Internet Connection Woes

**Stalins Ghost** · November 18, 2007, 09:42 AM

OK. So I left it to my house mate to sort out the internet at our place earlier this year. Having full confidence in his ability to find a decent provider that would be friendly to our budgets, he decided to go with the devil itself. Virgin. Having full knowledge of their general lacking in service, I was pretty annoyed at the selection, particularly since I didn't find out until the 1st month (and thus easy cancelling period) had run out. It's been fine for a while, but recently it has infact become unbearable. Most days, even during the day, it will cut out for a fraction of a second at a time - but enough to cut me off any game servers, anything I'm downloading, log me out of MSN. Can be pretty slow, but that's not too much of an issue. It's just the disconnecting that gets to me! I've been reading up on it online, and it seems that a lot of people on Virgin get this, so I don't expect it to be sorted any time soon.

I'm going to try to get angsty with Virgin about it tomorrow, via E-mail bombardment, but has anyone got any ideas to relieve some of the more irritating problems? Particularly the game server disconnection... how am I meant to enjoy TF2 in all its glory if I disconnect every 5 minutes?

Any ideas greatly appreciated!

**Shaun** · November 18, 2007, 10:06 AM

I had a similar problem with Tiscali broadband - when I first got it I couldn't remain connected to download things like TW mods and demos. (Oh, I managed to get round this by downloading this download accelerator.)

Then I got a wireless router, and since then have never been disconnected. What do you use to connect? I discovered that the default Tiscali modem is shite - get a router!

**Arakorn** · November 19, 2007, 07:59 AM

Well you said that the cancelling period has gone already, but to me it seems like their "product" isn't working correctly, so that gives you the right to scrap the contract, doesn't it?

Anyway, go there (or call there, it's better than doing it by mail or e-mail) and complain. Usually businesses will take their customers complaining seriously. I've mangaged to get a new phone even though I broke my old one. First I sent it there and they promised to fix it. It took 6 weeks and I was completely without a phone when I got enough, complained, and they gave me a temporary phone. After an additional 6 weeks, the phone still wasn't fixed, so again I complained, and then I got a completely new (bbut same type of) phone.

And it wasn't the store who were going to fix it, it was Nokia's "fix-center". Bottom line, complain!

**Khozemnian** · November 19, 2007, 01:56 PM

Originally Posted by Stalins Ghost

OK. So I left it to my house mate to sort out the internet at our place earlier this year. Having full confidence in his ability to find a decent provider that would be friendly to our budgets, he decided to go with the devil itself. Virgin. Having full knowledge of their general lacking in service, I was pretty annoyed at the selection, particularly since I didn't find out until the 1st month (and thus easy cancelling period) had run out. It's been fine for a while, but recently it has infact become unbearable. Most days, even during the day, it will cut out for a fraction of a second at a time - but enough to cut me off any game servers, anything I'm downloading, log me out of MSN. Can be pretty slow, but that's not too much of an issue. It's just the disconnecting that gets to me! I've been reading up on it online, and it seems that a lot of people on Virgin get this, so I don't expect it to be sorted any time soon.

I'm going to try to get angsty with Virgin about it tomorrow, via E-mail bombardment, but has anyone got any ideas to relieve some of the more irritating problems? Particularly the game server disconnection... how am I meant to enjoy TF2 in all its glory if I disconnect every 5 minutes?

Any ideas greatly appreciated!

Thats weird, I'm with Virgin and I havent had any problems. In fact, in all the years that I've had internet at various houses as a student, this is the best service I've had. We were with NTL last year (when it wasnt with virgin) and the service was absolultely rubbish. But i would follow the previous suggestion and get a wirelss router if the problem persists.

**Stalins Ghost** · November 22, 2007, 08:48 AM

Cheers for the advice guys

Already on a wireless router unfortunately, so it's not that.

I've been speaking to some of the other guys in our area on Virgin, and they've got the same problems, so I'm probably going to give Richard Branson and co. a bit of lip sooner or later. Once I get some of my essays out of the way >.<

**Arakorn** · November 22, 2007, 10:26 AM

I told you...

**drak10687** · November 22, 2007, 03:49 PM

What is your connection type (the one that connects to your wireless router). When I first got DSL, I had the same issues. However I read that the problem could be in the wiring of your house, especially if it old. Of course, it would be expensive to fix that, but the best way around it is to connect your wireless router to the phone jack nearest to where the phone line enters your house to guarantee the least amount of house phone wire that your connection has to go through. That and adjusting the device properties to boost power dedicated to my wireless adapter (in control panel->system->hardware->device manager worked out most of the issue I was having.

Of course, if you're connected by cable then this wouldn't be of any help.