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Virgin broadband

Overview

  • Broadband speeds from 10Mb to super-fast 100Mb
  • Great savings on offer if you bundle broadband with TV and phone
  • Good special offers for new customers
  • If you aren't in a cable area, Virgin National (ADSL broadband) is a good alternative
  • No fair use policy but packages with unlimited downloads may be restricted by acceptable use and traffic management policies

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Broadband Genie Home Broadband Awards

Broadband Genie Award WinnerBroadband Genie Award Winner

It was a great year for Virgin Media at the Broadband Genie Home Broadband Awards 2011.

Not only did it pick up two of the seven awards on offer, it also grabbed two runners-up accolades too - the only broadband provider to be named in four of the seven categories.

Our speed tests spoke for themselves. with almost 40,000 results from throughout 2010, Virgin Media was way ahead of the rest with an average across all its speed points of well over 7Mb. If it's fast broadband you're looking for, and are in a cabled area, it's impossible to ignore.

Our panel of expert broadband panellists also rated it highly, with a win for its Best Bundled Broadband and a runner-up award for Most Innovative Provider. And Broadband Genie site visitors approve too, rating its forthcoming TiVo online television service the second most anticipated product of 2011.

In our OnePoll survey, Virgin Media can also be reasonably proud of its results. Customer service and tech support averaged out around 65 per cent approval rating - stronger than its big rivals such as BT, TalkTalk and Sky but behind the likes of BE and O2. However on speed, reliability and general recommendations, scores in the mid 70s put Virgin Media up amongst the strongest of the year's contenders.

About Virgin

Virgin Media is the latest company to nail its colours on the UK's cable network - the only real challenger to BT's telephone exchanges used by every other fixed-lined broadband provider. And they're making a pretty good fist of it too: cable speeds now run an 'up to' 100Mb, more than double what BT's fastest lines can currently manage, and you can throw TV, nobile and phone lines into the deal too. Support is about average for fixed-line broadband, which means it isn't great. However it is free, with tech support lines open 24/7 (to 'global' call centres).

It's been quite a journey for cable in the UK. US company Telewest hoovered up a lot of smaller UK cable firms in the 80s and 90s, while the privatised Independent Broadcasting Authority - bought by CableTel and all renamed NTL in 1998 - began doing the same. NTL and Telewest merged in 2006, with NTL:Telewest then merging with Virgin Mobile in 2007. The now-named Virgin Media cable broadband service now has more than 3.7 million subscribers, about a million behind BT.

Virgin Media plans to take its cable coverage to more than 50 per cent of premises across England and it's not far off. Its 100Mb 'super-fast' broadband was available to four million homes as of June 2011, with plans to roll out the service across its entire network - it also has 10Mb, 30Mb and 50Mb offerings. And for those of you who think 100Mb broadband is still too slow, Virgin Media announced it was going to start testing the world's fastest broadband in April 2011 - 1.5Gb! Now that really would be the mother of all broadband, at least by UK standards.

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Customer reviews

Show all 769 Virgin Media broadband reviews»

  • unhappy

    by Hrothdain at 00:49 on 24 Jan 2012Report abuse

    I have Virgin media Broadband in my home and it has been useless from the very start,

    First of all the tech who was supposed to install our hub, went AWOL and reported that he installed the hub, when he in fact didn't, Then when we organized for another one to be installed the tech was late... by two days.

    From there things went down hill, the internet drops out on average about 7 times a day. the speed is appalling, for a company which claims to be the fastest Broadband provider in the UK. We are paying for 50mb, we get about 0.5mb. when i looked into this i found some information that talks about 'traffic management' which basically means even if your paying for unlimited Broadband, its not... This is to ensure everyone gets a fair usage of broadband, However if im paying for the higher package, doesn't that mean im entitled to use the internet a little bit more? i mean, that's what im paying for after all.

    After dealing with a poor severance for weeks, we called the customer severance team, because there is no other way to contact them, which is a fantastic idea for any company, if you don't care about the happiness of your customers, which clearly Virgin Media do not. whilst calling we had to wait 20 minutes to talk to anyone. Nice cheeky way to make more money from people. when we finally got through, they had a look at our hub, changed a few settings and said it would be fine, no sooner was the phone put down did the internet drop out again. so after many more phone calls later, we were told it was a line fault and would be fixed in 6 days.

