What's happened to my Virgin dial-up connection?

[cham]

After over eight years with no problems, suddenly, about Wednesday last week, this started:

. . (1) when dialing in, the system now takes a long while to make the connection, and often needs to dial two of three times

. . (2) once the connection is made, it takes far longer to verify the password

. . (3) sending and receiving data has become very slow - if I watch the status report, I see alternating active/static periods - about 10 seconds active but still very slow, and 10-15 secs, sometimes 20 or more seconds with no bytes in or out - IE often says a page can't be displayed

. . (3) today, I couldn't send a long e-mail - every time I tried, after 100-200 bytes, OE reported errors

. . (4) the connection keeps getting cut off

This is at any time of day.

There have been a couple of times when it worked normally for a few minutes, but mainly it's awful. Quick e-mails are no problem, but anything else is either difficult because it takes so long or impossible because it the connection gets cut after a long period of inactivity.

Has something happened at Virgin's end? Does anyone know if Virgin's changed something or if there's a problem there?

If not, what could be wrong at my end? Could anything have have gone wrong with my phone line? Could a virus cause this? Any suggestions?

[cham]

I might be getting somewhere with this.

I've got two phone lines. In the last half hour I've alternated the two for repeatedly connecting to my Virgin dial-up. So far, every time I connected via the number I usually use for the dial-up internet, the problem I described above occurs, but every time I connected via the other number, the performance is like I've been accustomed to.

I'll try this again tomorrow.

Is there anything that could have made my usual dial-up line go bad suddenly last week? What aspect of the line could cause what I described in the first post?

The REN value is one thing. How many devices are plugged into the bad line? To rule out problems inside your house pulg the computer directly into the main inlet box for the line and try to use the shortest cable you have, don't use extension cables etc.

If the line is still bad after taking out all phones and using the shortest cable then the line provider needs to check their part of the cable and hardware.

[cham]

Thanks for the response at post #3.

I'm now almost totally convinced there's a fault with the phone line. There's never been more than one extra device (a phone) on the problematic line, and the problem persists when nothing else is connected and when the modem is connected to the "test" socket inside the wall-mounted box.

My difficulty is that the problem seems to be intermittent. There have been times when the internet connection on the suspect line has worked OK for several days in a row, and others when it's hard to get it working. Meanwhile, any time I connect via my other line, there's no trouble.

I've discovered that, in periods when the line doesn't seem to be working properly, it seems to be posssible to get it working for a while by making a phone call to it - it's not enough just to let the phone ring; it has to be answered. But, even then, the problem usually recurs after perhaps 20 mins or 50 mins.

I did phone BT to say I suspected a line fault. (Incidentally, it took three calls before I got a call back, even though every time I was promised a return call within very few minutes.)

BT said the line was working OK, according to a check run from their end.

BT says that if I have them send an engineer here to make a more substantial check, but no fault is found, I'll be charged £150 (+VAT, I think).

Although I'm all but certain that the problem is BT's, not mine, with the fault being evidently an intermittent one, opting for an engineer's visit looks rather like Russian Roulette. I've yet to find out from BT what happens if I insist that there is an intermittent fault and that an engineer ought to keep coming until it's found.

If an engineer came six times without experiencing a time when the fault could be demonstrated, I wonder whether I'd get a bill for £900 + VAT.

Yes, mine number is down also. I have tried to contact all sorts of people within Virgin, only to be directed to a premium rate number, which I don't see why I should when the fault is not mine. I have been using the same dial up number for 10 years and no problems until now. Eventually I received an email reply to my very snotty email, also telling me to phone a premium rate number.

My own take on the situation is that Virgin are trying to force dial-up customers to take broadband.

Like everyone else, I am very annoyed at this.

[jowter]

Hi guys 'n gals,
Newbie signing up for this thread!

I've had total outage since tuesday morning last week 1/9/09
It's a problem at their end somewhere so I found out from one of the asian call centre guys (on the third call at 50 pence per minute.)
I rang the customer helpline number and went through options for "thnking of leaving us" and eventually got hold of a pleasant lass called Dawn with a geordie accent who listened to me. She credited my virgin account with £10 for me to use phoning the premium rate line which I used up one the first two calls. One of the asian lasses ran me through deleting the connection and then re-running the connection wizard to set up a new virgin dial-up connection to check all my details were correct and also gave me a new password to use on it but if she'd said (or anyone had said) that they had a known fault at their end it would have saved time & money.
The third bloke said he'd put it on the 'accelerated system' and that's all that the call centre faultline operators can do. He said give it two days for an expected fix then they would call me to say it's fixed but when I asked what to do if it isn't fixed in two days he gave me a local rate number to call.
Luckily I have access to Dad's broadband on which I can still access my emails on the virgin site with my regular Username and the new password.
I've also been advised to ask customer services for a refund for the downtime I've paid for.
The virgin site also totally fails to give any advice on their Service Status page about the fault and what to do - pathetic face-saving!
I'll be onto them again tomorrow.