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Virgin Media ADSL Broadband
GENIE SAYS
Yep, Virgin Media ADSL is also now available, as the non-cable alernative to the main Virgin Media cable broadband.
You'll need a BT phoneline for Virgin ADSL, and the Virgin ADSL package comes bundled with a variety of phone options which seem to make them excellent value. Plus there's unlimited downloads on all ADSL packages, which means that you don't need to count the hours you're online!
Virgin ADSL products
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Virgin ADSL reviews and ratings
Top reviews
| by Alastair Macduff, 03 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful?  (111) |
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If you are the sort of person who enjoys bare legged walks through brambles and stinging nettles, or a swim in weaver and jelly fish infested waters then Virgin Media ADSL is for you. If you welcome the challenge of spending what seems like half your life on the phone to people whose 8th language is English and clearly know nothing about anything and paying through the nose for the privilege then VM ADSL is for you. In short - if you are an imbecile and need stress in your life then you know which ISP to sign up to. If on the other hand none of the above applies to you, well you know which ISP not to sign up with...
| by Britchard Ransom, 17 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (45) |
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I notice that many people feel they are locked into 12 months or whatever with VM or have to pay penalty if leave early. If you are not receiving good service which is what you are paying for them stop paying, I mean would you pay for rancid food and crap service or would you go somewhere where the food is fresh and tasty and you are treated as a special customer. Think about it. Small is beautiful and I think at least 90 pc of subscribers here know that big is b*****ks.
| by Ralf Nadir, 01 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (45) |
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Listen up folks, u do have choices. If yr ISP or any organisation fails to deliver a service then under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (as amended) if a party fails to deliver what you are paying for they have reneged on their side of the contract - it's not all one way you know - and when you receive replies to your recorded delivery letters from someone allegedly named Pursey then abandon all hope of a settlement in yr favour and provided you supply them with correct statistics and keep it short and sweet hit then where it hurts and stop yr direct debit payments and possibly change any direct debit nbr u may have given them. Then they cannot take out chunks of money out, as reading various comments they do. They will prob threaten to disconnect you, isn't that what you want?, then you can go to a decent ISP, and they are there.
| by Tearful, 02 May 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I've been signed up for a few months, its been a total disaster from start to finish, the speeds are so slow its not funny. They also severely restrict torrent traffic - 1K/sec! I've been trying to cancel for 2 weeks, initially they just wouldnt answer my calls, they kept me on hold for ages only to disconnect me. Then they would answer and pass me around the houses, I've spoken to about 7 or 8 different people, none of which have helped me. I eventually raised a case on their web form to ask for a MAC code, they replied with this: "Dear XXXX (name removed by me) Thank you for your e-mail dated 22 April 2008 in regards to your MAC code. I am sorry XXXX but we don't supply MAC codes to go to other providers as our modem will only work on our system. I am sorry for this misunderstanding." They clearly don't know the difference between a MAC code and a MAC address, which is fine for joe public but for a large ISP it is just pathetic.They now tell me they want a £50 cancellation fee!
| by TVW, 17 April 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I've had the same experience as everyone else. I was 785 metres from the exchange where I used to live. That's close enough to have NO problems. I started on the 1MB service, and they sent me a USB modem that refused to work with my Mac. Two more attempts and several weeks later I finally get the Netgear wireless router they promised me. I can't remember how it worked on the 1MB service but I moved onto the up to 8MB because it was part of bundle 1. DISASTER! varying speeds, as low as dial up, and as high as 6.9MB, TOTALLY unusable!! Tech support expensive, and no help. Sick of customer support (no freephone number UNLIKE cable, a complete disgrace), they just waste my time, money and patience! I moved onto the "datastream", suposedly 2MB constant connection. I still find it slow, and unresponsive, that's when I'm not getting "dropouts" all the time. They play the "it's everyone else" card all the time. If you want to keep your sanity, AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE!!
| by My dial up is faster than ur 20 meg, 12 March 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I wonder what's their top 5% download per week is ???? 3 gig ? I am on 20 meg line and getting pings of 999 ms...so frustrating especially when ur playing online, makes u want to smash ur pc.
| by virgin hater, 15 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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Virgin broadbandd is crap im havin the same problem paid 4 8mb service now get 3-4 kbps from 4-12pm...apprently downloading up tp 3gb per week puts you in the top 5% of users....avvoiddd virgin
| by B Ranson, 11 February 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Interesting, no complaints re Vermin Media since Jan 25, guess everybody is happy with their adsl "service" and customer helplines. Me? When I left their clutches I became a liberated man, no question.
| by Cat Street, 25 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Ok, Virgin media internet is terrible. Their TV is ok... but not great. For the past week or so, our internet has been randomly disconnecting from about 1pm onwards. It will progressively get worse until at exactly 10pm every night, it'll die completely til the morning. I have a friend in America that I usually stay up late to talk to, and i haven't been able to for a while. My dad called tech support and blamed my router (typical) when my router isn't broken at all, and it's their DNS server that has gone down; they are lying to their customers. I'm trying to get dad to change ISPs, but first i need to convince him virgin are lying (he tends to believe them because he isn't a technical sort of person). They should stop putting so many people on to their servers if they can't cope.