    2 weeks later... the Broadband is still poor so we call again, this time getting through to a guy who says we were lied to and this problem could take months to fix. obviously not happy about this we complained, to which the kind man said he would set up an account where we would not be billed until the problem was fixed, we were pleased with this, after all why are we paying for something we cant use?

    so we put up with the naff connection knowing that we are not being charged for it until its fixed. Then we got our bill, and we were charged, for something that does not work to an acceptable standard. so, when this annoying little contract is over i will be so happy to be rid of the worst provider i have ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

    Fastest Broadband ever? sorry guys a hamster in a wheel powering a tiny little router could provide a better speed.

    to anyone who wishes to join virgin media and reads this. for the love of god. choose someone else.

  • happy

    by sam dunbar at 17:09 on 20 Jan 2012Report abuse

    ive had vigin media since they took over telewest and ive never had and bother whats so ever bar for one on their indian call centre who hadnt a clue what i was on about or cared but after being rudely cut off i phoned up and the next girl had my modem up and running again in minutes altho being unemployed now find it a bit expensive to keep going the i doubt i would change to other isp providers who are just crap

  • Matt - EditorEditor - Matt

    by Matt at 22:11 on 19 Jan 2012 | registered | 764 postsReport abuse

    @John G

    I really would strongly recommend you install some kind of anti-virus software, for several reasons.

    a) Some viruses steal login information, giving access to email, bank accounts and so on. They operate quietly so you may have no idea this was happening.

    b) Viruses can use your system for file storage, which could hold anything from pirated material to extremely unpleasant content, or may turn it into a botnet using your connection to attack other systems.

    c) Copying files to external backup may also mean copying a virus-infected file.

    You do not need to use Norton or McAfee. Search for Microsoft Security Essentials, it's a free AV application with no subscription, and being an official Microsoft tool it integrates smoothly with Windows and has a very negligible impact on performance.

  • neutral

    by John G at 12:08 on 19 Jan 2012Report abuse

    Hi all,
    just want to add this to the mix!!
    Have been having same problem with streaming Sky tv through xbox (hard wired to new virgin black hub router) I am with virgin and had 10mb package, Xbox was constantly Buffering up and when did speed test (speedtest.net) was getting less than 2mb!!! After constant calls to tech guys in INDIA!! (151) and handing over remote access to them they did every ping/pong and dong test (very technical i know ;0)) you could think off they told me that it was because I was running my computer without any anti virus? he then asked me to connect a laptop to the hub and went through the same process yet again and came back with the same conclusion?
    1. both computers were working fine the day before.
    2. I do not install anti virus as I save all important information on external hard drive and find installing norton or mcfee on slows the computer down so it some what defeats the objective
    3. when I get a virus I just F10 in restore to factory settings and its like putting in a new engine and only takes 30mins or so.
    4. the Xbox is connected directly to the hub and is solely dependant on the internet speed provided by the ISP
    5. low and behold after being on phone to Tech guys (Budda or what ever his name was) within 1 Hour of getting off the phone my totally infected computers (not) where running at 10 mb?

    So next day rang 150 Customer services and went through automated sequence to tell them that I wanted to leave virgin and got through to a very nice lady and after explaining the above she said that I was getting Traffic Managed (which I knew nothing about and Tech guys never even considered this or maybe don't even know about it!!!)
    Below is a link to Virgin Traffic management Policy but may I also add that pretty much all ISP's have a Traffic Management Policy which could well explain your slow speed internet connection.

    http://www.virginmedia.com/images/tm-table-su-large.jpg

    After a long winded conversation they have upgraded me to 20mb and are saving me £3 a month with a free upgrade to 50mb coming soon.
    I live in Grimsby for my sins and no I do not play COD on Xbox ;0) and as it happens our virgin internet speeds are 1 of the highest in the country.
    hope this helps some people out there ;0)

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