Virgin Media - Crap/Not Crap

[dervish]

I dunno to be honest Virgin claim it averages around 362Mbps

Because I work from home I claim it as a business expense and need it to be solid which (despite their cuntish pricing) it generally is.

Is that virgin business? If you have an ltd you could set up a business account with them, which is about a tenner a month or so cheaper.

 

[Badgers]

Is that virgin business? If you have an ltd you could set up a business account with them, which is about a tenner a month or so cheaper.

No, Sole Trader atm

 

[MBV]

Very tempted in switching from my Sky ADSL to Virgin Media's offer:

New. Apply via this special Virgin Media link by Thu 23 Jan and you'll pay £25/mth over the 1yr contract. But you get an auto £75 bill credit, so there's nothing to pay for 3mths. That makes it £225 in total, equiv to £18.75/mth.

 

[Badgers]

Very tempted in switching from my Sky ADSL to Virgin Media's offer:

New. Apply via this special Virgin Media link by Thu 23 Jan and you'll pay £25/mth over the 1yr contract. But you get an auto £75 bill credit, so there's nothing to pay for 3mths. That makes it £225 in total, equiv to £18.75/mth.

Check Quidco or TopCashBack sites too

 

[BristolEcho]

Check Quidco or TopCashBack sites too

Definitely recommend top cashback.

 

[Badgers]

Mine (in Hertfordshire) has been terrible last two days. Pain as I work from home but also ALL of my media is pretty much on line

Anything on the wireless? Or shall I just read a book?

 

[cybershot]

If there’s not a known issue in your area on the status page. Log an incident or it will never get fixed. Especially if they’ve suddenly over subscribed your area. It’s probably easier to do it in the live chat then speak to a moron who gets you to reboot your router seven times over the phone. Or on the support forums, where they will properly test your line but don’t expect a quick reply via the forums. Can take several days. Depends how urgent the issue is to you.

 

[Badgers]

If there’s not a known issue in your area on the status page. Log an incident or it will never get fixed. Especially if they’ve suddenly over subscribed your area. It’s probably easier to do it in the live chat then speak to a moron who gets you to reboot your router seven times over the phone. Or on the support forums, where they will properly test your line but don’t expect a quick reply via the forums. Can take several days. Depends how urgent the issue is to you.

Have done just now.
Should have done this yesterday morning.

 

[skyscraper101]

My bill has shot up to £43 from £25. Fuck that. I've called to disconnect already. They offered me £34 to stay, but told them I'm not interested.

Think I'll try out some 4G router alternatives unless they retain me with a cracking offer in the next few days.

 

[alex_]

My bill has shot up to £43 from £25. Fuck that. I've called to disconnect already. They offered me £34 to stay, but told them I'm not interested.

Think I'll try out some 4G router alternatives unless they retain me with a cracking offer in the next few days.

bt and virgin are scum for this, it let’s them charge crazy money to people who don’t pay attention ( generally the old ) whilst advertising “Cheap rates”.

They should only be allowed to advertise monthly average total cost over 3 years, rather than the headline first month rate.

their “once the contract has run out“ rates are outrageous

 

[BristolEcho]

bt and virgin are scum for this, it let’s them charge crazy money to people who don’t pay attention ( generally the old ) whilst advertising “Cheap rates”.

They should only be allowed to advertise monthly average total cost over 3 years, rather than the headline first month rate.

their “once the contract has run out“ rates are outrageous

Exaxtly. I dread to think what my parents pay and many of the people I used to support would end up getting ripped for ages until it was picked up on.

It's annoying as they hold the market with BT for fiber which I do like for when I download stuff.

They are probably offering new customers £18 again.

 

[BristolEcho]

Just a heads up Vodafone are getting good reviews for their fiber and it's around £22 per month I think.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Exaxtly. I dread to think what my parents pay and many of the people I used to support would end up getting ripped for ages until it was picked up on.

It's annoying as they hold the market with BT for fiber which I do like for when I download stuff.

They are probably offering new customers £18 again.

Thank you for reminding me. Realised my Dad is paying a stupid amount for average broadband. Phoned them up to haggle and they managed to get him in another 2 year contract by sending him one of their TV boxes that he barely used. Cold called him and told him it was "free"

 

[BristolEcho]

Thank you for reminding me. Realised my Dad is paying a stupid amount for average broadband. Phoned them up to haggle and they managed to get him in another 2 year contract by sending him one of their TV boxes that he barely used. Cold called him and told him it was "free"

Cold calling is the worst. Especially door to door energy and utility sales.

 

[alex_]

Exaxtly. I dread to think what my parents pay and many of the people I used to support would end up getting ripped for ages until it was picked up on.

It's annoying as they hold the market with BT for fiber which I do like for when I download stuff.

They are probably offering new customers £18 again.

possibly the biggest favour you can do for elder relatives - check their bills every 12 months

 

[chandlerp]

I called retentions today and got my £79/month deal down to £59 and got two of the new V6 Tivo boxes out of them.

 

[skyscraper101]

Well my contract with Virgin finally ends tomorrow. I won't miss them. They were mosty stable, but the price increase to £43/month for a 100mbps connection was a pisstake and the router strength was less than ideal.

Strangely they have not called me back once to try and retain me. When I rang to give my notice last month, they offered £37/month, and then £28/month with a reduced speed of 50Mbps. I passed on both.

