Virgin Media Discussion Thread

Ayahuasca · 2 Jun 2020 at 16:18

Haggisman said:
I assume that's a no?

Yeah it's not available unfortunately looking at that. If you're only get 100mb speeds on average though, on a 200mb package that's going up to 60 odd quid, I would just sacrifice some speed for a cheaper and likely more stable FTTC connection at 80/20.

Haggisman · 2 Jun 2020 at 16:33

I'm confident I could negotiate Virgin down to a similar price (e.g. current offers include 200Mb for £34, or 350Mb for £39, which also includes mobile and I'm looking at getting a new SIM only contract soon anyway).

Alternatives would either be Vodafone (cheapest and give the highest guaranteed speed (55Mb), but 24 month contract) or ZEN who seem to be rated quite highly (£35/month, 12 month contract)

Ayahuasca · 2 Jun 2020 at 16:40

If you can get the price down to that and address the speed issue then I would stay with them. It really depends on how stable your connection is though, if dropouts are becoming more frequent then speed shouldn't even come into the equation.

Haggisman · 2 Jun 2020 at 20:38

So after this prompted me to do a bit more digging, and rebooting the whole network, it appears that my issue may be the powerline adapters I'm using. Wifi gives me the full 200mbps, as does speedtest on my server which is connected directly to the router.

Strange though, as they are TP-Link AV-1300, showing as connected at ~6-700mbps with gigabyte ethernet ports...

Looks like I may have to investigate a wifi solution, as running ethernet isn't really practical

ozzaman · 3 Jun 2020 at 00:45

Just wanted to get your guys opinion on my Virgin connection which I have been monitoring over the past few days:

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I haven't switched the SH3 off during the big red bits, nor did I really notice the internet being down or slow during that time either. There was some netflix being watched around 7-9pm which was probably rinsing bandwidth, but otherwise nothing else of note.

The previous days graph shows similar blocks of red.

Any idea what that is? Apart from the red bits, the line seems Ok ish or perhaps even mediocre compared to what Ive seen in this thread?

Thanks for the input in advance.

jrwagh333 · 3 Jun 2020 at 07:41

Has anybody switched to Nest WiFi with their Virgin connection?

I'm thinking of moving to that as my ASUS 56U just isn't cutting it anymore with a 3 story house.

xb8browney · 3 Jun 2020 at 08:13

Yes I have nest WiFi connected via ethernet it's been flawless.

jrwagh333 · 3 Jun 2020 at 13:34

xb8browney said:
Yes I have nest WiFi connected via ethernet it's been flawless.

Have you got any of the mesh points?

I wanted to have the router hardwired to my PC and then a mesh point one floor up.

MartinPrince · 3 Jun 2020 at 13:43

jrwagh333 said:
Has anybody switched to Nest WiFi with their Virgin connection?

I'm thinking of moving to that as my ASUS 56U just isn't cutting it anymore with a 3 story house.

The WiFi on the Asus AC86U is much, much better than the 56U and works great in my 3 story house.

jrwagh333 · 3 Jun 2020 at 13:52

MartinPrince said:
The WiFi on the Asus AC86U is much, much better than the 56U and works great in my 3 story house.

Where is your router located? Mine is on the ground floor in the corner

Sp00n · 3 Jun 2020 at 16:04

My SH2 now seems to be performing amicably since turning off the wiffys and putting a unifi in place, should have done it bloody years ago!!

Still occasionally drops the connection and needs a reboot but its wayyy less frequent.

MG42Maniac · 3 Jun 2020 at 16:58

I'm about to move from BT 330/50 to VM 1000/50. BT were not able to offer me faster speeds, even though I am on FTTP as the exchange is not capable. They offered me 330/50 @ £50 on a 24 month contract. Cancelled and have gone with VM as I can get their 1gbps service.

Generally, how are people finding it? Hub 4 any good? VM said I can get a free WiFi booster if the signal is not good enough. I am guessing this is a powerline booster?

Rainmaker · 3 Jun 2020 at 17:16

MG42Maniac said:
I'm about to move from BT 330/50 to VM 1000/50. BT were not able to offer me faster speeds, even though I am on FTTP as the exchange is not capable. They offered me 330/50 @ £50 on a 24 month contract. Cancelled and have gone with VM as I can get their 1gbps service.

Generally, how are people finding it? Hub 4 any good? VM said I can get a free WiFi booster if the signal is not good enough. I am guessing this is a powerline booster?

Personally speaking I'd probably stick to BT if I had the option (I don't), as at least it's proper FTTP and has low latency and jitter. If download speed is your primary objective, VM have you covered though.

jrwagh333 · 3 Jun 2020 at 18:26

I went for the Nest WiFi (without any hubs) to replace me RTN56U.

Will report back comparisons speeds on my third floor once it's arrived. And then decide if I need an additional mesh point.