| by Fire_At_Castle_Branson, 24 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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VM ADSL is an absolute disgrace. During anything which could vaguely be construed as "peak time" (ie. between midday and midnight) you'll be lucky to top modem speeds with these packages. My google mail refuses to open with high-bandwidth version (all of 300k?), and drops me down to the "slow connection" page. In terms of pings, first hop (bam) is generally 1000ms during the daytime or evening, sometimes more, sometimes a little less. Either way it's a complete disgrace. Customer support can be discribed as lousy at best, nonexistant at worst. If I ever have to listen to an adolescent asking me in a condescending voice whether I have my modem turned on again, it'll be too soon. VM's response has been the same fobbing-off to all of its customers for six months now - that they are "investigating" the network, although I've heard nothing else. I'm planning on complainig until they allow me out of my contract and would urge nobody to touch Virgin Media with a barge pole.
| by revs, 23 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (4) |
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jonesytech: The spelling in your message makes me seriously doubt that you are a true VM Techie. Helpdesk? possibly, Techie? I dont think so. Then again, maybe you are, it would explain a lot. When a BB service goes from ~7Mbit to 5K/sec there are some serious issues going on!
| by jonesytech, 23 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Ok, im a virgin media tech and il tell you how you can avoid slow speeds with vm..firstly thou i would like to get a few points across, you are signing up to a UPTO 8mb package there for we can provide you with 10kb and still not be breaking the law..sounds bad but its true,secondly we are based in wales so who ever said they speak to some1 out of this country well your a lier the only way that would happen is if you rang c/s trying to get tech support..thirdy if you was to pay a tech support man to come to your house to fix your bb its guna cost you a minimum of £50 for a call out fee and the first hour so think about it 25p aminute is nothing maximum of a £5...last point i would like to say is if you dont want your bb then do some speed test 4 of them if they come back less than 500kb as an overall then ring us and your probly speak to some1 like me this is a fault anything above VM & BT wont see it as a fault so ur have to stop using your p2p softwar Thanks
| by parker1234uk, 22 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (12) |
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VM are complete and utter rubbish, I have been with them since their dial up service and up until Virgin took them over, they had been fantastic. Since moving house and and signing up to their adsl service it is unusable. Online speed tests show after 5pm im connecting at 0.3mb, however before work at about 8am I can connect at almost 7mb. After a number of emails and calls to india, my phone line, pc and or distance to the exchange is faulty after 5pm ? go figure :) Only 9 months until I can switch providors. Luckly my neighbour happens to be a good friend and has set me up on his wireless, he's on bethere broadband and i can connect at 15mb with downloads at 1.5mb a sec. Happy days.. almost
| by revs, 20 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Terrible. DO NOT GO WITH VIRGIN MEDIA ADSL. Do not think it will be different for you. It is NOT like their good Cable service. DO not even think about it. look at people such as fast.co.uk, or IDnet
| by derek, 16 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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AVOID !!! Do not repeat my mistake .You will cry but pay.8mb might also mean 11kbps and there is no much I can do about it !!! Expensive Tech support (25p/min).Calling them make sure you have enough time for a long conversation and remember...you are the first one to blame.How stupid I was....
| by incognito, 13 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I am an online gamer and I think VM is crap, with my old isp my pings were around 50-100 now they average 200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
| by Spike001, 09 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I use my bb mainly for online gaming such as Counter Strike Source and now COD4 and have been with Virgin for a while and all was fine to start with. Then progressed from 1/2 meg to 2mb connection and again all was ok. Next went from 2 to 8mb connection and that resulted in a month of not being able to play CSS. I telephoned and was put back to 3 mb and after the connection was optimised, this resulted in a very good connection with low pings of around < 35. Then on the 10th December it all went to rats ****. I wsa getting kicked for high ping and when I did manage to connect, the lag in game meant it was un-playable. This did not look good for the new game COD4 I got at christmas and I was right in that most of the time I could not get onto a server due to high ping. When I did manage to connect, my ping was extremely erratic from 80 up to 4/500 in seconds. Many emails and calls @ 25ppm have resulted in no improvement. Time to move on I fear.
| by shoot44, 04 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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My Virgin Media adsl 8mb [i can get 4.4 normally get 2mb] tonight is a stunning super dooper thunder looper 13kbps, now dont be a virgin tech boy and miss the kbps bit it is really important,the new bit of stunning information today is that in feb 2008 virgin are switching to the new improved ]old] NTL network and all will be solved-whats that smell cant you smell it i can yes its bulls***e ps tip of the week dont phone expensive tech numbers waste of time/money phone cancellations dept in Newport[Wales in believe] its local rate be nice to them they cant help enough [0845 045 0709] you only need this if you have screwed up allready and joined if you havent you dont need the number and DON`T JOIN THEM
| by shoot44, 03 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Ok here goes virgin media are great,no im telling lies i never believed that anyone could be worse than AOL but virgin media have cracked it ,joined july 2007 first month great then i go from 2/4mb to 2mb then from 4pm till 12am i get 1-80kbps,tonight its 9kbps,tech are dire i have sent 78 emails of complaint ,they arrive back 3 days later with a copy/paste note about adsl busy lines blaa blaa and are signed Saddam at the bottom never have i been so pissed in all my life AVOID VIRGIN MEDIA LIKE IT WAS THE BLACK DEATH
| by Gr3g, 01 January 2008 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Utter utter *****. We've been loyal customers for 10 years, and this year, its all gone downhill. High pings throughout the day (rubbish for online gaming), fluctuating download speeds, frequent disconnects and terrible customer service. Avoid. Like the plague.
