yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[HD2 General] ace_dynamo:
I was close to considering...

Tried to coerce O2 into getting near to the Virgin offer but the best they could offer was £35/month 18 month contract, 600 mins, 1000 texts, unlimited wi-fi (after I forced the issue) and unlimited internet with £90 for the phone.

Total cost £720 over the life and although Virgin is £190 cheaper I have broadband with O2 so leaving them would increase my monthly payment by £5 and therefore £90 over the life so Virgin only worked out £100 cheaper for me (though I could've got £30 from Quidco).

£100 is a lot of money but I have no experience of Virgin whereas O2 have always been good to me (and normally very generous with my renewals) and I know I get good reception wherever I need it.

Ordered it around 18.45 and supposedly should receive tomorrow according to the email and text they sent me - weather permitting - though I was told Friday by the guy on the phone.
[HD2 General] Sunil_237:
sorry i forgot about this thread.

i got my phone within 20 hours. the virgin customer service were really good in sorting it out i think, they even said they would do my pac before i got my phone (i'll find out tomorrow if they did it lol).

someone on a different forum waited for tmobile to deliver for just under a week!

i don't use skype but google "skype windows mobile" and you can see it's features. can't link as a new user.

no issues caused by the phone, only me being a novice with winmo and screwing up the 3g LOL a hard reset should fix it.

i got a 2gb micro sd and the leather pouch which i initially thought and claimed it would be useless... it is great! lol.

@ ace_dynamo

fair enough if you like the service someone else provides and it is at a reasonable price go with them. i would have went with o2 if i could get a good price, they have great customer care. as for virgin, the next 18 months will tell.

t-mobile service is rubbish, i think so i'm glad to move away from them now. apart from roger who gave me my pac who was the best customer service agent i've ever spoken to, and i told t-mobile lol.
[HD2 General] ace_dynamo:
Yeah I tried everything to bring them down to giving me the phone for free, even quoted Vodafone Business offering it at £35/month with phone free but they weren't budging (well aside from a £10 discount on the £100 phone fee). Still I'm looking forward to receiving it tomorrow and comparing it to my old XDA Stellar (Tytn II).
[HD2 General] DuoM:
Thanks for getting back to me.

Actually I use Skype on my phone and I was wondering if Virgin/T-Mobile were blocking the ports.

Also could you please tell me what kind of 3G speeds you're getting? I'm wondering if Virgin/T-Mobile are limiting phones to 384 kbps even if the phone is running on HSDPA.

Thanks.
[HD2 General] statto:
Mine arrived from them today, and it's currently charging.

I was on a £20pm contract with 3 (who were completely rubbish with customer service), and for that I was getting 1100 minutes/texts, but no internet, so the extra £5 for unlimited internet is pretty good IMO (especially when you consider the tariff is effectively subsidising the phone).

I was using a TYTN II before this, so really looking forward to the performance hike. :)
[HD2 General] Sunil_237:
this should answer the internet question :(

xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=618157 (make that into a normal address to view

i'm completely new to smart phones so have no idea what is going on with my internet. maybe you can help :D

if skype is free i'll install it now and let you know.
[HD2 General] DuoM:
Thanks.

I saw your post in the other thread and I've posted a couple of replies. H is HSDPA and is better than 3G however that may not be the whole story since you may not get speeds above normal 3G speeds even though the phone and the network are capable of HSDPA. It depends on what they allow, which was one of the things I was trying to find out about them.

You could try this link to get an idea of how fast your connection is:

www.dslreports.com/mspeed

As for Skype, it is a free download:

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/download/skype/windowsmobile/

http://www.skype.com/

But if you don't already use it on your desktop you will need to setup a login name so it may not be worth your time to do this.
[HD2 General] Sunil_237:
sorry IE on the phone was taking tooo long after i clicked the link. let me install skyfire and i'll post up the results soon.

by the way.. i don't know why i'm testing lol it is virgin!!

i have virgin media broadband. get capped at 25% if i download more than 750mb between 9-9 lol! they love to cap.

sorry it took me so long.. i'll have to configure skyfire later but went back on ie.

Results: www.dslreports.com/mspeed

100k = 78kb/s 0.22s latency 10.405s d/l time

200k = 121kb/s 0.258 13.378

400kb = 246kb/s 0.217 13.187

much better there.. just to confirm is that in terms of actual speed 246kb/s or the theory speed? like my broadband is 10mb, but can only reach 1mb/s (i say only but that is amazing lol)
[HD2 General] DuoM:
Lol, I have Virgin Media broadband too. I think they cap for a few hours if I download too much during peak hours but I haven't looked at this for a while.