As for my new setup - I'm now running everything through an EE sim card on an unlimited data plan with a Huawei 4G router. And it's working like a dream, faster, cheaper than Virgin by far, untethered to any cable or phone line, entirely portable wherever I am, and comes with unlimited texts and voice calls if I wanted it. More here if anyone's interested.

 

[iamwithnail]

Interesting. My virgin (nominally 200/mb) has been absolutely shocking recent, needs sorted /restarted every 4-5 hours, was waiting til 5G was available locally but might just sack it off.

 

[B.I.G]

Well my contract with Virgin finally ends tomorrow. I won't miss them. They were mosty stable, but the price increase to £43/month for a 100mbps connection was a pisstake and the router strength was less than ideal.

Strangely they have not called me back once to try and retain me. When I rang to give my notice last month, they offered £37/month, and then £28/month with a reduced speed of 50Mbps. I passed on both.

As for my new setup - I'm now running everything through an EE sim card on an unlimited data plan with a Huawei 4G router. And it's working like a dream, faster, cheaper than Virgin by far, untethered to any cable or phone line, entirely portable wherever I am, and comes with unlimited texts and voice calls if I wanted it. More here if anyone's interested.

Have you got a link to the unlimited ee plan and the cost please? When go to their website. I click on unlimited sim only and then it doesn’t get listed.

 

[skyscraper101]

Have you got a link to the unlimited ee plan and the cost please? When go to their website. I click on unlimited sim only and then it doesn’t get listed.

Click here: Pay Monthly SIM |SIM Only Deals & Plans | EE

And then select 'show all 13 plans' - it's in one of those.

As for the cost, it's £35/month standard. I got a 10% 'extra line' discount which was automatically added as I have a mobile deal with them. And if you want an additional 20% off, there is usually someone on eBay who can provide you with a student code for £2.

Even without the extra 10% that brings it down to a very reasonable £28/month.

Word of warning, the monthly 'fair use' policy on EE unlimited is 1000GB (1TB), so be sure that you won't exceed this on a monthly basis. I called Virgin beforehand, to get an estimation of my monthly home broadband data consumption, and had them read out my monthly usage for this year, and it never went above 450GB in any month, so I'm pretty sure I'll be ok.

 

[B.I.G]

Click here: Pay Monthly SIM |SIM Only Deals & Plans | EE

And then select 'show all 13 plans' - it's in one of those.

As for the cost, it's £35/month standard. I got a 10% 'extra line' discount which was automatically added as I have a mobile deal with them. And if you want an additional 20% off, there is usually someone on eBay who can provide you with a student code for £2.

Even without the extra 10% that brings it down to a very reasonable £28/month.

Word of warning, the monthly 'fair use' policy on EE unlimited is 1000GB (1TB), so be sure that you won't exceed this on a monthly basis. I called Virgin beforehand, to get an estimation of my monthly home broadband data consumption, and had them read out my monthly usage for this year, and it never went above 450GB in any month, so I'm pretty sure I'll be ok.

Cheers. Thanks for all that extra effort.

 

[iamwithnail]

Virgin totally shat the bed for the whole morning today. Loads of London and the south east down. Even their status page was down.

 

[colacubes]

Virgin totally shat the bed for the whole morning today. Loads of London and the south east down. Even their status page was down.

Same. I managed to tether from my phone but it was less than helpful when I was due to run a massive Zoom meeting this afternoon and as the host my internet kept wobbling. Cheers Virgin. It's been out since just before 10am and still not back

 

[iamwithnail]

Mine is back now, but have zero faith in it.

 

[teuchter]

It stopped working for a bit and then it came back on again.

I'm quite surprised this hasn't been happening loads more since mass WFH started. It's been surprisingly OK most of the way through.

 

[colacubes]

Still not working

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Well my contract with Virgin finally ends tomorrow. I won't miss them. They were mosty stable, but the price increase to £43/month for a 100mbps connection was a pisstake and the router strength was less than ideal.

Strangely they have not called me back once to try and retain me. When I rang to give my notice last month, they offered £37/month, and then £28/month with a reduced speed of 50Mbps. I passed on both.

As for my new setup - I'm now running everything through an EE sim card on an unlimited data plan with a Huawei 4G router. And it's working like a dream, faster, cheaper than Virgin by far, untethered to any cable or phone line, entirely portable wherever I am, and comes with unlimited texts and voice calls if I wanted it. More here if anyone's interested.

Hmm.

I dropped to 100 from 200 after one of their price increases, yet I often get faster then 100mbs on 4g with EE where I live.

 

[skyscraper101]

Hmm.

I dropped to 100 from 200 after one of their price increases, yet I often get faster then 100mbs on 4g with EE where I live.

Seriously, consider doing what I'm doing. It's been so liberating to be rid of Virgin and have an entirely portable router I can take in any room, and anywhere in the UK. In fact anywhere at all with a power socket.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Seriously, consider doing what I'm doing. It's been so liberating to be rid of Virgin and have an entirely portable router I can take in any room, and anywhere in the UK. In fact anywhere at all with a power socket.

I'm still in contract with them, but it will certainly be up for consideration when I renew...

 

[skyscraper101]

I'm still in contract with them, but it will certainly be up for consideration when I renew...

I would've considered staying but their price increases and failure to negotiate a decent retention figure meant I was willing to give it a shot. Even if I ended up crawling back - I'm just so glad I did now. It feels like this is the future.

I am technically in a 5G area too, so I could in theory have huge speeds but getting a 5G router is just a bit too pricey and not really worth it when the speeds I have now on 4G/LTE are more than adequate enough.