Virgin Broadband Reliability

dexterlevi

I am looking at joining up with Virgin Media for broadband only. I am looking at the 10MB option as my current provider can only give me up to 8MB although I am lucky if I get 3 MB on a good day.

With the Virgin i belive you get a new fibre optic line run into the house for broadband.

Does anyone have this and can you tell me how good it is.Do you always run at the 10MB or does it drop to much lower.

Any advice woul be great.

Cat695

they won't just fit fibre optic (which is a slight con as its actually CABLE into the house not FO) in your house you have to be a cable BB area (you will have a cable BB box in your house if you are)

I believe you can get upto 24meg on phone lines at the mo (O2 do 20Meg) however its depends on your location (just one of the reasons) whether you can get these speed....ie the further away from an exchange you are the less likely you will get high speeds

Like I said that is just one of the factors...there are many others

and if your only getting around 3 meg then I think you'll find thats all you will get.

I'm lucky as I have cable BB and yes its bloody good (I'm on 20meg) Virgin media have annouced 50meg to be brought out very soon

dexterlevi

I have done the postcode check and I can have broadband cabled in up to 20MB. The normal broadband I egt through my current phoneline only gives me around 3mb

Cat695

dexterlevi wrote: »

I have done the postcode check and I can have broadband cabled in up to 20MB. The normal broadband I egt through my current phoneline only gives me around 3mb

well if you want truely fast BB then get it.....I have had no problems

the difference you will see will make you smile....and I reckon you will get a pretty good deal as a new customer to

even at "slow" times I still get over 15meg

Nilrem

I've had Virgin/NTL cable for about 8 years and it's been very reliable (about a day of downtime a year on average, not including maybe a couple of times a year it drops during maintinance work for a few hours overnihgt).

Generally I get about 17-18mb, except on the rare occassions I download a lot in the day when i might get hit by STM and cut down to 5mb for a few hours.

colinw

I have had Virgin BB for a couple of years and it excellent. Remember to do it through www.quidco.co.uk and get £80 cashback.

soolin

I'm on Virgin broadband and if it wasn't for the hassle of changing I would have given up a long while ago.I don't know if this message will actually post as the broadbacd status is currently showing as 'red' on their status page...which is unusual as usually when they have problems they pretend they don't.

I can regularly lose any service for an hour or so, about 8 weeks ago I had no service at all for 3 days and no email (even via net mail) for 8 days.

The really really irritating thing though is when you phone them they always tell you it is your equipment that is at fault, even when they know they have problems. It is the first thing they always tell you and I now just tell them to cut out the nonsense and just agree the system is down and to let me know why and to estimate how long it is likely to be.

For the past week for instance the service has been on/off, I am sitting here watching th einternet light go on and off as I type.

The service page here:

http://status-cable.virginmedia.com/vmstatus/summary.do

shows a red blob for broadband, but later says "There are currently no issues", so that is a discepancy on the same page. Click on local issues and I get "National Issue - Customers experiencing loss of Internet Services" 19th Dec

Customers will have complete or intermittant loss of Broadband services.

Which then goes on to state "Estimated Time Fix 4 Hours"..yet the problem is ongoing as at the 21st.

danechip

I had an excellent service with Virgin/NTL and hardly any problems. Rarely got much above 13 on a 20 meg connection, and maybe only 9 or 10 at peak times, but it's still better than the BT's 8 meg service i get here, at 3.5 max (this house is not cabled in the cul de sac, they went straight past).

The fibre optic to your home bit is a con. It goes as far as the multiplexer (you find these about a mile apart in built up area's, and can handle about 800 telephone lines. The TV and Cable modem work though a series of amplifiers from this point to the little green/grey cabinet in your street (the DP).

From there it is also taken, usually by coaxial cable, RG6 (can be 7 up 11 depending on the distance and the amount of equipment you have installed in your home).

There is no problem a coaxial cable taking 100 meg connection, so there is no reason yet to install a fibre directly into your home.

The reason they mention firbe optic, is that it is very close to your home, not miles and miles like can be used in normal phone lines with a 2 single wires.

Cable technology does and will have the power to pith (lisp accepted ! ) all over satellite due to it's costs vs transmission.

50 Meg on Virgin has already started in certain areas, and they hope to be online for everyone late next year (20 meg was 4 months overdue for my area when the increase to 20's rollout was annonced)

Dan.

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=16834843&postcount=2