Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

I've been with Virgin (NTL) since 2000 and had broadband with them since 2001. In the last 17 years BT or any other ISP have offered no real competition to Virgin Media, it wasn't until last year BT / any other ISP was able to offer any more than 2mbps in my area.

Now i'm fully aware no other ISP (in my area anyway) can really compete with Virgin until they start offering FTTP, which i bet is easily another half decade away, if not more going by the amount of time it took FTTC to become available in my area.

That said I am starting to think i might be happy enough with FTTC, the box on the street is two houses down from me, so i'd probably get near enough the estimated speed.

Plusnet estimate this to be 79/80Mb down and 19/20Mb upload for £33.50 a month.

Come this November Virgin will charge:

£38 - 100Mb down, 6Mb upload
£43 - 200Mb down, 12Mb upload (Pretty sure I get 10Mb though)
£48 - 300Mb down, 20Mb upload

I'm currently on the 200Mb package, the download speed is nice for those occasions i download a new game on Steam or the Xbox One, however is not really essential. I think anything above 100Mb is fast these days.

Its more the upload speed that bothers me, especially as i'll randomly host a game server and have started to make backups to the cloud.

Yet i know with any other ISP whatever they offer now will still likely be the same in 5 years time.

It's just ashame Virgin keep having price increases and don't seem to care about loyalty, or the things i do such as upload speed, IPV6 and a static ip on home connections.

I'm curious as to what others think, do you still think Virgin are worth it in 2017?

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

sure do. As much as I love to have a whinge every now and again I have always stuck with VM because at the end of the day it is the best I can get, and they know it, which is why sometimes (or more often than not) they treat people like **** because they know they can get away with it. Just when you think BT et al are about to catch up with VM, VM do major tier increase keeping themselves ahead of the game so unless cost is an issue, you aren't going to benefit from switching isp.
Although upload speed is the sticking point atm, plans are well underway for docsis3.1 and that is going to revolutionise things as we know it. Last time I checked they were supposed to be rollingit out next year.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

As you are so near the cabinet you'll be looking at 1Gb speeds within 5 yrs under G.fast which is being rolled out now. I don't know what the upload will be for it but it will be better than VM can offer ATM.

At the least under G.fast you would be able to get the 300/30 service.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

I guess if we're talking within 5 years, Docsis 3.1 should be well rolled out, so pretty much like for like.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Quite so, but with cable TV on the decline due to streaming services it will all come down to value for money for BB services.

When it does come to like for like (which it will) then the only deciding factor will be price.

Retentions will be busy!

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

I hadn't read too much about G.fast, however the two tiers seem to be:

330Mbps down, 50Mbps upload
160Mbps down, 30Mbps upload

From looking at this blog here.

Which to be fair looks pretty good today. I think by the G.fast becomes a thing a lot of people can get, Virgin's lowest tier will probably be more than the highest currently available on G.fast though.

I would like to see FTTP companies like Hyperoptic service more areas, that really is fiber to your house, no messing about trying to find new ways to keep copper wires about.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Yeah, can't see virgin offering 50 upload, not without some ridiculous extra charge anyway.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Had 80/20 at home and got the full speed but went down to 40/10 because it was more than enough for our two person household, even though I am a heavy downloader and we stream stuff too.

My sisters family has one kid streaming netflix, the other youtube on her phone while they stream something too and 40/10 is enough for that scenario. The only issue they have is when they do the same actions over wifi at the same time, which doesn't seem to an issue with interference or wifi frequency saturated but rather the supplied router not being up to the job.


Miss the 20 upload when sharing video files and such like that but other than that until 4k streaming with minimal compression becomes normal I don't think faster speeds are needed unless you have a house with lots of kids of the right age utilising it.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

I don't think it's worth basing your considerations on what might be coming down the line from either Virgin or BT. Particularly as those things are more than 18+ months away, putting you well out of contract by then anyway.

Go with what's best/more suitable for you now. Don't be loyal for the sake of it, if Sky/Plusnet has a great offer for you and it meets your needs, go with them. You can always come back to Virgin later.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

I would move, but would only get "up to" 17Mb/s from other providers - like going back to the 20th Century.

Update - just checked the BT website, and according to them, I could get "up to" 7Mb/s...

Just downgraded to 100Mb/s (don't really need 200).

