actually game over something else, even ADSL is usually better.

Some gamers could be provided a room in Telehouse with direct fibre to their provider from their PC and they wouldn't be happy. VM is a mass market ISP that sells based on high download speeds. Cheap / good / fast. Nearly always pick two. VM can be cheap and fast but good? Different matter.