YouTube Advertising Standards in the Gutter

 I'm no prude, I quite like a bit of fun, but I do think that the YouTube advert algorithm is a bit poor; since I get censored for saying rude words and even a video of me IN A HOT TUB... yes Me... ME... In a hot tub talking got pulled....

But this is their advert....

Discover more eh?  She's not much more to reveal

And as you can see, it totally fits my stream of suggestions... (facepalm)

Virgin Media - Poor Internet Speed Measured

Phase one of my plan is now complete, I have monitored the speed of my internet ALLLL day, from just after I got home in the morning, through until just now.

No-other unit or device was being used through from around 4pm until just now - the wife and I went to watch the new Thor film at the cinema - so, how can Virgin Media explain that clear throttling down mid-afternoon...

It is awful and far below anything listed on their website, utter and total garbage speed.  Yet we see a general level of 25+ for most of the day

You will need to click this chart to see the image close up.

My data points were taken with my script - see the previous post - every 10 seconds, it has generally used resolved to the Server in Leeds.

The time markers (green) were added by myself, artificially, by eye.  But they give you the gist of the time, and I will also upload the raw CSV somewhere...

I am now going to hit twitter.



Edit - This is fabulous, I've just gone to the link I was provided to send info to Virgin, and this is what happens....

That was the page I wanted.... And the same message appears if one tries to see the local service status!

This really is getting criminal, no-one would be able to run a business on this kind of service, no-one could perform research or educational activities, and I can't work in my technology areas of interest at all... And complaining has resulted in nothing but indifference and stagnation.

Virgin Media's : I'm Sick and Tired of You

I've had my broadband with only two companies in twenty years, NTL and then Virgin whom bought NTL.  I've had them at three addresses and never had cause to really complain, sure for a while I had a junction box which would fill with water whenever it rained, so cutting me off, but they sorted that quickly enough.

However, for the last year I've paid for 200mbit speed, super speed, being who I am I immediately started to monitor the speed, and initially I did get around 198mbit download speeds with a constant 12mbit up.

Unfortunately over the last four months that speed has dropped off and off, so much so that my automated server started to report 4mbit.  I tweeted VM about this, of course I received the standard line that this was my equipment.  I called them about it and was told that "over wifi you get much less download speed than you pay for", except I'm using Cat 6 over a gigabit LAN... "Cat what?" the operator asked, as I was simply no longer on their lookup script of replies.

In the end things came to a head when I also noticed that the TV package I was paying for went from a stately total of £50 a month to just over £80.  That's quite a hike, and I looked realistically at what we watched and found it not to be worth it.

The absolute soul cracker was my week away disconnected in Wales, where we had a freeview connected TV, and there was so much choice, right there, free to air.

We were both also sick of the recycled land-line number constantly rining with whoever only knows looking for past holders of the line for debts or catalogues or PPI, so much so I took up a distinct accent whenever answering my own phone to put people off calling.

So, no TV needed, no Telephone we just need basic broadband.

And the persuit began, I knew the name of the exact product I needed, I needed to go from Vivid200 Broadband to Vivid50 - why pay for something you're not getting - and that was it basically, the rest could go, but I thought I'd challenge them...

Now have you ever watched Morgan Spurlocks "Supersize Me!" and it's effect on the fast-food industry?  Well, this same effect is underway within Virgin Media, they upsell, they upscale, they ask if you want to supersize, and they simply can not ever stop doing it, you say "no", you say "stop" you say "less"... And they do not understand.

You're stuck calling a gaggle of people who are not native English speakers, sometimes to lesser or greater effect, and they do not understand you want less.... Three point manefesto in this conversation was simply... "Drop the telephone line, reduce the broadband speed and I'll listen about the TV for ease".

The lines which came back to me beggared belief... "We can not give you a lower rate on your TV without your having the weekend calls"... "Having the calls makes the package cheaper".

The saving through the package £6, the additional cost in the package of a phone line £10.99... So how was I saving anything?  That's right I wasn't, but on their screen the two HAD to go hand in hand, they could not, were unable to, untrained and not savvie enough to realise I had no need for and some concerns with the recycled number of the line we had, but they just could not figure this out.  Extremely poor customer service ensued.

"Your bill is so high because you had the McGregor fight" yes we did have that ordered, yes... "This proves my point, I'm paying for this TV package and still having to pay more to watch the items I want to watch, so where is the incentive for me to pay for the package?"

Silence.