Don't use Skyfire to test this. You should be able to test the dslreports site with i.e. or Opera.

Or you can try: http://text.dslreports.com/mspeed

I saw some apps that could be installed that tested upload and download speed on a mobile yesterday but I didn't save the links and now I don't remember them :(

EDIT: Thought I'd add the speed test URLs after they get redirected:

http://www.dslreports.com/mspeed?jisok=1

http://text.dslreports.com/mspeed?jisok=1

One of those should work on I.E. or Opera.

Thanks
[HD2 General] DuoM:
Wow!!!

That's terrible. That's slower than a modem.

You said that you normally had three bars on your phone. When you download a large file of play a youtube video with Wi-Fi turned off does it hold the bars?

Also does the "H" stay in place or does it change to "3G" or even just "G" after a couple of minutes of downloading?
[HD2 General] Sunil_237:
sorry i haven't gotten used to an app i've installed yet. the results you quoted were from just g so gprs (right lol) those are when 3g was on and the symbol turned to "h"

i can't confirm if it was on that band throughout because the top and bottom bars disappear to give a full screen view, so i clicked it open often but it may have changed sometimes.

from what i saw it was always H though. (when i set it right)

i'll run a youtube again, nope youtube still sucks.. going to to a 1mb test on dsl as a final. lol can't use up all my massive 1gb allowance just yet.

ok, 220kb/s 0.254 latency, 37.335s dl time. kept the keyboard open and it kept the top bar open, the H was on at all times at 3 bars.

so ye it is capped to pretty much only let you surf and download a few files.

if this offer wasn't so good i would have went for o2 as i thought this would have been like that lol, my friend could download at 250kb/s (2mb connection speed).
[HD2 General] DuoM:
Wait, what did you do? 246kb/s is the actual speed you are getting.
[HD2 General] Sunil_237:
i have an app called WMLongLife which controls which band to activate and i hadn't set it up yet so it was basically not using the 3G at the time i did the first test, just G
[HD2 General] DuoM:
Ahhh. Lol.
[HD2 General] Sunil_237:
give you a good idea on the speed? sorry it took me ages to get that small amount of info out LOL.
[HD2 General] DuoM:
Yes it does, thanks. It may be a small amount of info but it's very useful to me.

If you go out and about tomorrow you may want to try again outside the house and see if you get significantly better speeds but I reckon that it is capped at 384 kbps on Virgin.

Glad that you problem is "solved" and thanks again for taking the time to run those tests for me.
[HD2 General] Sunil_237:
lol problem isn't solved, just explained :p

stupid branston capping stuff like crazy. i guess it is capped so they can sell the mobile broadband lol, tethering a o2 hd2 would be good though free mobile broadband :)
[HD2 General] Aleemz:
couple of years ago there were a few of us who complained to o2's executive office because they were advertising HSDPA 'Mobile Broadband' on our phones when in actual fact the speed was restricted to 3G levels or below. Some of us managed to get the cap lifted and now I'm moving from that sim card still with the cap lifted over to Virgin....I'm scared :D

Should I send the HD2 back to Virgin and pay the extra £10/£12 per month for the higher speed and possibly better customer service?
[HD2 General] DuoM:
I joined O2 this summer and I have HSDPA speeds on my phone.

However I was with T-Mobile before and when I upgraded to my TyTN II two years ago from a phone that only had 3G I found that there was no HSDPA.

Tech guys said it was enabled but I still couldn't get above 3G. In the end I told them to move me to their Web 'n' Walk Plus tariff (which according to the forums had HSDPA) and absorb the extra cost and that's what they did.

As for Virgin, I'm reading that they cap at 384kbs down and 48kbs up but I need confirmation on this (or a large sample set). Also need to know wether Skype will work.

If they don't cap and Skype works then the £25 per month tariff is a sweet deal, especially since I'm a Virgin Media customer.

