Re: You get what you pay for
VM have the advantage that in many areas they offer the fastest home internet connection available.
They seem to manage to cock something up like this about once a month, which is about par for the course for all of the home ISPs I've used over the years (except Be*, who _used_ to be fantastic).
You get a semi-static IP (changes every few years), the bundled Superhub is crap, but can be put in modem only mode, and they charge you more if you don't get a phone line off them.
So there you go, VM, not great, but not so bad I can be bothered to switch providers (and who is an alternative?)