[Gllug] VirginMedia or Urban Wi-Max experiences

[John Winters]

Jose Luis Martinez wrote:
[snip]
> That is all fair enough, but yesterday we heard similar things about
> Tiscali, and previously BT and so on and so forth.

I can't speak for Tiscali because I haven't tried them, but BT and
Virgin/NTL simply aren't on the same scale for awfulness.  Yes, BT can
be a bit clueless at times, and I stopped using their broadband service
when they integrated lots of bits of Yahoo and stopped providing basic
simple connectivity, but they do at least tend to cope eventually.

NTL on the other hand were utterly unbelievable.  It took me about 6
months just to cancel the service - they ignored all correspondence,
even when sent by special delivery.  I had to get Ofcom involved before
I got any reaction from them at all.  Their technical side were quite,
quite useless.  I couldn't even call their call centre without having to
queue, get connected to the wrong call centre, queue again and then talk
to someone who hadn't a clue.  Rinse and repeat.

Believe it - NTL/Virgin are mind-bogglingly incompetent.  Don't even
*think* about using them.

> So the question would be, which of the big providers is the least bad?

It's a good way of putting it, but ask yourself *why* you want one of
the big providers.  It almost inevitably means you'll get worse service.

> (if you get my drift), it would be interesting to know opinions about
> this keeping in mind that the way people are buying broadband access is
> more and more as part of a package that includes phone calls, TV and
> even mobile phones (Virgin do this btw).
> 
> If some lay peron asks me about this in all honestly I can't just tell
> them to go and sign up with a niche provider, specially noawadys if this
> would mean that more would need to be paid for all the disjointed services.

I on the other hand would insist on them going with a niche provider -
one where you can actually talk to someone who knows his arse from his
elbow and where it actually matters that they keep their customers happy.

Yes, you may well end up paying slightly more to get a decent quality of
service.  If price is your only criterion for selecting things (whether
goods or services) then you will inevitably end up with 3rd rate products.

Since I inevitably end up having to support anyone who I've made a
recommendation to, I will *always* recommend a quality service over a
cheap one.  Does it really matter to pay an extra £2-5 a month to get
something that actually works?

John

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