Omadawn
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Re: XGS-PON Packages
Yes but that really just refers to the fibre which is capable of supporting symmetric 10 Gbit/s speeds, but what if the equipment at each end required to support that speed is stupidly expensive? What if VM decide that the number of people who would be prepared to pay for that speed is so ridiculously low that there is no return on investment, right now on getting kit that can do it? Marketing is as big (if not bigger) a factor in all this as technical abilities. VM have made a, sort of, reputation is being perceived as the ‘fastest domestic broadband provider’; all they need to be is a little bit faster than their nearest competitor. If BT et al can offer 2-3 Gb/s speeds, then VM just need to offer 4-5, not 10, there’s no commercial need to do so - it’ll cost a hell of a lot of money for little or no practical return! So what I expect to see initially, is speeds over XGS-PON, broadly similar to what is provided over the DOCSIS system, for purely commercial, not technological reasons. The vast, vast majority of uses are horribly asymmetric anyone, very, very few people bother about upload and only see the headline ‘speed’ figures. How about a 2 Gb/s downstream connection with, say 150-200 Mb/s upstream, for a price similar to the fastest (but slower) OR connection? Very few will notice that the OR offering is symmetric, or care. Of course VM can bump your upstream speed up - but it’ll cost you extra!1.3KViews0likes1CommentRe: Final bill
MIKE24WF wrote: I gave my 30 days notice and my services are set to go off 10 August. Can you explain why I have been told that I need to pay a full months bill of £86 on the 13th Aug (usual DD date) for billing period of (8th August-7th September). You expect me to pay this and then be refunded back. Absolutely not! Yes, OK I see what you mean, but this is perfectly normal and legal. The billing cycle starts on 8th August, at that date you are still a VM customer and possibly you might call and cancel the cancellation or maybe run up a massive bill with pay per view videos - yes OK you won’t, but you might! VM’s billing is done in advance, this, you actually agreed to when first signing up, yes I know, nobody reads the small print but still; so on 8th August, you as a current VM customer get billed for the next month, yes the DD may go out on 13th, after you have technically left, but that isn’t relevant here, it’s the billing date that is. You will eventually get refunded for the period after 10th when you stopped being a customer, annoyingly that money is in their account earning them interest rather than in yours, but it is what it is!2.4KViews0likes0CommentsRe: More on those "Renew today and get your current package for 20/25% less" emails
OK so the link is still broken and VM’s marketing department are still putting out offers that the tech team can’t make happen, but still. The point though is that this is effectively the same as before, the wording, in your example, specifically says ‘Your contract ended on....’ legally incorrect, so no doubt they’ll have another go at it, but ‘ended’; past tense. The implication being that you are outside of the 18 month minimum term and hence are NOW paying the full price. So yes, renew now, get a 20% discount on the current (full price) - well if only the website wasn’t broken, but still - but you would now be tied into a new 18 month minimum term contract and because of the changes in the Ts&Cs, which you would have to agree to to take up the offer, when, not if, VM up the price by 3.9% over and above the inflation rate in April of next you, you can no longer leave because of it - well, yes, you can leave, but not without paying them an early disconnection fee, which, I understand, is no longer capped at £240 + VAT.1.7KViews0likes1CommentRe: Breaking: OFCOM investigating VM over difficulty cancelling VM contracts
goslow wrote: A big fat fine doesn't seem to be first choice in the ICO's proposed new approach to enforcement though https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2022/11/how-the-ico-enforces-a-new-strategic-approach-to-regulatory-action/ Absolutely true, except imagine a government, not doing too well in the polls, thinking ‘you know what, if we were to (unofficially) lean on a organisation to impose massive fines and we can claim how much we are on the consumer’s side and in evidence claim ……’ Personally, if I were Lutz, I wouldn’t necessarily be sleeping too well tonight.* * except, of course, whatever happens, VM’s senior management will walk away with a big payout and any fines will eventually be carried by the poor customers - such is the way these things work.15KViews0likes1CommentRe: Breaking: OFCOM investigating VM over difficulty cancelling VM contracts
I get where you are coming from, but this is an entirely different matter and isn’t really within OFCOM’s remit. They are concerned whether VM are adhering to the rules regarding compensation, easy of leaving, company practices etc. which VM agreed to. So, for example, in the great email debacle of 2023, OFCOM can’t actually intervene in how they provide a service, only whether or not they pay the proper level of compensation - of course that is to be decided! However, if, and it is a big if, VM have been negligent in looking after customer information then I promise you that the ICO can inflict fines and damage to a level that will make anything that OFCOM can do, look like child’s-play!16KViews4likes6CommentsRe: New 1 Gb install - upload limited to ~85 Mbps