| by Matt, 31 December 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Having same problems as others. Pay for 8 meg 'unlimited line' Downloads at 40kbits during the day, after midnight - 800kBits. Think that says it all. Shit & expensive customer services. If anyone has successfully gotten out of a 12 month contract, I'd be very very interesting in knowing what to say.
| by feel like shit, 14 December 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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ever get the feeling u've made the wrong choice!!!!!!!!!!!!just switched from bt (3 years trouble free) to virgin media due to the cheapness.went from £26 to £15.yesterday was my first day with virgin and i was not impressed .but a will give it a week or two,and trust me if the service is crap the dd will be cancelled and **** all £50 will be paid. no service no cash
| by Sonic, 11 December 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Is this a joke? When my service was first activated I was getting 350kbps download. After only a week it dropped to under 40kbps. After I got a router things improved for a time. The best download I've ever been able to get is 220kbps, but I'm really lucky if I get anywhere near that. Nowadays I get a connection speed rivalling my old 56k modem, at any time of the day(not just evenings or weekends)although the service is even worse at these times, and this was happening a year ago - long before the infamous "traffic management" policy was put in place, which dons't just affect "the top 3% high downloaders" like they will have you believe. Whenever I've phoned/Emailed them they've treated me like an idiot, and havn't done anything whatsoever to sort out the speed issues. They simply refuse to acknowledge a problem, and will try to blame just about anything, rather than admit a problem. They have even tried to blame "hot weather" on their abysmal service. Avoid at all costs.
| by Warcrasft Player, 29 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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okay ill sum up virgin media and my feelings about them right now. they are crap! before i used to have no problems with my connection since they merged my connection is slower than a traffic jam on the M25! seriously look somewhere else my game is unplayable from about 4pm - midnight. thanks VM you suck!
| by ColinRobertson, 29 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Xbox live used to function normally up until the 21st of November. Having trawled the web I have noticed others with the same provider and the same problem. AVOID VIRGIN at all costs. Usless telephone support of which you have to dial a premium rate number, and if you can understand what the support advisor is telling you through the heavy accent then fair play to you. Virgin provide nothing more than a slow and very disappointing service. Apparently there is no contract with them, but once you sign up with them and figure out how awful their service is, it's going to cost you £50.00 if you decide to finish with them within the first 12 months. Virgin is a big NO NO.
| by Silver Wolf, 24 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Does Virgin Media even pay any attention to its bad reviews its getting? I think its a joke, I mean its nto just happening to a few people its happening to a hell of alot of people. Shows how much they care. Before VM took over my Connection was always fine. But on random days I get a speed of 1.0, 2.0 or if lucky 5.05 Mbs but on a good day I get 34.mbs (But its usualy this low due to a wireless network). Too many people are being ripped off and it seems Virgin media is making no attempt to better its service.
| by Mike W, 21 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I've had virgin 8 meg ADSL for the past 6 month and its been nothing but crap with random disconnects, which finally stopped. I also have horrid ping at random times of the day which makes it impossible to play online games. I've never had an ISP (broadband ISP) that has the same ping as a dial-up connection (to local UK servers, tracert shows its on virgin's hardware). Not to mention the SLOOOOOW download speeds. Customer support was no help at all. I called one support number, they told me to call another, which told me to call another, and then another (the original number i called) which was correct the second time i called it. Then charge a 50 pound disconnection fee even though I've called the broadband helpline and they were unable to resolve any of my issues OVER A 6 MONTH PERIOD. If you feel like having a dial-up speed and ping then by all means go with virgin! F-
| by fedup, 19 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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Please do not sign up to Virgin ,you will be wasting your hard earned monies.I have the misfortune to have signed up for their so called up to 8meg service.I don't expect to get 8 megs but I do expect to get more than 250kps in the evening.If you contact their so called helpline by telephone you will waste at least 3 pounds of your money and still be no more the wiser.Putting it quite bluntly they are a shower.
| by Britchard Ransom, 17 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (45) |
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I notice that many people feel they are locked into 12 months or whatever with VM or have to pay penalty if leave early. If you are not receiving good service which is what you are paying for them stop paying, I mean would you pay for rancid food and crap service or would you go somewhere where the food is fresh and tasty and you are treated as a special customer. Think about it. Small is beautiful and I think at least 90 pc of subscribers here know that big is b*****ks.
| by Buttwad, 16 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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What a crock of crap!! Did have 4meg with Virgin, I moved to a new house, nearer the exchange and have been stuck with 512k, wtf?? Called virgin, even though during their speed test I actually got 5meg, and I am the only one in my road unable to get 5meg now, what did virgin say, not our fault talk to bt, NO IT IS VIRGINS FAULT, they rent the line from bt, and dont want to spend any dosh helping me, and they still expect me to pay the same as I was when I got 8X the speed!!!!
