How good is Virgin Broadband?

Dark_Jester

Im tempted to go for Virgen Broadband but how good is their service overall?

Do we actually get the speeds that they claim or is it like everyone else as in its dependent on phone line and how far we are from exchange?

spike7451

IF it's cable broadband then you should get the speeds advertised as Cable broadband does not work thru the phoneline,it comes over the same connection as the cable tv,The would be a new drop cable ran from the VM Street cabinet to your home & the services installed.
Note Cable services do not go near BT exchanges.
IF it is Virgin NATIONAL,which works over your existing BT line,then you're limeted by the usual ADSL govenors,distance ect..

williham

Yeah their cable is much better than phone line services like BT.. I'm on 10mb and I get 10mb.

Nilrem

In general if you're on the cable network it's pretty darned good )
You always connect to the network at the proper speed, the only times it'll drop are if you
A: download too much inside hours when caps apply, in which case your max speed will drop for 5 hours before resetting (simple way round that is to aim to do big downloads at night, and don't expect 2-3 people watching a load of iplayer stuff to be fine on the basic speeds all the time*)
B: You're unlucky enough to be in an area that is badly over subscribed, in which case your speeds might be low for a while until they either upgrade or resegnment to cut the number of people per line as it were.

Personally I've had NTL/VM cable for nearly ten years now and not had any major problems with speed except when there has been a physical problem either with the equipment or the line to the house etc which is usually sorted reasonably easily as it's all the same company and the modem etc are all hired so it doesn't cost anything to sort it out


*Although even at the lowest rate they do now, it should be fine even when capped for 1 or 2 people to watch online videos.

Ae666

Im on a 20mb virgin cable connection and it does what it says on the can. The only grouse I have is with the price, I think it is expensive if you have just broadband. If you have one of their packages it works out better

Barneysmom

I was paying for the 20mb and only got 5mb, so I phoned and asked them to drop it back down to 2mb due to the cost. I haven't noticed any difference at all in the speed.....
It's ok in general,I don't have any problems with it :cool:

KillerWatt

Barneysmom wrote: »

I was paying for the 20mb and only got 5mb,

That's more than likely because you fell foul of their very restrictive traffic management policy. Once you hit the cap (and it is a pathetic cap), then the brakes are applied by 75% for 5 hours.

timberflake

Can anyone advise what the cap is?? I know they advertise unlimited downloads, but how much can you download before they start to throttle your connection??

I'm looking at going for the 50mb package @ £38 a month, but no way am I paying that amount if I'm going to be restricted after downloading 50gb or something similar!!

kwikbreaks

There is currently no limit on the 50Mbps product.

For the other products there are limits on daily download during specified time slots as shown clearly (unlike most FUPs) here - http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

timberflake

That's good to know, I may take the plunge on the 50mb service then. Am I realistically looking at getting that speed??

kwikbreaks

On cable I think most get pretty much the speed they buy most of the time but I certainly see some slowing down during the evening if I care to actually speedtest it. I took the 20Mbps product although the 10Mbps would probably have been plenty good enough for my needs tbh.

I forgot to mention - don't forget to check out the cashback offers (quidco and topcashback) signing direct is throwing money away. You don't have to take the phone but if you don't the bb goes up. I'm going to be using voip with it as the call charges are not cheap and nor are the plans. http://www.voipcheap.co.uk looks good as UK landline calls are free (with some limitations) but I'm not actually using it yet.