Posts by Jay

Heaviest Virgin Media downloaders face new daytime go-slow

Corin and Chris Woodhead

I am by far no expert in this subject, though I am covering a course about some of this stuff now (though in my very early stages), but still no expert.

I just thought to share what I had discovered that helped me (though for a short time), which may help someone else, then maybe come up with a better solution to follow on with.

I still do believe that the RPS.exe App is still the issue for my poor connection, because each time it is disabled (for the short time that it allows), I can browse pages in seconds rather than minutes.

Just like Chris, They were great when they were Telewest / Blueyonder, but ever since changing to Virgin Media, things are changing dramatically. My connection was practically top notch with Blueyonder, never or rarely a poor connection and the customer service was outstanding. Now things are changing again, but for the worse now that they are Virgin Media. Connection is poor and customer services are the same, sometimes not even responding to you at all.

At the end of the day, yes....they are one of the cheapest around by far, but all the same, we are paying for a service that they state that they can provide, which some are not receiving, should that be 1mb, 2mb, 4mb, 10mb or even 20mb. We are ALL receiving bad connections....or most as it seems.

Like Chris, it's hard when you don't have a BT line or would even consider going to BT and then the installation fee, which some of us just don't have. I guess we are stuck with them unfortunately.

What ever everyones disagreements, I still find them now to be a poor service, which I am stuck with.

Slow Connection and Customer Service !!

Well, after a recent issue with Slow Connections I just had to contact Virgin Media (as a VM Customer) after checking their "Service Status" and finding out everything was OK in my area.

Once I had received a reply from them , they asked me to do some checks on my computer for spyware and open connections and such like, which is what I did.

There were a couple of issues that I had corrected, though nothing major that I felt would warrant a slow connection as bad as it was on a 20MB service.

After cleaning my computer as recommended and such like, not much has changed.

In their original response they told me that I should be able to get around 2000

KB/s in total for the 20 Mb service. Well, I was only getting around 1000 - 1300 in total. Thats only approx' 50% - 75% and I am "not" downloading much at all to warrant the loss of my download limit.

SO, as a matter of fact (from the horses mouth, so to speak), 20MB service actually means a 20MB service.

As you all should know, if you state that something like BroadBand is 20MB 24/7 (In Black and White) and not actually receive it, then this IS "False Advertising", no matter how you look at it.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Using their e-mail in response to my issue (After reading this section of The register), I told them in no uncertain terms what I read and what I felt about this and that maybe their "Restrictions" were infact responsible for my Slow Connection. It was quite long, though not too long that you had to scroll to read it all.

It was infact "returned" back to me, BUT not by mail-daemon as "Undeliverable, but infact by the Virgin Media Web team themselves and just stated in the "Body" as:

"IMPORTANT - your e-mail has not been delivered.

To contact Virgin Media, please complete the contact form on our

web-site http://www.virginmedia.com"

Nothing more.

I then replied using this very same e-mail and asked why it was returned back to me this way and it was "NOT" returned back to me this time, but with no response also.

SO, I then sent back my letter to them, the one that I was mad about and HEY PRESTO, it was again Returned to me in the very same way as before.

They basically didn't want to Read the truth.

This is what they call "Bad Customer Service" I believe.

They did NOT want to deal with an e-mail from an un-satisfied customer. Poor communication and Customer Service on Virgin Media's part as far as I am concerned.

MAYBE a solution - PC Guard by Virgin Media

OK, after trying something, I did notice that RPS.exe (connected with Virgin Media's PC Guard) "could" be the issue for some of us, as it was/still is for me, for the time that it can be disabled, but only for a few seconds without protection. It also appears to be some kind of "monitor" after trying a "netstat -b" check using the "cmd command".

It cannot be removed completely without having no protection, so far as I know. It re-appears after a few seconds, BUT my connection increased "Dramatically" after disabling it.

For those of you with Virgin Media's PC Guard may want to check this out.

For those who "know" how to use the Command service through your computer, try the netstat -b command and check it out. Shown up as IP addresses. It appears to monitor websites and such like, as far as I can tell, or at least your browsing history for certain places. Still not 100% sure of that yet, but it does look "fishy" to me

Also, try removing the RPS.exe for the few seconds it allows, but you have to be quick at browsing the net as it does re-appear after a few seconds.

To do this, Open up Task Manager, click on the "Process" tab and scroll down until you find RPS.exe under "your" username" or "Administrator", not services, not that it should be there anyhow.

Make sure that you have a browser opened first, because you have to start browsing immediately before it re-appears....or at least it should.

Try and browse to somewhere that would normally take a long time to open, should you be having these issues, it should open pretty quick with RPS.exe disabled.

Good luck everyone.

P.S. This is a Virgin Media issue and not the customers problem. Don't forget that !!