| by bee, 15 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Four years ago I was with virgin ADSL, which was good at those time. I just subscribed the 8MB with them again this month, and it's absolutely rubbish. peak hours (6-11pm) there's very heavy traffic - ping google.co.uk for 500 times, I got 400 packets back - 20% packet loss!! loading a website takes mins, yes counted in MINUTES, any website in the world even a UK website like bbc. Non-busy hours I tried all those speed test websites and I got 3.5M max d/l speed, fair enough. They claim that (their FAQ section) the 1st 11 days the line will constantly drop as they will go thru some speed test on your line, but now its 2 weeks and I can't wait to cut it - and tho there's no 12 month contract, I have to pay £50 + 1 more monthly payment to cut it even after 2 weeks of usage!
| by VirginBBHater, 14 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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I really can't find a single good thing to say about this ISP. Whilst with Virgin Media my package consisted of a supposed 8MB connection with "unlimited" downloads. Yeah right, my speed was (on a good night) around 225 kps. The unlimited downloads they speak of are actually capped after a certain limit. Lies. Since relocating to my new ISP I am able to reach speeds that I never thought were possible because some monkey at Virgin advised me that my line was "probably incapable of 8MB." Funny that, they didn't have any trouble selling me an 8MB package. This begs the following question - if my line isn't faulty and can reach full 8MB speed with my new ISP just what are Virgin doing to prevent their customers getting full speeds? As one previous reviewer mentioned they're probably capping speeds in less populated areas then blaming it the poor speeds on the fact that you live out in the country. Disgraceful - surely a breach of trading standards. Do not let them have your business.
| by Stew, 09 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Slow awful service, crap support. When I left them they charged me £50 so don't belive the "no contract" crap they come out with - I tried complaining and just got the bog standard photocopied reply. I was getting close to dial-up speeds on my 8meg connection... they blamed the exchange but since leaving VM my new ISP gets me 16meg broadband at full speed and stable.... So avoid like the plague truly terrible feel as though I have been robbed!
| by K&C, 05 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Absolute bloody nightmares. We pay for 4mb yet we get 500kbs speeds when we're actually here to use it. Can't even watch anything on Youtube or download files. Phoned them and they said they would try capping our line to see if that resolved it. WTF. They then said we'd get a free month (which we never got) and they'd call us back (which they never did). I'm not phoning them on the bloody £1 a min phone line so we've cancelled and are going to Fast. STAY AWAY FROM VIRGIN MEDIA!
| by Alltalk20, 02 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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What can i say, its quicker to connect using a cup and string than virgins so called adsl super fast service. im lucky if i get over 9.6kb, my line speed is 7540kb per sec however my download speed is now only 1-3kb per sec! I have no idea how they are getting away with it! AVOID VIRGIN ADSL!
| by Highlander, 01 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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They are crap. Switched from bt broadband 3 months ago, getting speeds of 200 kbps at peak times. Been waiting on phone for 20 mins now to cancel. Can barely browse internet at night times, no chance of watching a video on youtube, unless i have half an hour to spare to watch a 4 min video. AVOID virgin.
| by Ralf Nadir, 01 November 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (45) |
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Listen up folks, u do have choices. If yr ISP or any organisation fails to deliver a service then under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (as amended) if a party fails to deliver what you are paying for they have reneged on their side of the contract - it's not all one way you know - and when you receive replies to your recorded delivery letters from someone allegedly named Pursey then abandon all hope of a settlement in yr favour and provided you supply them with correct statistics and keep it short and sweet hit then where it hurts and stop yr direct debit payments and possibly change any direct debit nbr u may have given them. Then they cannot take out chunks of money out, as reading various comments they do. They will prob threaten to disconnect you, isn't that what you want?, then you can go to a decent ISP, and they are there.
| by thingy-me-jig, 31 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I joined virgin last month and only wish i'd known about this site first and read these reviews. it is a complete and utter disgrace. i'm on (supposedly) 8mb but regardless of what time i use, be it 9am 8pm or even 3am it is unbelievabley slow. spent god knows how many hours on to cust service and remote media assistance, running numerous checks on the bt speedtest site, swapping filters, using bt test box (by removing front plate!!!) only to get same result every time. less than 56kbps! (i live 1138m from the exchange in a straight line) they said it is probs with the line but my line was only installed 2 weeks prior to broadband installation and have been told numerous times line is in absolute fine working order. tried to cancel but i'm only a month into my contract and have been told i would still be liable for paying the remaining contract period. so looks like i'm stuck paying £20 a month for the next year. anybody thinking of signing up with virgin DONT DO IT!!!
| by TM, 31 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I have fallen into the trap of Virgin Media. Ridulessly slow speed. worst than dialup, rubbish customer services, STAY CLEAR OF V~I~R~G~I~N ADSL. between 3.3kbs and 29.9kbs during peak hours. on an 8MB line.
