BT is faster than Virginmedia Broadband

[henpecked]

Hi guys and gals,

As somebody who runs a website and has had very slow speeds from Virgin for 8 months I decided to have BT Broadband activated on my BT line.
After 3 months now of running both services in parrallel on the same machines I can honestly say that BT broadband is 4 times faster than Virginmedia, is much more stable and the customer service is fantastic.
I am not a BT worker or anything similar, just a totally fed up Virginmedia customer.
I have the XL TV package, paid for my upgrade to 10mb on virgin before it was given free, and have the virgin phone (as well as Bt phone).

At the moment I am running and paying for both services with Bt and Virgin. This is partly due to my wife originally wanting BT and me wanting Virgin, and my need for an internet connection for my website that I could rely on.

Well in the next 2 months after my experiences with Virgin & BT , I WILL be cancelling ALL my services with Virgin and sticking with BT Broadband, transferring to SKy TV and have only the BT phone line.
So if any virginmedia customer service people are reading this then it's goodbye from and a goodbye from her.

All statements above can be proven

Ian

There are too many variables but the majority of people receive faster broadband from Virgin, but there will inevitably be those that find BT to be faster.

[henpecked]

Originally Posted by Jameseh

There are too many variables but the majority of people receive faster broadband from Virgin, but there will inevitably be those that find BT to be faster.

I agree to a point but most people on my street approx 3 miles from virginmedia's office's and main control centre at colwic,k Notts, would expect better. We are all now considering changing back to BT as getting an engineer out is impossible. You phone up, their coming a certain day, no one turns up, you phone back, they have no record of previous call etc etc etc.
It's just poor all round.

[broadbandking]

It might faster for you, which if your happy then great, but not everyone gets a fast BT internet connection, I had BT for a few year's and all I got was 1.1Mb and they couldn't go any faster, I have had VM 2,4,10,20 and 50Mb and always has fast rock solid service.

So I am glad you have connection worth the money you pay, but not everyone is in the same boat.

henpecked, some specifics would be useful.

For instance, were you on National or Cable Broadband, and if so, what package?

Which BT package did you compare this with, and was the cost like for like?

This info will help CF'ers have a more informed discussion on your post (imho).

[Placemat]

I have just moved from a 0.9Mbit/s BT line to a 20 Mbit/s line with Virgin Media.

Given that my old telephone exchange isn't even 21CN enabled yet, I will be amazed if BT will be able to offer me 10Mbit/s in the next 5 years.

I have nothing but contempt for BT in the way that they treat rural and sub-urban customers.

[kwikbreaks]

The problem I found with BT was an inability to fix a line fault - 5 visits and it was exactly the same as when I first complained. If they had fixed it I would still be with them for phone and on O2 LLU rather than their abysmal offering naturally. The line would have managed ~ 16 or 17Mbps so still less than my 20Mbps VM though.

With a phone line so long that it will only run at ~ 1Mbps it really doesn't make any difference what BT do at the exchange unless they take fibre to the local cabs which is very unlikely for rural exchanges.

The telephone infrastructure was designed for voice and has been press-ganged into providing broadband up to 24Mbps on very short lines with an average of maybe 4 or 5 Mbps which is a remarkable achievement.

The CATV infrastructure was obviously designed for providing TV and as that already required much more bandwidth than voice had a head start when adapted for broadband delivery as well as TV.

The phone infrastructure is going to top out at around 40Mbps with the BT Infinity product but cable is already trialling 200Mbps. I can't see me ever going back to BT unless VM foul things up for me big time.

[darkm]

Originally Posted by kwikbreaks

The problem I found with BT was an inability to fix a line fault - 5 visits and it was exactly the same as when I first complained. If they had fixed it I would still be with them for phone and on O2 LLU rather than their abysmal offering naturally. The line would have managed ~ 16 or 17Mbps so still less than my 20Mbps VM though.

