Virgin Media Broadband Internet Review
Written by Mike on February 26, 2010 · Filed under Review, Tech
Virgin Media has been around for a while now and I am sure that you have all seen their adverts boasting about on fibre-optic broadband services. The problem I had with this was that it left me begging the question “how good is it compared to say, BT or Sky Broadband‘s phone line based ADSL services? (Let’s not even get into mobile broadband)”.
Well now you are in luck as I switched to Virgin Media’s fibre-optic broadband and have given it a full testing in my own “special way”. On the surface things stack up pretty well. My old service offered “up to 8MB speeds”.
Using a download speed test, what this actually equated to was me receiving around 1 MB/s – Virgin offers 10MB, as standard! The difference is though what this actually equates to speeds on average of around 9 MB/s. That put into perspective means that I can now download a typical MP3 in about 5 seconds or a typical film (800 MB) in 12 mins. This is a huge boost in performance and put an even huger (I know that is not an actual word but it is very fitting) smile on my face.
I personally don’t do massive amounts of downloading, but as I am a user of the fantastic Steam game download service, it has made a marked difference between the time it takes to purchase and then be actually playing the game. I also do a lot of online gaming both on the PC (World of Warcraft) and on my Xbox 360. As the ping to my server based in Birmingham is always around 20ms there is rarely any lag on games I land in and when playing on Xbox Live, 9 times out of 10 I will be the designated host. This makes killing those trash talking noobs that little bit easier!
When I signed up to Virgin Media’s broadband service I was given an installation time within the week and all the equipment for free! For this I had to sign up to a 12 month contract but did not have to sign up to anything else. This meant I got to steer well clear of their other TV service and phone line services, a real bonus as I’m not a fan of those! This is definitely how all services should be. You should be able to pick the best bits from all service providers and leave the bits you don’t want.
I’ve not had any reason to call the Virgin support line since I had it installed, the only people I have talked to were the UK based sales team. So I decided to give there tech team a call with a hard to solve and 100% made up problem (I unplugged the modem from the computer). I had to punch some buttons on audio menus to get through to technical support and was finally put through to a delightful person called “James”.
I had suspicions that this might have been a made up name as James had a very strong Indian accent. My super keen detective skills were confirmed when I asked “James” where he was located and it turned out to be an Indian based call centre. But, credit is awarded where credit is due, he pinged the connection and diagnosed that all their equipment was working fine in under a minute. “James” then took me through the very complicated steps needed to re connect my LAN cable back into my PC. Mind boggling!
So, it all seems sweetness and roses up to this point and now you want to hear the bad points right? Well, let me tell you…. I have not found one yet. The only bad point I can see is that it is only available to limited people based on where they have laid the cables, ie larger urban areas. So if you live with your banjo playing wife/sister out in the sticks, then you probably won’t have access. However, if you want to see if it is available then you can check by entering you post code on the Virgin Media website.
Virgin Media also use Google Mail for their customers’ email needs now too, which as far as I’m concerned is only a good thing as Google’s webmail service is the best out there and means their customers can easily access their email wherever they happen to be.
So, after my “extensive testing” and in my very dubious “expert” opinion I can see no reason why (if available) you should not switch to this fantastic service. I don’t normally like…anything really, but I cannot fault Virgin Broadband for service or value and with speeds nationally of up to 50 MB/s this will definitely satisfy even the hardest of download fiends.
I used to be with BT, but at the time their service only alloweod 2 devices to be connected at any one time. So with phones, iPods, laptops, PC’s all in the house that would be more irritating than i could possibly imagine. So i switched to virgin and recently upgraded to their 50mb package. Impressed
i disagree virgin media’s 50mb is terrible , rang them up everyday for 5weeks they said there was no problems at all when there clearly was. downloading was fine but xbox live was terrible
I disagree with your Virgin Media hype too. By comparison, it isn’t exactly cheap. If you are getting Virgin you may as well get the phone+broadband bundle at the least else you’ll be paying >£11/month for BT’s line rental for phones. Virgin Media phone tariff isn’t exactly very cheap either. Customer service is poor and expensive. And their sales team constantly phone to try and get you on their TV package too, with Sky sports booster an absolute rip off.
Personally, my current ISP (TT) on ADSL has proven much better speeds. Free speed boost to 24Mbs (getting 22Mb download speeds) and really good anytime call package. Retentions got me an even better deal, so currently thanks to loyalty, I am on half the price of when I had Virgin, with a much better service and ONLINE support for those times I don’t wanna call call centres (though TT’s call centres are based in North West – Preston I believe)
Hmmm Mike.. I am happy for you. Your package sounds… well…. it sounds to good to be true… I can only report on the service that I have had from Virgin so it is good to get another point of view. No idea what the “else you’ll be paying >£11/month for BT’s line rental for phone” came from? Because Virgin has its own exchanges and its all done through optics (maybe you are getting them muddled up with Sky?). And I would love to see the screen shots of the 22mb download speeds you get on your ADSL and even better, a copy of the super cheap bills you appear to be getting. This is purely so I can switch providers ASAP and do a review on them as well…
Sorry, I have to disagree too. I can’t wait to leave Virgin – the reason being their throttling of service which appears arbitary and an undocumented part of the contract. I am not only talking about regular downloads but the streaming of BBC programs. Other companies have less draconian ways of dealing with downloads and that is where I am going.
my dad was with TT a his house (2mb) my house has 6mb with TT atm
he changed from sky tv and TT interweb to virgin tv/phone/10mb set up, he was so happy with them that he showed me and now im getting it in my house
when i called i got a lovely (english) woman on the other end of the phone that talked me though everything. I asked for the same package as my old man and she told me that she would give me 50mb for the price of 10mb for the first 6months!!!!!!
im waitting 14 days (thats the sad pat i hate waitting) before they can come round and set everything up but so far im very happy with them and so is my dad whos been with them for about 2 months now. They also have free HD channels 165tv channels about 15hd channels v+hd box free weekend and night calls and 10mb interweb all for £35 a month im a happy bunny on top of all that im getting 50mb for teh price of 10mb for the first 6 months and dad and me got £30 because he recomended me
Virgin Media are the best in the UK so far, if BT can make this “Infinity” Network actually WORK the uploads speed look very satisfying. I am currently on Virgin Media 20mb/s service and they’re excellent.
P.S If you’re going to write a review make sure you know the difference between MB/s and mb/s the difference between bits and bytes is very important. The service they are providing is in bits per second, which writes as 10mb/s not 10MB/s. you can download a 800MB (mega bytes) in 12 minutes on a 10mb/s line, where as on a 10MB/s line it would take 1 minute and 20 seconds. Get it right!