| by noel babiczuk, 29 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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virgin is crap .do not go to virgin. slow speeds. 475mb for 1 hour then you be lucky to get half a meg for the rest of the time. DO NOT GO TO VIRGIN I BEG YOU
| by Tom Jackson, 29 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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I switched to Virgin in Jan 2005 and was very satisfied with the service until recently when it has become impossible to use for anything that requires reasonable download speeds. Their customer service reply with suggestions that hardware connections that have been working perfectly have now suddenly deteriorated etc. Given that there are infrequent periods when I can get over 2.5 Mbps down the line but more often than not, this reduces to below 0.3 Mbps I dont think the problem is at my end.
| by DISGRUNTLED, 26 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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sorry for the caps but I deem them necessary now to stop anyone from choosing this awful provider ... DO NOT GET VIRGIN ADSL I have not have ANY internet connection for a month and have been paying 17.99 for the privilege. After a month of constant phone calls to Tech support and billing accruing a bill of over £30 and visits from 2 engineers I finally spoke to a manager and was told that i would be issued a full refund if I called back at 5pm. I thought it was odd but said OK. I call back at 5pm i am told that I cannot cancel my account (after waiting 1 1/2 hrs on hold and being transferred all over the country at local rates). I am now unsure what will happen but I am not hopeful. THERE ARE OTHER PROVIDERS TO CHOOSE FROM WHY CHOOSE THESE CON ARTISTS WHEN GOOD PROVIDERS EXIST OUT THERE. again sorry for the caps but I'm livid.
| by ian, 24 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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AVOID!!!! Virgin media adsl is the worst ISP I have ever dealt with. In fact anyone who has had the miss fortune to travel on a virgin train will know what sort of sloppy service awaits them when they sign up to Mr Bransons ADSL service. Its a bit like dial up with no support.
| by jake the pegg esq, 24 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Ahh, if only i had found this review before i signed up to virgin, but i guess i would have already had the net by then. Here i Sit, once again constantly switching my router on and off to try and get some sort of result.... after 2 months i realise now i am never going to get it. Althought if i try after 1am, Bingo i can get 8mb ADSL but then i get no sleep, i took the week off work and tryied to get some Battlefield in through the day... Still poor! i dont ask for much, just a good ping to play online games, but no chance, i was wondering who to try next? I am not happy about the £50 disconnection charge, but at least i would be able to use the internet with someone else? Ive been onto broadband help, and after 10 emails, the responces have begun to repeat, and i now realise that i have done all i can do with no success. My last emails i sent to them got a little nasty (what do they expect?) and they have ignored me now. Any suggestions who to go for ADSL next? Im thinking Deamon,
| by skuaimages, 22 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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I have been with Virgin for two years - 0.5Mbs broadband adsl. it is supposedly all i can expect being 5 miles from the nearest exchange. Over the past 6 months i have noticed a marked deterioration in download speeds and response times. I am lucky to get 200kbs and my ping times are up to 7 times what they should be. Their customer service just does not seem interested and just say you must be using your system during busy times - absolute rubbish - this happens all the time. Now they have a functional problem with their email server. For 3 days i have not been able to send/receive with Outlook Express. It keeps rejecting a valid password. This morning Virgin said on the phone that they have engineers looking at the problem and they are ordering new hw bits!!!? sounds sw & poor change control Well - I find it really hard to believe this is a hardware problem - I worked as a systems engineer for IBM for 25 years and know a lot about problem determination - Virgin don't!
| by -]RC[-Spears™, 21 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Well I started on the Cable service with Virgin. Not a fault to mention. Perfect in every way for 4mb service. Low pings good download/upload and no probs at all. Moved to a non Cable area re connected with Non cable service (£17.99 PER MONTH UPTO 8MB) Utter crap! My connection barley scrapes past 3.1mbps and is utter folly. Im a Pro gamer and this does absolutley nothing for me what so ever. I will be cancelling my contract after the week is out. I would be happy with atleast 4-5mbps but like everybody else has said it really is like dial up. This is the god dam 21st century. My area is not getting uprgraded to this "Switched on" thing untill 2009 and the service is bull. Non english speaking reps who read from poorly constructed scripts just make me wonder about the state of affairs this country and some of its finest companys have sold out too!!! One word of advice to those who find this Forum. STAY AWAY FROM VIRGIN ADSL BROADBAND. It makes dial up look good
| by PWN, 16 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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I was on Telewest Broadband before the merger, getting comfortable speeds of 1-1.2MB per second, merger kicks in, for 5 months I receive good-ish download rates of 700-1000KB/s, then, it cuts down. After 4:30pm, I am lucky to get a download speed of 500KB/s for more than 10 seconds. After 5/6PM, my speed cuts down to just 5 (FIVE) KB/s. Infact, I try to download an AMD optimising program thats 40MB, I'm still going at it after getting home at 530PM. Customer Service is convinced my router sucks, even though it doesnt, since when we wire in straight to the modem the internet still is around 10KB/s. If your considering using Virgin, think again. There internet-capping policy is a joke and customer service, as usual, is transferred elsewhere to reduce costs.
| by Nicky D, 14 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Virgin Media..........................Rubbish. Painfully slow and customer service is useless to say the least. Can't wait for contract to end so I can change.
| by laurel, 13 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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I live in cornwall and have the virgin 8mb pacage. Im 300 metres from the exchange and i get a dl speed of 30kbs ,yes you heard me rite even though it says im connected at 6.6 mbps. Its getting beyond a joke im this close to complaining avoid vm like the plague.