All I can suggest is that you either test the speeds or talk to Virgin and ask them directly (and then let us know what they say :))
[HD2 General] Sunil_237:
i hate these big companies with their weaselling ways!

unlimited = limited

high speed 3g = hg sed g

fair use policy = screw you we don't want to give you anymore than this.

customer service/tech support = join a forum.. but not ours.

free gift = you pay us more for the same thing and we'll give you a present

next day delivery = .. next day delivery can't fault virgin for that :p

i'll call virgin tomorrow and ask about the cap, and try get it removed... lol try.

i won't be sending it back just because of the cap, it has no real effect on my use. if it has an effect on your use then consider sending it back.

but i woudn't pay £10 a month more just to be able to youtube. normal internet works fine at this speed. i've seen technobuffalo.com being used in some review vids so i did that, it loaded it all in like 10 seconds but links and small pics were available very fast.
[HD2 General] Aleemz:
I did some tests (dslreports) a few hours ago with both my virgin sim and o2 sim connected to HSDPA with 2 bars of signal.

I did around 8 tests on each sim, and the test was downloading 1mb.

O2 gave me a range of between 750 to 1010 kbit/sec, latency of no higher than 0.25 seconds, and download time of no more than 9 seconds, usually less.

Virgin gave me a range of between 202 to 238 kbit/sec, latency around 0.5 seconds, dowload time ranging from 35 to 45 seconds.

Please note the cap has been removed from my O2 connection.

I think I'd rather pay a few £ extra and get decent download speeds. Now I need to contact Virgin to see if I can cancel porting over my O2 number.
[HD2 General] Sunil_237:
hope you can.

but while you are at it can you try get them to remove the cap.

o ye another bad thing if you want to download alot, virgin is limited to 1gb fair use...
[HD2 General] Aleemz:
No problem, I'll ask them to remove the cap, but I don't think it'll be as easy as that. Waiting for them to answer now for 20 minutes. In the same time I've spoken to O2 customer services on the other phone and also O2 retentions to confirm their best offer on the HD2. It was 50 minutes before Virgin answered yesterday.
[HD2 General] DuoM:
Well that's bad news but not unexpected :(

Canceling your contract with Virgin should also cancel the port (hopefully).

If I do get this phone, I guess it won't be from Virgin unless they budge and decide to start offering HD2 owners HSDPA.

The problem with Virgin is that there is no higher tariff that you can switch to that offers this like on T-Mobile.

Yeah, I spent quite a while trying to call them yesterday to find out if there was a cap. From what I've read people tend to be kept waiting for at least 30 mins on average... unless you want to take out a new contract in which case you get through to that team straight away.
[HD2 General] Aleemz:
Well, after over an hour I got through to someone at Virgin. They said they will contact another department to see if they can cancel the port, but may be too late.

According to the adviser there is no cap, and he put the slow download speed compared to O2 down to 'network traffic' being higher on Virgin at the time.

I suggested it was due to a cap being in place because if their network (or T-mobile's) is that busy at 3am then I guess it would grind to a halt during peak times!
[HD2 General] Sunil_237:
didn't think of that.. asking customer service a question about the a service the company they work for is just stupid! lol.

good luck with getting your number sorted. hope you can.
[HD2 General] Aleemz:
Just got a text from Virgin saying it's too late to stop the port, but that they can port it back after it's gone through. Not sure how that will work though as by then the O2 contract will have ceased. While on hold for over an hour with Virgin I did some calculations and I guess really I should stick with them for the amount of money that I save over the 18 months.

I'm sad to see my high speed O2 connection go because I remember the hassle we had getting the cap lifted, and lots of other people have had no luck getting the cap lifted with O2 since then.

Lets see how we get on with Virgin!
[HD2 General] Pezza4u:
My HD2 is at home waiting for me! I'm moving from O2 to VM so will be interested in the speed. The O2 account is still active until I port the number so as long as the HD2 will see the O2 sim I'll check it. I use internet on my K800i at the moment so can't really compare the speed of that to this one. I will probably use it on wifi more though :)
[HD2 General] Aleemz:
It would be good to see what speads you get on your O2 sim. Here's the link do check your speed www.dslreports.com/mspeed
[HD2 General] beermonster65:
just got mine on virgin , i cant send mms or upload images to facebook, anyone had similar problems.
[HD2 General] Hereisphilly:
I ordered my hd2 on Tmobile, but i then found the £25 virgin tarrif, so due to Tmobile stock problems, i cancelled it an i have a Virgin HD2 on its way to me now! They use the same network, and i save £110 with virgin so its a no brainer really! Here's hoping everything goes smoothly! :)
[HD2 General] Aleemz:
My feeling now is that although it's a good deal if you're comparing deals purely on price, but when you consider other factors I think I'd be happy to pay a few £ more for a better service.