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Yet many gamers found they had better ping and latency on a slower adsl connection than on virgins congested fibre. Horses for courses.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

The FTTC 80 meg gets quickly eroded if you subscribe to TV services that come down the Internet wire.

VM TV comes into a separate box on a different frequency from the Broadband.

So the answer to the question depends on what you want to get out of the connection.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

I've had cable internet since 2001 starting with Telewest's Blueyonder. My VM speed is 150Mbps down, 10Mbps up. It's a reliable service in my area (UB4). I can also get BT Infinity's 76Mbps down, 19Mbps up, which would be good as I back up files to my cloud provider.

But - there are stories of BT Infinity's upload speeds dropping well down, so I'm hanging fire until something else such as G.fast is available.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

There is nowhere else at the moment I can get a 200/20 connection with line rental included for £31 a month. I used to have the 300Mb however it was going wasted as I was making little use of it.

When G.Fast becomes available in my area that will change as it will likely offer better and faster uploads than VM.

Still the Gamer tier does me fine right now, as long as VM doesn't start applying STM then I doubt I will be shifting for quite some time.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

G.fast's major limitation is range. I have a pod on my cabinet and it's no use to me as I'm about 150m from the cabinet in a straight line but about 500m of cable.

As it uses higher frequencies than the current FTTC / VDSL services it attenuates away more quickly too. If you aren't getting full 80/20 on FTTC you aren't going to benefit from G.fast.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

That's not strictly true. It's true if the G.fast pod is in the cab, but isn't the entire point of G.fast that they move that pod closer to the premises? In the same vein that your ADSL speed (based on distance to the exchange) was not indicative of your FTTC speed, as the distances are very different, with mostly winners but the occasional loser.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Well those prices are good for you. For some reason I'm charged £55 odd for 200 Vivid Gamer & Phone. Now it is going up I'll be charged £58 odd. NO WAY for me. So I'll be downgrading. What is the best for me..100mb or 70mb..Was on 100mb before I upgraded on an 18 month contract. Fed Up with VM....Cheers.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

If you downgrade to 100Mbps, your upload will be only 6Mbps. Will that upload speed matter to you?

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

70Mb tier is only for those that were on 50 and got the free upgrade. You can't downgrade to that, only 100 IIRC.

There is a 50mb tier as a holding offer.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

That was the point of G.fast, however BT are using it as a cabinet-based technology.

There are no plans to use deeper fibre in the network until at least 2020. BT can hit their >100Mb coverage targets and tick the boxes without spending the extra on fibre and power.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Unfortunately Virgin Media is the only broadband I can really get. We were with Sky broadband for a little bit but there is something broken with the wiring in the house and only the cable works properly.

That is the problem when you live in a house that is over 150 years old and hasn't the wiring done for decades.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

It's still mainly in trials, isn't it?

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

It's in 'pilot' stage - early commercial deployment. A bunch of nodes will be released either next month or October.

They did actually test a variety of deployments, underground, on poles, fibre to the remote node, intercepting lines at a junction point, and fibre to the distribution point, fibre to the last point carrying multiple lines, but settled on deploying G.fast at the cabinet for cost and speed of deployment.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

It does seem a bit odd to spend a load of money getting fibre to the cabinets, then spend a load more extending it only a few hundred feet to the poles. Hopefully they do the sensible thing after rolling g.fast out to the cabinets: start to plan FTTH proper.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

My sky and by are both out of contract so I was considering a switch to virgin.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

It's often not just a few hundred feet. My parents have FTTC and the distance to the cabinet is 1000m, so fibre deeper into the network would help in situations like that.

As you say FTTH Is the better option for performance.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Are you sure about the 1000m? The attenuation on coax would exceed limits and would destroy the higher frequencies.

Fibre deeper into the network (I.e. To the daisy-chained cabs or at least to the launch cab) would assist with noise reduction but not with the 1000m problem.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

This was about VDSL & G.Fast technology and not VM.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Ah OK. FTTC is a total bad value shambles in my view that only the desperate (those without access to VM) would need to subscribe to.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Did you say that with a straight face? I would always choose a FTTC option over Virgin Media, simply because VM always has always had congestion and latency issues that plague it's customers. In fact, I would rather go with a 4G option than take choose VM again.Far from desperate or without access to VM. Funny stuff Seph! :D

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

We probably sit on separate sides of an experience fence. My VM segment has no latency nor overutilization issues and never has.