| by Ben, 08 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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I've had Virgin broadband for about three years or so now, and I was very satisfied up until when Virgin Media took over Telewest. Before then, I was getting 5MB/s connection speeds from my 8MB broadband, then it suddenly dropped phenomenally. It's got increasingly worse over the last few months. More problems arose when I moved house - it took SIX weeks for them to change the connection over. I was disgraced by this. Lately, I've been getting even worse connection speeds, that get EVEN WORSE after 6pm. My all-time low was a pathetic 24kb/s. Slower than dial-up. Customer service is appalling, too. Call them, and they won't pick up the phone. E-mail them, and they won't respond. I sometimes wonder if they're just too busy with new customers? I also wondered if my internet was slowed down because of all the new Telewest customers. Overall, my Virgin broadband is dreadful, and I would recommend anybody to steer well clear of it and find another option - that's what I'm doing!
| by Matt, 07 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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After putting up with a service that, quite frankly, would lose to me hand-delivering the packets of information (and I wouldn't lose around 5.0% of the details in the process) I'm giving up. No matter what I try to do, Virgin claim it's someone else's fault and that fluctuations in download speed are normal. They clearly can't quite seem to grasp that a connection that is unreliable, slow, and bounces off of 101 NTL IPs won't quite get me the 8Mb connection I'm supposed to be receiving, nor the 4Mb I'd be happy with. Heck, these days the only way I can measure my connection in Mb is by using fractions. Entertainingly, at 7 in the morning I can get a connection I'm happy with. Pings of less than 40ms (as opposed to ten times that) and reasonable download speeds. Sadly, believe it or not I'm not able to be online at 7am all the time, so having my connection nigh on severed from, say, 8am onwards doesn't strike me as brilliant. In conclusion, don't bother. 56k modems all the way!
| by Fairfax, 06 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (4) |
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I am a former satsified Blueyonder cable customer. Moved to a non cabled area and took the Virgin Media ADSL Broadband option. After 10 weeks I am very disappointed. I am on an 8mb package. I did not expect that out here in rural North Lincs but my download speeds are a fraction of the advertised figure. For the most part not much better than dial up standard. Not acceptable and made far worse by the truly shocking customer service that they provide. VM treat their customers like rubbish. Sadly this seems to be a recurring trend in the Broadband industry and something should be done about it. Suggest disatisfied costomers make a formal complaint to their local Trading Standards Office.
| by Alastair Macduff, 03 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (111) |
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If you are the sort of person who enjoys bare legged walks through brambles and stinging nettles, or a swim in weaver and jelly fish infested waters then Virgin Media ADSL is for you. If you welcome the challenge of spending what seems like half your life on the phone to people whose 8th language is English and clearly know nothing about anything and paying through the nose for the privilege then VM ADSL is for you. In short - if you are an imbecile and need stress in your life then you know which ISP to sign up to. If on the other hand none of the above applies to you, well you know which ISP not to sign up with...
| by Ben, 03 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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Well, I was forced to take Virgin ADSL when I moved from a cabled area to a non-cabled area, otherwise I risked losing £80 in contract surrender charges at my old address, as I was moving within 1 year of starting the contract. As it turned out, I paid the £80 surrender fee and was told I could claim it back. That was a brazen lie: It has been impossible to claim a refund on this £80 from any Virgin department (I have been trying for 4 months and counting). So I now am £80 out of pocket and stuck with Virgin ADSL (8mb service). The speed is diabolically slow at any time of day that you may conceivable wish to use the internet; indeed, I was better off with dial-up. The only time I get acceptable download speeds is in the DEAD of night. Which is, clearly, useless. Do not start a contract with Virgin ADSL even if your life depends on it! You've been warned!
| by Network Latency, 02 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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Latency is so bad with Virgin ADSL these days! Between 200 and 300ms is the norm now. If you take the time to reconnect several times, you can get a connection with ~30ms latency but it will be up to 200/300ms within a day or so. Tracing route to internet [connection #1] 1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms gateway [192.168.0.1] 2 213 ms 216 ms 230 ms manc-bam-2.inet.ntl.com [194.145.148.19] ... Tracing route to internet [connection #2] 1 1 ms 1 ms 2 ms gateway [192.168.0.1] 2 215 ms 208 ms 212 ms winn-bam-1.inet.ntl.com [194.145.148.190] ... Tracing route to internet [connection #3] **GOOD** 1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms gateway [192.168.0.1] 2 29 ms 30 ms 29 ms brhm-bam-2.inet.ntl.com [194.145.148.3] ...
