Virgin broadband renewal

soolin

One other thing which of course doesn't differentiate with the actual base cost- is that I have 2 sole trader businesses, the freelance one requires me to have a certain level of speed and for which I can claim a decent percentage of my cost against my tax (that's the one that refuse to go through all the needed security for me to change my email address) . I also charge some of my internet costs against my other sole trader business, online sales. I realise I could do that with whatever service level I paid for, but it does mean I don't end up paying the full whack.

iniltous

So EE full fibre is available, and it’s faster and cheaper , your concern about the entire home not being covered by WiFi from the router , in the same way it is addressed by Virgin with WiFi extenders, the same can be done with EE , but their new WiFi 7 router may be able to cover the entire building, even if WiFi extenders were needed , added to the price should still be no more than Virgin , it’s not necessarily a good idea to assume every router WiFi performance is the same .

How can the comparison site claim Virgin are best for speed , when EE is faster , although I suppose you may not take the fastest speed Virgin offer , but obviously1.6Gb is faster than 1Gb (60% faster) therefore unless you take the absolute fastest speed , it’s irrelevant.

Personally I’d do my own research rather than a comparison site that works on commission from the ISP it highlights.

FWIW , if you do teams etc, watch a bit of Netflix or YouTube, browse, email etc , you don’t need the speeds you buy , 150Mb will likely be more than adequate for your usage …..unless you have multiple devices simultaneously watching 6-10 UHD videos , upload your own YouTube channel , shift massive files (for work or pleasure) etc. then you don’t need massive bandwidth.

littleboo

There are two parts to a broadband service - the speed to the router, and then how the router is accessed by devices, which for most people,will be WiFi for convenience.

Speeds of 1Gbps are way in excess of what most households will consume, most people working from home have fairly modest bandwidth needs, things like Teams calls, email etc. I wouldn't get hung up on headline speeds unless you know its a requirement.

For WiFi coverage, if you have a property which needs something more than the ISP standard router, you can let the ISP help you with additional equipment, or buy your own which are ISP independent. There is no such thing a a free lunch, if an ISP seems to be giving you something for nothing, its to make it harder for you to move away.

Your neighbor for example, could have got their own WiFi mesh system, and then moved to which ever ISP they wanted to.

soolin

Thank you all for your help.

As per my original question I had wanted to know if anyone had had success with negotiating with Virgin or whether those days are over, it seems from the replies that no one appears to have negotiated with them recently, successfully or not. I have now re contracted at a slightly cheaper rate as mentioned above.

JSmithy45AD

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82072342#Comment_82072342

100% spend a little (£100 say or a lot for more capability) on your own mesh system and then use the OTS service every 2 years and change to a cheaper (reliable) ISP. Change the SSID and wifi password on the new hub to the previous log-in details, disable the wifi on the new hub and then never consider it again or have issues with weedy wifi until it's time to switch again 2 years later.

No company guarantees speeds over wifi and no ISP supplied hub or extenders will get even close to it's incoming speed over wifi. If they're relying on the broadband to support their business and income they should be on a commercial BB deal anyway, rather than a domestic service.

OrbitHeadache

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82072464#Comment_82072464

They offered me 1gig at £22pm including netflix l, I refused because Grain are offering 1gig for £20pm with no in contract price rises.

Cancel and see what happens and if they don't budge get someone else in your household to sign up for a new customer deal