Virgin Engineers

[klondike]

Just download it and install it. If you don't recall installing it then it needs updating anyway.

March 01, 2026, 11:27:00 PM
They call it fibre but it isn't. Maybe they are changing their phone to use the coax. It used to be wired with the coax and a separate phone cable coming in together but visibly two cables joined.

[Mups]

The computer man coming this Friday morning.
He is going to put a new hard drive in, and also re-install Windows.
This is going to cost!   

[klondike]

I thought you said all your devices had a problem.

[Mups]

I thought you said all your devices had a problem.

Well if the hard drive doesn't sort it,  surely the reinstalation will, won't it?  At least on the big p.c?
I don't know what to do about the lap top though.
I can't keep on paying out and getting nowhere. 

I am tired of worrying about it all  now,  so off to bed.  

[JBR]

We have Virgin, and have had for many years.  No problems.
However, the renewal time has come up.  I had been on a reduced price (in order to persuade us not to go with someone else) of around £30.  The full price would be over £50, so I ummed and ahhed!
The last time prices increased, I did the same so my bill came down from £50-ish to £30-ish.

I fully expected no reduction this time as I'd already been given one before.
However, I was pleased to hear that for a year or two it would be only a few pounds more than the £30, and the year after that more like £40, then the year after around £50, which I thought was a much better offer than the usual banging it back up to full price.  

Clearly, they are keen to retain good customers and, to be honest, I have never had any need to complain about anything.

[klondike]

As I said earlier - it's their business model. Keeping everybody in contract means guaranteed income. Hike the price at end of contract - no call well that's fine - being paid over the odds. Get a call reduce it a bit and that's another year of money coming in.

[JBR]

I'm still hoping that BRSK might expand into our area.  They already cover an area not a couple of hundred yards from us and they keep promising to extend to us.
I'll keep nagging at them when Virgin's prices go up in a couple of years.

[klondike]

Lucky here despite only being a modest sized town. Virgin have been here from way back in the NTL days when it was a TV and alternate phone to GPO Telephones. ADSL and then VDSL both arrived reasonably early then came Openreach fibre and not long after City Fibre sold by Vodafone.

I've had all of those although was originally living in a village when the glory of 512kbs ADSL replaced dial up. Then came upgrades to 1Mbps and 2Mbps and 8Mbps VDSL. I think I was in town before 16Mbps ADSL2  came along.. VDSL in this house started out OK but as the take up increased cross talk degraded it and that was when I took a 20Mbps VM connection and later upgraded to 50Mbps which was when the problems with them started and I eventually went to Openreach fibre which had just arrived here. I don't recall the actual speed or which ISP that was. I've always moved around between ISPs and currently I'm on my second term with Vodafone having deserted them for BT when they must have had some sale on or something because Vodafone wouldn't match their own new customer deal and BT actually worked out cheaper. They were both 500Mbps. I switched back to Vodafone and took their lower 150Mbps as it was significantly cheaper than the faster packages which hadn't been the case before and nobody can really make use of the basically willy waving speeds being offered these days.  About 30 years of internet covered there if include the start which was Compuserve dial up in 1995.

[Mups]

Klondike, you say in your first paragraph above about NTL,  well my email is still  NTL.   

Somehow I don't think you will be surprised by that,  though.     

[klondike]

NTL bought up all the other cable TV companies bankrupted by the cost of cabling up towns. They rebranded as Virgin Media about the same time as Branson was involved in getting a stack of other companies taking on the Virgin name. I don't think Branson ever held more than a minority stake. It was all a marketing exercise. I think they still exist under a huge debt mountain. Lots of grey NTL wall boxes around here. I don't think the whole town was cabled but most of the older areas were. 

I imagine it makes no economic sense to cable anywhere new now as putting in fibre would be so much cheaper although they were doing little fill ins at one time if a bunch of new houses got built between cabled areas.