Being a bit of a techie who runs his own mail and web server at home it's been a constant source of annoyance that Virgin Media never has and does not provide home customers with their own static IP address. This means that the customer has to use another service such as noip to make their server accessible from elsewhere, for both email and web service.
Virgin Media is one of very few ISPs who STILL do not provide IPv6 service, see the Wikipedia IPv6 article to see why this should be regarded as an essential service. In short, the entire IPv4 address pool has been exhausted for quite a while so the world is now moving to IPv6. With the lack of this service from Virgin Media, more and more web facilities are going to become unavailable to Virgin Media customers.
Their equipment was becoming ridiculously unreliable. The WiFi of the so-called superhub 2 was failing several times per hour some evenings. It was therefore totally unusable especially for streaming services such as Netflix and BBC iPlayer. Whenever I had visitors who wished to use my WiFi it was an utter embarrassment to both myself and my son. Calling Virgin Media customer services did no good. They would spin some rubbish about how I should reboot the router, which I had already done sometimes several times in one day, or that the WiFi was being interfered with by other routers in the locality. All absolute rubbish.
Then, it gets even worse for anybody who wants to do any more than just use web browsers to access Facebook and gmail or stream Netflix etc. The hub3 and hub4 prevent some of the usual, normal configuration options available on proper routers, specifically the forwarding of many ports such as port 25 which is used to provide SMTP access to mail servers. If you try, you get the ridiculous and, I think, arrogant message:-
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The configured port range cannot contain one of the following reserved ports: 25,53,135,137,138,139,161,162, 445,1080 |
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from the hub4 that I was sent after complaining abut the WiFi failing all of the time with the hub2. Fortunately I did not plug it into the VM cable, merely powered it up and investigated it with my laptop plugged into one of the Ethernet sockets. As far as I know, if you make the mistake of plugging a hub4 into the VM cable it will register itself with their network, then you cannot go back to the hub2. As far as I can tell the hub2 permits the forwarding of any port so prevention on the later ones seems to me to be just moronic.
I contacted VM again, told them I was rejecting the new equipment AND contract, then had one of their technicians collect and return the hub4 and TV box.
I am by no means the only dissatisfied customer/ex customer. Here is just one example of a huge collection of comments by VM customers. Virgin Media just had to go.
Virgin Media WILL contact you during the 30 day notice period. I was contacted twice. The first call was from "technical assistance" because they had noticed that the superhub 2 had been disconnected for some time. I told them that this was because I was already using a different service. Bye. The second was from a guy claiming to be a "local representative" or some equivalent. Actually the retention department. Be assertive with these creatures. Do as I did, raise your voice a little and tell them I ALREADY HAVE SERVICE FROM A DIFFERENT PROVIDER. I AM LEAVING. DO NOT CALL ME AGAIN, and that should be the end of the matter. I heard no more from them
HOWEVER,
What they did next is, I think, utterly despicable. Because of the day of
the month on which they had always taken my payments by direct debit, I was
expecting them to be owing me money so naturally I deleted the direct debit
facility with my bank. What they were actually doing was taking payment 19
days AFTER the billing date so I ended up owing them, according to themselves,
the trivial sum of £23.33. Rather than simply contacting me by phone
or email which would have sorted everything out immediately, this odious
company referred me to a debt collection agency, Advantis Credit Ltd. In my
opinion this is a misuse of a person's data so I have referred Virgin Media,
by written letter, to the Information Commissioner's Office. The ICO
responded, in writing, to my letter on 14th April. Whether or not
they will actually take any action is unclear but I feel better for bringing
the matter to their attention. The more disgruntled customers who also do so
the better, I think. Anybody who wishes to complain in writing to the ICO
can do so using this address:-
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Information Commissioner's Office Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF |
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25th May 2022, received email from the ICO:-
"Your complaintWe have considered the issues that you have raised with us and our decision is that there is more work for the organisation to do. I have written to Virgin Media to explain that we expect them to work with you to resolve any outstanding matters.
One of the ICO's strategic goals is to increase the public's trust and confidence in how personal data is used and made available. In this case, if they have not done so already, we expect Virgin Media to fully address your complaint by telling you what they are going to do to put things right or if they believe they have met their data protection obligations by explaining how they have done so. We expect them to contact you within 30 days."
14th June 2022, received a phone call from the "Executive Office" of Virgin Media! I told the caller that all I want is a written apology for what they did to me, and assurances that they would not do this to anybody else.
I received the letter on 17th June. It did contain the magic word "apologise" so I shall now consider all dealings with the Virgin empire to be closed and I shall never have any dealings with any branch of them ever again. The letter claimed that they had sent out final bills on three occasions, none of which I ever received, so I conclude that in this regard they are are either liars or just incompetent.
I inquired of my friends in the local Linux Users Group what I should do. The recommendation I have gone with is to join Zen Internet. On the very same day that I phoned Zen and booked them to install optical fibre to my home, I received email messages containing details of my fixed IPv4 address plus the ID and passcode required to use PPPoE to connect to their network. Zen do provide a router but they don't care at all if the customer prefers to use a different router of their own choice. I find that their basic 100Mbps service is perfectly adequate for all of my video streaming requirements etc. I am using routers sourced from an eBay seller, which have been flashed by the vendor with the far superior OpenWRT firmware. The WiFi with each of the routers I now own (a Xiaomi AC2350 and a TP-Link Archer C7) is rock solid. It never, ever fails.
An email request to Zen gets IPv6 service switched on next day. I've been using their service for several months now and I cannot praise them too highly. Everything is now operating as it should, with DNS records pointing directly at my home server so that both email and web server are working faultlessly with my domain name.
A VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) service provider is needed for the landline phone connection to work. I chose to use SIPgate. The basic package is a prepay service with which you pay only for the phone calls you make at 1p per minute for other land lines. Pick your desired local code and a choice of numbers. Other call packages are available, UK, EU etc. The ATA191 is easy to get working over IPv4 but a little messing around with your firewall is required to get it to work with IPv6. It appears to be necessary to open the firewall to allow 2001:ab7::/32 from SIPgate, otherwise the phone won't ring for incoming calls. I found the tip here. This is easy to do with OpenWRT.