There was simply no answer to this, the chap then passed me without asking, to a "supervisor", with whom I had to go through this whole rigmorale again.

I'd had 15 minutes of this online, 20 minutes with the first chap, and over a year of issues with the broadband speed and phone line, so I simply snapped... "Cancel it"

"Cancel the TV, Cancel the Telephone, and drop the broadband to VIVID 50 whilst I look for an alternative supplier"

The guy didn't even argue, he just did this, they are so blasé about their customers, we are such sheep, decades of supply are but nothing, they're not interested in you.

Ten minutes later I had started to investigate freeview or freesat to my fancy Sony TV... It has both.

Half an hour later I have over 600 channels on Freesat, with one wire now at the back of my TV, and no additional power usage from their slow TiVo.

The only thing the wife and I are missing is pausing live TV, however, I think the TV will do this with the addition of a USB Harddrive... And I know I have several of them lying around!

In conclusion, fuck you Virgin Media, sick and tired of you.

Sky Internet Customer Service Sucks

I've had a very busy few days, I mentioned a certain bank dragging their feet, well all is forgiven they've got into gear and are getting on with things.  However, not before I've been accused by the party on the other side of this transaction - a transaction wholly out of my hands - of being a time wasting bastard.  Hey ho.

I'm also investigating issues with the in-laws ADSL, now I hate ADSL, I hated it when it was ISDN and I hated dial-up even more before that.  I have, since 2000, exclusively used cable internet services, they're faster and for the most part more reliable, for instance cable in my area has been fiber optic since around 1996 when it was laid.  Not like the Johnny Come Lately British Telecom offering of "Fiber has arrived".. yeah, well I've had fiber a long long time slow coach.

The issue with the in-laws connection though is a case of the utter diabolical service from Sky, their provider, Sky's service just piggy backs on BT's infrastructure, and its ADSL based... I hate ADSL... I don't have spare routers for them to try, and I don't have filters or anything like that... so I'm struggling to fix the issue, and the reason is that Sky simply put the burden of proving the fault on the customer.  Its not a case of calling customer services and getting actual customer service.

No, its a case of calling Sky customer services and being told to fiddle with wires, filter and even wall sockets like some giant rubix cube and their telling you how expensive it is to involve BT Open Reach into this situation...

Now, luckily Sky customer services were not telling these tales of woe and foreboding to the technofeeble in-laws, they were telling me, and I batted them out the ball park as the bull shit they are.  Though Sky insist the issue is not their end, its with "your" router.

The router which is sat in their home says "Property of British Sky Broadcasting"... yet sky say it "belongs to you" and "you have to buy a new router"... yet the label on the router says "property of sky, do not dispose, not for resale"... its like... erm.. this is your kit, I'm just a customer paying for a service.

I'm tempted to lay the whole statutory rights on Sky here, because in essence the in-laws have been without a service they pay for, for over a fortnight, and all because Sky are arguing, or trying to rope the in-laws into being stuck with them for a further 12 months contract on the internet...

Anyway, I have an ADSL router to try, and I'm going to strongly advise the in-laws to move to a cable internet provider in the area.  Sky suck, their customer service is the worst I've come across - whilst actually sounding legit - they are so full of shit its untrue, they may as well just let this guy do their support... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byFhCC2pUEU


UPDATE 30/9/2013 - I finally got them to admit a line fault, I did this by borrowing $1000 worth of Cisco professional grade routing kit from work and setting it all up and running my own reverse line test, when the guy (who, give him his due was helpful) on the phone then tried to argue I had them by the short and curlies because I could see them just try to PING the line... Some line test... and I could see the carrier wave of the ADSL coming and going with no more than a 12% peak it was unacceptably low.  Explaining all this worked (well i think pointing out I had Cisco testing kit attached worked) and now an engineer appointment is booked.

But, not before four very technical phone conversations, not before proving absolutely everything in the house was in order and having to borrow professional kit to prove the point, an unacceptably high level of entry just to get a support call booked me thinks.

So I stand by my statement, Sky customer service, your bar to entry is too high, so you suck!  Support shout be "Have you turned it off and on again?"... "yes".... "Right, we'll come see", even it there is then say a £10 call out charge or whatever.

But to blanket say "no" and then only offer to send out a new router IF they sign up to 12 months more contract.  If it were me, I'd tell you to get stuffed after already having been a customer for 10 years.  I don't need to sign up for 12 more months to prove loyal and worthy of support, I already pay my monthy service fee to be worthy of help!