Should I switch to Virgin broadband?

PROLIANT

Virgin Media is second to none, it is fast, reliable, low cost, uses new world technology, is DSL therefore no major upload/download speed differential i.e. if you 300KBps down you get 300KBps up and is driven forward by one of the worlds most successful and honest entrepreneur’s (Sir Richard Branson).

odowdchr

supersub wrote: »

We get our broadband from Orange on a BT line and I'm fed up with how slow it is. I'm thinking of switching to Virgin for their fastest broadband + phone package, using their wireless router as we need to connect a pc and a laptop.
Anyone had any experience of this service? In theory, it should be a lot faster than down the phone line, but is it as fast as they say? I don't want to go through switching providers and changing email addresses (we've had freeserve addresses for nine years) etc only to find it is hardly better than what we have already...

Virginmedia cable broadband as a platform is great, much better than ADSL....but it's a constantly changing and competitive market, and a constantly updating network....so everybody is liable to find a change in their services, depending where they live. As the guy in Bristol says below...they've been a problem area with oversubscribed services and not enough capacity. Other area's from the Telewest days are superb. Do your research on your own area.
If you're just an average user you wont notice the STM (subscriber traffic management), and there's enough of a storm brewing about Phorm to ensure customer opt-outs.
The minimum speed is 2Mb (probably rising to 10), maximum 50Mb (by the end of the year)...but you can get great deals on whatever tier you choose if you combine with other services like phone, or tv.
Basically, they want to keep money rolling in so tend to offer more services for the same price, rather than cutting your bill to silly levels.
Nevertheless, you should get a substantially better deal than is advertised on the website...if you ring up and say you're thinking about transferring from Sky, for instance.
ie....My current deal for phoneline, XL TV, 20Mb broadband and HD box is less than £40....which is the advertised price for the 20Mb broadband on it's own.
They also do deals for new customers.
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/specialoffers/index.html

odowdchr

PROLIANT wrote: »

Virgin Media is second to none, it is fast, reliable, low cost, uses new world technology, is DSL therefore no upload/download speed differential i.e. if you 300KBps down you get 300KBps up and is driven forward by one of the worlds most successful and honest entrepreneur’s (Sir Richard Branson).

Not exactly right....Branson has nothing much to do with running the business "hands on" but has a 10.5% shareholding from his Virgin mobile business.

2Mb down and 256Kb/s up
4Mb down and 384Kb/s up
20Mb down and 768Kb/s up

PROLIANT

odowdchr wrote: »

Not exactly right....Branson has nothing much to do with running the business "hands on" but has a 10.5% shareholding from his Virgin mobile business.

2Mb down and 256Kb/s up
4Mb down and 384Kb/s up
20Mb down and 768Kb/s up

I do apologies, typo on my side, I meant 3000KBp i.e. 3MB down and 300KB up as a guideline figure not to be exact, thanks for pointing that out and an interesting fact about Virgin Media, I was under the impression that it was wholly owned by the virgin empire.

ALIBOBSY

We are in an ex telewest area and are very happy with virgin.
Hubby works in tech support(not for virgin) and won't have anyone else.
We were on a basic tv/basic phone plus mid level broadband, but they contacted me to offer a loyalty offer. Before with calls we were paying around £60 per month.
We in the end got a V plus box downstairs(records 2 channels whilst watching a third) with the XL tv package with all the interactive tv gubbins. Our original box installed in our bedroom with the same tv package. Phone XL package so all local and national calls included, plus the international and mobile deals so reduced rate calls to those as well. Plus the XL broadband 20mb package. Hubby reckons the broadband usually exceeds the speed quoted but this may be due to the fact with live in a relatively small town.
All the above installed for £30 (although ours was only an upgrade) and £65 per month.

We have the main PC connected direct to the broadband plus a 2nd pc and laptop via a wireless router.

Ali x

ALIBOBSY

BTW notice the tech support number is going back to freephone instead of 0870.
ali x

PROLIANT

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

BTW notice the tech support number is going back to freephone instead of 0870.
ali x

I think this happend not long after I kicked off with them over the phone about the fact they were charging me for sorting out their problems, not one to hold a grudge though.

odowdchr

PROLIANT wrote: »

I was under the impression that it was wholly owned by the virgin empire.

That was the canny marketing ploy....;)
They use the typical "treat you like a simpleton" Virginspeak on all the literature now, it annoys the hell out of me :
ie...
"Hi there ! We've just noticed a slight problem on your bill...but don't worry, we're here to sort that out for you....and the good news is that you don't have to do ANYTHING!
Just leave your direct debit as it is and we'll be taking a little extra from you next month"

PROLIANT

odowdchr wrote: »

That was the canny marketing ploy....;)
They use the typical "treat you like a simpleton" Virginspeak on all the literature now, it annoys the hell out of me :
ie...
"Hi there ! We've just noticed a slight problem on your bill...but don't worry, we're here to sort that out for you....and the good news is that you don't have to do ANYTHING!
Just leave your direct debit as it is and we'll be taking a little extra from you next month"

Yea I get that impression about virgin, and allot of other companies are taking the same route, talk to you like a kid, "don’t worry mummy and daddy will sort it for you" simple baby speak, this is where people will start to become even more less responsible and start blaming companies for their own mishaps.

BexTech

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

BTW notice the tech support number is going back to freephone instead of 0870.
ali x

It's an 090x number they are switching back to 151 or 0845.

TV and phone had remained 151 / 0845 even though broadband went to 090x.

You can see why they did it in one way, because they were getting a lot of people calling up when they problem was with their own PC or router etc and not VM's network.

I use the Support Newsgroups to report problems, no good if your broadband is down, unless you have a VM dial-up back-up or know someone who will post in the support groups for you. Saves being on the phone to some script reader in India who you have to phone back 5 or more times before you get someone who understands.

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