NEWS
Virgin Broadband Blacked Out By ‘Routing Issue’
Virgin Media’s broadband services across the UK have been restored after customers experienced a blackout
Virgin Media has fixed a ‘routing issue’ that caused some customers to experience a three hour broadband blackout last night.
The problem apparently occurred on Tuesday night between 5pm and 8pm, when an unknown number of Virgin Media’s five million customers in the UK experienced a loss of their internet connection.
The company blamed a ‘routing issue’ for the problem, which it says is now resolved.
Service Outage
“Our customers may have experienced some problems getting online for a short time yesterday evening,” a Virgin Media spokesperson told Techweek Europe in an emailed statement. “This was related to a routing hardware [problem] leading to intermittent broadband access.”
“Our engineers have now fixed the problem and services were restored by 7.30pm,” the spokesperson said. “We apologise for the inconvenience.”
It should be noted that this is not the first outage for Virgin Media. In October some Virgin Media customers in Scotland experienced a broadband outage after rats were found to have chewed through fibre optic cables.
However those Virgin Media outages seem to have been nowhere near the scale of the outage experienced by thousands of BT customers last October. This occurred after a major power failure at a BT exchange in Birmingham.
Speed Increase
The Virgin Media service outage comes just days after the company announced that it will be doubling its broadband speeds for four million of its customers, and increasing its top speed to 120Mbps.
Subscribers to Virgin’s 10Mbps, 20Mbps, 30Mbps and 50Mbps will see their speeds at least doubled, while its 100Mbps customers will receive the new top speed of 120Mbps. This new top speed will allow users to download an entire music album in just 4.4 seconds.
One third of the UK population currently has access to Virgin Media’s 100Mbps service and it has committed to increase this to at least one half of the UK by the middle of 2012.
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23 replies to Virgin Broadband Blacked Out By ‘Routing Issue’
3 hours? I was out for over a day.
I have been having bandwidth and speed problems with my service for several weeks. I cannot get hold of Virgin as they are always busy. Im thinking of leaving them and going onto BT. Im supposed to be able to stream TV and the such like but have been unable to do so. Ill try and contact them again tonight but failing to do so i will leave them.
Virgin broadband is the worst i have ever used, the customer service is zero. i am paying for a service i never enjoyed. Using the landline is like making a call in a jungle as it’s always breaking.
Very happy with Virgin’ service – I was on the 50mbit service, and getting in excess of 50mbit. Just downgraded to 30mbit in anticipation of it doubling to 60mbit in the next few months. My phonecall to do this lasted about 10 minutes.
From my view i have never had in issue with Virgin (NTL), Most of the issues i have heard about are because of the ADSL not DSL lines.. eg line controlled by BT and not by Virgin.
If you use the Virgin owned and controller cable system problems are very small. and Downloads speed and bandwidth throtling mininal.
plusnet
6 pound a month , i get 56 mb per sec.
Customer service is outstanding.
And i ahve worked for a fw of there rivals over the years
I am connected to Virgin Media for internet broadband. The service is advertised at “up to” 8 Mbits/sec but I have only once(some years ago) achieved even 1Mbs. My typical speed is 0.6Mbs and I live within the M25 – hardly rural. What is worse no one seems the slightest bit interested to improve the service.
I’ve used virgin for a few years now and pay for their 10meg service. I get 9.999mbps, exactly what I pay for. I’ll be getting 20 and will be upgraded april – july. can’t complain – it beats the pants off any dsl line.
getting through to them is hit an miss. i don’t know where their call centres are based. that is the downside, but i’ve not had to contact them about my broadband or phone line, just the mobile service. and that was about twice in a 5 year period. i just got a new tivo box – it transforms watching tv – i’m now able to avoid most adverts and feel i’m sticking it to the man when i fast forward throug them
Inside the M25 Virgin resell BT broadband under their own branding, which is why you get a bad speed and why Virgin can’t do anything to help.