Twice I've called Virgin and once I had to wait 50 minutes to speak to someone and the next time 40. On the third occasion I hung up after 30 minutes.

O2 answer within a few minutes. Also, I've found the slow data speed on Virgin (T-mobile) a pain.

Really happy with the HD2, great price on Virgin, but service is naff.
[HD2 General] scaryprowler:
I'm also seeing slow 3g speeds! No where near what I'd expect.Dslreports avg. 200 kbits/sec! Not acceptable. l've got just over 3 wks to make my mind up as to whether to stay. There must be some cap in place. The swines!

Just tried to call them, systems are down; they cant retrieve account info! Grrrr....
[HD2 General] Towserspvm2000:
On T-mobile UK with a Touch Diamond, I'm getting 380 kbit/sec, 0.463s latency and 8.829s d/t on the 400k file, with 3G showing 2 bars. (Same with H showing, but I don't pay the extra for that).

So are Virgin putting a further cap on d/l speeds, as they use the same T-mobile network?
[HD2 General] Aleemz:
Virgin possibly have limited access to the T-mobile network?

I don't know, but compared to O2, my Virgin speed tests are consistently lower. I hit 300kb/s for the first time today after around 20 speed tests over around 30 hours in both city centre and suburban locations.
[HD2 General] statto:
479kbps

0.143s latency
[HD2 General] Aleemz:
Maybe it's down to the network capacity in my area than?
[HD2 General] Pezza4u:
Did some testing last night and today.

Results for O2 on the 1mb file and showing a constant H: 755 kbps, 0.258 latency, 11s download time.

Results for O2 on the 100kb file with 3G: 122 kbps, 0.397 latency and 6.9s download.

The above tests were done where I live but I also got similar results at my parents, which is 60 mile away. I was getting over 900 kbps as well on a couple of tests.

Tried Virgin where I live and it was mainly showing 3G but changing to H sometimes but not for long.

Results for Virgin on the 1mb file: 201kbps, 0.369 latency and 41.117s download.

Results for Virgin on the 100kb file: 43kbps, 0.445 latency and 18.766s download.

When I checked coverage in my area, work and my parents on T-Mobile it said they were all very good areas. So I'm slightly disappointed with those speeds. However, when I'm at home I will only use wifi and I could still stream youtube videos ok on 3G with the virgin sim but they would rebuffer halfway through :(
[HD2 General] Aleemz:
Those results are very similar to mine. O2 downloads 1mb in 8 to 11 seconds, while Virgin takes 40 around seconds.

Thanks for posting them!
[HD2 General] scaryprowler:
So Virgins... what do we do about this? Do you think theres a cap in place or is this how it is on Virgin's network because its with shared T-mobile who are probably giving Virgin a reduced service over their customer base?

Im going to see what I can get out of them tomorrow. If things dont change then Im going to bow out (6 days since I purchased from VM shop) and move over to O2.
[HD2 General] scaryprowler:
Oh yesterday evening, I tried my wifes Tytn II on Three = 1076 kbit/sec

My sister in-law's O2 iPhone 3G = 1028 kbit/sec.... I was lucky if I even got 200!
[HD2 General] scaryprowler:
Intersting reading, albeit is with regard to dongle based mobile broadband, but its the same type of network

www . pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/353794/virgin-doubles-speed-of-mobile-broadband
[HD2 General] Towserspvm2000:
Virgin is out of stock of the HD2
[HD2 General] CHIP STAXMAN:
I've just run a few speed tests. All apps that may use data apart from Opera killed in Task manager beforehand.

I'm in North London Zone 1.

Best I've managed is 301 kbit/sec.

Mostly it's around 160 kbit/sec.

This is with 4 bars displaying 3G or H.

I'm a bit miffed at the download speeds to be honest. I only usually browse text based sites like xda-developers, and for those sites to take ages to load is unnacceptable.
[HD2 General] Towserspvm2000:
400 kbit/s, 0.518s latency on 1mb file "H" showing, and on 2 bars

52 kbit/s, 1.34s latency on 400k file with "G" showing 2 bars

383 kbit/s, 0.405 latency on 400k file with "H" showing 2 bars

Phone didn't move, but she dropped from H to G because that's what she likes to on Tmobile. All done one after the other.