MartinPrince · 4 Jun 2020 at 00:40

jrwagh333 said:
Where is your router located? Mine is on the ground floor in the corner

It's also on the ground floor in the corner. You can always try it out (buy it online) and if you're not impressed return it no quibbles.

doodah · 4 Jun 2020 at 10:03

So it's 12 month time. We are currently paying £34 (intro price) for 200/20, basic TV and an unused landline. My wife did a pretty good job in getting all of that for £38 for the next 12 months.

A strange thing though - ideally we want to get rid of the TV and go broadband only whilst jumping up to the 350Mb package. However the person on the phone said the top tier wasn't available on our street despite their website saying so, and a Virgin engineer lives on the same street. He says the 350Mb absolutely is available and he can sort out that package for £35pm with a £35 activation fee, but we would need to cancel (currently in a 14 day cooling off period) our current package and have some downtime.

Either way I am happy, just need to see how fiddly going his way is and how many days we would be down. But surely the 350 package is the way to go....

MartinPrince · 4 Jun 2020 at 10:25

doodah said:
So it's 12 month time. We are currently paying £34 (intro price) for 200/20, basic TV and an unused landline. My wife did a pretty good job in getting all of that for £38 for the next 12 months.

A strange thing though - ideally we want to get rid of the TV and go broadband only whilst jumping up to the 350Mb package. However the person on the phone said the top tier wasn't available on our street despite their website saying so, and a Virgin engineer lives on the same street. He says the 350Mb absolutely is available and he can sort out that package for £35pm with a £35 activation fee, but we would need to cancel (currently in a 14 day cooling off period) our current package and have some downtime.

Either way I am happy, just need to see how fiddly going his way is and how many days we would be down. But surely the 350 package is the way to go....

I had the 350Mb, Basic TV and Phone and was paying £35 for all of that. The price then went up by a few pounds so I decided to see if I could haggle a bit. (because my package included TV then you have the right to cancel if the price changes but not for broadband only) I never watched TV or used the phone so asked how much if I took those off just leaving the 350Mb BB only. They did it for £28. After 8 months then went to £31.50 after yet another price increase but it was still cheaper than most.

I've swapped between the missus and I several times, the longest downtime I had was a day, though I don't think I needed to go that long. If your connection is set to cancel on say the 7th June then immediately at 0:01 (or 12:01am) on the 7th June your connection will go off. I made the mistake thinking it would end at 23:59 (11:59pm) on the 7th but why would VirginMedia give me that whole day?!
So if you cancel the 7th then book for the install on the 7th. I cancelled the 7th and then booked for the 8th which is why I went the whole day.

rossiboy001 · 4 Jun 2020 at 23:00

To avoid the downtime I was advised by one of their customer services to change the account holder and bank details ie to another family member. That way its a completely new account and you can have it activated the same day as old one cancelled. Plus you also get a new set of equipment as a new customer and they dont seem to care about the old stuff back only wanting it back if you want to recycle. So possibly you can have new equipment perhaps 3 or 4 times a year ie every time they hike the price and you cancel.

Avalon · 4 Jun 2020 at 23:44

rossiboy001 said:
To avoid the downtime I was advised by one of their customer services to change the account holder and bank details ie to another family member. That way its a completely new account and you can have it activated the same day as old one cancelled. Plus you also get a new set of equipment as a new customer and they dont seem to care about the old stuff back only wanting it back if you want to recycle. So possibly you can have new equipment perhaps 3 or 4 times a year ie every time they hike the price and you cancel.

They review (and usually increase) prices once a year, in much the same way that many other ISP’s and indeed other companies in other industries do. The obvious exception being where you go from a discounted contract rate to a rolling 30 day account (though it sounds like you don’t stay that long), but that’s not an actual price rise as the service price remains the same, it’s the end of an introductory discount, which can easily be re-applied with a phone call, a little honesty and a new contract, same is true most of the tine with annual price rises. Personally that seems like a much simpler and easier process than multiple credit checks and having to be available for multiple installs, but some people enjoy finding overly complicated way to do simple things.

rossiboy001 · 5 Jun 2020 at 08:13

Avalon said:
They review (and usually increase) prices once a year, in much the same way that many other ISP’s and indeed other companies in other industries do. The obvious exception being where you go from a discounted contract rate to a rolling 30 day account (though it sounds like you don’t stay that long), but that’s not an actual price rise as the service price remains the same, it’s the end of an introductory discount, which can easily be re-applied with a phone call, a little honesty and a new contract, same is true most of the tine with annual price rises. Personally that seems like a much simpler and easier process than multiple credit checks and having to be available for multiple installs, but some people enjoy finding overly complicated way to do simple things.

Iv given up with the usual calling to get a better offer as they never in my case better than the ones they advertise. The best for example on the £28 a month special 100mb recently they could do me was £35. when mine went up to £40 for same product. My mum fopr example who is a pensioner was paying £78 a montrh for a £30 a month package could only offer £50 so i saved her £48 a month shows that it is worth it and really is not that hard although yes its still some effort, but not much more than tre negotiating, you dont have to even install the new equipment iv found out, since they never have de activatred anything as long as you dont connect the new stuff i imagine thats when they do.