ChrisFD2 wrote: Engineer visit completed, he has left now and said he will give me a call once he has spoken to second line. He said that on his testing kit, the profile I have shows 1000/50, whereas I should be on 1000/100. He's not seen this behaviour before, hence the call to second line. He thinks what might be happening is my hub trying to upload at the 100 Mbps profile, but the VM backend system is pulling that back to 50 Mbps, hence the upload tests have always been somewhere between the two figures. Yes well, this is not only ‘strange’, as Tom says in his later post, but actually a complete load of old rubbish! It’s not how it works! Your hub downloads a configuration profile which tells it what maximum ‘speed’ it should connect at. On your tier this will be either 50 or 100 Mb/s (actually slightly over). Since you are getting speeds greater than 50 Mb/s then you have to be configured for the 100 Mb/s setting. So why aren’t you getting that speed? The most obvious answer is simply congestion. There are too many users in your area, all competing for (limited) capacity and bandwidth, and as a result none of you can get the full speed, well at least not consistently, try around 3am and see what you get then! You are absolutely not going to get any call back from ‘the engineer’, they will have marked the job as ‘done’ and moved on, from VM’s perspective, you are getting well within the range of speeds they advertise for the 1 gig tier, so, honestly, they aren’t going to do anything about it either - you ARE getting what you pay for, ‘you did read the small print before signing up, yes’, so jog on, is, alas, going to be their reaction to it.1.1KViews0likes1CommentRe: Loss of Email - F010762348
VMCopperUser wrote: They don't need to contact you. <snip> I thought that is was a fairly recent OFCOM requirement that suppliers have to contact their customers; by letter, if I recall correctly; at least thirty days before the end of their minimum term contract to inform them of this, what the new price will be and make an renewal offer! Maybe not, perhaps I am misremembering things? Although your point about not accepting the first few offers is a good one - of course this only works if the customer has already put in their notice to quit, otherwise VM have no incentive whatsoever to bargain. Of course, some people aren’t happy to play ‘poker’ and bluff and counter-bluff over their internet connection, which is what it all boils down to.1.2KViews1like0CommentsRe: Loss of Email - F010762348
KenM2 wrote: Just a thought - my VM Contract is due for renewal on 9 August. If I can't receive emails, I won't know, or be able to contest, any new offer they make. Will they just send an email anyway (assuming VM's own emails are working) knowing it won't arrive and just take the view that as I didn't contest it they can just impose whatever new monthly charge they feel like? Well that will be interesting. Well sort of yes, they can - but as you have freely admitted in public, that you are fully aware of the dates, the way the 18 month introductory period works and the possibilities of VM imposing a higher charge going forward - I’m afraid that any Court would rightly wonder why you didn’t take action yourself to mitigate against any increases by contacting VM yourself. Nice try though! Of course, once 9th August passes and you are out of the minimum term period, then you are free to leave at any time by just giving the required 30 days notice. In fact what you should do is contact VM now, well tomorrow, and outright ask them what the new cost will be. You will get precisely nowhere with the normal CS staff, so best to firstly do a bit of homework, ie what other providers are available to you and what will they offer (don’t be tempted to lie, VM know this as well as anyone else), and then call and select the ‘thinking of leaving us option’. Ultimately, of course, this is a deal between you and them, they can basically demand whatever they want for the service, and you are free to decline it and look elsewhere - neither of you owe the other any favours or loyalty.1.2KViews1like1CommentRe: Loss of Email - F010762348
carl_pearce wrote: Tony_ wrote: Agree with your comments.. it is not a free service. Might be a service VM are trying to push into the background but it ain't free. Unfortunately there are some responses to this debate that are not entirely as unbiased as they would like us to think. I had them email me with their comments of doom within the first week of this fiasco suggesting it was my fault for not making a back up. Yeah right ! Tony_ Would you blame a HDD manufacture for a failed drive, and losing your data because you didn't make a backup, as always suggested by the supplier? Would you spout GDPR regulations because you cannot access your data in a timely manner due to the failed drive, because you don't have any backups available? How about a mobile phone, a camera, and so on? Regardless of how reliable you expect a service or supplied device to be, you are responsible for your data. Yes, OK, I do see where you are coming from, but you are wrong, sorry! The difference is that if you are provided with a hardware device, say a hard disk, then, naturally, there is a non-zero chance that your particular disk might fail and you lose data. Fair enough, sucks to be you and you really should have taken steps etc. However there is a big difference between that impacting a single user and say, 10,000 hard drives failing simultaneously, and taking out 10,000 people’s personal data. In the latter case, is it fair to say that these are all 10,000 isolated and independent issues with no connection between them at all, or might it be a systemic issue with the manufacturing of the disks? Because if you are to argue that a failure on such a scale points to incompetence or poor quality control, then the lawsuits is going to drop onto the supplier! One or two people lose their email, yes, well sorry about that, but you should have made provisions, but this argument doesn’t scale, 1000, 10,000 people loose their email, no, this becomes a question of competence, and VM’s legal obligations to provide a reasonably ‘fit for purpose’ system.1.1KViews3likes1CommentRe: Loss of Email - F010762348
The basic difference is that under a ‘Class Action’ suite, action is taken on behalf of an unknown number of potential litigants - damages are awarded and this is divided up among anyone who can realistically claim that they were affected by the issue. And these, as you are aware, aren’t legal here. A Group Litigation action requires interested parties to ‘sign up’ beforehand to a legal action, you only have to claim that you were affected by it, and generally aren’t expected to pitch up in Court and personally testify. But, if your claim fails, then you and everyone else who has signed up, is expected to carry the costs. On the other hand, if you win, then you all share any damages awarded. Anyone who didn’t sign up beforehand, gets, well nothing.1.3KViews1like1Comment