Is Virgin Media broadband good?

Sphinx

Hello,

At present, they are the only compare able to offer fibre optic broadband. When I search for reviews in google, they are only rated one star, but that is the same for most of the other broadband companies.

I'd have thought they would be good as it is primarily an english company and it seems to advertise alot (britains got talent etc).

Thanks.

moesasji

It is a long time ago that I was with Virgin Broadband. The thing that made me drop it like a stone was their "throttling" the connection if you go over a certain amount during the day to an unworkably slow connection. Basically it is slowed down to dialup speed when you go over their threshold.

As I often work from home so going over that was a pretty regular occurance and is extremely annoying considering that when I went over it was because I needed to get something done.

If you can get it. I have had very good experience with BeThere. Plusnet is also very good. Not fibre optic, but I doubt that fibre-optic is actually beneficial seeing the throttling policy from Virgin.

SailorSam

I'm happy enough with Virgin. I've been with them ever since i got my computer so can't compare them with others but whenever i've had a problem they've talked me through it on the phone. And i'm computer illegitimate, sorry illiterate. That shows my keyboard skills.
In answer to moesasji Virgin are increasing their speeds but i did notice this week on Watchdog they'd been told to remove an advert 'cos it was misleading.

prowla

This is an interesting thread, as I'm considering jumping ship from Sky (ADSL).

moesasji

SailorSam wrote: »

In answer to moesasji Virgin are increasing their speeds but i did notice this week on Watchdog they'd been told to remove an advert 'cos it was misleading.

For clarity...I didn't complain about the speed when I wasn't using the line heavily. Just about the dropdown when throttling kicks in (which only happens if you are a heavy user).

john1

Have NTL/ Virgin cable since available locally about 10/12 years. Service good only-one modem failure which was replaced FOC in couple of days . A few times had to reboot modem, but other than that availability seemed to be 100% so can't complain.

Buzby

Don;t be misled about 'fibre optic broadband' - EVERYONE has this to a greater or lesser extent, the only difference is where the fibre starts.. at your home, a cabinet in the street close to you, or at your telephone exhange.

Virgin offer CoAx and ADSL broadband, the coaxial cable is better suited to faster speeds than ADSL, but talking about 'fibre' is just marketing-speak. Unless you get fibre to your door - just as a chain is only as good as its weakest link, ADSL or Co-Ax devalue the use of fibre. If you are offered Co-Ax, this is considerably better than xDSL and even if a little more expensive, has better contention rates and less problematic.

Sphinx

Well,

I'm currently with Plusnet and they are excellent for support (24/7 and UK call centres which I like).

Is it worth waiting for Fibre on Plusnet to be available at my cabinet (September 2012) and pay presumably less as I believe Plusnet are cheaper yet they price match anyhow.

VfM4meplse

Virgin BB connection is fine, all packages that include BB have unlimited access, customer service can range from good to dreadful (depends if you get routed to the outsourced support) but is expensive IMO. However still cheaper than many other TV, phone & internet packages. I've also been with them (and the predecessor company) for 11 years.

VoucherMan

I'm sure that for every person who likes them there'll be someone who doesn't.

For me they're fine. I wanted BB only and I've no phone line (and only about 600 yards from the exchange) so for me it's the cheapest and fastest option.

Only suffered from throttling once but hopefully when the speeds & limits increase it will reduce the likelihood of it happening to me again.

mazza111

Another +1 from me. Been with them for years, very few problems, only been throttled once or twice in that time. Think the limits are pretty high.

On the down side. Outsourced call centres. I always seem to get the ones in India who don't understand my accent and I can't understand theirs