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Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - (see all news for this day)
virgin broadband & support - 11:43 AM
(filed under 'general')
a few days ago i signed up for virgin broadband. the main reason i did it was because it was a really good deal & it'll save me at least $10 a month on phone & internet while still keeping me on broadband. broadband is a necessity not only because dialup speed makes me want to kill myself, but because i need to be able to access the internet (at decent speeds) for uni.
the other reason i was interested is because it comes with a wireless modem. i didn't want it particularly for my computer, because it's a desktop (it's not like i'm planning to shift it to odd places around the house), but my pda, my palm, has wi-fi & i was hoping that i could surf on it. i can! woohoo! 
so when the modem arrived yesterday, i set it up & it connected with no troubles .. well, it was a touch slow, but i was sure that could be sorted out once i'd gone through the registration page, etc. however, after i'd got that far, the connection died. there was nothing. nada. zero. zilch. it wasn't even slow: it was just completely dead. it was the same from my palm. no good there, either.
i called tech support at virgin & spoke to a guy for an hour. he & i tried all sorts of things to no avail. he had no reports of anything wrong at their end & all the settings looked good on my computer, so he suggested calling gizmo, a computer tech support place. i arranged a time for them to call me the following day & simply plugged in the connection i was using previously.
that evening, after i came home from uni, i thought to myself, "what the hell. let's try it again." so i tried to connect from my palm. lo & behold, it connected! i stayed on it for about three hours & it seemed to be all good.
i tried from my computer in the morning & it was able to connect, but it was receiving only the lowest speed connection available. the paperwork said to contact virgin if it was consistently getting the lowest speed, so i did.
the support line was busy, as i expected, so i waited on hold .. & waited .. & waited .. & waited. for forty-nine minutes, in fact. fortunately, i was chatting to dave online at the time & i also have hands free on my phone, so at least i had something to do & didn't have to hold the phone up to my ear with my shoulder & end up getting a sort neck.
in every other situation with virgin, i've been more than pleased with their service & support, so i wasn't all that worried about the wait. when i'd called them yesterday, i was onl hold for half an hour, so i was expecting to wait at least that long. it seems that the response to their broadband offer has far exceeded their expectations.
so when someone finally got to my call, he went through some settings on the modem's configuration panel with me. it was all good. the connection speed is now excellent & it's all working just as it should. it seems that there were a few other people having the same issues yesterday, so, as i suspected, it was something at their end after all.
so despite the long wait on hold, i'm still happy with virgin. i'm sure that maybe others may have had bad experiences with them, proven by the old adage that says something about not being able to please everybody all the time, but i've never had an issue with them.
i have a thirty day trial period for it, so we'll see how it goes.
can you let me know how you are finding it in a week or so - i was thinking of joining up too - did you get the one with free local & national calls?
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if nothing else, i guess i might be a tiny bit better that listening to elevator music. lol!!