Virgin Media - How (bad) are they?

[Brian224]

We were with Telewest originally (and lost our connection the first night when a car hit the cabinet - hardly their fault) but went to Sky broadband when switching from dial-up (The company paid, and would only pay for the cheapest service.) Unfortunately, the 2Mb service often didn't connect at all, let alone exceed 0.5Mb, so, after being told Openreach would charge us £120 to check the connection we switched back to Virgin.

Stayed with Virgin ever since. A few problems with our original modem which needed resetting about once a fortnight, and noticeable throttling when W8 appeared on Dreamspark but since the new modem and 30Mb upgrade no problems, and if they have throttled us I haven't noticed.

[MeridiusBeta]

We've been on Virgin since they were still Telewest. Started off on "Cable Internet", which was ironically dial-up, then switched over to 512k when they brought it out. About 12 years ago I think now.

Anyway, we're now on 120Mb, and have never had a problem with them. There was one period where our old Superhub bit it, and kept resetting back to factory settings every 5 minutes (literally), and customer service were insistent that it was something I was doing for about two weeks. We eventually got a replacement sent through, provided we sent the old one back; and even a discount on the bill for being messed around. So yeah, they're good. That new Superhub is holding well by the way. Even though it's in "modem only" mode, as I wouldn't trust it not to soil itself first chance it got these days.

There was a dark period about 2 years ago where we switched to Sky for about 6 months. That name shall never be spoken in our house again. Terrible speeds, terrible latency, ugh. Switched to Vivaciti ADSL after that, and kudos to them, they were really good. Friendly guys, great speeds, the works. But once a Virgin salesman popped round and said "hey, fancy coming back for 6 months half price?" we almost bit his hand off.

[Smudger]

We were on the 60Mb tariff, but I've recently had an e-mail to say we're being bumped up to 100Mb for nowt. So at the moment, I'm quite happy with them...

[bassmaniac]

got a great VM connection, 100mb, wired, i do regular speed tests using different sites at different times and it's flying, i used to work for sky and the amount of customers raging they'd left virgin was unreal, for the internet that is, theres no other broadband company i'd use, service is reliable

they did do a fair but of throttling, normally between 5pm and 9pm but i dont notice it anymore

[Sheen]

So far I never had any technical problems with VM 30mb (with them for over 2.5 years in total). I definitely didn't like my experiences with their customer support.

[hardwareguy15]

good solid speed when i used VM cable area, it is a shame i am not in a VM area anymore

i've used their DSL services once before - i personally would avoid this because they let sky take over my line without my permission, it left me without internet for 4 weeks

[nev24]

I have been with them for 2 years now, on the 30mb plan and i have only had 1 issue where the net was down and they fixed the issue within few hours.

[spiritdreams]

As far as I know, virgin groups users in groups of 50, the 50 users are balanced, so if you do not use much traffic, you will be grouped with someone who uses more than average.

However, if you use way too much traffic, your traffic gets throttled.

[Dareos]

ummm, no

not even close
uh uh
nada

Everyone has a fair use limit, you go above it, you get throttled - approx 10% atm as its been reduced quite considerably recently, which is good

You dont get bundled with other people at all, you have a connection to the cabinet, the cabinet connects to the fibre network. If there is congestion it will either be on the greater fibre network or at the cabinet. If its at the cabinet then its the volume of traffic created by the people in your surrounding streets. There is no "grouping" with high and low users.

[GoNz0]

Fun and games time tomorrow, call retentions to see what loyalty discount I can get this year as I got a letter saying my price is going up over a fiver

[homerhassall]

Been with cable in one form or another for over 20 years.
Only once nearly got talked into Sky but when I found out what download speed I was going to 'actually' get I binned that idea within minutes. Never had any major problem with Virgin but in line with any big company they can occasionally be a pain to deal with but hey, that's life!

[NickMackz]

On 60Mbps and generally it's very good. Usually get 50+ download all the time and 62Mbps at non peak times. Upload should be 3Mbps and is usually 2.5-3.

Friend of mine in Southampton has awful problems with his ping though. Often jumps to stupid levels like 3000 when we're gaming. Strangely, skype doesn't get affected but the game and pings to google do. He hasn't (or hadn't last time I spoke to him) got around to talking to Virgin about it though so you can't really blame them for not fixing a problem they don't know about.

[KimJongWill]

I've been with VM for about 4 years and got a SuperHub 4 months ago. The speed fluctuates quite a lot during the day and at 6pm - 7pm it is nearly impossible to watch a 1080p video.
Overall my experience with them is neutral and I'd go for EE if I was on the market again

[dcgregg]

I have been with Virgin Media for a couple of years now and have no real problems with them. I started on the 10mbs fireoptic broadband, which they doubled to 20mbs and now they are going to boost it up to 50mbs in a couple of months so not bad at all!

[Woodentop]

I got shot of them as soon as i was out of contract due to poor service and throttling during peak times (not sure if they still do this or not). Moved to BT Infinity and had zero outage for over 18 months.

[tekmon]

Having trouble streaming iplayer in HD for the past few weeks, seems like some throttling going on. I'm on Virgin Media 30mb and had no problems hd iplayer last year, perhaps my best streaming experience has now turned to poop. stop start every minute. When I stream SD it works fine.

Just wondering should I try another isp now as my contract is up.

What would be great if you could buffer iplayer. I hate this on the fly streaming everyone does now.

Interesting to me is champions league football etc, bt sport seem to be buying it all so I might just try them out