In my long experience with them, their customer service is the usual low standard we have come to expect from British companies but their Broadband is second to none.
Virgin media leading the way in Broadband speed and quality of service, so much better than when I had BT.
I get lightning fast downloads, with the free upgrade on its way they will be providing the best possible broadband service to the uk, get on board !!
[MARKED AS SPAM BY ANTISPAM BEE | Spam IP]
It will always be up to a certain amount because the further you are away from the main exchange, the slower the broadband will be.
These stories make me laugh, no internet for three whole hours, blimey, were people rioting in the streets at the news? You want to live where I do, out in the country three miles from the nearest village. Three hours would be a blessing, try being without internet for days at a time and even when it is working I’ll be lucky to get half a MB.
I think it’s about time these companies gave rural users a decent service rather than just making money in the cities!
I have been with virgin 1 year cannot wait for my contract to finish,broadband speed very slow at peak times. Contacting them is nigh impossiable if you do get through they fob you off telling you about intermetint problems this going on for 2 months never again roll on july.
Is it BT wires and routers. if so, changing to talk talk or sky you will have same issues.
I’ve been on Virgin’s lowest(10 Mbit/sec) broadband for a few months now. Speed is OK but it should be as I am close to Liverpool centre. And it is due to be doubled at no cost in the next few months.
When it comes to getting hold of any aftersales customer service though…
It is very nearly impossible. You just end up on an endless loop of robotic answerphone menus – and heaven help you if you do not know your password!
One little trick that worked for me – but probably won’t now that I have revealed it here – I phoned up as a new customer and got through to SALES… then asked to be put through to Customer Service – No problem if they think you are going to spend money!
been with them since they took over – and the previous company, no problems whatsoever!!!
Never had a problem with VM. Anyone can have hardware failures. Name me one provider that hasn’t. I get the advertised 20 mbps all the time which is more than i can say for BT
I have been with virgin broadband for about 4 months, 3 of which have been problematic. Intermittant connection and or a fraction of the 30mbs I pay for. In fainess I have spoken to Virgin and they have given me the option to end the contract and refunded 2 months charges. They claim the problem will be resolved in March.
I have decided to stick with it and see if they make good their prommise. I suggest if you are having issues, contact them and demand the option to end the contract early if they cannot fix the problem.
If you pay for something and not getting it, british law will support you. So stop talking about it and do something.
Virgin like most high profile companies do not want bad
publicity in highly competitive markets.
They have been fair with me and I am sure they will be fair with all who are having problems.
In the meantime I am looking forward to the problem being fixed and getting 60mbs when they double to speed (if it works)
I have been with Virgin Media for over10 years and they have always been helpful with a good speed. I am looking forward to 20 mbps
Our service went down around 14.30 and was still down well after midnight. Had to reboot the system at 8am next day to restore the connection.
An apology would be nice.
Just glad I was out yesterday evening.
I don’t know what some people are complaining about. I was with Sky and was paying for their ‘up to 20 MB service’. I very occasionally got 14 (which was supposed to be the maximum my phone line would give), and most of the time got 7!
I am now with Virgin on their 30MB service and I seem to get 32.8MB on long downloads. Never had a problem. Can’t wait for the speed upgrade!
I’ve suddenly lost the wireless manager from the task bar, and if I try and accesss via start menu I get an error message to send to microsoft. Over the last few months I keep getting booted and have to retype my user name and passsword . . . Now
will vm is a good company yes i agress service from time to time can be a pain and i have had problems but they do try to fix as quickly as they can (i had problem with fauulty box in end they have given my 3 new boxs to fix problem and has now worked)
for an answer to byoxygeneuk the wireless task manger is now an online based program there should be a link on the back of you modum or if it old then ring up and they should tellyou how to acsess it.
just upgraded to there 30mb as worked out cheaper than 20mb and can not wait for the double up in july
however bills sa always in time