So we know Tmobile cap the transfer rate on basic Web'n'Walk, but do they further cap Virgin? What we need is someone with access to both Tmobile W'n'W and Virgin, and to test download speeds on identical phones!!!
[HD2 General] Towserspvm2000:
Which network are you with, Tmobile or Virgin? I'd have thought living in London, with 4 bars showing, data would be screaming down. I'm in the Welsh Valleys, and in theory where I live is just outside the 3G coverage according to the maps.
[HD2 General] CHIP STAXMAN:
One thing that annoys me (I'm on Virgin too), is that's I'll be sat in a chair at home not moving, it will display full bar reception and H.

I'll be on a site, like XDA, Then for no reason at all it will drop to one bar, and my data connection will be lost.

Then suddenly maybe a minute later I'll be back to full reception and H again.

I could understand this if I was in a moving vehicle. But not while sat still in a house that according to T-Mobile's coverage checker has good coverage.
[HD2 General] CHIP STAXMAN:
I thought living in London everything should be blistering along as well. But no.

[/B]I assume one of these scenarios is happening:

1. Virgin Mobile can't deliver anything close to top 3G speeds in London.

2. My Leo is faulty.

3. My account is capped in some kind of secret system where they keep you capped till you complain in order to keep the drain on the system down.
[HD2 General] scaryprowler:
I'm back from the Virgin shop, minus a HD2, have gained my £79.99 refund, a PAC and NO CHARGES for what I used (around 40 mins, 30 texts and 100MB data). Their 28 day returns policy is excellent; just a shame their CS telephone number and bandwidth isnt! Proved it was their network by using wifes Three sim and doing tests (1276kbits/160KB), then used one of their PAYG SIMs and done the same (176kbits). The rep guy put me on a call, straight through to one of their tech guys who confirmed that no capping was enabled for any account.

Im getting the wife to ask for her PAC from Three and see what deal I can get from O2 if the pair of us defect together!

Back to my rather archaic N95-8GB for the time being.... jesus, it feels dated!

Oh - just before I went to the VM shop in town, I noticed I had a full HSDPA connection. Speed test still came out at 200kbits/25KB.
[HD2 General] CHIP STAXMAN:
Scary, what the returns policy? For any reason I can return it in 28 days? I might do that if they don't tell me something good. I've emailed them as non-one is picking up the phones at Virgin today it seems.
[HD2 General] scaryprowler:
Yep - pretty much, they didnt even check the handset for scratches (not that there was any!) nor the accessories that came in the box, all of which, barr the haedphones, I had used. They changed my contract to a PAYG and gave me a PAC to tide me over the next few days. As I said, couldnt fault em for it.

My excuse simply was 'your network isnt fast enough for me' (ok, I did tell them that I needed it for work (lie)).
[HD2 General] CHIP STAXMAN:
Here's my silly day with Virgin's 'customer service'.

Lunch Time

Try to call them to talk about my slow data connection on my HD2. Their phone system is broken down. Can't get through. So write them an email instead.

4:00pm

Somone calls me, claiming to be from Virgin, to talk about a mobile phone. They ask me for my password. I say there's no way I'm giving my password to someone who has just called me out of the blue. They say they cannot proceed without it. In the end they promise to send me an email in the next 5 minutes instead. No email ever arrives.

6:45pm

Decide to call them. Long queue. Get through to a girl. I explain I'm having slow internet speeds through my HTC HD2. She tells me I need to call Virgin Media(!!!). I argue that she must be mistaken as it's a Virgin Mobile issue, and Virgin Media deals with home internet, which I don't have. She insists I have to call Virgin Media, and even gives me Virgin media's number.

7:10pm

Virgin Media are totally puzzled why I was told to call them. They tell me to call Virgin Mobile back.

7:25pm

Insist on talking to customer services. Angry now. First thing I ask, after moaning about the call-centre tennis, is "Do Virgin call you up and ask you for passwords?" She says no. I ask her to look at my account notes. She sees that indeed someone from Virgin did call me up. Wow.

She manages to retrieve some notes that were never emailed to me. The notes basically say that my speed depends on the tower nearest to me. If I have a 'G' showing on the top of my display, I have a slow tower. If I have a '3' or 'H' I have a fast tower and should have really fast speed.

I tell her my phone permanantly has a 3 or H and is slow on text-dominant sites (like XDA).

She ended the call reminding me of the 28 day returns policy. Tells me that as I bought online they'll send me a jiffy bag and I just need to pop everything in. When they get it back, they'll cancel the contract.

I'm really tempted to do just that based on the awful call centre service.

Now do I stay or do I go now?