Is Virgin Media broadband any good?

Wednesday, August 1st 2012 by Dominic James

There’s a lot of hype surrounding Virgin Media broadband, with phrases like super-fast downloads and speed doubling but is this hype justified? Get the full picture with our guide to Virgin Media broadband.

Pros and Cons
The Good
The Bad
The Ugly
Your comments

We’ve all seen the adverts with a beaming Richard Branson flashing his millionaire’s grin, telling us that Virgin Media is the UK’s fastest ever broadband that's light-years ahead of the competition.

Is this just the usual advertising spin, or is Virgin's broadband really as good as the adverts make out? Just like every other broadband provider, Virgin Media broadband has its good points and its bad points.

Virgin broadband is officially the UK’s fastest broadband but speed isn’t everything. There are other points to weigh up before you buy and with that in mind, we’ve looked at all the good, the bad and the ugly to help you decide for yourself.

Pros and cons

You might be tempted to read reviews of Virgin Media broadband but reviews are often written by customers who’ve had a bad experience.

It’s human nature to write a negative and biased review after a bad experience such as a short-term outage, but that might not reflect that customer's overall experience. That’s why we haven’t included customer reviews here; we want to arm you with the facts so you can make up your own mind.

If you’d like to read reviews of Virgin Media as a provider you can find them by visiting our Virgin Media provider page but before we get into the real nitty-gritty, here are our top 3 pros and cons for Virgin Media broadband:

Pros

Three speeds to choose from – including the UK’s fastest
Uncapped download allowance as standard
Plenty of options for bundling with TV, home phone and mobile phone

Cons

Long 18 month contracts
Traffic management in operation for most of the day
Early termination fees can be extremely high

The good

The UK’s fastest broadband

Virgin’s speed claims aren’t spin – according to the UK communications watchdog Ofcom, Virgin Media is the fastest provider in the UK and in more ways than one.

Broadband XL is the UK’s fastest advertised service, with speeds up to 120Mbps in upgraded areas. Overall, Virgin also has the highest average recorded speeds of any widely available UK broadband provider, and they have done for four years running.

Uncapped downloads as standard

Virgin lets you download as many web pages, movies and MP3 songs as you like each month. All broadband packages come with an “uncapped” monthly usage allowance. They’re not truly unlimited due to some peak time restrictions, but these only affect users who download an unusually high amount of data at peak times.

TV and home phone options

Virgin Media offer a great range of optional extras, including three calls packages, three core TV packages, and the option to add premium channels such as Sky Sports.

One of the most interesting options isn’t an extra, but something that you can leave out. Virgin is the only UK fixed-line broadband that lets you subscribe without a phone line.

Free “future-proof” Virgin Media Super Hub

Virgin Media is proud of its Super Hub wireless router, and you'll get one free with whichever broadband package you choose. It can simultaneously support as many as 20 wireless devices and up to 4 wired connections.

It uses ‘N’ wireless technology for improved coverage and it’s specifically designed to handle speeds faster than 120Mbps, which Virgin claims makes it “future proof”. The hardware is covered by a two year warranty, and after the two years is up you’ll still get free repairs and servicing for as long as you remain a Virgin broadband customer.

Happy customers

According to Ofcom, Virgin Media receives fewer complaints from broadband customers than any other provider, and that’s been the case for more than a year. Over five consecutive financial quarters beginning at the end of 2010, Virgin Media received an average of just 0.16 complaints per 1,000.

The bad

Traffic management & fair usage

Virgin’s broadband packages are “uncapped”, but they’re not truly unlimited. Each package has a peak time fair usage limit, and if your uploads and downloads exceed this figure on any given day your speed will be reduced for 5 hours. Virgin broadband has two peak time periods, 10am-3pm and 4pm-9pm.

The good news is that fair usage limits are set high. For example, if you choose the up to 60Mb XL broadband package you’ll get a peak time fair usage figure of 5GB. This means that you could download 6 movies in Standard Definition plus 200 MP3s before you risk being throttled.

Limited broadband on the go

Some of the biggest UK providers such as BT and Sky include free public Wi-Fi usage with most of their home broadband packages, but Virgin Media is lagging somewhat behind when it comes to Wi-Fi.

As a Virgin broadband customer you can access the web in participating London Underground stations and on some Virgin Media trains, but so far they’ve made no moves to introduce widespread Wi-Fi. You can keep up-to-date with our Virgin Media news.

The ugly

Long contracts

Virgin Media broadband comes on 18 month minimum term contracts as standard. This means that when you join you’ll be tied into your account for 18 months, and once that’s expired you’ll still need to give 30 days notice when you want to leave.

Virgin isn't the only provider to insist on 18 month contracts but they are one of the few. Still, if you're aware of this going into your agreement, you know where you stand.

High early disconnection fees

So what happens if you leave Virgin before your 18 months is up? You might be looking at a hefty early disconnection fee. Ouch!

When customers leave Virgin early they’re charged a set monthly amount for each service. These fees increase along with the monthly subscription fee, so you’d pay more for early termination of up to 100Mbps broadband than you would be for the up to 30Mbps service.

For example, if you’ve got up to 30Mb broadband you’ll pay £9 for each month left of the 18 month contract if you leave early. Cancelling with 6 months remaining would therefore cost you £9 x 6 = £54. However, if you have up to 100Mbps broadband the monthly early termination fee goes up to £15 – leaving that after 12 months would cost you £135.

This problem is compounded if you have multiple services. If you subscribed to up to 100Mbps broadband with the top TV package (XL) and anytime calls and left with 6 months left of the 18 month minimum term your early termination fee would be (£4+£20+£15) x 6 = £234.

The only legitimate reason that can get you out of this is if you're moving to an area that Virgin Media doesn’t cover. So whatever you do, make sure you know if you're going to be able to honour the 18 month minimum term or it could potentially cost you a lot of money.

Bear in mind though that early terminations fees aren’t unique to Virgin Media, and many other providers levy similar charges for customers who leave early.

Penalties for changing your services

We sought advice from Virgin Media about what happens if you change your services. There was some confusion, but the general consensus was that if you remove a service the contract for your remaining services will recommence for another 18 months. Also, if you downgrade to a slower broadband option you would usually lose any discounts you got when you signed up (if applicable).

This only applies if the minimum term hasn’t yet expired. Once your 18 months is up you’re free to make any changes with 30 days notice.

Surcharges

If you pay your Virgin broadband bill by any method other than Direct Debit you’ll be charged an additional payment handling fee each month. This currently stands at £5.

Also, when you join Virgin Media you’ll be subscribed to “ebilling”, whereby you view your bills online rather than getting them through the post. If you do want paper bills you will have to pay extra each month for the privilege. This charge currently stands at £1.75 a month.

Again, Virgin Media is by no means the only provider to add such surcharges for paper billing and non-Direct Debit payments.

The bottom line

So, is Virgin Media any good? Now that you’ve reached the end of our guide you should have all the information you need to decide that for yourself.

In our opinion Virgin Media broadband has a lot of good features, such as the UK’s fastest ever download speed, and uncapped usage across the full range of packages. What we think might put off some consumers are the long contracts and the use of a fair usage policy and traffic management activities throughout most of the day. We’ve also received feedback to suggest that the Super Hub may not be quite as robust and reliable as Virgin’s marketing would have you believe, and some customers have reported lengthy broadband outages.

As negatives go, these could apply just as much to any other provider as to Virgin, so we still believe that just as long as you consider all of the points raised, and understand exactly what you're agreeing to before you sign up none of them should really be considered deal breakers.

If you feel there’s anything we've missed out please let us know in the comments below or send us an email and we’ll do everything we can to help. You might also find it useful to read our Virgin Media buyers guide.

Comparison tool

Use our handy package comparison tool to compare the latest Virgin Media broadband prices and features.

Broadband
Max Download Speed	30Mb
Max Upload Speed	3Mb
Monthly Usage	Unlimited
Fair Usage	Yes
Traffic Shaping	No
Digital TV
TV Channels	-
SD Channels	-
HD Channels	-
3D Channels	-
Radio Channels	-
Home Phone
Daytime Calls	9.94
Evening Calls	9.94
Weekend Calls	Inclusive
Pricing
Monthly Cost	£4
Upfront Cost	Free
Contract Length	18 months
Line Rental p/m	£14.99
First Year Cost	£322.38
Lifetime Cost	£499.32

Order Online

Broadband
Max Download Speed	60Mb
Max Upload Speed	3Mb
Monthly Usage	Unlimited
Fair Usage	Yes
Traffic Shaping	No
Digital TV
TV Channels	-
SD Channels	-
HD Channels	-
3D Channels	-
Radio Channels	-
Home Phone
Daytime Calls	9.94
Evening Calls	9.94
Weekend Calls	Inclusive
Pricing
Monthly Cost	£5
Upfront Cost	Free
Contract Length	18 months
Line Rental p/m	£14.99
First Year Cost	£370.38
Lifetime Cost	£577.32

Order Online

Broadband
Max Download Speed	100Mb
Max Upload Speed	10Mb
Monthly Usage	Unlimited
Fair Usage	Yes
Traffic Shaping	No
Digital TV
TV Channels	-
SD Channels	-
HD Channels	-
3D Channels	-
Radio Channels	-
Home Phone
Daytime Calls	9.94
Evening Calls	9.94
Weekend Calls	Inclusive
Pricing
Monthly Cost	£19.75
Upfront Cost	Free
Contract Length	18 months
Line Rental p/m	£14.99
First Year Cost	£460.38
Lifetime Cost	£712.32

Order Online

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Comments (88)

20th August 2012

You obviously havent read the virgin media forums. The superhub is rubbish. Not only has it got very poor wireless coverage but since the R36 firmware upgrade all wireless devices disconnect most mornings and require the superhub to be turned on and off. Customer services even admit to this problem. I would say this is a deal breaker for any new customers and I like many others are going to change to another service provider as speed doesnt mean anything if nothing connects. As for virgin media being proud of their superhub I am proud of a drawing my 1 year child does but that doesnt mean its any good.

RogerB

10th September 2012

We've been Virgin broadband customers for years. Their service has been reliable and rock solid. Till our area was "upgraded" to the new speeds. Since then, a month ago, our once solid connection has been all over the place. It strated with 13+ hour outage and has been slow, non-existent and completely unreliable.
After over three weeks of complaining to the CEO's office they still can't fix it and admit they don't know what the problem is! So we've changed providers.
They may say they've got the UK's fastest download speeds but that's only of use if the connection works.
We have come to the conclusion that their infrastructure can't cope with the new speeds. They've done it on the cheap. So they could pay for the stupid TV adverts no doubt.

Steve May

23rd September 2012

This is usefu lforum when trying to decide to switch providers thankyou.

wembyham

24th September 2012

Virgin Media is aware there is a fault in the B29 6ST Reservoir Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham area and will still sell you the fibre optic broadband, supehub Internet.

Virgin promises internet speeds of up to 20MB but most of the time it's less than 1MB. They have been aware of the problem since September 2011 and sold us the package in February 2012 and it took us several months to find out that there was a problem and it will not be resolved until sometime later this year or next.

The signal drops out consistently especially during the evening when there are quite a few people using the internet. So, if you want consistent internet service, this is not an ideal provider for you in this area.

According to one of Virgin Media's representatives, the service in this area is unacceptably bad and will not be repaired any time in the future.

Good luck in your search for high-speed internet!

Mike

30th September 2012

We where Virgin customers for over 10 years. Then a series of so called upgrades left us with intermittent internet & loss of TV channels @ peak times. i.e. when everyone finishes work & watches TV.
4 engineers plus a new cable did nothing to resolve this issue. On one occasion engineers turned up half hour before allotted time but where still there in their vans when i arrived home, they saw me then drove off.
Customer service is in India & can only offer advice on getting things started again or make engineer appointments. UK office staff only work Mon-Friday & no matter what the problem try & push more product options. What use are more channels when you cannot receive them? Trying to leave them brings in a clause if you leave within a 12 month period of any change to a contract, this was £50 for TV & £50 for internet, I refused to pay & sent 3 complaint letters before I received a phone call & final demand. They dropped the charges as they finally realised that the reason i was leaving was because they could not supply the service i was paying for.
Now with SKY, to be perfectly honest i should have moved years ago, i get more individual channels not just +1’s & the broadband even though it's through a phone line gives a steady 12-13mb from an up to supply of 15mb much better than the 0.5 - 2mb i was getting from Virgin on a 10mb package.
I would not go back with Virgin no matter what the offer, packages are not that great, IT help is difficult to understand & customer service is rubbish @ best.

Allie

5th October 2012

Two people under one house, trapped into a VIRGIN contract, with our separate account numbers.
Customer 1, was already into his contract and when moved in with Customer 2, VIRGIN started his contract from the beginning again.
VIGRIN miss leading advertising regarding fast speed, they can’t even get you connected to the internet
VIRGIN technicians that lie and damage your PC and internet connections
VIRGIN rude customer service
VIRGIN CEO, won’t answer questions
VIRGIN I don’t care you stuck in a contract attitude

Will

9th October 2012

Ive had VM for a few years and about to disconnect, every few months i experience 48hours downtime, VM are unable to fix an issue, more they just bodge it together, maybe the fastest in the UK but id say the most unreliable!

Matthew

9th October 2012

I got my internet connection installed exactly two weeks ago. The connection has been very reliable and fast until yesterday evening when all of a sudden it started slowing down like as if I was using a 56k Modem. It took me over 30 minutes to check my normal Yahoo email account.
I called their customer service today and they told me that there's a fault in my area which would take about two days to be sorted out.
Well, I'm waiting patiently till Thursday. If it is still slow I will terminate the contract without hesitation and they will have to blame themselves. I have called in my Solicitor to witness it himself. This is just an advance warning to them. They can not mess with me at all

dr f dejahang

23rd October 2012

Last year I was promised if I do not leave virgin my broadband speed will be increase. This year I phoned them and they denied the last year’s promise. BBC Watchdog is correct to expose them. I am a 10 year customer of virgin and have my mobile, TV, Broadband, land line with them. Their efficiency/productivity is declining fast. DR F DEJAHANG
PS are they intentionally reducing the speed to force you to get a new package with string attached to it?

Jonstp

31st October 2012

We had BT broadband that never worked and ended up being charged £1000 to get out of contract after two years of arguing, the fact the broadband worked for only one month seemed to be a non-issue. we switched to Virgin and with massive relief it just works. maybe once a month it goes slow but router never crashes. Bought a £19.95 wifi extender on eBay and now 6 tenants over 4 floors hookin over 4 floors and zero complaints from anyone. Tv package is crap. frees at gives you more stations.

Bamse

5th November 2012

If you're a gamer, DO NOT CHOOSE VIRGIN MEDIA!

Matt

8th November 2012

I was with Sky for years and had no issues at all we moved to an area and couldnt get Sky and Virgin were offering super fast fibre optic so went with them ands its been terrible first few months was ok then on days it would be slow and if we were using xbox and laptop was really slow complained and replaced the router which worked for a few months but now we have no connection at all or when we do its slow i wouldnt normally leave a review but the last few days have made me want to hunt Richard Branson down and whack him round the head with his super fast broadband.
Spent 2 nights on the phone to india constantly utting me on hold then cutting me off after getting very frustrated and calling back spent 40 mins doing s system test the guys saying its working ok mate its not working at all?? Ok ill get an engineer out great thanks half hour later get a call to say engineer visit has been cancelled ??? Call back spend 20 mins on hold for a girl to then say theres a problem with your address and it wont be on until nect Tuesday took me nearly 4 hours pf calls to get this info. So 8 days with not internet i work from home so its really annoying and ive lost money £7 refund offered. Basically customer service is awfull connection awfull id go with Sky which were currently trying to arrange.

martin D

25th November 2012

Well been with NTL/Virgin for 10 years. Was never to impressed with the TV to be honest...annoying delays when using the remote control ( Virgin customers will know what I mean) So dropped the tv and moved to sky....much better. However I still have broadband with Virgin....sometimes it goes very slow...I mean REALLY SLOW! BUT most of the time its fine 12mb - 20mb so Im keeping it. Phone calls can be expensive unless you take there unlimited calls package so be warned. So YES to Virgins Broadband NO to the tv....it really is a poor 2nd to Sky!

Mick

30th November 2012

I contacted VM earlier this week to find out when my initial minimum term contract of 18 months expires, as I don't wish to renew with them. I didn't actually inform him that I didn't want to renew the contract, as this was just an enquiry call (I had signed up to receive an extra subscription TV channel that I'd stayed with for a couple of months or so before cancelling and wasn't sure whether my having made a change to my packet had unwittingly extended my original lease; fortunately it appears not to have.)

It seems it was a smart move on my part to contact them, because the chap on the phone said they would have automatically renewed my contract. I mentioned the recent change in the law which banned Automatic Renewable Contracts (ARCs) but he claimed he hadn't heard of it!

My contract renewal date would be 28 December 2012, and I said I would call back nearer the date to inform them properly of my quitting as a customer.

The thing is, I'm a little worried now - it having to do with the VM operative claiming ignorance of the ARCs matter - whether I'm going to have trouble with them, as one or two comments I've read from disgruntled customers on other forums don't exactly fill me with encouragement, I must say! I don't know, for example whether a phone call, on the freephone 150 land line number will suffice, or whether I should have to go to the trouble and expense of sending them a registered letter through the post, to advise them of my intentions?

Any advice on how to proceed with the matter would be greatly appreciated, as I'm completely new to the area of contracts - or at any rate the area of cancelling or not renewing them!

Thank you!

Myles Thomas

5th December 2012

I too was sucked in by Virgins advertising. The superfast broadband of 60mb I was promised has never been above 20, and usually resides around 8. The TV is a joke, on the 'M' package you don't even get as many channels as Freesat, not even Film4+1, for example. The 1tb box we have records what it thinks you'll like, or rather what it likes, and deletes saved programmes all by itself. I upgraded my package to 'L' tv, which they said would add £6.50 per month, but my monthly bill went from £31.00 to £59.00, and they insist this is right even though when you go to their website the same package comes out at £54.00. The phone works, but you daren't call people during the week as the call charges are really high if you're on the basic package as I am. Bottom line, I've hated it since day one and I can't wait to get rid of it. One ray of light is they have sent me a mail advising they are going to put their price up, which means I can get out of the contract without penalty. I'll certainly be taking advantage of that, come back SKY, all is forgiven!

mr t jones

8th December 2012

I have just been told my internet speed has been doubled for freeee. Then within a week im told of a price hike. On top of this my connection speed has gone sooo slowwww . Seem like a con to me.

Scott Deagan

12th December 2012

I'm actually a very happy Virgin Media customer. I've been with them for over 10 years now (I was formerly with NTL), and I've always "...got what I pay for..." in terms of bandwidth. At the moment I'm on the 50Mb service, and I get 50Mb. I rarely perform large downloads, but when I need to (like grabbing that latest DB snapshot from the office), it's blisteringly fast. I just can't wait for VM to double my speed (my area should be completed late January 2013).

My only gripe is the severely limited upstream. 5Mb upstream in this day and age is completely unacceptable to most consumers (especially those consumers who are now also producers). I believe the throttled upstream in the UK is an economic blocker. Give us the upstream, and folks would start inventing new and imaginative ways to utilize it (and make money while doing so). The only reason why I'm considering moving on from Virgin Media is because of the poor upstream. The BT Infinity 2 package are currently offering 19Mb upstreams. When BT Infinity is available in my area, I'm going to try 'em out (purely for the extra upstream).

dylan

13th December 2012

scott you must be the only happy virgin media customer in the whole of the uk

SusieBlue

20th December 2012

Virgin must be the worst company when it comes to what the customers want and how they are treated.

I lived in a city with cable, started TV and Broadband both with Virgin at different times - this cost me an additional £230 in charges. I then moved house to a town where they couldn't supply TV and couldn't supply cable broadband but could supply national broadband and we were told we had to sign up for this, otherwise there would be a £200 cancellation fee. I haven't received a contract so I don't know they start up date of that "contract". I can't find an email address anywhere. All my letters to them have been ignored,

Their website should be called a sales site as if you want anything other than sales they must be the most difficult company to get hold of. I personally think Virgin is only interested in how much they can get from you with giving you the least in return. When you go onto their website to get any information the pages you want usually show this annoying "Oops we have problems" as they just can't get anything right. I rue the day I signed up with them and can't wait for the contract to finish. but I have to know the date and the required cancellation requirements, otherwise is the existing contract just rolled over onto a new one? I don't know as once you're a customer you can't get to know anything.

jack miller

22nd December 2012

virgin are terrible, usain bolt sank low.

PeteUK

22nd December 2012

I have been getting this problem here in Nottingham NG15 for the last couple of weeks, and speaking to friends who live locally they are finding the same issue.

Speed tests and downloads all show max 60 mb speed, but trying to open web pages is painful. It hangs for an age, and even when it does load often misses pictures or sidebars.

It is not specifically watching videos but any .Trying the iPads/Pods shows that YouTube is very scrappy, often a message comes up saying there is no video to download, or the video has timed out.

Tried looking at an iTunes trailer and had scrubbing after 5 secs.

It is also across all devices, including PC/laptops connecting by wifi and ethernet, running W7 and XP pro, using IE8, IE9 and IE10 as well as Chrome. 2 iPads and 2 iPods using Safari and a PS3. All were absolutely fine up to 2 weeks ago, when all services dropped. I have done all the usual hub re-boots, checked devices, etc.

Called Virgin helpline but other than being told there are no faults in this area we did not get anywhere. I asked if there was any throttling, or if webpages were being cached in some way by VM, but was told no. Their only suggestion was that it was the browser or PC, but as it is the same on 7 different machines and 3 totally different browsers and OS this seems doubtful.

Checking with friends on facebook all are having the same problem. One was told by the helpline that there is a problem to so with viewing websites, but when he asked for more details was put on hold and the call dropped! When he called back the new phone operator told him no such problem exists!

Paul

27th December 2012

I love my Virgin broadband. Super fast, I even get 12 mbs by wireless connection and 30 mbs via cable. Just great!

Darren

31st December 2012

In my experience Virgin Media are a lousy company to be involved with! I have TV issues as the box they provide is really poor, worse then any freeview box I've owned, doesn't record what you want, doesn't fast forward and play and start up in mornings takes over an hour at times.
Virgin broadband is like my ex-gf looks amazing but useless! Poor connection, drop-off during use, the speed tests I run are 14mb at best. But according to Virgin call centre these are not reliable! I could put up with performance issues if I felt a valued customer, unfortunately no-one working for virgin cares, they have you locked in a contract! I've even had them trying scare tactics on phone suggesting if I leave I need a digital aerial installed - nonsense as freeview works off analogue aerial. How many ppl have they convinced of this? AVOID Virgin media, harder to get rid of then my ex!

Rose

3rd January 2013

They are terrible they claim that they are the fastest broadband but the Internet is as slow as anything the customer service is awful and as more than 3 years customers we don't get the new 'hub' for free?!!!!!!!!! Moving to another one do not waste your time please!!!

PeteUK

4th January 2013

Interesting Update:

Got so annoyed just before Christmas I called the helpline again, but as always got nowhere. However a few days later I got an e-mail asking me to take part in a survey of their support service. My response was very detailed, and overall rated VM zero out of ten on all measures. Since then I have not had a response, but 72 hours after submitting it my internet suddenly improved, and is now running webpages at the correct speed, on all devices and operating systems. Coincidence? Maybe....

Irene Foster

4th January 2013

I am moving to an area where Virgin have no cable. Have about 6 months left on contract but feel that since they cannot provide me with the package I contracted for I should be able to leave without penalty. They want over £150 disconnection fee or a new contract for the phone line & broadband at £37 per month - my current package including TV is £43.50. This is so expensive and not what I signed up for. Have written and e-mailed but no response so far. Am not a happy bunny!!

Seb

5th January 2013

I have now been a virgin customerm for 24 hours..... And so far it's not been great!

I have 100mb line and I can't break the 30mb mark at all. Often videos on YouTube won't play it gets so bad.

I was charged £50 for the install but my property already had all the hardware in place. The guy showed up, opened a cardboard box plugged it in and left. It cost me quite a lot for that privilege!!

I have called customer service but it is going to be 2 weeks before they can come and 'investigate' why I am not getting the correct speed.

So far I'm left feeling slightly deflated

8th January 2013

I used to work for virgin, customer services, If your supposed to get 100mb and only getting max 30, means your in a HIGH UTILIZATION AREA, means virgin will charge you the full amount for the services and will never get the proper service.
If your not happy with the service and still in contract, this over priced increase which you are paying for the doublespeed, you have the oppertunity to cancel WITHOUT the early termination fees being applied, Just say cancel due to the price going up.

Darren

9th January 2013

I was fine with VM, then I got upgraded to the 'super' hub.
Since then I cannot play games online or even watch a SHORT video....unlesss it's when everyone else has gone to bed!!!!!

Bottom line is after 4 months I've come to the conclusion you should NOT use Virgin.

It's rubbish, it's a con and you will only be disappointed.

paul

15th January 2013

i have 60 mg broadband well so i am told all i get is 0.32 mg then 34mg then 1.0mg it is up and down like a yo yo when i do a speed test it looks like a load of sharp teeth up down up down and all you get from virgin was it must be just my line lol then to many ppl are on(not at 1am in the morning) now it my local council i just can not wait till my contract is up and i am off

Sheila vince

15th January 2013

I was just about to change to virgin 30mg broadband, have charged my mind after reading the reviews as they all seem to be bad!

jake

17th January 2013

virgin media are the biggest load of krap ever,i have had a contract for a year or so and we pay on time every time unyet we cannot do anything with our connection speed,we cannot even watch a 5 minute video on youtube thats how krap virgin media is,i have seen hundreds and thousands of complaints all over the internet ,pages after pages of peoples negative responses since they have had a virgin media contract,the customer services are the worst and they are the most ignorant customer service ever,i have spent loads of money ringing and ringing virgin media to complain and all they do is tell me it must be because there are too many people using the internet,what sort of a response is that? too many people so i must suffer for something i am paying for every month on time?it says no where in the contract that i wouldnt be able to get the connection that im paying for ,everybody is going for sky now because they are the best and virgin media is the worst, DO NOT GO WITH VIRGIN MEDIA ,IF YOU DO THEN YOU ARE AN IDIOT!!! THEY ARE RIPPING PEOPLE OFF!!! gas and electric companies are getting into trouble now for charging people way over the amount of gas and electric they are using,the company was taken to court and got sewed for millions,i think this is the way virgin media will go very soon,they are ripping people off ,i have all the error reports in my hard drive that says virgin media have a server problem thats why we are all getting way under what we are paying for and then when you ring up virgin media they try to bull every body by telling them that its on peak time,it doesnt happen when we all use the home phone at the same time and gas and electric dont turn off coz some idiot up the road is using it ,the answers virign media are giving people are lies and i for one am going to look deeper into this and get them into court for missold contract.

Umar Nawaz Khan

17th January 2013

everything looks fine now.
its more cheaper then Sky fibre and BT infinity.
they give you discount if you tell them you can't afford it. £5 discount. at time of writing

runs really fast if you get 120Mb broadband.

if I do get a problem with broadband they come and fix it the next day.

