Problems switching from virgin media fibre

walidjumblat

Hello, I am after some advice. Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere but quite often the threads don't cover exactly what I am asking. I currently have  part fibre broadband with Virgin Media. There is no other 'copper' line coming into the property. When I try to see about switching to other providers, it seems they are unable to get broadband to my address. When I try my neighbours addresses on either side of my property they are able to get pretty much all the deals available. What I think is happening is that other providers use either part or fully shared infrastructure whereas Virgin Media use their own isolated infrastructure. So  other providers are unable to make offers through their Web sites. Is my thinking correct? Anyone else have this problem and any suggestions how to switch ? Thanks in advance, Tim.

ButterCheese

You can't switch if there are no other suppliers i.e. no other companies who have laid fibre infrastructure.  VM were often the first, and many areas (me included) take years for the other companies to provide fibre.  If there are no other options then VM will monopolise, knowing they can increase your bill by 100% every year.  If there are already other services (Sky, BT etc) who can serve you then they don't care, they will sell their fibre for other companies to piggyback off, as this is more profitable than losing you to another company altogether.

I am surprised that no-one else can offer normal speeds through copper lines though.  Yes it's much slower, but also cheaper

iniltous

Virgin use their own infrastructure presumably that’s what you are using , if your neighbours either side have access to alternatives to Virgin, presumably via Openreach network, it’s inexplicable that they can get Sky , BT/EE , Talk Talk etc and you can’t …even if you have been with Virgin for decades and the copper pair from ‘BT’ is redundant, it’s likely that your  property had ‘BT’ in the past , after all before the mid 1990’s there was only really one network, BT , unless you live in Hull .

Is there anything unusual about your address format that differentiates it from your neighbours ? Like your address has a suffix , like No.13A , 

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

Use this with your house number and postcode to check what’s available at your address , you could also look up your UPRN and try that to see if any differences are  shown , post the results from the checker 

35har1old

ButterCheese said:

You can't switch if there are no other suppliers i.e. no other companies who have laid fibre infrastructure.  VM were often the first, and many areas (me included) take years for the other companies to provide fibre.  If there are no other options then VM will monopolise, knowing they can increase your bill by 100% every year.  If there are already other services (Sky, BT etc) who can serve you then they don't care, they will sell their fibre for other companies to piggyback off, as this is more profitable than losing you to another company altogether.

I am surprised that no-one else can offer normal speeds through copper lines though.  Yes it's much slower, but also cheaper

OP has said that neighbours  either side can get numerous deals so it's not that's its not available but there must be a issue with his address

35har1old

ButterCheese said:

You can't switch if there are no other suppliers i.e. no other companies who have laid fibre infrastructure.  VM were often the first, and many areas (me included) take years for the other companies to provide fibre.  If there are no other options then VM will monopolise, knowing they can increase your bill by 100% every year.  If there are already other services (Sky, BT etc) who can serve you then they don't care, they will sell their fibre for other companies to piggyback off, as this is more profitable than losing you to another company altogether.

I am surprised that no-one else can offer normal speeds through copper lines though.  Yes it's much slower, but also cheaper

Most providers won't offer copper broadband 

iniltous

Most providers do offer copper pair based broadband if they use Openreach networks , when Openreach FTTP is available then that can become the default network , and because of incentives the ISP get from IR to get customers onto FTTP , they may well insist that if FTTP is available then new and re-contracting  customers have to use it , but to say most providers won’t offer copper broadband is absolute nonsense 

ButterCheese

35har1old said:

Most providers won't offer copper broadband 

I may be using the wrong terms then, but in both my current and previous houses I could only get up to 21mb/sec.  Numerous (nearly all) of the main providers could offer me a very good deal but it just wasn't fast enough without full fibre.

Same goes for this house, we could get a £18/month deal if we wanted standard internet but VM are the only ones who offer full fibre i.e. in the 300-500mb/sec region.  Hence we can only go with VM, and they know this, so keep hiking it up at the end of every contract knowing that we can't ditch them for someone else

iniltous

Most reply’s are going to be regarding the original posters issue , which isn’t the same as yours , if you only have Virgin available that can provide the speeds you want , then until an alternative becomes available VM have no need to negotiate…however the OP situation is that neighbours have access to alternative providers but they don’t , they never mentioned speed , you do have alternatives but apparently the speed isn’t fast enough for your purposes