| by stephen leggett, 01 October 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (4) |
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Do not bother with this service if you like streaming video & onlinegaming. Since their merger with NTL & Blue yonder they just dont have the network infrastructure to cope with the demands of their so called service they pretend they can deliver. In short(I cant be bothered to rant anymore) Are you a gamer? Use Youtube? Dont bother go else where.... Tech test pinged google =269ms 1 packet lost time 22:40 pm really not acceptable! Just go elsewhere, save your time, frustration, and money! ADSL service is absolute sh**
| by EroticElmo, 19 September 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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Like most of you, broadband only ever seems to get worse. Was with AOL (got lucky no real probs) for about 2 years, now with virgin media. Hardly ever download, only want to play games but with pings over 200ms at peak time, it just isnt happening. Even if im in an area with loads of users not necessarily on Virgin, could things be better with another ISP??? Let me know? It would be good to see how reviews vary based on peoples location. Also how many of you have been charged by Virgin for cutting your contract short - says something about a possible £50 charge. Hate cancelling and setting up broadband cos it takes usually about a month or more!!!! Might as well get two cups and link them with string to get on the internet.
| by The_Zoid, 18 September 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Ordered Virgin Media bundle 2, 3 weeks ago, activation took place last Friday 14th Sept. Absolutely diabolical speeds, I have a BT 512k Broadband connection on another line in my house also and only took Virgin on the other line because BT were going through a few days of badness and i got annoyed. Connects usually around 1.1meg, downloads slower than the bt line and Ping rates are around 250 - 300 ms on hops when trace routing to various services, am cancelling this appauling service tomorrow, just as soon as I can get in touch with Virgin (I think im entitled to within 7 days of activation if not satisfied).
| by adrian, 15 September 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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My 8mb only really just reaches 1mb connection speed when i test it. and i have high latency and pings, which stops me from playing online games and downloads, all i can really do now is just surf the webby. Help Us Virgin, i know u can do better than this.
| by Caddie, 09 September 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Like everybody else I moved to benefit from what seemed to be almost 'too good to be true' of 'up to' 8 meg and unlimited download - and that's just what it has proved to be. I'm regularly getting speeds less than my old dial-up, inexplicable crashes and all the problems everyone else experiences. Wanadoo/Orange might seem expensive in contrast but at least theirs worked and the slowish speeds were relatively consistent. Now it's down to counting the days when we can move again.
| by Jack, 02 September 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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Avoid Virgin ADSL, it's utter rubbish. Virgin cut me off thanks to their staff being clueless, I was left for over a long time without broadband and they still billed me for it, of course they blamed BT who in turn blamed VM, still I was billed, before that my speeds were worse than dialup (hence I complained and they "accidentally" cut me off), the next thing I know I had 6 meg constant but as the weeks went on the speed went back down to dial up again, so i complained.. and complained only to be told the service is oversubscribed!! Then came billing errors, they over billed then they under billed, then they over billed etc... they are clueless!! the impression I get is that VM is mostly staffed by Laurel and Hardy clones who don't even know what department deals with what.. At the moment VM owes me money for all the calls I made, I'm still waiting for a refund now 6 months later, they ignore letters sent as well as emails, My advice, find another ISP.
| by warreb, 02 September 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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my experience with virgin adsl is horrendous. unless you work from home AT NIGHT then forget it. my contract started in nov 06 and has got worse and worse. avg speed in the evening i'd say was 0.1Mbps, in the middle of the night speed can be 6 to 7, proving that, contrary to what customer services insist, my line is capable of it. xbox live is unusable between 5pm and midnight. i can't wait to ditch them when the contract runs out. my recommendation would be to literally get broadband from ANYONE ELSE, as i can't imagine another company having as slow speeds at peak or as ignorant customer services.
| by lupuss777, 29 August 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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absoulutly terrible. supposed to get upto 8 meg actual speed betwen 80 and 120 kbps. thats right KBPS. i'm not even joking. customer support a joke everytime its you not us suggested taking my phone socket apart lol are they serious. can't even cancel without problems. unlimited downloads is a lie you download to much and they cap your speed, thats not unlimited then! besides it couldn't get any slower. i may as well have my pc connected to two cups and a piece of string. what ever you do don't get virgin please!!!!!! i don't wish the pain on my worst enemy
| by smudgee, 27 August 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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the last months, july august (07)this "up to 8 mb" broadband has got slower and slower, in the evenings it is rubbish til about 1 am. If i knew a better ISP i would change 2 morow, as i am not on contract,but pay £25 a month. What to do, its annoying as I work from home on my pc. Its even more annoying to see Virgins latest advertising banner saying "super fast broadband", what liars. smudgee
| by REC52, 20 August 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Since the merger of NTL and Virgin I have been suffering like everyone else with hopeless speeds! I am on a 2mb package but I dont get 2mb. I have complained about the dreadful cost and the slowness and they have reduced my monthly bill by £10.00 per month! I also have my phone on Virgin but nothing else. Shall I go back to BT I ask myself. However, I need to change so any suggestions please.
| by Daveage, 15 August 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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VM's Customer Service doesnt know the meaning of the term. I lived at a student house with their bb and phone service for two years. Once they cut me off and BT started to bill me for calls and when i tried to cancel at the end of the year when we had all finnished exams i agreed to for the month following... a month after that one i recieve a new invoice? Dumbasses the lot of em - the indian callcenter tried to pass it off like they would refund it next month after theyd taken it? I just cancelled the direct debit. Scammers. If u want a good ISP i reccomend Orange (you can get a better price out of them monthly if you call up) or best of all Nildram (who are always A-rated). ~dave.
