I'm keeping my virginity. (Virgin.net Broadband)

Member Name: kimking

Product:	Virgin.net Broadband
Date:	24/03/04 (2634 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good service, Good customer support, no contract

Disadvantages: none

I have been with Virgin for my dial up Internet access now for a couple of years and can say in all honesty I am very, very happy with the service I receive from them. In all the time with them they have never abused my bank details, my payments are taken at the correct amount at the correct time and with the exception of a few problems cause through the many bugs floating around the internet their service has never let me down, any problems that do arise through bugs etc are always reported on their home page and are fixed in the shortest time possible.

The only problem I do find I have any gripe with is the slow loading of pages and downloads but of course this was due to the fact I had a dial up connection and a 56k modem. This drove me to despair at times and the only way to keep my self from getting impatient is to run a program like Solitaire or Free cell in the background so as to give myself something to do while I wait, this is all very well but I would often find my self getting distracted by the game and so waste a lot of time. After giving my problem a lot of thought, I decided the only thing to do was to treat my self to Broadband.

Firstly what is Broadband?

Broadband is a permanent, high-speed connection to the Internet; sometimes referred to as always on so you don?t need to dial up each time you want to access the Internet. It is at least 10 times quicker than a 56k modem with typical speeds of 512 kbps (kilobits per second) and up load speeds of up to 256 kbps. This sounded like just what I wanted.

Pricing

Although I have been more than happy with the service I get from Virgin, I did feel I owed it to my self to look around a little first.
Virgin broadband costs, £24.99 per month, with no activation fee but do charge a further £24.99 for the activation kit, whic
h you need to connect with.
AOL, charge £27.99 per month with no other charges for activation or kits.
Tiscali, charge £24.99 per month for the same speed with no other charges. (They do also have lower speeds available at a lower cost)
Yahoo, charge £29.99 per month with no other charges. And
Freeserve, charge £27.99 and no other charges.

The contract

On checking I found that out of the ones I checked, all with the exception of Virgin, need you to commit your self to a 12 month contract so where as you don?t have too pay for the kit, it could cost you more in the long run, if for instance you find that you can?t get along with broadband for some reason, or your pc can?t cope, or even if you find that for any reason you are unable to use your pc for a couple of months, may be something unexpected might crop up and you need to cut your spending, with all the others I have checked you will have to keep paying the monthly charge for 12 months but with Virgin there is no contract, all you pay is the first months payment and you can then end it for what ever reason you like.

This was the final thing that pushed me towards Virgin, the thought of being tied up to pay out £24.99 or more for the next twelve months is something that I feel uneasy about, I would rather fork out the extra £24.99 for the kit and have peace of mind that if I made the wrong choice I can change it with out further cost to my self.

What you get

With the broadband service, as well as the high speed connection, you can get up to 5 email addresses which down load into outlook express, and 10MB of free space in which you can build your own web site. You use IE web browser, which is something I like; I tried AOL once and couldn?t get along with their browser at all.


Support


6;irgin does charge 50p per minute for support, something that in the two + years I have been with them I have never had to use. You can opt to pay an extra £5.99 per month, then you can use their low call number for as long as you like for how ever many times you like but there is little need for this as their phone support is charged at low rates until you are up and running smoothly, then I was told by their operator that Virgin don?t like to charge this and advise you to call customer services at low call rates first, only if it?s a big problem that needs an expert do you need to call their 50p line.

What you need to receive broadband.

The minimum pc requirements needed for the service are: -

Pentium 200 MHz.
32 MB RAM.
16-bit soundcard.
Four-speed cd-rom player.
Vidiocard/display 800 x 600, 265 colours.
150 MB free on the hard drive.
Windows 98, 98SE, ME, or XP
A spare USB port.

For Mac.

PowerPC 601.
200 MHz.
32 MB.
2 speed CD player
Video driver/display 800 ? 600 265 colours.
100 MB on hard drive.
Mac OS 8.6 or higher.
A spare USB port.

You will also need a BT landline for your phone.

Signing up

This was very easy; you simply click on Register or in my case ?change package? then it?s a simple matter of filling in a few details on line and ordering your connection kit.. After you have done this, Virgin check with BT that you are able to use broadband in you area and that there will be no problems with your line, they then email you the results. All being well in a short while (the next day in my case) they will email you with your activation date, which was exactly 7 day
s after I signed up. If you don?t have an account with Virgin they can put you on their ?pay as you go? service until you are activated.

You can cancel you order and get a full refund if you cancel your order before they arrange your activation date, if you cancel after that but before activation they will charge you £15 to cover the fee?s they have had to pay BT.

The Activation kit

On signing up I was informed that my activation kit would be delivered 2 days before activation would take place and that exactly when it arrived. The kit contained; 1 speed touch modem, this looks just like a mouse but twice as big, 2 filter units, 1 cable, 1 cd containing the driver and a user guide. Every thing was well packed and arrived in A1 condition. The modem I received was a Speedtouch 330.

The web site.

Virgin.net the home of Virgin is a very full and informative site; there are links to just about all-Virgin services, which as we all know are many. For instance you can book a train ticket, book a holiday, buy wine, by phones and music, a whole host of things. There are competitions too; these are usually one question of which you pick one from the choice of three different answers. I have actually won a Fugi Fine Pix digital camera. Also on signing up can get a £20 off voucher to spend at the Virgin wine site, so if like me, you enjoy a glass of wine you?ll be well sorted.

Installation and activation

Activation took place with no problems at all but the installation of my modem was not quite as straightforward as I first thought it would be. Firstly when I put in the software, connected the modem and rebooted my pc it froze on boot and I could not start windows unless I disconnected the modem, if I started the pc first then connected the modem I could then acces
s the net for about 10 minutes before my pc went very wrong, also at this time if I received a phone call it would disconnect me from the internet.

I contacted Virgin support who tried different things before telling me to phone the suppliers of the modem, which meant phoning their 50p per min, help line. I had no choice but to do this. The help line operator tried loads of different things and after I had been on the phone for about 12 minutes told me to hang up and he would phone me back as he felt I had paid enough.

When he phoned me back he gave me instructions to download up dates for both my pc and the modem, he then gave me a low call number in case I needed further help, I have to say I was impressed with this as so many help lines just take and take. Luckily I was able to get a friend to download these and put them on a disk for me.

It did take two days to get all my problems sorted but they are sorted but every thing is now working fine. Virgin.net even phoned me later to ask if everything was ok and I was happy with my installation, I told him I now was.

My opinion

As I have said it was not quite as easy to get onto broadband as I first though but most of the problems were with my pc, although the driver supplied with the modem froze my pc on boot up because it needed the up date which you have to download from the internet, which I feel is a little naughtiness on the part of the modem suppliers.

Although it has to be said the help lines could not have been more helpful and fair if they tried, The operators were always patient, polite and very easy to deal with.

I have now been using my broadband connection for almost six weeks and can say in all honesty that I have no complaints what so ever; my connection is always up to speed and secure.

I would recommend Virg
in broadband to anyone, as they are a first class ISP; I have been with them for over two years now and have no complaints. I would give them five stars but feel I must take one off because of the driver thing. I am very happy with everything but most of all with knowing I can end the service at anytime should I wish to.

Thanks for reading.

Kim.

Summary: