Gabriel Vanca | April 15th, 2024

Virgin Media Gig1 fibre broadband

Virgin Media is the leader in ultrafast UK broadband, and the Gig1 package is its crown jewel. While Virgin Media’s range of broadband offers starts with the modest but still generous 132Mbps package (M125), Gig1 sits at the very top, with an impressive 1130Mbps download speed, faster than virtually any of its competitors.

In this quick guide, we’ll take a look at what Virgin Media’s no-compromise Gig1 package is offering and help you decide if it’s the right deal for you.

Key features

Here’s a quick rundown of Virgin Media’s Gig1 package.

Price	£39 per month
Download speed	1.1Gbps
Upload speed	104Mbps
Broadband	Fibre to the premises (FTTP)
Home Phone	None, Evening & Weekends, Anytime
Parental controls	Yes – WebSafe
Router	SuperHub 4 or SuperHub 5
Packages available	Broadband only, Broadband & phone, Broadband & mobile, Broadband & TV
Contract length	18 months

Who is Virgin Media’s Gig1 for?

With Virgin Media, customers can choose any package between the entry-level 100Mbps package and up to this lighting-fast 1130Mbps service. The latter is essentially a no-compromise option, so everything from mere video conferencing up to streaming the most eye-watering exquisite 4K HDR epic sci-fi films on Apple TV+ will be a piece of cake for Gig1.

That having been said, it’s gamers, content creators and data-hoarding geeks who’ll benefit most from Virgin Media’s offering. Here’s a quick rundown of who’d want Gig1 and why:

• Household with 6+ occupants or lots of devices – From your iPad to your home CCTV, from your Kindle to your wifi-enabled washing machine, the number of Internet-connected devices in your home is sure to keep increasing. Gig1 ensures neither of them will be bottlenecked ever again and that everyone in the house gets the best speed, no matter what
• Gamers – Have you finally got that Ubisoft+ subscription and decided to start on Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla? With Gig1, you can download the 150GB game in less than 20 minutes!
• Multiple streaming devices – Apple TV+ and YouTube, two of the most demanding video streaming platforms, can hit peaks of over 40Mbps when streaming 4K content. Double that if you’re into Plex streaming. Gig1 ensures that no matter how many devices in your home are streaming at once, you’ll never see that obnoxious buffering symbol ever again
• Cloud storage – If you store/backup your photos and files on the cloud with the likes of iCloud, Dropbox or OneDrive, Gig1 ensures that you can get your files quickly up to and down from the cloud whenever you need them. Finally, no more external storage dangling off the side of your MacBook!
• Content creators – If you are a content creator, you’ll be paying extra attention to your upload speed. With 104Mbps, Gig1 is enough for most tasks: quickly sending your artwork to your clients or audience, uploading videos to YouTube in no time, or live-streaming in 4K with YouTube Live
• Those who want the best, no ifs, no buts – The 1130Mbps package, 22 times faster than the national average, offers a no-compromise speed for those who simply need to have the best

How does Gig1 compare?

What is included with Gig1?

As with virtually all UK broadband providers, you’ll get unlimited downloads and uploads with no quotas or data restrictions.

The service comes typically with the SuperHub 4, released in early 2020. But if you’re lucky you might get your hands on the latest SuperHub 5 released in December 2021 – the criteria as to who gets what are steeped in mystery at the time of writing. These routers offer impressive ranges even for larger houses and work great with dozens of devices connected at once. The SuperHub 5 takes it one step further by bringing the latest WiFi 6 technology, which increases wifi speeds (to compatible devices) while reducing latency, has more wifi antennae which helps it improve the wireless coverage even further and serve more devices.

We should note, though, that these routers still have pretty basic networking features. Furthermore, neither of these two routers, unlike the SuperHub 3, currently works with the Virgin Media Connect app, which provides user-friendly control of the router’s functions, troubleshoot network problems and scans your home for wifi blackspots. Virgin Media promises that support for these routers will be added in the future.

Virgin SuperHub 4 router specification

• Current gen WiFi – The SuperHub 4 uses the ubiquitous wireless standard WiFi 5 (802.11ac) introduced in 2013
• Smart channel selection – The Smart Hub automatically connects your devices to the fastest WiFi channel and frequency available
• Intelligent WiFi Technology – The router checks your network connections, ensuring WiFi is shared fairly between devices and boosts the signal to devices which are further away from the router
• Dual band – Like most modern routers, the SuperHub 4 uses one 2.4GHz band and one 5GHz band
• Four Gigabit ethernet ports – The SuperHub 4 has four gigabit Ethernet ports, so you can wire directly 4 different devices
• Four antennae – Thanks to its 4 in-built antennae, the SuperHub 4 can provide strong WiFi coverage throughout your home

Virgin SuperHub 5 router specification

• Next gen WiFi – The SuperHub 5 uses the new WiFi 6 (802.11ax) introduced in 2019. This provides higher speeds and reduced latency for all your wireless devices, improved stability and better wireless coverage
• Reduced latency when Gaming – The Smart Hub supports 4x4 MIMo (i.e. 4 antennas for 4 simultaneous data streams) for 5Ghz and 3x3 MIMo for 2.4Ghz, which means that wireless devices can communicate simultaneously with the router without having to wait so often for each other, therefore greatly improving latency
• High-Speed Ethernet Port – In addition to the three Gigabit Ethernet ports, the router comes with a 2.5Gbps port, allowing you to take full advantage of the 1130Mbps speed
• Dual band – Like most modern routers, the SuperHub 5 uses one 2.4GHz band and one 5GHz band
• Five antennae – Thanks to its 5 in-built antennae, the SuperHub 5 can provide strong WiFi coverage throughout your home

Extras

Gig1, just like all the other Virgin Media broadband packages, comes with Web Safe, which combines parental control (Child Safe) and protection against dangerous websites known to host malware (Virus Safe). Child Safe comes with customisable filters so that new websites can be blocked, and the block can be adjusted to be timed-only.

Also included is a three months trial of Virgin Media Internet Security (formerly F-Secure SAFE). After trial, this will cost you £3 per month or £30 per year. The software can be installed on an unlimited number of Windows, MacOS, Android and iOS devices where it scans for viruses and also blocks access to dangerous or parental-restricted websites.

Finally, the package comes with the confusingly named Virgin Media WiFi. This on-the-go service allows you to connect to over 3.5 million WiFi hotspots around the UK, including cafes, bars, restaurants, airports and stations on the London Underground and Overground.

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What we think

Virgin Media is the UK’s largest gigabit broadband provider, and the Gig1 package is available to over 50% of UK households (and rapidly growing). None of the other big competitors offer these sorts of speeds to anywhere near as much of the UK.

Gig1 gives you all the latest technologies: gigabit broadband, WiFi 6 and multi-gig Ethernet (with the SuperHub 5) and, if matched with an O2 SIM, 5G mobile data. O2 is set to have 50% outdoor 5G coverage by 2023 and, due to its high speeds, it can effectively function as a redundant internet connection (if 5G is not yet available in your area, the SIM will simply use 4G).

Whether you are a gamer or a content creator, or just want the best speed and tech available, Virgin Media’s no-compromise Gig1 is sure to be the perfect match for you.