Hi,
Thanks for your replies and commiserations to you who do not have cable laid on.
Out of curiosity I browsed the Plusnet site and the broadband speed quoted for my area was very low indeed although the price matched this. I didn't spend much time on the Plusnet site due to tea being ready. We sat down to tea and a guy from Plusnet phoned to ask if he could speak to me; this only a few minutes after I had visited their website? Top marks Plusnet for rapidly chasing new customers?
Now I'm back on the computer I searched for Plusnet customer reviews and WOW what dreadful reviews jumped out at me;
http://www.broadband.co.uk/broadband/pr ... /page:all/
A sample picture of the reviews is below. I've not checked Virgin Media reviews.
Our complete package is £43.88 per month; this includes the phone line which we must agree to and we are under no contract having been customers for over 25 years so I believe we could opt out without difficulty from Virgin Media but it would take a lot to convince me to do so given the excellent service we receive from Virgin Media; sometimes better the devil you know? For around £11 per week we enjoy unlimited YouTube access allowing us to pick and choose our TV viewing which we take great advantage of; there is very little buffering on movies or music videos; we do occasionally suffer from loss of picture (an error has occurred) meaning I need to set everything up again but compared to normal rubbish TV Bron and I don't mind paying even if it does cost more at Virgin Media. I could contact Virgin Media and haggle but I play fair and we are happy to pay this amount each month which after all is what I agreed to.
It must be about three years ago I had a serious run in with Virgin Media. I have a £5 mobile phone and it broke my heart and pocket to put £10 credit onto it this being a pay as you go Nokia bought through eBay. It took a lot for me to buy this phone but I did so in order to phone home to Bron to say once a month I'm on my way home from Rufforth Auto Jumble and I think there is still around £8 credit on the thing? One Saturday morning at Rufforth I phoned home but didn't get a reply which was strange because Bron was definitely home so I tried and tried but without success; I don't like mobile phones and don't even fully understand how to use this cheap one I have but it was ringing OK as it had done previously so I became anxious thinking Bron might be in some kind of trouble?
To cut a long story short when I arrived home Bron too was upset not having heard from me so I tried using the mobile whilst standing in our front room; the mobile was ringing OK but our landline proved to have died? Anyway I contacted the service and an engineer came out but couldn't fix the landline so a while later another engineer arrived and he too couldn't fix the line but this engineer informed us we could be without landline for three weeks because the street had to come up? This was just ridiculous to us so a friend in the know kindly gave me the email address of the CEO in charge of these services and I sent off a polite email expressing my disdain at being without landline for three weeks due to the street having to be dug up just to re-connect our phone?
Boy this did the trick; in no time at all a delightful lady contacted me by email being the personal assistant of the CEO; she was full of apologies and already had appointed a manager to sit on our case until Bron and I were fully satisfied. An appointment was made for another engineer to visit us and he quickly arrived bang on the agreed time; this engineer was the supervisor who knew his job; he introduced himself saying he would look at the "Slave" box located near the end of our driveway which he did returning in a few minutes; he was amazed that we had been informed the street would have to come up and he apologized saying he would need to leave us for a few minutes to visit the master box down the lane. As promised he quickly returned and went to the slave box; two minutes later our landline burst into action taking us by surprise; the engineer was just checking the line and said he would finish off in the slave box then he would come to see us.
The engineer asked if I would open the garage so that he could check the equipment on our property; the equipment was outdated so he quickly upgraded the lot including the router and gave us a free upgrade as compensation together with more apologies for us being messed around by the two previous engineers. Whilst the engineer was sitting in his van doing the paperwork the phone rang again and it was the lovely lady enquiring if everything was now to our satisfaction and of course it was. What happened to the other two engineers once we were sorted out?
Virgin Media has been fine ever since even if it does cost more so I think you'll understand why we would be reluctant to change supplier? Money is only part of the bigger picture?
Many thanks so far for your interesting replies; it appears the only thing which could be improved is to lower the monthly cost but we are using the service which is proving very reliable and enjoy huge amounts of downloads.
Kind regards, Col.
