We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.

This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.

📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
The Forum now has a brand new text editor, adding a bunch of handy features to use when creating posts. Read more in our how-to guide

virgin - any good?

we wonder to get Virgin broadband as we dont want a landline so there is only one without landline

so wonder it is any good plus i will playing on xbox live and it that good with virgin broadband ???

any help thanks :j
«1

Comments

  • foxxymynx
    foxxymynx Posts: 1,270 Forumite
    yes, much better than the others tbh and xbox live runs fine with virgin broadband ;)
    If my typing is pants or I seem partcuarly blunt, please excuse me, it physically hurts to type. :wall: If I seem a bit random and don't make a lot of sense, it may have something to do with the voice recognition software that I'm using!
  • Other than a minor installation hiccup i've never had any issues with virgin broadband.

    Dunno about the xbox though :P
  • sons_2
    sons_2 Posts: 97 Forumite
    I have only just got the service back after it went down Friday morning, customer service were very poor and didn't seem interested that large parts of liverpool were without Broadband and TV for nearly 2 days.
    I am a Financial Adviser.

    Anything posted on this forum is for discussion purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice. If you feel an area discussed may be relevant to you, then please seek advice from an Independent Financial Adviser who can advise you after finding out more about your situation.
  • Rev
    Rev Posts: 3,171 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    The service is generally excellent. Which is good because customer service is at best, a joke, at worse a complete waste of time and money.

    I had a problem a few weeks ago, constant internet downtime, and when it was on it was slower than snails pace. Called customer service about 10 times, each time I'd call I'd ask if there was a problem in my area, was always told no, after telling them my internet was off, all of a sudden there was a problem in my area.that had just been reported and would be fixed within 48 hours. Got tired of that and called to close my account, was put through to technical help, spoke to a really nice guy who said my modem couldn't handle the new upgrade, sent me a new modem, problem sorted. Each time I'd called I'd been asked my connection speed and what modem I had. So eleven calls, god knows how long on hold/ in queues for a problem that could have been sorted in five minutes the first time I called.
    Sigless
  • I used to think Virgin Broadband was pretty good, I was getting actual bandwidth of well in excess of 2000k. Then my internet speed decresed to crawl.
    When I questioned Virgin Medias' (lack of)-customer care, they claim that their records and BTs' agree that my asdl was never configured above 512k and that they dispute that I could ever had received anything like 2Mb actual speeds and that they are not prepared to do anything about it. I am amazed by their staffs attitude, which ranges from a condecending "oh dear - what a pity" to the worst as its quite intimidating, one where they literally chuckle while they tell me "theres nothing you can do".

    Any ideas which consumer organisation to take this to?

    MC
  • Nilrem
    Nilrem Posts: 2,565 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts
    Virgin cable tends to be extremely reliable around here - about 7 days outage in the past 8 years (after some installation hiccups), the longest period was about 3 days when we had bad local flooding and I think they needed to thoroughly inspect and where needed replace bits that got wet

    It's worth noting that they do have some fairly strict traffic management during the day, especially on the lowest two tiers - but your connection should still be perfectly usable even then (to avoid it you just want to try and avoid downloads during the day, on the upper tier you can still download about 200gb a day even with STB :eek: ).

    In theory it's more reliable than ADSL as you're using much newer cabling that is actually intended for use as a high capacity data carrying medium (unlike copper/aluminium unsheilded wiring used for phones*).

    Unfortunately at the moment some areas of VM's cable network are badly over subscribed which causes slow downs etc :(
    Also in some areas particular stupid thieves have a habit of trying to steal the fibre-optic backbone cabling to sell for it's copper content - they can't seem to read the writing on it that says it's fibre optic, or understand that fibre optic cabling has no copper:p
    Unfortunately when that happens it can take VM several days to locate the damage, and patch it up.

    It's worth noting that VM's ADSL service is pretty much completely seperate to their cable network in terms of performance, cost, terms and conditions etc.


    *That has to contend with all sorts of things, including interference from itself (why networking cable is twisted pair).
  • windra
    windra Posts: 199 Forumite
    Virgin cable and virgin adsl have BIG differences, cable is awesome but adsl is a waste of time as virgin actually lose money on it, so their service on that side is poor.

    I've been on cable for a little while now and i wouldnt go back to any kind of adsl for a second.
  • Farway
    Farway Posts: 15,245 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Homepage Hero Name Dropper
    windra wrote: »
    Virgin cable and virgin adsl have BIG differences, cable is awesome but adsl is a waste of time as virgin actually lose money on it, so their service on that side is poor.

    I've been on cable for a little while now and i wouldnt go back to any kind of adsl for a second.

    I am on Virgin ADSL, with BT line rental, and have no problems, perhaps because my needs and use are modest, not huge downloads, no games, youtube, facebook etc.

    I have never had to contact them or had any problems for over two years
    When an eel bites your bum, that's a Moray
  • Mehdi
    Mehdi Posts: 71 Forumite
    we wonder to get Virgin broadband as we dont want a landline so there is only one without landline

    so wonder it is any good plus i will playing on xbox live and it that good with virgin broadband ???

    any help thanks :j

    Been with Virgin/NTL for at least 7 years. I wouldn't switch to another ISP if you paid me just make sure you get the cable service and not ADSL. Great for Xbox live.
  • L.S.D.
    L.S.D. Posts: 416 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    I've had Broadband with 4 providers with no problems for about 7 years now, in that time I've never been 'capped'. Two weeks ago I changed to Virgin cable & was capped twice in the first week. I'm not a heavey user. In fact they gave me the download figures for each day over the week & on average it was just above 2 gig every day, however on 3 of the days I did not download anything. Just surfed the net. Lucky I have a 28 day clause to get out & thats what I'm doing.
    Nice to save.
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 353.6K Banking & Borrowing
  • 254.2K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 455.1K Spending & Discounts
  • 246.7K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 603.1K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 178.1K Life & Family
  • 260.7K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.7K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.