I want to tell you a story about broadband.

I call it my #VPNightmare

If you're not a @Virginmedia customer YOU DO NOT NEED TO READ ON.

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Working from home since last March, I've had increased problems with my VPN dropping out (Virtual Private Network for the unitiated - they allow you to securely connect to a work network through your home broadband connection).

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I initially thought it was @Virginmedia's fault. They said that the network was fine. Constantly dropping out of video calls. Documents stopped syncing - not good - productivity seriously impacted.

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Contacted IT at work who recommended I get the VPN changed and installed. 

Went into work and got VPN changed. Worked like dream for two hours. Then VPN started dropping out worse than before. 

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Called IT support again. A bright spark had spoken to a colleague in Leeds who had seen similar problems with other @Virginmedia customers. He told me that the @Virginmedia hub was 'throttling' my VPNs because it did not recognise them. 

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He provided instructions from the @Virginmedia forum with instructions on how to directly prog your hub to stop throttling the VPN. I accessed my hub through my personal laptop using its IP address. The menu unfortunately didn't match the instructions I'd been given. 

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Back to @Virginmedia. They were very helpful and signposted me to the instructions on their website: https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-set-up-port-forwarding-port-triggering

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I was advised to contact my IT again to get my port numbers. 26 hours after initially requesting them through my IT service and after chasing them on three occasions I got them. I put them in earlier and the VPN hasn't dropped out yet

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To summarise, @virginmedia are unique amongst UK broadband providers, in 'throttling' VPNs and putting the onus on their customers to sort out. Now, I'm reasonably savvy but this has taken me months to find a solution I didn't even know I had to look for.

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Wasted many months looking like a fool. I have managed to get an £18 reduction on our broadband package by taking an 18 month package. I was advised to ask for a package before Christmas but was told it would make no difference

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I digress, but how can such a significant reduction just magically appear when I'd originally been told it didn't exist

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OK. Why am I telling this story? I'm telling it because the time I've spent dealing with this has cost me time with family and friends. It's also created immense work related stress. The worst of it is that it didn't need to happen. 

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Home broadband shouldn't be smoke and mirrors. It is, as @Labour proposed in 2019, a vital utility and as such should be a free full fibre broadband service. This would be in place right now if we'd all made the right decision in 2019

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I also hope that if you're in the same pickle with @VirginMedia, that this thread will help you out of the same hole faster than I've managed to make it out

If you've got this far I'm very impressed

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PS

I am still losing my VPN but for less & shorter periods