[Wolves] Thoughts on Virgin Media?

[Dave Morley]

On Mon, 2008-08-18 at 22:43 +0100, Ron Wellsted wrote:

> 
> Quite a lot of questions there! As a VM XL (20mb) user I will try to
> answer from the inside.
> 
> 
> 1/ The IP is allocated by DHCP to your (firewall external) mac address,
> I believe the lease duration is 24 hours, so as long as your firewall is
> powered up, you will keep the same IP.  Rebooting the firewall may
> result in a new IP.  The CM does not support DDNS, that is left for the
> firewall or whatever is behind it. I use ddclient on my server.  I had
> the same IP for about 3 years once.

9 times out of 10 now it won't.  This is partially down to the fact that
it's assigning is done via mac address.  However if you change your nic
there's a chance it will.

> 
> 2/  I have only hit the throttling limit once when I downloaded 2 DVD
> isos in quick succession.  On 20mb, this means you drop to 5 mb, which
> is still faster than many ADSL connections.  I don't tend to think about
> it, even with VPN, VoIP, mail etc all running over the link.

I don't hit the throttling limit and I probably download more than most.
I use my head though and do it first thing in the morning.  You could
setup a cron job to dl anything you need.  Throttling only occurs
between 4-11 I think. 

> 
> 3/ Support.  The helldesk have their script and they are sticking to it!
>   Certainly anyone in the lug has a better idea than them.

They will put their hands up and admit it is a fault their end if you
play along with the script :)  9 times out of 10 you can give them the
info they require by doing your own thing anyway :)  At which point they
say I'll get an engineer on it asap.

> 
> 4/ I relay my email with TLS to my domain server as the VM mail servers
> are regularly blacklisted.  Direct delivery is unreliable as so many
> sites block Cable/ADSL customer IP address ranges (very sensibly!).
> 
> The 50 mb trials have been completed and every one is waiting for the
> upgrades to happen.  These seem to have been put back as the management
> seem to have realised the impact of the 50mb connections would have on
> the backbone :)  (any comments ReLoaD?)
> 
> ADSL suffers from trying to use an infrastructure (in the last mile)
> that is basically older than me.  The cable infrastructure is 15 years
> old at max.
> 
> Cap vs Throttling: It depends on how the cap is implemented, cut off or
> extra charges.  Personally, I would rather run slow for a few hours than
> not at all or be hit with a hefty bill at the end of the month.
> 
> The new customer deals are annoying for a long term customer.  For
> phone, TV (XL) and internet (XL) I am paying about £70 per month.  the
> intro packages are only for the basic services.
> 
> If you are in a cable service area, I would recommend using cable.
> However check very carefully that you can get their full TV service as
> they do offer phone and internet outside of their cable service areas by
> taking over the phone line and providing ADSL on it.  You want to be on
> the cable network directly, not via BT.
> 

-- 
Seek That Thy Might Know
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