General : Is Virgin still crap?

[boroboi]

I probably already know the answer to this question but is VM still crap?

I've been with ADSL providers now for the last 10 years or so because i had endless years of arguing with Virgin about their jitter fest of a connection and intermittent speed issues due to over subscribing etc etc.

Have things changed or am i still better off on ultrafast fibre?

Looking to switch ISPs shortly.

[SnoopZ]

It's never been crap for me.

I’ve been off-net for a little over 18 years now

While I have no firsthand experience of how VM is (they were still calling themselves NTL when I had them), my impression from reading what people say here is that the technology is fundamentally good but their investment in customer service is poor and their installation/maintenance staff are too few and overworked. So if you get a problem, it is more likely to go spectacularly wrong, but problems, or customer service fails, are by no means inevitable.

[SnoopZ]

On the occasion I've had a broadband issue their VM forums have always been fantastic checking my connection and booking an engineer but I avoid phoning up.

[Synthetic]

It depends what part of it was "crap" for you, there's always going to be areas that are over utilised etc but in general they've been reliable for me

[pip08456]

I've never had a problem.

[admars]

it can be hit and miss and depends on the type of problem

my v+ box died, contacted support new box in a couple of day, lost my tv shows which is annoying, but that was a quick turnaround, no complaints.

internet for the most part is great, fast and as a whole reliable....

BUT, last year had a problem, which involved several engineer visits to my house, several new modems, despite the engineers "knowing" it was an area problem, and eventually they fixed the local area problem, but that took a few months, where every day, i'd have an internet outage of 10 mins, or an hour or so!

However, that was an exception, and apart from that mess where I was v close to cancelling and moving to Toob, it's been fine last 10+ years I've lived here

[Mr K]

BB is fine, tv overpriced, and CS has got even worse.

[Saul's Grandad]

We've had very few problems but when we have we've usually received good customer service from either phoning them or posting on the VM forum. The only exceptions have been when phoning CS and getting through to one of the overseas call centres when the agents seem to stick to a script rigidly and don't really listen if something is said off-script.

[RichardCoulter]

They have been the most complained about provider and were spoken to by Ofcom.

Ironically, most complaints are about the way that complaints are handled!

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

They have been the most complained about provider and were spoken to by Ofcom.

Ironically, most complaints are about the way that complaints are handled!

Your statement is not congruent with actuality…

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-tele...-tv-complaints

They were the most complained about provider for Pay TV, but not for Broadband and Telephony - Talk Talk, Vodafone, & Shell Energy had more Broadband complaints, Talk Talk and Shell Energy had more landline complaints, and BT Mobile had more Mobile complaints.

I believe that VM really need to up their Customer Service, especially their complaints handling, but I think you are letting your animus towards VM colour your statements.

[roughbeast]

Crap is a relative thing and depends on what you want out of your broadband and ISP. This is my experience

Until 12 months ago I was with Virgin Media FTTC on their fastest band and with two V6 boxes for TV. I switched to Vodafone/CityFibre Gigafast - FTTP. I switched to VF because I wanted their 900Mb symmetrical service to run my free Plex server for 100 clients.

First up, in my experience, Virgin Media's customer service is crap, with poor training of many operatives and poor co-ordination between call centres and departments. There are bright spots if you get the right operative, but this is a bit of a lottery. Offshore operatives tend to be the least satisfactory. The web-based official help forum is pretty good, with experts and access to engineering appointments available if you are happy to wait long enough for a response. However, Vodafone customer services are even CRAPPER with none of the bright spots. They are shambolic, often lacking empathy and nothing gets done unless you call multiple times. Web-based forums are just a moaning shop with no company experts.

Secondly, with VM and VF I always got/get the paid-for up and down speed, with a bit extra. This includes peak periods. Perhaps I live in an non-centended area. However, with VM latency was always a bit high at 13ms and jitter around 2 or 3. VF latency is acceptable at 5-7ms with jitter <1. With both companies outages are a rarity. I have had no outages with VF since I joined them. Please note that VF are currently upgrading their BNGs to a disaggregated model. Customers might find that they aren't on their local BNG for a time, perhaps being routed throgh a BNG hundreds of miles away. This leads to latency of >20ms in some cases.

I can't tell you anything about routers or Wifi because I use my own routers supporting iMesh and Ethernet. Setting up your own router is easier with VM because their SuperHub has a modem-only mode. With VF you have to ask for your user name and password and tweak settings. VF do provide a 4G dongle as backup for if the main connection fails. If you are using your own router you will require a spare USB port.

Telephone with VF is VoIP, supported by their router. If you want to use your own router for phone calls you will need to subscribe to a different VoIP provider. VM provide you with a seperate telephone socket on the wall splitting off from their coax which carries phone, TV and broadband.

VF have no TV service. VM's TV is very good with as much choice as Sky with great capacity for recording and watching because of multiple tuners in their 2TB V6 boxes. V6 boxes in your house talk to each other, sharing settings and recordings.

That's pretty much it.

Originally Posted by boroboi

I probably already know the answer to this question but is VM still crap?

Internet wise, its never been crap for me, so 'no'.

[Skie]

You say jittery, which is usually a feature of DOCSIS. They haven't yet moved away from that, so yes, it'll still have jitter. FTTP is the best readily available connection type if you want the least amount of jitter and VM are supposed to be transitioning to it eventually - but it won't happen quickly!

Will it be better than you had previously? Perhaps if there was a fault or overutilization, or you get a new hub without a better chipset. But the only way to tell would be to try them again and bail out within the cancellation period if you aren't happy.

[jfman]

Odd issue here, odd issue there. No dramas for me. Had them and Sky, happy to chase who gives me the better offer.