My internet has gone realy slow over the last few days, when i phonned virgin they couldnt tell me if they had capped the service but all we have used is spootify for music streaming and our eldest has been using on line games.

I have speedtested and the best result i can get is 0.24mbps which is rubbish how am I as a customer and user know what is using what? I dont know how much data is needed to listen to spootify for an hour etc.

I am thinking of leaving them and going to BT but I have heard that all companies do capping and throttling

Now all i can do is look at "text" pages anything else like you tube clips is a no go now.

its not really an "unlimited" service is it when they say it is - what a joke.

I'm on Virgin and live in the Northwest too. Last night my internet kept dropping out and was very slow (makes a PS3 user very angry!)

I'm at work at the mo but I'll let you know how mine is, could be a regional issue?

Anyone reccomend a good company for the net - There seem to be loads and i keep being stopped in town by those people from talk talk and then BT can ring with some good offers.

But im unsure with this capping its not like i have been downloading 10 movies every day lol

I'm at work at the mo but I'll let you know how mine is, could be a regional issue?

Cheers Mate - I am finding virgin a bit of a joke though they are always having so called "technical" probs the service is utter rubbish at the moment.

Are you on Cable or ADSL ???

Are you on Cable or ADSL ???

Its ADSL mate, comes down the BT line

Virgin cable here and it seems to be doing ok . Speedtest's Iceland download result 7.8Mbps, Bergen (Norway) 8.3Mbps and Dublin 10.3Mbps (on a 10mbps limit).

Later: Just seen you're on the dreaded ADSL - sympathy extended. Glad to have got rid of it.

Its ADSL mate, comes down the BT line

No chance of cable ?? as it's a more solid solution.

It could be your phone line or have you recived an email warning you ??

No chance of cable ?? as it's a more solid solution.It could be your phone line or have you recived an email warning you ??

Unfortunatley cable isnt available where i am (wish it was though) I havent had any emails and they cant see if im capped, but are going to run some tests at their end and this should see if its because i have been throttled.

Nightmare

Virgin cable here and it seems to be doing ok . Speedtest's Iceland download result 7.8Mbps, Bergen (Norway) 8.3Mbps and Dublin 10.3Mbps (on a 10mbps limit).

Show off

Just seen you're on the dreaded ADSL - sympathy extended. Glad to have got rid of it.

Havent got rid yet - thinking of going with BT everything in one place etc, but not sure what to do or where to go.

O2, never had any problems and it is a lot cheaper than BT

Its ADSL mate, comes down the BT line

You wont have been capped down to that slow speed, you would need to do an awful lot of spotify and online gaming to even be capped. I guess the issue is with your phone line, and changing ISP will make no difference as it will still be coming down the same line with all its issues.

Most ISPs now cap anyway via an AUP, even if they say they dont by mearly sayin excessive use and they deem what is excessive use, some will even stop your web access all together if you go over the limit. The virgin service when you are capped applies for a max of 4hrs, if the issue is several days old the problem lies elsewhere. Its common for people to blame virgin and capping when in reality you may have a hardware/software problem on your PC/Modem/router or dodgy phone line.

Show off

thinking of going with BT everything in one place etc.

Thats nothing too show off about lol

And thats a slow run lol

You're along the right lines with your thinking there buddy, better to go BT as if theres a fault somewhere they can only blame themselves.

I have seen quite a few people stuck in the third party trap of being fobbed off by BT and the other companys, who both blame each other for the problems. 9 out of 10 times it's a line fault IME.

Don’t go to BT if you don’t like the idea of being capped. I left them for this very reason. My normal speed was around 6mb, but go to iplayer or You Tube for instance and I went down to about 0.7mb!! You can test your true speed to the iplayer on this link. It will give a true representation of what the throttling of your Broadband is to a site that streams video.

As for the slow speed you have, I had something a bit similar with my old BT router and they told me to unplug it from the line and the mains. Give it a couple of minutes to discharge and plug it up and switch it on again. Did the trick.

This is my 10mb connection, after downloading about 2.5GB of stuff and playing games online today.

I get 9800kbps minimum on the iplayer diagnostic link posted by Amanda.

I have had BT here around 5 weeks back because of issues with no connection to the net whatsoever and they fixed something in the green box at the end of the street.

they did a big check on everything in the house and the outside line and they said there was no faults.

i have just speed tested again and its upto 0.43 mbps ... slowly going upwards

Thats nothing too show off about lol

And thats a slow run lol

Now thats impressive Do you get connection problems though with it running so fast

What i would do to have that.

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We have been with Sky for years now and our speed is ALWAYS good despite heavy downloads and hours of streaming media from Youtube, BBC iplayer and the like.

Don’t go to BT if you don’t like the idea of being capped. I left them for this very reason.

Thanks for the link Amanda - Who did you leave BT for...(your going to say virgin now lol)

I have plugged into the BT test socket thing and changed the filter and its still bad, Its ok for the text stuff just things like Iplayer - You tube - Online games.

the site my son is using for the online games thing is called addicting games but I am not up on if its intensive or not.

Going to give them a call tomorrow to try and get to the bottom of all this.

Now thats impressive Do you get connection problems though with it running so fast

What i would do to have that.

Virgin 50 meg cable

The upload is it a pooh but they are promising an upgrade soon

No issues at all other than running out of hdd space to store all the "stuff" I download. It's unlimited as well and the later I leave it the faster it runs, up too about 65 meg lol

Thanks for the link Amanda - Who did you leave BT for...(your going to say virgin now lol)

I have plugged into the BT test socket thing and changed the filter and its still bad, Its ok for the text stuff just things like Iplayer - You tube - Online games.

the site my son is using for the online games thing is called addicting games but I am not up on if its intensive or not.

Going to give them a call tomorrow to try and get to the bottom of all this.

I went to SKY and not only are they cheaper (£5 a month as I have SKY HD already), but I get a slightly faster download speed and my upload speed has doubled to 0.5mb. Very happy so far.

here are my test results on the i player test page...

Download speed: 482 Kbps

Streaming Speed 1: 293 Kbps

Streaming Speed 2: 302Kbps

Streaming Speed 3: 145 Kbps

My connection speed: 326 Kbps

The only green tick i got was for Radio at 128 Kbps

Something realy wrong here lol

Have you checked all of the computers in your house for network activity via task manager? (CTRL,ALT+DEL, networking tab)

Might be worth checking to make sure some malicious software isn't hogging your bandwidth.

All of mine are at 0% when my browser is idle and spikes at 0.25% when a standard Google search enquiry is carried out.

here are my test results on the i player test page...

Download speed: 482 Kbps

Streaming Speed 1: 293 Kbps

Streaming Speed 2: 302Kbps

Streaming Speed 3: 145 Kbps

My connection speed: 326 Kbps

The only green tick i got was for Radio at 128 Kbps

Something realy wrong here lol

It’s definitely not your router is it?