Thoughts on Virgin Broadband?

[cookie_monster]

I'm currently on BT broadband and I've been happy with it but Virgin seem to be offering a good deal so I'm 'thinking' about switching.

 

Any Virgin customers care to comment?

 

Cheers.

[somabc]

You should be aware of Traffic management - Virgin Media Shop

[Andrew_C]

Apart from a few issues that could happen with any provider, I've been quite happy with V. Never hit any caps, but not big into downloading films and the like.

[6Foot2]

I have the Telephone, TV and 10 Mb Internet package. There is the occasional problem with connectivity on broadband but this is by far better than my last provider.

 

Overall few complaints and I would recommend the service I get here to others.

[srochford]

I've been happy with Virgin broadband - been with them for quite a few years now and I think there's only been 1 fault in that time (they pushed out a modem update to all modems simultaneously and something went wrong which lead to an overnight outage).

 

As @somabc says, they do traffic management but they are very clear about what and when - it's not like some companies which are not so up-front about it.

 

I've got the "large" package and it seems to give a pretty solid 10Mbit download from places like Microsoft even at peak time.

[speckytecky]

I have a BT landline and Orange Broadband - been very happy with Orange Broadband, despite the offshore call centres they have always been on the ball and as a longstanding customer they agreed a really decent tarrif when I told them I was thinking of moving. I looked at the Virgin package which was a recent mail drop to households round here. Spoke to a very helpful UK call centre lady who checked it out for me and explained that currently we aren't covered by Virgin fiber optic so would still be stuck with a service down the BT line - so till thay changes I'm sticking with what we have.

[witch]

Got Virgin - not really any complaints - never quite makes the speeds they promise but pretty reliable.

[mattx]

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Customer Service.

 

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!

[kmount]

Found their customer service equally bad compared to most other ISPs to be fair.

 

Helps not having to argue with your adsl isp over whether an issue is theirs or BT's on the line.

 

Been with them for 2 and a bit years now on the 20 and 50meg packages and it's been fine, always get above 40mbit.

[EduTech]

I have been with them for years, not really had any problems with them I have done it has been a genuine fault (mainly the telephone side of things) the broadband has been fantastic non-stop and I always get speeds of around 18/19 Mbit might be getting the 50Mbit soon

 

James.

[featured_spectre]

Went from BT to virgin back to BT...reason being, virgin were more than quick enough to cut me off when they cocked up the direct debit date, but not so quick reconnecting my services, and they never warned you when they would do "line upgrades" or "line tests" or "replacing the fibre in certain areas"...where as BT always rang me, and told me "from X till Y your services will be deminished, we will adjust your bill for the loss of service, sorry for the inconvenience" and usually the maintenance etc took place at like 6am - 9am, when I dont use it.

 

After 3 months of complaints about the billing date etc with virgin, I ended up going OFCOM, getting a full refund and cancellation of contract, went straight back to BT and had no issues,

[networkingNut]

I have been with them since their days as NTL and have never really had any problems. I have only ever had the broadband.

[GrumbleDook]

Been with them for 8 years here now ... had a few interesting issues with customer service (pretty sure I've already covered those when the question has been asked before) but I get good speeds, have very few blips and love the V+ box.

[john]

Had them for 2 years at my sisters house in Newcastle with 6 students hammering the connection, one year it was an IT Geek on it so torrents a-hoy and xbox online gaming (and god knows what else he was doing on it!) never any issues, rock solid connection was great for £25 a month for fully unlimited at something like 20mb I think.

 

If you move to them and want a wifi router let me know as I've got a 2 year old Netgear one here that I'd like to sell on if your interested.

[glennda]

My Mums got them at her place up in crewe nothing special but shes a bit out in the woods. I use O2 broadband down south and have to say its very good - ocasional dns drop outs but nothing a restart of the router can't sort out.

[sjatkn]

I have been with Virgin (NTL) since the days of 300kbit/sec. I have found them very reliable with only a handful of outages in all the years I have been with them. I have always had speeds just about matching the speed I was paying for, except when I upgraded to 20Mb and that was my router not being capable of handling the speed (only had a 10Mb WAN port). If the speed of a single download does not match the speed of my broadband it has more to do with the site I am visiting than my link, adding in another download makes no difference to the first. On the rare occasions when I have had to speak to customer services they have managed to resolve the problems reasonably quickly and efficiently. If I have a complaint it would be that they don't give me as a long term customer the same deals as those of new customers, but then that goes with just about all companies, so nothing new there.

[sparkeh]

I have been with ntl/virgin since the days of free dial up (remember that!?).

 

Can't say I have ever had any major problems with the service or, on the rare occasions I have to ring them, customer service. In all that time I have only experienced one period of downtime which was fixed pretty quickly. Our promised upgrade from 2mb -> 10mb seemed to take an age which started to grate a bit but been great since it was done.

 

If I have a complaint it would be that they don't give me as a long term customer the same deals as those of new customers, but then that goes with just about all companies, so nothing new there.

 

Yeah this irritates me too, but then as you point out, this is not a Virgin thing and many companies do this to attract new customers. However, a couple of times I have rung to tell them that I have spotted a new deal/tariff on the website and want to be moved to it. Worked a couple of times as well

[synaesthesia]

Reasonably happy with the service here, within the last 2 weeks I've hammered it for about 20GB on downloading (all legal via Steam). Speed is as advertised. New routers/modem combo they provide is a bit broken and the firewall, even after Virgin's firmware update, still doesn't work (slows your connection down to unusable states when browsing) so that needs turning off. Customer service is like banging your head against a brick wall but I think that's little more than language barrier.

[sidewinder]

Used them for years, theres just no comparison to their cable BB...you get the speeds advertised, no 'up to' like ADSL

Very rarely goes down, even when it does its never more than a few hours

The speed reduction after xxGB of downloads is annoying but everyone has some sort of traffic shaping/management these days

[Guest Guest]

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Customer Service.

 

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!

 

Easy; "Can I speak to the cancellation department please" and you get through to a nice british person who can understand you and who will bend over backwards to keep you.

[Cools]

Use to do work for them.. Traffic management is a killer you watch a few HD Iplayers / play some Halo and boom your limited is hit ..

being a old NTL 10mb customer i have a 750mb cap and they wont up it to the new cap for 10 mb.. I'm looking to go to be infinity as my area is getting it in aug.

29mb down 12mb up.. good for gaming and access to my home server is all I relay want. I cant do that with VM..

 

as i have sky im waiting for sky to sort out a deal with BT so i can get it from them cheaper..

[Pottsey]

The product is great and rarely has any problems, but Customer Services is terrible. No Traffic management on the 50meg package and I never had any problems with Traffic management on the 20meg package.

 

Virgin often give out free speed upgrades.

[Cools]

Virgin often give out free speed upgrades.

 

Only happens when the company gets taken over, But with VM it's was rebranding for 10years i think. just 6 more years to go.. b4 the next take over and the speeds get upped.. lol..

[Kamran7860]

i would recommend Be Broadband never had any problems with them.

[CHR1S]

Had Virgin for years, 10Mb and im reasonably happy. I went for their 20mb package a while back and never really got more than 12mb so swapped back. I tend to hit the cap quite frequently but you learn to download out of peak hours and its fine.

 

When you had the VM newsgroup support it was great, biggest mistake they had was removing them!