MOST PEOPLE HAVE PROBLEMS WITH SUPER HUB in 2010- Nov 2012
2013 superhub working good. no problems. I heard they gonna get super hub 2 out very soon. maybe in summer.

had problems with super hub when firmware R36 came out. but now super hub is working good with the upgrade firmware R37.

had problem with telephone 2 times. they fix it. so Woking good now.

been with virgin nearly 2 years now.
people say virgin media this and that negative things about VM. but you get problems with other broadband ISP aswell. no ones perfect.

17th January 2013

People who state Virgin are good must work for the company, who treat the staff as robots, get the customer on and off the phone asap, tell the customer anything except when the fault will be fixed, guarantee after feb there will be another price rise in the addon's like caller display, call barring, robbing the public left right and centre, All they say if the customer dont like it then tuff, pure joke of a company

Scott Deagan

18th January 2013

"...People who state Virgin are good must work for the company..."

I certainly don't work for Virgin Media, but I have been very happy with the broadband I have received from Virgin Media. If you read my comment:

"...I'm considering moving on from Virgin Media is because of the poor upstream. The BT Infinity 2 package are currently offering 19Mb upstreams. When BT Infinity is available in my area, I'm going to try 'em out (purely for the extra upstream)..."

I think it's just "luck of the draw". I pay for 50Mb, I get 50Mb, and I'll soon be upgraded to 100Mb for free! Will I still be moving to BT Infinity? Yes! Because I want the extra upstream. In my line of work, upstream is just as important as downstream.

Judging by the comments here, Virgin Media really need to lift their game. I guess I'm just one of the lucky ones (but I'll still be leaving Virgin Media the moment BT Infinity is available).

Ross

22nd January 2013

Do not get Virgin BB it sucks. If you already got it cancel before the cooling off period. It's a terrible service. I've had it almost a year and I can't wait to get out of contract.

1st February 2013

I find it funny i switched form VM BB last august 2012 and joined 02 Be broadband which worked out slightly cheaper yes i am not on a 100mbps connection but a mere 18.5-45.2mbps which is because i am on a exchange compared to VM which is , Quite hillarious to say because i am also in a cable zone with there exchange 4 streets away yet there website says i do not live in a cable area to receive services yet as i write this

i have my old superhub router sat in its case from last year in a box on the bookcase and the wire to VM services from where it connected into my wall yet There systems claim i cannot receive it after being on there network from 2006-2011

avoid them there systems are old and outdated, the website is unrealisable stupid and could not work out a cooking time for beans and toast in a microwave i think?

also i am a avid gamer and movie buff watching and streaming movies, Vm SuperHub could not do that straight just always issues and i was also charged 99 quid one time for one month services which i was pronised a refund but never got back

do your self a favour try be broadband or o2, had no issues what so ever apart form one downout which was reported in the press a while ago but apart from that better services not some idiot from another country or woman who couldn't care less if you lived or died over your broadband there money grabbing thieves and old beady can kiss my *** as he is a dinosaur

lee stott

3rd February 2013

I HEAR VERY COMMENT POSTED ON HERE AND 2 AVE COME TO THE SAME CONCULSION VIRGIN MEDIA CUSTOMER SERVICE IS THE MOST POOR AND THE TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT WOW THEY ARE SO THICK . MY PROBLEMS STARTED NOV 12 WHEN MY HUB WAS DIPPING IN SPEED SO LIKE EVERY 1 ELSE IS INDIA WE GET SO ANY HOW 3 ENGINENEERS CAME OUT WIHIN A WEEK TO COME TO THE SAME CONCLUSION I DID ITS THE OUTAGE IN THE CAD BOX SO IT CANT HANDLE EVERY 1 SO THINKING THIS WOULD BE SORTED WITHIN 2 WEEKS AS U CAN GUESS ITS NOT CUS NOW IT FEB 2013 HE MORAL OF THE STORY IS TO HANDLE THIS IS 3 MONTHS IVE NOT PAYED FOR MY VIRGIN MEDIA BECAUSE I U CAN HIT THEM WITH THE TRADING STANDERDS ACT BREACH OF CONTRACT AND THEY CANNOT CHARGE YOU SO SPEAK TO KEEPON FIRM BUT FAIR ALSO HAVE A RECORDING ADVICE AKA MOBILE PHONE DIGTAL RECORDER AND RECORD THE MESSAGES WHEN YOU SPEAK TO TO THEM BECAUSE IF THE GIVE YOU TROUBLE PLAY IT TO THE MANGER AND THE ARE LOST FOR WORDS . KEEP WITH VIRGIN AND FOLLOW THESE TIPS AND YOU WILL BE FINE

Lucian

9th February 2013

Virgin Media? Rather Zero Media, from 2013 superhub, to phone calls that break and charging £1/min for international calls land line, customer service like they can not solve any problem, but up or downgrade your services, actually the list is long and I am tired of this Virgin, time and money thieves

gary barrell

11th February 2013

anyone who needs convincing how bad virgin is, ive had it a year with endless call outs and problems, here are my speed test that i do every night..

Download 0.91Mbps Upload 1.91Mbps Ping 26ms
Download 0.01Mbps Upload 1.08Mbps Ping 32ms
Download 1.23Mbps Upload 0.38Mbps Ping 51ms

im supposed to be on a 30mb line with superhub superfast, try unesable and superslow.. dont use it trust me.

Annette

12th February 2013

We have been Virgin Media customers for 13+ years, since they installed a HD+ box four years ago we have had problems, messages include subscribe for these channels, these are channels we are already paying them for ?
We have had four engineers out in one day, they broke the television , which was a new set we have recently brought.
There was nothing even though they broke our TV that they could do ? They offered us a £15.00 refund, then another today of £20.90?
This is after Friday four engineers and then on Sunday another engineer or technician, these are jokes, I don't think these guys are even trained in their work, as that they don't seem to know what they are doing either, Richard Branson is still advertising this so called great service, well I think watch dog should hunt him down and make Mr RICH &getting RICHER by conning people into this so called SERVICE.
Many complaints and frustration later, they are sending yet another engineer, don't know what they think this other one can do..?
We had a great and solid service until they decided to upgrade their equipment, guess they are doing this a cheap as they can, so Mr FATCAT Branson can make more money..
Come on BRANSON if you really care do something for your customers, or do you really think that your so BIG your companies are not having trouble ?
We are waiting to see what they do tomorrow, ( as we already know, nothing !!!)
Then we will go to another service provider, ONE WHO CARES FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS
Virgin is a terrible service provider and I would not recommend them to my worst enemy.
This letter will also be sent with more proof the letters technicians give you to the television watchdog.
Virgin are so popular on that programme...

alan

12th February 2013

@gary barrell
Hi Gary, you will be in a area where there is high utilisation and will never get any higher than 2mbs, I Used to work for them and know this, They will make you pay full price for something you will never get. see how long its been going on and call them and say you want to claim all the broadband money back otherwise you will take legal action, this will work in your favour. Same goes with everyone in the same boat.

alan

12th February 2013

@Annette
Richard Branson dont own Virgin anymore, Been sold to the Americans, (profit for the company, nothing for the customer), The cables coming into your property will be old and need replaced, not enough power getting through them.

rockmonkey

12th February 2013

At the start of year I got a letter from VM saying they have to increase the cost of my package (10% and not inline with inflation ). Two weeks ago I get letter telling me my broadband speed has been doubled for 'free'. Ever since then I get latency and 'peaking' regardless of it is peak time or not. PC as been rebooted to factory settings, everything and mean every thing reinstalled and updated etc etc. I have tried every tweek you can think of. Five calls to customer service has netted 'turn it of and on again', on one call the customer service person started asking me about my life and work... I mean WTF! thats none of their damn business ( yes we know it is a culture issue ). Thing is I KNOW where the issue is, there is 'noise' on my line always has been which is why I have db filters on it, they need to be adjusted them due to the 'boost'. Six years with VM and not a happy bunny, being charged more for less. Can I have my old service back please it was rock solid for the last 18 months and was not broken.

Paul geoghegan

12th February 2013

What can I say? I pay for 30mbps and I just checked and I am getting 30 Mbps!
Even on my wifi ipad I am getting download speeds of 12 Mbps.
Very happy indeed.

Rosy

13th February 2013

Had virgin media for many years but their broadband has seriously gone down hill in the last 3 years. Virgin may offer faster speeds than competitors but you are lucky if you get half of that speed in the evening. The congestion from too many users on their network makes gaming unplayable and streaming videos like YouTube or iplayer just buffer, making them unwatchable. Getting them to resolve this type of issue took us 6 months the first time only for it to happen again a few months down the line.

The quality of the broadband experience should be added as a con.

Petre

14th February 2013

the internet stream is good when it is there but very often just cuts off for few minutes and then starts again. Very inconstant. It is very frustrating and impossible to work! The wireless do not reach all the rooms in the house. The basic TV package they give you is the same as the Freeview. No value there.

Ronnie

17th February 2013

I have been a satisfied Virgin (was NTL) customer for over 10 years. I have upgraded to their top line service. I feel that using BBC iPlayer without interruption would seem to be a reasonable expectation. Unfortunately I have been disappointed.

Ian B

19th February 2013

Superb service, I have tv phone and broadband, had engineer visit me twice in 6 years, problem was with box in street, all fixed in 30 minutes, would never go back to B.T. you get what you pay for

25th February 2013

You must be having a laugh saying you get what you pay for. I have been with them since December 2012 and the broadband service has been appalling in all that time. Contacted customer services and was told that it would be fixed 20th January. 20th January passed by and no improvement so phoned again, was told this time that the engineers had scheduled repairs for 22nd February. I explained the earlier date, as promised by them only to be told it was never going to happen until the later date (so either lies are being told or their employees are clueless, probably both). This date has now passed and still it appears that nothing has been done. Also there are a number of tv channels that are of an extremely poor quality, which has been reported and apparently being looked into (yeah right, this has been a month now). All-in-all they have over sold for their infrastructure, which they appear to not be bothered with as they keep advertising and selling (surely this is done illegally as they know they can't supply what they claim). So to sum up, their terrible broadband speeds, poor tv picture quality along with the broadband capping is down to the poor infrastructure, but will they ever admit it, I doubt it very much.

Dai

1st March 2013

Typical of Branson's approach to selling. Ambiguity reigns. You can see why he never sold motor cars! 'This one has a top speed up to 100mph - even when being towed!' As for customer service, it is a cynical farce, and, you know as soon as you are connected, that, you're on to a loser. Does anyone remember the early AOL 56K Modem days? You were actually connected to a real engineer ( via the keyboard) and the advice was usually super. ( That too, eventually went to India and deteriorated the same way.
As for me, I joined NTL when the cable was laid, again, there was 'good old Broadband Medic' to fall back on. Once the 'deadly vapours' of VM enveloped NTL, that was the warning sign that quality would be sacrificed for quantity and heavily biased PR. Remember, the agenda was for short term gain, hence infrastructure that was barely 'fit for purpose'. It must be a possibility that the new owners may be in for a nasty surprise when they evaluate the quality of what they have bought .
My Past Service: Say 3mb down, lucky to get 50kb up. Since the 'doubling' - the up-load consistently fails to complete a speed test. 'thinkbroadband speed test's' will not go past stage 3. Now VM want 10% more money because of the great value for money they are providing. How do you measure the great value they are providing? I suggest this latest price hike was to clinch the deal with the American buyers - showing the gullibility of Bransons customers

umbrokhan

6th March 2013

2 or 3 TIMES Superhub modem router stop working. needed a replacement.
2 times my telephone stop working.
and BIAS help and support form.
i just wish BT upgraded my street cabinets so i can move to BT infinity2 or SKY Fibre.
Upload speed is poor compared to BT infinity.
Download speed is good.
superhub router modem has poor wireless signals.

Mick

7th March 2013

If you ever happen to think of taking up with TalkTalk, take my advice and DON'T! They're a proper bunch of rip-off merchants!

I went "live" with them on the 26th of last month (Feb), and within a week the phone line went dead. I reported the problem a few days later - via a relative who acted as a contact for text messaages through her mobile phone from the company. One such message informed me that I must make an appointment for a technician to call at my address.

Anyway, a few days later, when I found the time, I phoned from my relative's place - who is also a TalkTalk customer - to arrange for the technician's visit. I was informed by some woman with a very strong, barely-understandable Asian accent, that before a technician can be dispatched, I'd have to agree to paying a call-out charge of £50 if it was found that the cause of the fault lay in my property!

Suspecting a scam in operation, here, and knowing for sure that I hadn't done anything to bring about the fault, I declined to accept the condition.

It's obvious to me that the line has been deliberately disconnected, and I can well imagine any so-called technician, when he turns up, going through the pretense of looking for the fault, then, claiming to have discovered it, points to me and says that I must have accidentally nudged the phone plug free from the socket at some time, thus causing the problem! Yes, I can see him assuring me that the solution has been found and that the line will be back in full working order in a few minutes' time. He collects his parphernalia and leaves. Then, once he's around the corner, he phones the office and tells them to flick the switch that reconnects the line! That's how I see this scam working, and I don't think I'm all that far wrong of the mark, either!

Anyway, the upshot is I went down to the bank and cancelled the direct debit arrangement, the first installment of which is due in a few days time. Whatever's at the bottom of the problem - scam or basic British ineptness - they can naff off if they think I'm coming across with payments for such a crummy oufit!

So, as I say, be sure to give these scoundrels a wide berth when looking for a provider - though I strongly suspect that such rip-off behaviour isn't confined to this outfit alone! So, caveat emptor!

Dai

7th March 2013

My complaint to Virgin Media - particularly the promise to terminate my long time association with them, resulted in a burst of 'Branson Bull****'. Eventually, when the dust settled, nothing had happened, apart from a VM van visiting someone down in the close. Co-incident with this appearance, leaflet drops were made, advising me of the presence of their vehicle, and, the opportunity to expand my dependence on the VM Group - at a short time frame discount. As I said, nothing short of 'pressure salesmanship' - to hell with the quality of the link.

Now for the 'good news - maybe!' I paid for a professional computer engineer, to evaluate my system. He was brilliant, for the short time he could spend with my geriatric XP system. When he had finished, my download speeds were 20Mbits plus. Uploads, a remarkable un-varying 1.14Mbits.

Okay, the ratio of 5% between the two, is not convincing - especially as it is so steady on the up-load.

The 'bad news'? My basic computer is so slow when conducting tasks that do not require the web. Open 'anything' takes much longer than previously .

Sure, the £50 fee has resulted in fantastic internet speed increases. My basic machine has deteriorated in speed.

As for the VM bunch. They could never evaluate a problem that fell outside of their FAQ sheet!

In short. Would you invoke the assistance of VM to evaluate problems you were havin?. Try and find a local man, who can explain the real situation, and, reveal the problems in his area - especially with the provider in question.

Mr P.

8th March 2013

I've been with ntl-VM for a very long time, decades actually, first with ADSL then cable, before them. I was with numerous other ISP's and honestly I can say VM is NOT the best for customer service but are far better than many of the others I have been with! The 'free' upgrade I got from 20 to 60meg is actually fast, bloody hell is it fast with an average of 60 down and 2.8 up at at 20:1 ratio rather than what I expected of 10:1 = approximately 6 meg up (for now that is, who knows in a few weeks or months how slow it will get, when I was on 20 meg I got constantly variable 12 to 18meg ?) Now a puzzle, not long after that my bill went up a few £ pm extra, they claimed it was a general package increase everyone is getting (and all the customers did), is this a sneaky back handed way to pay for the 'free' speed upgrades being given out?

My main serious issue is the overseas Virgin Media call centres in the Philippines and India, the staff mostly struggle to understand English no matter how slow and clearly you speak, I also have the same problem from them, it's a serious communication problem which usually leads to confusion and frustration from both parties, especially when they repeatedly read from the script they are provided with like a deaf repeating robot. Those CSR's also seem to seriously lack knowledge about anything VM, all they seem to do is take messages and pass them back to the UK to be dealt with at a later date, unlike their UK counterparts who generally do seem to comprehend the issues your reporting and do try their best to assist (within the constraints their under) as fast as possible.

Another issue is their automated service when you dial 150, it's so irritating, you have to jump through multiple hoops to get through just to a person! I spent over 20 minutes the other night trying to get through to a CSR only to be automatically put through to India where I spent a long time trying to understand what the CSR was saying and trying my best to get the CSR to understand me! The call in total took about 40 minutes even though it should have taken less than 10 minutes!

Now for TV. The V+ HD boxes, unreliable, sluggish, temperamental, and miss the end of many series link recordings (even though you set it to record an extra 10 min of padding at the end) VM are aware of this, look at their forums, they have known for years.

Supplied equipment. New customers automatically get a TiVo and an extra VHD box for another room at NO extra charge, existing long term loyal cash cow customers have to pay extra per month for the exact same in their package PLUS an installation fee on top even though it's the same package as the new customer but without TiVo and an extra STB for another room! Nice one Virgin, treat loyal long term cash cow customers with contempt and insult us at the same time!

For those thinking of joining VM, if you sign up to VM, you will be treated the same as us old timers when something new comes along, new customers will get the latest gizmo and pay the same (or close to the same monthly price as you) while you still have the old out of date hardware to use AND pay through the nose for it and suffer the multiple subscription price hikes per year on top, unless you don't mind paying more than new customers for the same thing!

The so called "Superhub" What a pile of sh*t, WiFi is utter rubbish, ethernet is good, the rest of the hardware is junk. To get a good WLAN signal you need to buy and plug in your own WiFi router to it. Superhub? what a joke! VM have known of this issue (and others) with the VM-DG480's (Customised Netgear CG3101D) since it was issued to customers and they still can't seemingly rectify the issue. The "VM Hub" (VMDG280) WLAN signal was better and more stable than it's big super duper brother even though it was sh*t too.

I could go on, but I won't, I put up with them for decades as the alternative is ADSL, believe me for BB it's pathetic. The only good thing currently is VM's broadband speeds, for now that is, it could change at any time just like the weather. Anyway, if they scrap their UK call centres - then I'm probably off to find pastures new and I suggest everyone thinks about doing the same, unless you can speak foreign languages that is. Although, look at the alternatives, ADSL for BB?? and other ISP's with overseas call centres! A phrase comes to mind, "Stuck between a rock and a hard place". :-(

Mr P.

8th March 2013

Before anyone states otherwise, I'm not sticking up for Branson, I'm just trying to inform folk of facts regarding Virgin Media as pointed out below.

I'm amazed that so many people still haven't figured this out yet. According to news sources Richard Branson owns 6.6 million shares in Virgin Media. He is a shareholder - he is NOT the owner of that company and has absolutely nothing to do with the running of Virgin Media as far as I'm currently aware. He simply licenses the 'Virgin brand' paint job and sells his 'corporate image' to any company that can afford it and makes megabucks dosh from the deal, example: NTL/Telewest pays for the use of the 'paint job' brand name from him as well as his cardboard acting skills in adverts and his image in publications (and pays him big bucks for it) so everyone thinks NTL/Telewest is no more and is a new "wizz bang everything will get better" company. People should look into that before ripping shreds from the rich smug Branson git and blaming him for how bad NTL/Telewest's network and services are, he's not the only one to blame since he has only a percentage shareholder stake in it, try the company's board of directors, Neil Berkett, chief executive of NTL/Telewest/VM who are also shareholders but do actually run the company (but who allegedly are only interested in profits from shares), us mugs who pay their wages and such shoddy services and so on! Those are the ones to blame.

Anyway, you can all soon blame Liberty Global’s owner John Malone, going by news sources he is going to buy Branson's shares (and others) by the look of it as well as buy out and take ownership of NTL/Telewest-VM. I wonder if Malone will dump the 'Virgin' licensed paint job brand and rebrand NTL/Telewest-VM to 'Liberty UK ' with their 'new coat of paint' to hide the cracks and crumbling infrastructure?

According to some news sources (who is planning to leave the job when he gets the cheque) Neil Berkett, chief executive of NTL/Telewest VM could get up to £56,500,000 when the deal goes through under share and option schemes. Shareholder R Branson is estimated to get over £200 million from the sale of his shares to multi-billionaire John Malone according to news sources. We'll need to remember that interesting fact when everyone's monthly bills for VM's BB,TV and phone services come in and empties all our pockets fast.

Just remember all that above folks while your sitting there with bad speeds, unstable and unreliable connections and faults, duff hardware meanwhile sitting for hours banging your head off the phone and/or pulling your hair out and downing tranquillisers whilst trying to discuss and rectify a fault or issue with a Virgin Media CSR in a call centre who's far abroad in a nice hot sunny country whilst your both looking at language translation books in order to communicate with each other!

Dai

8th March 2013

Very useful info about the share ownerships and the VM 'smoke screen'. Why anyone would trust a 'grasshopper' - who is never still long enough to be accountable, baffles me.

I wonder if RB will be one of the first to join those brave souls, paying big bucks to play at being astronauts in one of his creations? If the answer is yes, then, he really has got a major screw loose!
Of course, if any of the VM customers have a real problem, they simply have to dial the VM Quality Control Department - that is, the Customer Services number with a 'half added on!'

Ziggy

10th March 2013

Okay so i am a customer with VM for around 11 years it was NTL before , i have never had any problems with my broadband , but since last year december when them crappy Super Hubs came out i do not get propper connection on my 60mb contract . 3 engineers came, head office called me etc etc , and you know what? Today my download speed is 0.14 and my upload speed is 0.02 , thanks to virgin media for this crappy service , waste of time and money ! i am contacting my solicitor to terminate the contract asap!

Dai

10th March 2013

You are quite right Ziggy. If the Electricity Companies were allowed to sell their utility as 'up to 230V' there would be riots in the land. As it is, they are allowed a 5% upper limit, above nominal, and, a 10% drop below nominal. Even then, we all know surges and droops occur, well outside of limits. Why do you think so many of the UK's TV's, long life low energy bulbs, or anything else running at the upper limit - 230V, actually fail mysteriously. Look at the Power Supply. It has been designed to perform over 100 to 230V AC. Good old UK is right at the upper limit.

As for the reduction you are experiencing - it is not a reduction, but, a total failure of the service you are paying for. Had it been your water supply, it would have been classified as 'zero flow' - with no measurable pressure.

What I do find facinating, is that 5% ratio between download and up-load - no matter how diabolical it becomes. Oh Yes, the ratio seems to be 'set in stone'. If only there were folk who knew what it was all about, to prevent the 'spivs' and 'con artists' colluding as they carefully 'wrap-us' all up in direct debits and penalty clauses. The bottom line is sales - sales mean profits for the shareholders. The 'young' are the targets for the hype. Their food bills will be less than their 'comms'. Come the day, when they have to decide on feeding their kids, or the mobile phone. there will be the matter of the termination fee! No matter how diabolical the service they have been receiving. That really is a scenario that verges on criminal.

Mike

11th March 2013

Ziggy.
You or anyone else with the same problem do not need a solicitor. The contract works both ways, you pay Virgin for a service, if they consistantly fail to provide that service it is they who are in breach of contract, You have a right as a consumer to cancel any contract on those grounds without penalty.(regardless of what Virgin will tell you)
Make sure your grievance is put in writing, while the issue is in dispute any missed or outstanding payments cannot be passed onto any 3rd party for collection.
This is exactly what i did when i left Virgin. They failed to provide me with the service i was paying for. Details in my earlier post.
When the dispute is settled they will ask for thier equipment back, do as i did & tell them that all the boxes & cabling is also thiers if they want the V boxes etc they must take all the other junk as well & put right any holes in walls left behind, this really P's them off as this requires the attendance of engineers & a lot of time.
Good luck

umbrokhan

12th March 2013

virgin media even came on Watch Dog
how did Virgin Media get 4 awards from uswitch 2013 ?

Fast home broadband awards
Best broadband provider awards
Best WI FI service awards
Best broadband Innovation

also you can see these awards on virgin media web site. question is how did they get this?

Dai

12th March 2013

Have a look at the Virgin Media Ad in Mondays Daily Mirror ( 11th March 2013)

No Line Rental Charge! Now, that must be of interest to a great many of us.

Can someone explain the catch - we all know 'this lot' are too clever to give anything away for free!

Mike

18th March 2013

VM.... where to start?

Customer Service....just terrible. I understand that the people on the end of the phone are trying to be helpful but communication break downs occur regularly as others have stated. VM themselves are not above lying to you either. They consistently put forward false deadlines (with rough technical jargon aimed at those will less knowledge of networks etc.) for problem fixes that wont possibly ever happen in order to string you into your contract. This was used to trap is in passed the usual cancellation period, making getting out a long and difficult battle.

As for the Connection, please check your area set up before deciding to go with VM. There is a small chance you could be one of the lucky people who get 50MB plus connection, but this is a smaller chance then they'd have you believe. During peak times my overpriced 30MB will most often be more like <1MB. Pings of 600+ are also fun, especially of you like to game (it aint happening until 11pm onwards)

Simply type Virgin Media and Utilisation into google and see what happens. They are over subscribed in most areas and use the few top end statistics and awards they get to push bad service on to their customers. CHECK YOUR EXCHANGE before purchasing VM. if you live near student areas, you will be screwed

My parents however still get a good connection up until now (was originally great service from Telewest). What will happen when they 'Upgrade' their area is yet to be seen, I hear bad things from certain areas. Also it was the case 100MB customers would get line priority over lower tariffs when traffic shaping. I'm unsure if this is still the case

The Superhub is a super fail. Its third rate junk (believe its a cheap net gear 480) with a custom VM overlay. I recommend buying a decent router and switching to Modem mode (thank god that was kept) if you have it

Dont be afraid to ask your neighbours about their connection before going for it, if you end up like i did you will have nothing but problems and stress

jason

19th March 2013

I had virgin media 30mb installed on the 8th of march & i have got to say its totally useless .. i was sold 30mb which would or should give me fast speeds however since it was installed i have never had more than 1mb .. calling virgin i was told that there was a fault in the area & it would be fixed in 24 to 48 hrs so i waited but unfortunately the problem was not solved so once again i call customer services .. this time im told an engineer would call round as the hub was faulty .. the engineer came checked the hub which was fine he said the the problem is that virgin have over subscribed in my & many areas all over the uk .. he called back to his office to get information at which point he was told the speed problem would not be solved until November 2013!!!! i can not believe that virgin are still selling a product that they know full well it is not going to work .. i am going to cancel the service tomorrow .. in all a glorious waste of time so DON'T DO IT GET SKY!!!

Dan

20th March 2013

Ok so on paper, VM pretty good right? Nope.

Best to start at the beginning, the installation.

Probably the worst install job I've seen where a cable was simple tacked into the wall with no consideration for where the hub would go.

It then took a total of 8 hours on the phone to get it to actually work whereby a man in India tried to state to me how technology works even though I've been building/fixing PCs since I was 11. After 8 hours of being treated like an idiot someone on the phone finally listened to my suggestion that maybe, just maybe, the problem was on their end and to reset the line and WALLA it worked instantly.

So I had Internet, for a while anyway. The hub broke within 2 months cutting the speed down to dial-up level and it took a lot of complaining before they'd admit it was their fault and not mine.

They replaced it (or more accurately I jumped through a load of stupid hoops until they replaced it) and that one wasn't much better. Finally got a semi-consistently working hub only to find that Virgin Media applies the same ethos to every aspect of their product.

The actual internet
Although I was paying for 10MB/s fibre optic internet the speed in fact never went over 1.03. But its ok Virgin and Usain Bolt promised to double my speed to 20MB/S!!!

Yeah.... it actually got slower.

On-top-of only getting 1/10th of what I was paying for was the way they oh-so lovingly capped the speed down to 0.3mb/s whenever I used more than their definition of "too much" data or generally whenever they felt like it including 5pm-7pm and 7-9am the two times when I'd actually want to use the internet.

On several occasions the internet would go down completely and I would phone up and be offered no reason as to why and given the helpful advice of "wait for it to start working again" as if I'm the idiot for expecting my internet to work.

I was even at one point told that in fact I don't live in Surbiton because there are no problems in Surbiton and I don't know what I'm talking about, which although sparked an interesting philosophical debate with my friends later that night as to whether I might be wrong and I've just been putting down the wrong town on my address so long its become true, did not make being put back on hold any more enjoyable.

On-top of this I probably spent as much phoning the 0800 style number as i did on my internet package because Virgin offer the only broadband package that doesn't need line rental (the stupid reason why I chose them) and as such every time I had a problem (so pretty much weekly) I had to phone up and pay to be on hold for 20 mins and hear pointless advertising about other products and crappy music.

So I pretty much chose them over competitors because it was 22.50 compared to the 30-40 quid offering of competitors when you add in line rental and I in fact averaged well over this for the joy of spending entire evenings on hold.

That said I can now hum the entire loop of song VM plays perfectly so i guess money well spent... not.

Leaving Virgin
Well this was the best part. I left and they still didn't leave me alone.

I had to get a copy of all the invoices for the year so I sent VM 3/4 e-mails, phoned several times and wrote letters.

I was told on the phone and through e-mail that I am in fact not able to prove who I am yet in the same e-mail/call they either tried to get me to pay them early, sign up to direct debit payments or buy more products/services from them.

Apparently this means I am Schrodinger Dan because i can be me when they want to make me do something like pay them but not me when I ask them to provide the invoice for the exact same payment.

They later threatened legal action over the amount I refused to pay until they provided the invoices I needed with the incredibly retarded scare letter that if I didn't pay less than 50 quid they would secure it against my house in court (aka a 1-3 grand legal process trying to take my house for less than 50 pounds). The best part was receiving the letter one day before the "14 day notice" expired. That was really helpful.

In the end I just accepted that I'd never get those invoices, paid the £44.06 they wanted and accepted I'd not get reimbursed as i didn't have the invoices (so 200 quid wasted) in total just to be shot of them.

All in all, I never though I'd find a company worse than TalkTalk or a worse quality of internet. Well done Virgin, you did what I though was impossible.

As such I've now gone back to BT, who although a little bad at times have consistently, over a whole decade, have given me less problems a year than Virgin Media gave me per week.

I hope my review helps you avoid this terrible excuse for a company and the ways of its Devil Bearded, egotistical owner RB.
______
Finally Free Dan.

Dai

21st March 2013

VM have a very special approach to people they 'suck into the trawl nets'. A bit like the Russian Fish Factory Ships, that used to ply the Cornish coast. Everything, and, anything, would become 'fertilizer. Notice the absence of a complaints department!

Strange to say, the likeness to the devil, is uncanny! Not much input from the 'make-up department' needed.

The 'bottom line' - surely, is the freedom to 'lie' about the service you are about to purchase. Can anyone relate an equivalent scenario. Especially when contractual conditions are imposed by 'heavies' - trained to 'brow beat' the masses. Very seriously. this business enterprise, is not one to engage with, if you expect service, or, even fair play. What a bloody example to set! One hopes the wedding of the male off-spring, doesn't trigger an animal revolt - or, a Malarial Outbreak.

One thing is for sure

John

22nd March 2013

I have had Virgin Media Broadband for about 4 years now. Everything was fine until December 2012. I play a lot of online games and noticed that I was getting terrible lag. This went on sporadically till I cancelled.

I was also promised that my 60mb connection was going to be upgraded to 100mb free of charged by three different people. Just before I cancelled I got told that my traffic was being managed (didn't get told this the last three phone calls) and they couldn't upgrade me free because I was on a fixed package!

I don't know what has changed over the years, but I will never go back with Virgin again.

Mr P

25th March 2013

Mike, it's a 'Netgear CG3101D' with customised firmware for VM. Virgin Media call it a 'VMDG480', AKA 'The SuperHub'

Mr P

26th March 2013

I need to point out something, all I ever see is VM blarrb and boasting about "Fiber Optic". Not exactly true.

The back-hauls from the exchanges may be - BUT, the street headers (local loop cabinets) to your homes are Co-Axial cable, yes, it's Co-ax that goes to your house, it's double shielded TV cable (similar to sat cable used by Sky for dishes). The link between the local loop street cab's (headends) yes, all Co-ax too. I've yet to see FTTC in any of the street cabinets, it's all still old Co-ax they use.

From what I was told by a VM engineer, fibre optic cable is ONLY used on back-hauls from exchange to exchange or to 'area header or master cabinets', which feeds your nearest 'local loop' street header cabinet could be a great distance from your street or home and it only feeds your area's 'local loop' street cabinets via good old Co-ax.

So, VM, enough please of this "fibre optic" marketing trash, tell the truth, a large part of your local networks are only Co-Axial cable and NOT fibre! I've seen it, I've taken the photo's, I've held the Co-ax in my hands, I've seen inside the cabinets and talked to the engineers working on them! (yes I'm a nosey inquisitive bugger lol ) and I've yet to see any fibre between cabinets!

Oh! I nearly forgot to say, BT is as much "Fibre Optic" as VM is, their local loops may be only copper (unfortunately sometimes aluminium alloy) same as VM's copper co-ax ones, but their back-hauls and so on are also fibre, same as you VM. At least BT's now putting in FTTC (fibre to the cabinet). When are you bunging in your FTTC VM?

Dai

26th March 2013

I'm currently just over a Kilometre from the exchange, and, no longer dependent on the 'twisted pairs' BT hired me for over 30 years. That was nearly seven years ago, when the hoards of fast moving 'micro-channel diggers' appeared! I was told the magic Fibre Optic Cable, was so small as to be invisible to the naked eye. The foreman of the team I observed, was feeding the Fibre Optic Cable from what appeared to be a common garden cotton reel - with nothing visible on it! That is how fine it was!
More than impressed was I. Enough to cancel the BT 'twisters' and join the 'Purveyor of Dreams' and his 'Light Brigade'.

Sure, there was a small ceremony as the old 56K Modem was consigned to the tip, AOL departed at the same time. Bless them, they did provide a real time clock that told you the data transfer speeds ( kilo-bytes -NOT kilo-bits) - it was because of the 1 to 2 kilo byte rates, that eventually forced the revolt.

Anyway, I joined the 10 M bit fraternity - believing the 'Bull' about how far you are away from the exchange! Download was typically 30% of what they promised. Upload practically non existent - Speed testers simply 'went to sleep'.

When the long trumpeted speed doubling arrived - just a damp squibb. Slightly slower downloads, next to useless uploads.

That is when I decided to consult my resident mouse. After all, he is my 'right hand man!'

After a short delay, he had this to report:-

His brothers and sisters believe the contractors simply located, and followed, old redundant water pipes, laying their imaginary 'Fibre Optic Cable' alongside. When a customer was 'signed up, and, they were classified as 'hung, drawn, and quartered -legally' then that old water pipe had a small section removed - enough to allow access by a mouse, enlisted to carry packets of data back to the exchange. Believe it or not, the pipe was ideal dimensionally, because, it prevented cats 'sticking their oar in!'

Operationally, at the exchange end, the mice had a Clubhouse. It was always going to be easier to get the mice to make a rapid return with some data packets, because of the bonus club points they earned for each bundle they delivered to the mugs at the end.

Sure, volume is everything.

Right now, my (French owned water company) is considering charging me for using redundant water pipes to transfer data!

Oh Yes. Before I terminate this sad tale. My foreman mouse, has a near revolt on his hands.

None of his 'short sighted mice relatives' can read the practically invisible 'Legal Terms & Conditions'. Indeed, according to a EU directive , highlighted by some German Rats, in a similar situation, the customers rights must always be 'high-lighted'. I do believe the mice have a point.

Craig

27th March 2013

LEARN TO SET UP YOUR COMPUTERS! Just got Virgin installed, no problems and works fine.

27th March 2013

Craig- im a microsoft mcit engineer and was as with vm for 6years the reason u must be getting top speed is that ur not yet being throtted or traffic shape give you a year and you be back moaning vm are rubbish

Nige

4th April 2013

VM are great when nothing goes wrong - But when it does, customer service is awful. Almost impossible to get a response. I'm currently 7 months in to a "utilisation issue" in my area. The fix date has moved 3 times this year already. I get 2Mb d/l on a 100Mb connection. 3 years ago it took 12 months for a similar issue to be fixed. Then VM just cram in more subscribers and back to square one. This in addition to multiple outages - had 3 weeks one summer with nothing - no phone, bb or TV. Poor value for money, poor customer service, no real technical support.
An extra irritating are the smug punters who happen to have no problems in their area either denying that VM can be so awful, or spouting ridiculous comments like "learn to set up your computer".

Earl

6th April 2013

Ordered Internet tv and phone package, on arrival engineer unboxed and ran it wasn't until I tried to phone later that day I noticed no phone, called virgin from mobile and they said no capacity got phone but they would adjust my bill to reflect the saving of taking all 3. TiVo box brilliant but broadband awful, keeps dropping out and can't get a decent speed, sub 1mb!!

Luckily as they couldn't supply a phone line I have a reason to exit without penalty but had to write to all 3 company directors to get this sorted.

Sky now in and constant 5mb, great TV and a phone line too boot.

Bye Virgin, such a shame you can't get it right.

John

11th April 2013

Update:

I cancelled my subscription only to be contacted a week later. A lovely woman offered to bump me up to 100mb that I was initially promised and reduce my bill to £50 a month. I foolishly accepted.

Broadband is still unusable for gaming during peak times (when I get home from work). I've phoned up and cancelled again. Absolute joke.

Chris

14th April 2013

Recently moved and took virgin services with me. On the phone to the team was advised I could move my services XL TV,BB & phone (£48.50) with no problems with the added bonus of a TIVO box for a small one off payment. Great. So my next bill comes in for £104.05. I call to find that I have been signed up for a new 18 month contract and have to pay 2 months in advance. Not happy with that as I wasn't advised of this or agreed with it on the phone. Was offered a reduction in the price and ended up paying £80.61 because of money owed to me from my 'last contract'. Latest bill has just landed and it is £81.98!!! WTF. My 'new contract' does not include anytime calls and I have been nailed for £41.24 usage charges for calls made. I feel that I have been mis-sold as I wasn't made aware of a new contract (£180 to cancel) and that my phone package has been downgraded, contrary to what I was told on the phone. Do I have grounds to tell them to shove it?

Dai

16th April 2013

A couple of months ago I complained bitterly to VM about the diabolical broadband service - exacerbated by the increase in charges - (quote) for the superb service they were providing(unquote). Even more galling, was the pretence that they were doubling my broadband speed! Now, there is the VM 'follow up' to the complaint received.

How about this? The barely intelligible caller asks you for a pair of letters associated with your password - then your post code - as a security check! At that point, there was a Royal Mail delivery to my house , so, the call had to be terminated.
A couple of weeks later, there is another VM call regarding the same complaint. This time , the pair of letters requested, and, associated with my password, were different. Needless to say, I told the caller to 'get lost' because, I was not going to disclose any further password identifiers.

It doesn't take a 'Sherlock Holmes' to realise how easy it is to extract passwords from Jo public. Imagine asking a bank manager for specifically two digits associated with his safe entry!

How about reversing the situation? Ask the caller to give full details of your account number, and, your address. Even then, I still feel edgy about disclosing anything to do with passwords over the telephone - especially when it might well be India who is calling.

Anyone tried using the phonetic alphabet with our Indian Customer Relations people? Ask them to spell their names using the phonetic alphabet. I guarantee you will have a side splitting experience. This must have the makings of a TV series - based on call centre situations.

tez

16th April 2013

Been with this company since it was called Nynex. I currently have the telephone line, all calls included, and 20 meg broadband, with paying in advance for the line rental, we pay a total £22.15p, great value. The phone line is very reliable, and very clear and loud, compared to the muffled, low BT line i use to have. The broadband runs like a dream, I always get just over 20meg, at all times, on my ipad, the super hub, I had one faulty one, which can happen, after it's been replaced, the superhub is great, I even got it connected to my Panasonic Blu ray palyer, for BBCi Player, etc, and it runs very well.

Hannah

30 days ago

Worst company ever, after having poor internet connection and it not connecting even if i was sitting next to the box I got told by management that I should have a back up internet connection just in case things to go wrong.
Their so called 'Customer service' on the other end of the phone who read off scripts, they seem to make up excuses why your internet is not working. I have had from its because I have been on holiday to that it is my internet software I use.
They are easy to charge extremely high prices but you will never get what you pay for. Stay away from them they are awful.

30 days ago

Been with virgin for 10 years- obviously technology is not faultless and there have been issues along the way but now with 100mbs and tivo it's amazing and nothing comes close. 24/7 get around 101mbs- people that are having problems just be patient- they do admittedly take ages to fix problems but it's worth the wait in the end. I have friends on my road who are constantly complaining about sky and bt being slow- at least virgin CAN be fast and IS fast. Btw, for those who have problems with customer service- call them up and ask to speak to the supervisor because they are always more helpful than the usual guy that picks up the call. If there is utilisation issue or slow speed just say you want money off until they fix the issue. By far the coolest and bestcompany for me!!

James

27 days ago

I have been with VM and NTL for ten years. In a couple of months time I will be moving house and will be glad to see the back of them.
Telephone fault in October took them four months and 6 visits ( I think, I lost count iin the end) to sort it out, all that time I had no phone and I run a business from home. The phone is so expensive that i try not to use it, my bills come in at £50 a month for just broadband and landline, I don't even have the tv package. I make all my telephone calls on my mobile as its so cheap in comparison.
The broadband seemed to work fine to start with but now seems dog slow, sometimes scraping 0.1 mb/s when it should be 30 or 50, not sure what the speed should be as its hypothetical anyway.
Calling their call centre is more painful than putting up with the fault. I will be so glad to leave Virgin, can't come a day too soon.

gcon

20 days ago

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2677564535.png

This poor speed is what I have been receiving from Virginmedia for over a year on the 100MB (lack of) service, shocking broadband from a company that has no customer service and do not care that they can not fulfill the contract they have with you. Disgusting! Do not sign into a long term contract with them.

edd

17 days ago

VM suck they sucked when they couldn't fix a latency issue in my area and i left over 4 years ago
and i couldn't understand the morons on the phone. So we left for ever.....bye bye RB you clown.

Vincent

12 days ago

VM is a terrible terrible company, all they care about is sucking money out from the customers.

Service is bad, in addition to 18 month contracts, if you move house even you bring the package with you they will automatically renew your contract to another 18 months, on top of an enormous charge for relocation, and force you to buy a new netgear hub, even though it's exactly the same with the old one.

Extremely bad internet speed with drop off very often, crustomer service is annoying and close to zero.

I change to sky and I wish I had done earlier. f*** you VM, still I will boycott all of the VM products from now on.

John

11 days ago

I was thinking about moving to VM from O2 (they have sold their Home Phone and Broadband to Sky) and I was looking forward to fibre optic Broadband and high speeds.
But having read all the above comments and comments from other sites, (not many positive ones!) I will NOT be moving to VM!
Sadly the alternatives are few and far between - BT Infinity is more expensive, and I don't want to give the Murdoch family any of my money, so where does that leave me?
Plusnet anyone??

paul

7 days ago

virgin internet is useless .i have had problems for the last 2 years .i had a engineer out 3 weeks ago another engineer out tomorrow .i had sky for 2 years no problems .aol for 8 years no problems .virgin is c*** the staff don't give a toss if you have problems i will be leaving them .

John

7 days ago

"virgin internet is useless .i have had problems for the last 2 years .i had a engineer out 3 weeks ago another engineer out tomorrow .i had sky for 2 years no problems .aol for 8 years no problems .virgin is c*** the staff don't give a toss if you have problems i will be leaving them".

May I ask where you will be going Paul?

SAROJ KHERA

5 days ago

MY VIRGIN MEDIA BROADBAND IS NOT WORKING FROM 08MAY13 TILL TODAY 14MAY13. EVERYTIME I CALL I GET SAME RECORDED MESSAGE. TRY TO TALK TO SOMEONE BUT NO JOY. SORRY BUT WE HAVE IDENTIFY THE FAULT AND ENGINEER WORKING ON IT. I DO WORK FROM HOME AND LOSING MY WAGES. ACCORDING TO VIRGIN I AM A DOMESTIC CUSTOMER SO THERE IS NO COMPANSATION. REALLY NOT HAPPY. I WISH I WOULD HAVE NEVER JIONED VIRGIN MEDIA.
BELOW IS TEXT ALERT WHICH I AM GETTING EVEYDAY FOR DIFFERNT DATES.
Service update. Broadband fault F002464864. The latest update we have is: Our engineer is on site and they're working to fix the problem. The estimated repair time is now: 11/05/2013 18:05:00. The Virgin Media Team

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Is Virgin Media broadband any good?

Pros and cons

The good

The UK’s fastest broadband

Uncapped downloads as standard

TV and home phone options

Free “future-proof” Virgin Media Super Hub

Happy customers

The bad

Traffic management & fair usage

Limited broadband on the go

The ugly

Long contracts

High early disconnection fees

Penalties for changing your services

Surcharges

The bottom line

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