Virgin media to BT ?

beachBOYken · 27 Jun 2020 at 09:37

Hi

Anyone made the switch from VM to BT?

I have a few questions as been with VM for years but lately I'm getting fed up with the poor service, internet has been ok in general apart from a few outages a few months back, but phone line is always going down.

The fastest I can get is Fibre 100, currently have vivid 350, I watch quite a bit of Netflix and Apple content and occasionally play mp games, would fibre 100 be enough?

Fibre 100 I believe is a guaranteed speed of 100mbps but can reach 135-138mbps?

What is the performance of the BT router like?

I currently have the vm hub in modem mode and use my own Asus router but If the BT hub performs well i could do away with my own router.

Thanks

Ayahuasca · 27 Jun 2020 at 09:57

The BT hub is rated better than Virgin's SH3 and 100Mbps is fine for that usage. I think Apple TV tops out around 41Mbps and that was only on their See TV series.

ChrisD. · 27 Jun 2020 at 10:00

Pretty much everything will be far better with BT bar outright download speed.

beachBOYken · 27 Jun 2020 at 10:10

Ayahuasca said:
The BT hub is rated better than Virgin's SH3 and 100Mbps is fine for that usage. I think Apple TV tops out around 41Mbps and that was only on their See TV series.

ChrisD. said:
Pretty much everything will be far better with BT bar outright download speed.

Yeah download speed is not a big problem for me, I do download games on xbox but not that often and I don't get the full 350 speed anyway.

Would it be the smart hub 2 I would get if I switched?

beachBOYken · 27 Jun 2020 at 10:30

Does anyone know if I add TV package as well, would the TV eat into my fibre 100 internet, I heard you need internet for the channels apart from freeview.

But wondering if the TV has its own dedicated bandwidth.

On VM the tivo used to have its own internet connection for example.

beachBOYken · 27 Jun 2020 at 12:51

Also I heard the smart hub 2 can't split 2.4ghz and 5ghz, anyone with the smart hub 2 found this an issue with any devices or does it all work ok?

beachBOYken · 27 Jun 2020 at 13:59

Perhaps a mod can delete this thread, I didn't realise there was a big BT thread already

Cheers

APM · 28 Jun 2020 at 08:36

Go to BT,you will not regret it.

tres · 28 Jun 2020 at 20:36

Moved from Virgin 250 to BT 300, more reliable and router much better

Aladdin · 1 Jul 2020 at 16:39

According to Ofcom BT are above the industry average for complaints https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/190150/telecoms-pay-tv-complaints-q3-2019.pdf the customer reviews don't look much better https://www.fasterbroadband.co.uk/broadband-reviews/bt
I don't think BT are what they use to be. That said the Smart Hub spec is better than my VM one.

Caged · 1 Jul 2020 at 16:43

I've had one occasion where I needed to use the executive complaints escalation process with BT, every other interaction has been flawless, and the service has never let me down. I had Virgin Media for 18 months and couldn't wait to leave the contract - the first six months I had congestion issues on a newly built piece of network (an extension of an existing area that had problems), then the customer service agents repeatedly failed to process my cancellation request requiring a compliant letter to resolve. I wouldn't touch VM again unless my only alternative is going to give me a connection below 30Mbps.

ChrisD. · 1 Jul 2020 at 16:46

Aladdin said:
According to Ofcom BT are above the industry average for complaints https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/190150/telecoms-pay-tv-complaints-q3-2019.pdf the customer reviews don't look much better https://www.fasterbroadband.co.uk/broadband-reviews/bt
I don't think BT are what they use to be. That said the Smart Hub spec is better than my VM one.

Customer services are most likely as bad as each other, where VM falls down is their dated network.

SixTwoSix · 1 Jul 2020 at 16:49

beachBOYken said:
Does anyone know if I add TV package as well, would the TV eat into my fibre 100 internet, I heard you need internet for the channels apart from freeview.

But wondering if the TV has its own dedicated bandwidth.

On VM the tivo used to have its own internet connection for example.

I've got by fine streaming all my TV via Netflix, Amazon or Now TV on a 25Mb connection for years. Even sufficed for a few months with 4k on NF/Amazon.

beachBOYken · 1 Jul 2020 at 17:43

SixTwoSix said:
I've got by fine streaming all my TV via Netflix, Amazon or Now TV on a 25Mb connection for years. Even sufficed for a few months with 4k on NF/Amazon.

Great, I need to phone them soon to find out what they can offer me if I do switch.

iamtheoneneo · 1 Jul 2020 at 22:22

Yes moving to BT was a breath of fresh air for me. Don't see the point in super fast internet if it goes down all the time. Not saying BT are perfect but I think I have about one outage a year, Virgin it was more like one a month minimum.

Arcane · 2 Jul 2020 at 09:36

Used to have Virgin media, the speed was very unpredictable and the local resident's facebook group constantly howled at how bad is was. BT (halo 1) 76meg now and it's dropped out once in 4 years (some clown disconnected something outside). It's also very consistent in it's speed, I can walk away from a big download and pretty much know exactly when it'll be done. I use it for TV, two home work machines, tablets, phones etc etc and it's been flawless. BT TV now comes with NowTV so I just use that and although it's no Sky Q, it's only a tenner.

spoffle · 3 Jul 2020 at 14:51

Aladdin said:
According to Ofcom BT are above the industry average for complaints https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/190150/telecoms-pay-tv-complaints-q3-2019.pdf the customer reviews don't look much better https://www.fasterbroadband.co.uk/broadband-reviews/bt
I don't think BT are what they use to be. That said the Smart Hub spec is better than my VM one.

I've been with BT on a FTTP service since September, I've had 100% uptime and no issues. They've been significantly better than Virgin, who openly lied to me on a number of occasions to avoid admitting fault on stupid petty issues that should have never happened.

My last interaction with them was them insisting that I shouldn't move to BT because BT are incapable of meeting their advertised speeds at all, which was absolute bs.

APM · 3 Jul 2020 at 16:39

Don't forget topcashback.