What could cause that?

People using more bandwidth that Virgin Media is willing to buy use across a specific link.

A hardware fault, e.g. broken fibre so a route is carrying more traffic than usual.

Bad capacity planning.

Or just business as usual for a service that so long as web pages load they consider it ok.

Well I'm giving them a chance which is fair but if they don't deliver I'm off. Why should I pay for a sub-standard service when I can go elsewhere and get something a lot better.

If I leave Virgin and have to pay a termination fee do I pay that first or will they send me a bill with it on? I'm planning on ordering the telephone line from BT then getting Home Broadband from AA.

It'll be on the final bill. Though if they can't resolve the issues in 5 days time you stand good ground for them to wave it as a "gesture of good will"

The woman on the phone said there has to be three fault notifications from the technical team but I'm not listening to that. I'll keep you posted on what happens.

Well if they can't resolve it I hardly see a reason for there to be three! Call centre staff are useless, I always go via the forum because they do do much better (albeit much better than god awful can't stand for to much)