I suppose my view is coloured by the aluminium cable I've got between house and PCP.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

But your suggestion that people would only take FTTC if they were desperate or had no VM option was totally disingenuous basing it on the bad wiring from your house to the cabinet.

If you have never had any latency or congestion issues, you are truly blessed and I would suggest in the minority. My own and friends experience of VM along with lots of evidence online (come on, we all know the VM congestion issues well) is not repeated in such numbers for FTTC in general. More isolated incidents with odd ISP's rather than the repeated congestion at VM due to polices of upgrading areas only after the problem has been an issue for a long period.

Of course that is inter-spaced once every 5 years with VM shouting about doing major upgrades and actually being pro-active in some area's for a short period before falling back in to the repeat cycle of congestion again. All except those few and far between magic lucky areas such as yours ;)

So my opinion still stands as to the question in this thread, VM is not worth it. The hassle or the extra speed. Even before you throw the faster FTTC speeds in to the mix.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Been with Virgin for 8 years and never had any congestion or latency issues (outside of short lived faults). Can't comment on VDSL as never had it.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Similar for 6 years now. People's experience here clearly varies, and congestion is a problem in some areas for people and not others.

Virgin Media really need to jump on congestion issues faster than they have traditionally, as that seems to be the key detractor from their service. If they could anticipate and/or respond to congestion issues quickly, why wouldn't they always win over a current FTTC / VDSL service?

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

People's experience will always vary. The difference is that BTWholesale tend to sort out congestion issues within weeks (days in some cases) rather than months or years.

VM have earned a reputation on this justified or not, the ball's in their court to try and persuade otherwise.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

totally agree - it's time VM were more proactive about this for sure

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

Brand loyalty is daft. Go for whatever service is best for you - and what's best for you will vary on needs, region, demand, etc.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

People tend to congregate to forums because they have issues so there is an inherent bias against products/vendors. (Now I'm not saying this isn't warranted or the issues aren't major.)

What is hard to judge is what percentage of users are experiencing issues and how that issue affects the majority of users. Abstracting an issue - say a car has round indicators while others use square. There could be a vocal minority complaining about the shape of the indicator and how it spoils the look of the car while the majority don't care as they can't see it from inside and as long as the right one flashes when needed that's what matters. Of course if it was shown that round indicators have some inherent weakness that square doesn't there is more of a case and if sufficient people find that weakness unacceptable the maker may need a rethink, but it's not simple to move from round to square (or visa versa) and keep everything else running while changeover happens.

Same is true for BB. One vendor may be weak in an area important to you but if the majority don't care the vendor is unlikely spend resource unless that area is indicative of some other issue that will need to be fixed. And any fix can be complicated, you may fix for some then break something else for others. All vendors have issues and most are trying to sort out issues but within budgets and technical challenges that can be very complex.

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

well said dude and I agree for the most part. There are those rare occasions though where (or maybe not so rare) $$$ comes before everything else and common sense and customer service go out the window and everyone gets screwed. Shub1 is the prime example of this; it never should have been released to start off with and with every firmware upgrade they broke something else and it didn't only affect a "minority of customers".

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

I became a cable customer for TV in 1998 in the London Borough of Haringey, moved from BT to Cable London for broadband in 2001, and have always had cable broadband since then. The most relevant period is from 2005 when I moved into my house. The broadband service has mainly been very good, the worst outage being the time some years ago when my TV and broadband abruptly stopped. It took days for VM to get a technician out, who fixed the problem. He said that my next door neighbours had had cable installed, and the installer had nicked my connection. Not pleased....

Re: Virgin Broadband still worth it?
 

That sort of happened to me. I didn't lose service but speeds dropped off. Seems engineer either called to another house to fix or a new install had swapped with my "good" connection to please their customer.

I think that having tidier boxes and better engineers now means things are done better so we all (in our street) get better service rather than relying on simple swaps at the cabinet.

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On a related note my brother in law living out in the sticks was getting really, really poor speeds, much worse than expected. Eventually an engineer with some knowledge came out and found the connecting cottage and "nicked" or tapped onto one of his pair of connections for their ADSL. A simple snip to remove that and he got something much better.