Questions about Virgin Internet

[neonplanet40]

Hi Folks,

I have questions about Virgin for anyone who has it and Openreach availability.

We currently have FTTP through Openreach (1Gb). We can now get Virgin who can offer up to 2Gb with symmetrical speeds (i'm keen in faster upload than 100mb).

When I got FTTP installed it was quite easy. Basically, it was all underground and then came up at the side of the house into a little grey openreach box.

Will Virgin be cable to use this same trunking/underground ducting to the house? And then if so, I assume they would isntall a different fiber cable into the house?

Or would they be digging up a trench down through multiple nieghbours houses (we are at bottom of cul de sac)?


Finally, moving between Virgin and Openreach in the future (for whatever reason - I try to get best prices so shop around at end of contracts) how difficult is it to switch between networks when they both have direct cables to the house? Or do they both charge excesssive fees to switch "on" and "off" their services?

Thanks for the help. I've never actually been able to get Virgin before so have only ever had experience of using the openreach network.

[Guy]

I would be VERY surprised if VM could run any infrastructure along any ducting, trunking or have any shared cabling routes with Openreach. So, I'd assume the worst and imagine it'd be a complete new trench/dig.

I guess the first question is, have you confirmed that's the best upload you can get? The majority of offerings seem to be 900/300 for 'residential' products when in a 1GB Openreach area. 'business' packages will go symmetrical, giving you 900/900 options, which you can switch to. I'd suspect a slight increase in cost.

[DanceswithUnix]

TLDR: I would check out other providers that use Openreach to see what they can do. I've always been very happy with Zen for example, and they might well be able to give you symmetric fibre through your existing connection.


I think it is very much a case of "it depends". VM seems to be a mess of different technologies in different regions.

In our case, VM have just dug up our road and have put an access point in the pavement at the end of our garden. It looks identical to the long triangular sort of thing that our existing FTTP comes through (from CityFiber, supplied by Zen) and they looked to be putting the same sorts of straws into the road. So it looks like if I went with VM, they would just have to dig a trench through our garden just like the CityFiber installers did (very low impact to be fair) to the side of the house and install a similar ONT as it looks like the same sort of technology.

That's where I think this stuff all gets a bit silly. If I went VM, then I could have a "1.2Gb/s" service, but it is more expensive and AIUI upload speed on that is rubbish whereas my current 900mb/s service is full speed and symmetrical. In fact, I gather there is some sort of bug in the deployment which means even if I had only paid for 150mb/s I would still get 900mb/s on upload On top of that, I believe our current FTTP is based on a 10GB/s cabinet so the initial rollout is using 10% of the capacity of the system. There are already areas where 1.2 and 2.5Gb/s is rolling out, and that's just going to be a better router onto I think the same ONT and certainly the same fibre blown down the straw. None of this is technology based, it is all down to what products they want to offer.

Then there's the fact that on the local Facebook groups for the town they are always full of people asking if VM is down in their part of town, and yes it is. I have no trust of VM to give me a connection fit for working at home.

Then there's that whole "Worst customer service" thing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68093374