UKC

Anyone using Virgin fibre to get their internet access? It's available in our street and from looking at all the comparison sites and other companies, it only seems to be about a fiver or so more a month than things like BT unlimited, but with a guaranteed 46 to 51 average mbps as opposed to 17 I think it is with BT. We don't need a landline so I don't really need a phone package with broadband, or sport on TV or any of that palava. I quite like the fibre deal in that it's just 30 quid a month for that - no line rental as a big part of the cost etc etc, but would be very happy to hear from people who have either had a good experience or poor with Virgin. Also any other suggestions of good broadband deals I should look at before signing up with Virgin (or indeed anyone else).

In reply to TobyA:

My only experience of Virgin's internet service is the truly epic amount of junk mail they send out almost daily trying to get us to subscribe.

Either they're getting too much money from current subscribers or they don't spend enough on them. Either way Mr Branson can go to hell. Come to think of it he's probably already there.

In reply to TobyA:

I have Virgin Fibre and it is amazing! Originally I think we had the 30Mb package which we did actually get, then they did the whole 'We're doubling your speeds for free' thing, and they actually did!

We have the biggest bundle TV package so not sure what speeds they are promising, but last time I checked on my laptop (over wifi) it was 112Mb.

They've almost always consistently met or exceeded their promised speeds with us, so it's nice to be able to recommend a Broadband company rather than slate them (not long ago with BT my Dad was getting 0.3Mb/s download!!).

Virgin is very fast and reliable in Sheffield. 50mb/s consistently.

If you do decide to get it then drop me a pm first as we can both get £50 thru their recommend a friend scheme.

In reply to Dan Arkle:

Dan - that sounds like a good deal! Will do.

In reply to TobyA:

On Virgin cable and have been for years before they took over this network.
Always been excellent, good service, problems quickly sorted, very fast, typically 100Mb+ and not on the fastest service.

If you go on, check each year since they have offers which regular customers do not get, tell them you want to leave and maybe re apply and you get put through to their Customer Retention Dept! who will give you a loyalty discount.

In reply to TobyA:

I had virgin (well NTL as it was back then) with a 512k connection and over the last 15 or so years I have flicked back and forth between virgin and various other bt/copper line services across 3 different houses in 2 different areas of Leeds.
Pudsey was top notch, Beeston on the other hand though fast was very prone to hanging, this was in 2 different houses so not am instalation fault.
My last one was the 50meg service that came out great on speed tests but real world use, ie Web pages I got better results on a 16 Meg (never better than 7) from Sky on the BT infrastructure.
Currently on the Sky fiber and it is great.
For comparison a mate of mine lives in Pudsey on virgin and it's very fast and stable.

In reply to TobyA:

I pay £39 a month for 150mb/unlimited. Get about 158 normally, about 30 on VPN. Nothing to complain about, it's been great. Got £120 cashback through Quidco as well.

In reply to TobyA:

I've been a virgin for years. They have a crap customer service when chatting to v them.

However their Broadband service is fookin excellent and as long as I have virgin Broadband where I live I will never return to BT or BT type Landline service.

The only problem is, and virgin are up front about this is, that they do Traffic Shaping which means that they will slow down your download speeds if you do a lot of torrents during the day.

It's no hardship as speeds return to normal in the small hours.

I also pay a monthly fee for a private virtual network because I like my privacy. The only drawback to this is that I never have my download speeds slowed down.

Yay

In reply to TobyA:

Another happy customer here on 50 Mb.

One thing that may either interest or annoy, is their content filtering. If you have kids, it's quite good. If you like more, erm, 'gentlemanly pursuits', then it may annoy.

For example if one tries to go to a dodgy site you get:
"This site has been blocked by Web Safe. It's listed as having content that’s inappropriate for children, involving either pornography, hate, crime, drugs, violence, hacking, self harm or suicide."

It's not a substitute for parenting, and kids can easily find other dodgy material. But its good as a basic filter. For those that are interested in these sort of things, it works at the DNS level. So it will block against HTTP/S and in theory will block torrents from certain pirate themed domains.

I believe you can get the filter turned off, and there are ways around it that don't involve a vpn.

In reply to dread-i:

>

Not having children of my own, I am not a fan of my ISP being my moral compass in what I can view. Obviously I would never check out pawn, so my VPN of choice is AirVPN. It gets rather favourable reviews

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=airvpn+review&oq=airvpn&aqs=chrom...

In reply to The Lemming:

OK, thanks everyone. Overall it seems reasonably positive. TalkTalk was the cheapest broadband option but that just seems to be one long story of terrible service. Maybe Virgin is worth it.

In reply to TobyA:

I'll add a mother thumbs up for virgin.

Also if you go with them get almost to the end of the application online then close the page. Within 24hrs they'll email you offering a 50quid discount code

In reply to Indy:


been with Virgin since the days of NTL. Totally satisfied - wouldn't touch anything else.