With a phone line so long that it will only run at ~ 1Mbps it really doesn't make any difference what BT do at the exchange unless they take fibre to the local cabs which is very unlikely for rural exchanges.

The telephone infrastructure was designed for voice and has been press-ganged into providing broadband up to 24Mbps on very short lines with an average of maybe 4 or 5 Mbps which is a remarkable achievement.

The CATV infrastructure was obviously designed for providing TV and as that already required much more bandwidth than voice had a head start when adapted for broadband delivery as well as TV.

The phone infrastructure is going to top out at around 40Mbps with the BT Infinity product but cable is already trialling 200Mbps. I can't see me ever going back to BT unless VM foul things up for me big time.

I can see plenty of people going back to BT. With the BT infinity upgrades happening, up to 40mbps is not bad and especially if you do get it, plus the upload speed is greater than what virgin offer. Not to mention its cheaper to have sky tv than it is virgin. Why wouldnt you change provider...

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by darkm

Why wouldnt you change provider...

Well I wouldn't personally because they are totally clueless and it would cost me more to get my BT line reinstated than to upgrade to 50Mbps with VM.

Upstream? I don't run any servers and don't use torrents. My current upstream usage is < 5% of downstream and a lot of that is because I have programs uploading weather satellite pictures and weather station data 24x7 to a website I run.

Then there is the 40GB cap that was mentioned above but has since been deleted which I comfortably exceed every month. I think the 40GB is correct as I've seen a complaint elsewhere about it (this is the supposedly unlimited deal not the pointless 20GB one).

I rarely watch TV so neither Sky nor VM offerings interest me.

Then finally there is the minor problem that Infinity isn't available in my area and no date has been set for when it will be.

The only use I am likely to have for BT Infinity is for blagging a better deal from VM

"BT is faster than Virginmedia Broadband"

One should read the following independent review of ISP Broadband speeds in Britain, done by Ofcom and see which ISP performs better overall - The review was about customers not always getting the speeds advertised, Virgin Media faired better than DSL providers:-

http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2010/07/27...rtised-speeds/

[Harlow CM20]

Not sure why you're rolling on floor laughing Mick?

When it comes to sending information on a VM connection it is much slower than BT in general.

Sure VM has the ability to Download at superfast speed but that's not what makes a great connection in my opinion.

One could argue that VM is the fastest and one could argue that BT is the fastest but as far as I've notice nobody has stated the reason in this thread for one being faster than the other.

When VM finally upgrade their customers to an upload size that approaches BT's on a like for like package I will roll on floor laughing with you but until then....

Originally Posted by Harlow CM20

Not sure why you're rolling on floor laughing Mick?

When it comes to sending information on a VM connection it is much slower than BT in general...

Not here it isn't - I have both A VM connection and BT ADSL connection - the BT connection is way slower than it's intended speed for me all the time than my VM Broadband connection which remains consistantly just below the intended speed.

[Harlow CM20]

I see, must be area dependent then I guess.

On my 10Mb VM connection my max upload speed is around 512KB compare that with BT's 10Mb connection and I see more than double the upload speed, 1.1Mb upload.

Maybe that's why the OP is claiming BT is faster, I know what I'd rather have, 10% of my DL or a mere 5%.

Hurry with them upgrades VM so I can join Mick and we can roll on floor laughing together.

[alwaysabear]

I have a 20 mb connection the average download speed over the last year is 16.49 mb and upload is 0.73mb. These readings are usually taken early or late evening, so I am very pleased. BT in my area can only dream of such speed I believe there average speed here is about 4mb .
It always makes me die with laughter every time a Sky rep tries to tell me I can get up to 20mb with them, but when pressed for the average download speed the go quiet and say good bye.

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by Harlow CM20

.........

When VM finally upgrade their customers to an upload size that approaches BT's on a like for like package I will roll on floor laughing with you but until then....

Free VM upgrades to a ratio of 10:1 have already started to be rolled out I understand.