| by warren, 30 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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virgin non cable b-band is the worst it is expensive and slow the worst i have had
| by boss.skill, 25 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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Vish: Regarding you comment about speed: "I was on 2 MB with AOL and was getting 230kbps to 240kbps. People out there who don’t know about speeds here’s a quick lesson. You pay for 2MB you will never get 2 mega bits per second. You get around 10% of that. For the people to people sharers out there you know that is impossible that means you will download a movie in 7 mins which is really good. Well you pay 2mb you will get around 0.2 or 0.25 mb per second. If I’m wrong the other 100 people I spoke to on different ISP are all getting ripped off. Thanks please leave a comment on this." 2Mbit/s = 240Kbp/s = 0.25MB/s 10Mbit/s = 1024Kbp/s = 1.024MB/s MB = Mega Bytes Mbit = Mega Bits There are 8 bits in a byte, which means if you have a 2Mb connection, you can expect download speeds maximum of 240kbps or 0.25MB/s, and with your 10Mb connection, 1024Kbps or 1MB/s. The values are correct and no one is being ripped off, this is just how data transfer is described.
| by Eric, 20 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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We had BT then 8meg virgin broadband adsl. BT simply wont leave you alone always on the phone sell sell sell , then there's the new offers for new customers only of course...but we are finding the virgin speed is ever declining slower and slower and slower and thats a one way street down...sometimes we have something else plugged in say a phone or two the the speed plummets so avoid extension phones even with the broadband blocker on it
| by bee sykes, 19 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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i recently changed from aol to virgin media because i was paying aol an astonishing amount each month for unlimited downloads. and to be honest they were spot on low pings fast downloads and uploads. then suddenly my connection almost stopped was running slower than dial up. rang them only to find out that i had been capped for downloading to much on a unlimited download package so i left them and now im regreting it. i should of just sat it out and waited for them to put my speeds up in a months time. because since i been with virgin my online gaming has all but stopped as my pings are of the scale. last night for example i went online to play counter strike source and got a ping of 724ms so needless to say it was major lagging so i had to give it up. i have 3 pc's in the house and only 1 of us can use the net at a time pathetic. VIRGIN MEDIA ARE TOTAL *****. no joy from customer service centre or tech support done everything they told me to and yet it's still crap STAY AWAY
| by unhappy warcraft gamer, 18 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (4) |
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I used to play warcraft with no problems until i switch to ntl / virgin media broadband. I didnt even know what latency was until i switched. Now I cant play any online game at any time other that early morning eg 5am. anyime that anybody else is around its totally unplayable with ping time of over 1000ms and huge 10 sec lag spikes a couple of times a min. Forget their claim of upto 8mb they talk rubbish, at any time people are alive eg 8am-2am we struggle to get 1mb. ive seen it go as low a 4kbs. DONT USE NTL / VIRGIN I will be going back to BT asap. looking forward to playing warcraft again with ping times of 60-200 :D
| by Chris Green, 16 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Have had nothing but problems with Virgin Media. First got overcharged with no refund. Second got very very slow speeds. Third got capped (20% speed) for a week after downloading 300MB!!! at peek time! Do not use Virgin!!!! use a smaller company who values it customers!!
| by ihatevmedia, 15 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (3) |
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without a shadow of a doubt the worst service i have ever had or heard of. It's now sunday night 10pm and my d/l is at 212k with a ping of 369! (My previous provider gave 4.5meg 24 hours a day 7 days a week) and this doesn't get much better on weekday after 5pm. customer service and support is a wait of 30mins at 25p a min. I have just canned this rubbish and and have gone back to NDO. Avoid like the plauge if you like a fast reliable service
| by ihatevmedia, 15 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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Just switched to virgin media after 4 years with NDO. Yes i had a faultess service with NDO 4.5meg 24 hours a day 7 days a week and free customer service that answered within 1 min. So why did i change? Price! i thought virgin would be just as good and i save £10 a month..... Boy was i Wrong. This is without a shadow of a doubt the worst service i have ever had or heard of. Right now on sunday night at 10pm my service is at 212k with a ping 389!!!( speedtest.net result) and this is about the same result i can expect after 5pm every night. Tried calling the service line and and i'm kept on hold for at least 30 mins+ every time at 25p per min! And yes it's true they will blame everything and everyone except themselves for the problem. Well im sick of it and wished i'd never gone anywhere near Virgin Media. I have just cancelled my service and migrated back to NDO wich goes live in a couple of days. Please take my advice and stay well clear of these jokers. The service is a appauling.
| by cdc1287, 10 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (2) |
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absolute rubbish. i keep getting 200+ ping on games past 6.00 pm. before that i get around 30-60. this broadband must be the worst i have ever had. here i come AOL
| by snail, 10 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (1) |
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Migrated to Virgin from Tiscali a few months ago, and after a line test was promised speeds of 6meg. I've found that it's never been more than 3meg and usually I'm lucky to get 500k. Their customer services e-mail to say 'download the new speedtouch drivers', 'disconnect the modem to sychronise it properly', 'plug the modem directly in the phone socket'...nothing works. This is just a poor service, made even more apparent after reading the rest of these comments.
| by Jams O''Donnell, 09 July 2007 | did you find this review helpful? (0) |
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I was a happy NTL (over BT)