is the Virgin Gig1 Broadband Worth Getting?

Parry922

Coming to an end tom my Sky Superfast Broadband Deal. Im working from home and we use the internet a lot for streaming etc. Sky price is £45 but speeds not been noticeably fast?

[Deleted User]

What speed are you on now?

What has not been noticeably fast? Many issues people put down to slow broadband are actually down to the quality of the Wi-Fi or the specifications of the device accessing the internet.

Although I'm on Virgin M500 (550mbps) and looking to go to 1 Gig later this year, I wouldn't necessarily recommended it to anyone as I have some very specific reasons for that speed that most people won't need. This is MSE so should be about money saving.

For web browsing and streaming, it doesn't make much difference, websites will load in about the same time from anything around about 20 mbps upwards, you won't see much difference unless you have a lot of users and devices all taking a slice of that 20mbps.

A 4K video stream could be up to 20mbps but most streaming will be 5-10 mbps. I've seen streaming peak at around 300mbps initially to buffer the start of a video for about 5-10 seconds, but as long as you have some headroom, you don't need that much really. A 100 mbps can just about serve a household of 4 people watching 4K but I'd budget on 200mbps for that type of usage.

Good reasons for me being on 550mbps are things like game downloads for the consoles in the house, downloading movies and TV shows (rather than streaming) and generally because I'm a geek and just like the best of everything tech wise.

Having said that, I do believe we should have 1 Gig connections to every house in this country as a basic human right and the ability for people to choose whatever they need package wise. Many countries are at 90%+ 1 Gig connections and we are so behind the times.

If you do go for anything faster, you need to budget for a new Wifi router, don't use the free ISP ones with high speed internet, you won't get value for money on your WiFi. You probably need tri-band with 1 Gig to get the best out of it.

Tigsteroonie

We've been given Gig1 as part of a Volt upgrade, the new Hub arrived today and I'm hoping for a seamless install on Monday (not going to try it while still celebrating NY ) If we see any noticeable difference, I'll come back to the thread and let you know!

Parry922

Thanks for the detailed answer Tallmansix. I did a speed test and download is about 80 and upload is 4mbps. The test is done on my laptop upstairs, the router is downstairs but i have a repeater plugged in my room upstairs. I realise that this is a moneysaving website but i was looking at it from a value for money angle also. 

Parry922

Thank you Tigsteroonie, please do let me know how you get on with the upgrade.

iniltous

If you are on Sky 80/20 Mb ( the same Openreach product is sold by many Telco’s not just Sky ) then £45 isn’t a particularly good price , obviously if VM 1Gb is available at the same price as others offering slower speed , then it’s a no brainer, and if money is no object , then why not go for it, but everything in between is subjective on your own needs and budget , if your current connection isn’t limiting your usage or giving unacceptable performance,  then 10 times faster may be nice to have but have no practical benefit…in purely financial terms , you could probably get the same 80/20 broadband  for around £30, from Sky if in a position to negotiate or with someone else ,  you don’t state how much VM are going to charge  for 1Gb, but in any financial comparison , it should probably be against the best price you could get ‘Superfast’ FTTC for , and not the ( relatively ) expensive £45 you pay.

Tammer

Just from my viewpoint, I had the 200 mb virgin package and it was very good for working from home etc. for my wife and I, and our son.   I now have the 350mb speed due to the volt benefits and, if anything, it is not as consistent as the 200 mb package. 

I would also say that the virgin WiFi router is not the best for coverage in a house but can be overcome with a wired connection, adding a superior router or placing  the virgin router upstairs.

niktheguru

I have the gig1 connection and have had it for over 6 months. I think it’s great. We are a multi device household and speed is never an issue for us. Be aware though that you’ll never hit 1 gig speeds on a single device unless you have it connected via Ethernet to the router.
the virgin router as others have said is pants, however they’ve got a new one out (5th version) that does have Wi-Fi 6 on it which significantly improves Wi-Fi speeds. I have mine in modem mode and have a cheap huawei Wi-Fi 6 router attached to it.I get speeds to my iPad at 750mb/s and phone at around 500mb/s when in same room as router. My desktop tops at about 300 which is upstairs.

like others have said you won’t notice much difference in browsing as webpages load around the same speed, but downloading is much quicker, streaming buffers quicker and it’s great if you have multiple devices used simultaneously.

for me I really like it, but make sure you get the latest hub.

wild666

Parry922 said:

Coming to an end tom my Sky Superfast Broadband Deal. Im working from home and we use the internet a lot for streaming etc. Sky price is £45 but speeds not been noticeably fast?

If you can stream what you like with no buffering then don't increase the speed of your connection. I often stream media, Plex, Pluto, Tubi etc. and my monthly usage can be in excess of 2000 Gb and my speed is 43 Mb from an up to 67 Mb connection. Why pay more money for a faster speed if your connection does everything you require?

Tigsteroonie

Parry922 said:

Thank you Tigsteroonie, please do let me know how you get on with the upgrade.

Upgrade went fine, but I'm glad that I didn't pay for the extra as we're not really noticing the difference - as mentioned by somebody else, I think we'd have to get the new Hub5 (which is not yet rolled out) or a separate Router to feel the benefit. We're not a multi-streaming household though.