Virgin Media broadband price increases from 01 November

[Taz]

So my VIVID 200 broadband package will be going up by £3.24 a month from 01 November. I'm currently paying £43.91 per month for my Internet. With the price increase it will be just over £47 per month. That's way too much for just having Internet available.

I sometimes use Amazon Video to stream some films, but that's very rare.

What's the minus Internet download speed I'll need for 4K video? I want to change supplier but don't want to get an Internet package that's too slow.

I also notice that YouTube videos often buffer with Virgin Media, even though I'm supposed to have 200Mbs+ of download speed.

I don't want a bundle as I want my TV service from Sky and my phone from BT. However, I still feel that £47 per month is a ridiculous amount to pay for a broadband service.

[peterb]

Depends on whether your stream is running at 30fps or 60fps, and the compression method. Netfix recommends at least 25Mb/s spare capacity for their service, so say 30 to 40 Mb/s to allow for other internet use.

[Corky34]

You could downgrade to the 50Mbs connection (Vivid 50) for £33 per month as both Netflix and Amazon say the minimum requirement for 4k streaming is 25Mbs (20Mbs for Amazon), I've never had problems with Virgin and I'm currently on a 75Mbs (previously it was 30Mbs but they kept upgrading it).

It maybe a good idea to test the quality of your connection using something like Thinkbroadband's quality monitor and if you get consistently bad results over the space of 24hrs then you can post the result in the VM forums as proof and get them to look into things.

[Taz]

Yeah, it looks like downgrading is my only real option to save some cash. 99.9% of my Internet usage is just general web surfing, emails, YouTube, Skype and a couple of other video calling/messaging services. So it's not heavy in terms of download speeds required.

I also noticed that Virgin Media sneaked in traffic management and fair use on VIVID 200 when it was originally totally unrestricted. You now have to upgrade to VIVID 300 to get no traffic shaping.

I'll call them during the week as their wait times are about 30 minutes at the moment. I imagine a lot of people got their price rise letters today!

[Jonj1611]

You can also get Vivid 200 Gamer if you want no traffic shaping

[flearider]

why not move to a 70mb fiber line ? mines never a problem .. phone, net for £40

[Taz]

why not move to a 70mb fiber line ? mines never a problem .. phone, net for £40

With whom? I'd prefer to keep my phone line with BT but their Infinity 1 deal is quite expensive.

[Taz]

After spending 45 minutes on the phone with Virgin Media this morning, I managed to get a small discount to get the price increase covered and the overall cost brought down to around VIVID 100 price levels whilst still keeping me on VIVID 200. However, I'm not entirely convinced that the customer services agent was 'doing the math' correctly, so I've asked for everything in writing. I was also told that VIVID 200 does not have traffic shaping, and VIVID 200 Gamer is not available any more.