Have virgin media just fed me a crock of bull?!

rellarips

Fed up with the recent virgin price hike announcements we've decided to look for a better deal elsewhere.

So, we decided to follow advice and try a haggle first. But my partner just got off the phone feeling so frustrated! Can anyone advise me on how true the following is, as it's just been told to my partner by a VM customer services fella:

1. Only virgin media offer proper fibre broadband. Everyone else uses phonelines until it gets closer to your house then the last distance it travels is through fibre. They use boosters to speed it up to "fibre" standard. I was a bit gobsmacked by this, and I'm finding it hard to believe!

2. We use 600Gb per month (I'm sure we use plenty as we have two kids on a constant stream through YouTube etc). It's the "equivalent of a household of twenty people". Therefore, if we move we will have problems and no doubt be capped on usage.

3. We are within our rights to move in light of recent price hikes BUT our contract runs until June next year. He was trying to make my partner think the contract still stands even if we leave.

4. If we left virgin media nobody in the household can rejoin for three months, that is, if my partner cancels the contract (which is in his name), I couldn't take out a new contract in my name.

The guy absolutely wasn't budging on giving us any sort of deal and left my partner feeling as if we should be thanking VM for putting up with us as terrible bandwidth grabbing customers by the end of the conversation!

Would certainly appreciate someone verifying the degree of truth in this guy's statements before we trot off to a broadband deal far away! Thanks in advance x

JJ_Egan

( Only virgin media offer proper fibre broadband. Everyone else uses phonelines until it gets closer to your house then the last distance it travels is through fibre.)


Wrong its fibre to the street cabinet and only then copper wire to the house .


(We use 600Gb per month)
That could be a future problem is its a very large amount for domestic .


(3. We are within our rights to move in light of recent price hikes BUT our contract runs until June next year. He was trying to make my partner think the contract still stands even if we leave.)


Under OFCOM rules that is wrong .


(4. If we left virgin media nobody in the household can rejoin for three months, that is, if my partner cancels the contract (which is in his name), I couldn't take out a new contract in my name.)


Possibly true dependant upon VMs terms .


Cannot see how you have terrible banwith and download 600GB per month.


Moving to non VM will be a max 76 meg download speed.

Ian011

FTTC - Fibre to the Cabinet - has fibre optic cable from the exchange in town to the cabinet just down the road, and then slower copper wiring from the cabinet to the premises.

FTTP - Fibre to the Premises - has fibre optic cable all the way from the exchange in town to the premises.

thepeopleschamp

I have same issue where all other providers offer me slow connection speeds due to the distance from the exchange. I received a letter yesterday that prices will go up by £3 per month but they wont take effect until my contract comes to an end. I'm sure I'll be able to get something good from them once the contract comes to an end as they have always given me a good price when renewing.

AndyPK

All you need to say is


1) I know the other providers aren't as quick as VM, however 40Mbps will be sufficient for my needs.


2) Use this sites phone deals, and pick one you like/suitable on fibre.
Tell VM who is it and how much it is. and ask them to attempt to match otherwise you intent to leave

[Deleted User]

1. As said it's fibre to the cabinet (unless you have FFTP, which is relatively rare) and then copper pair. VM use fibre to their cabinet and then co-axial cable to the house do they not?

2. 600GB (if true) is an awfully large amount to download although I don't think anyone generally caps usage on UL connections. VM are quite happy to lose customers who download so much because it does impact on other customers. Don't expect much in the way of discounts if that figure is correct.

3. Perhaps they were trying to say that whatever price you're on is good until next June (discounting this rise and any subsequent ones ) and you wouldn't be able to get similar price/speed elsewhere?

4. Probably true.


If the 600GB is correct then moving to a slower fibre (presuming you get a good speed from VM) may be noticeable. What speed are you on and what are you paying for it?

The_Fat_Controller

With Virgin, the speed at the home is pretty much guaranteed.

Other offerings which are not "fibre to the property" and offer "up to XX" speeds use the ordinary phone line for the last part of the connection and the speed is depends on how far you are from the fibre cabinet.

Marcio45

Virgin has got an habit of telling us horror storries and i heard them all. In fairness a fibre (FTTC) connection of 40mbps with the likes of BT, Sky or Talktalk should be enough for 3 people to be streaming at the same time. And take note that hardly any internet provider nowadays caps the amount of data you download.

I am sure that 600GB of data a month is standard nowadays, with all the streaming and internet TV. I am probably using double that, as i am hooked on Amazon Prime and Netflix.

First step, check if you can get fibre at your address. Depending on your distance from the cabinet you can get packages up to 80mpbs. BT often has good deals (with cashback), Plusnet, Sky, even Vodafone.

I currently have 100mbps with Virgin, but had previously Sky Fibre 40mbps and cant say i notice any difference. Only exception is if you download a lot of data, the likes of large files, when the downloads will take longer.

Dont be scared by horror stories from Virgin. If you can get fibre through the phone line then you will have good alternatives.

takman

Marcio45 wrote: »

I am sure that 600GB of data a month is standard nowadays, with all the streaming and internet TV. I am probably using double that, as i am hooked on Amazon Prime and Netflix.

That's a good point to make because 2 hours a day streaming 4k content could be 600GB over a month.

Daz2009

I've had the £4 increase letter today.
The small print says " If you're on a promotional offer we will honour it.Some of your increase may therefore happen at the end of your promotional offer"
My promotional offer ends in November

[Deleted User]

takman wrote: »

That's a good point to make because 2 hours a day streaming 4k content could be 600GB over a month.

Is there enough 4K streamable content to do that? Serious question as we don't have UHD.