Recommend Virgin?

I've been with BT for years now and in fairness to them, the service has been fine and I have rarely had a problem.

I get my TV via cable from Virgin and am thinking of migrating my broadband and telephone over to them.

Do Virgin run everything from the cable point as it enters the house and so have to have more cable internally - I like to have a hardwire connection to my main computer and don't really want extra cabling if I can avoid it and secondly - do users recommend them as a service provider?

Thanks.

Yes I'd certainly recommend them.

I've only been with them for a few months. I'm very happy with their service - a vast improvement over the old ADSL line I had with Demon, especially in terms of reliability.
Their help desk also seemed quite good the couple of times I had to call them to change phone features.

The installers who did my house were very amenable to my requirements when installing the cable. You've already got the cable so I guess it will be a bit different. With regards to the phone service, in my area (ex-Telewest), the phone is a separate cable and they can probably route that to the same place your BT socket currently is so you can keep your existing internal phone wiring.

I'm not sure on what installation looks like if you have the TV service and broadband (I don't have the TV service). Perhaps someone else will answer that.

The only caveat might be to be aware of their traffic management limits - I think most people don't bother about them (like myself - even with 5 PCs and a couple of consoles) but heavy torrent users seem to complain a lot.

Edited by Daemon66 (Fri 17-Apr-09 17:15:24)

I've been more happy with Virgin than I ever was with BT and ADSL.
I could not get a stable line and could only get 3.5Mb on ADSL, so even getting more than that (and I'm paying less) makes it's good for me. I used to get a solid 20Mb 24/7 and that's started to waver a little recently, but I still get a good service from them.

I've been with Virgin a month now and I'm pretty happy with them.

Do Virgin run everything from the cable point as it enters the house and so have to have more cable internally - I like to have a hardwire connection to my main computer and don't really want extra cabling if I can avoid it and secondly - do users recommend them as a service provider?

Well I was impatient and wanted to get everything quickly so I opted for the cheaper quick install option (£15 option) where they sent me the modem and TV box in the post. The kit included a splitter and two 1.8 Metre lengths of coax cable which were just enough to go from the wall box to under the TV where I sit the modem & TV box. Luckily I'd already networked the house up with CAT5 so I was able to just use a spare length of CAT5 to connect the modem to the router in another room. You do get a long length of CAT5 cable and cable clips with the self install kit (about 15 metres) but it means you'd have to fit it yourself. If I was you I'd opt for the engineer installed option as they should then run a coax cable to where you want it to go (presumably from looking at other installs in houses in my area) they will probably run a cable from the box on the front of your property on the outside of the property to the room where you want the modem to go. Considering an engineer install is only about £30 (for 10/20 Meg broadband) then this might be the better option. From what I understand if you opted for 50 Meg broadband then you have to pay for an engineer install at £30 regardless plus a £50 connection charge (which I guess covers the cost of the modem and more advanced router).

Something you might want to check too is that you're not stuck on a 12 months rolling contract with BT for your phone line (and presumably broadband?). I was caught out on this, although I was on a 30 day contract for my broadband I had another 11 months left on the BT line so I've got to keep the BT line for another 11 months (luckily I was able to get free BT broadband as my mum works for BT and as an employee she can get free broadband and BT vision which she passed on to me).

Hope all this helps anyway. I'd say as long as you're not stuck on any contracts and don't have to pay any get out fees (I'd check this first) then go for it.

Rob

Thanks Rob. The problem as I see it is that I will have to run a CAT5 cable under the floor to my home office. I'm OK with the exit from BT, I'm on Option 3 which does not seem to have a rolling contract, a fact underpinned in that I get a call from BT about once a month inviting me to renew at a discounted price - which is always more than I am currently paying!

I have TV, phone and broadband (10mb). At the moment, I'd suggest going for either 10mb or 20mb until the 50mb rollout is complete/settled.

I've had good customer service from virgin and very good technical support.

The TV and Broadband come in on one wire, the phone on another.

Rich

does tv / broadband on a single cable slow down on broadband ?

If running network cable around your house is a pain, you can use homeplug adaptors as an alternative - see: http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=5082&...

I have been using virgin 20mb for about a year and a half now and it has been far more reliable and faster than ADSL.

No.

In a nutshell, no. The tv signal is on a different frequency to t'internet. You'll get a splitter installed sending one cable to the modem and one to the stb (set top box).

HTH,

Rich

I would recommend them, been with them for 2 years now. No slow speeds.
They put abox in my lounge for TV and Phone and anothe box in my office for broadband. Have never regretted it. My son live down the road about a mile away and he has the same satisfaction with Virgin.

That's what I'm planning on doing myself actually. I have CAT5 in the majority of the house now apart from the master bedroom. I've been told I'm not aloud to make any more holes in celings (they didn't turn out too well) so I've got to either go down the homeplug route or wireless.

Rob

Thanks, I hadn't considered that.

no

I have Virgin's TV (XL) and frequently receive flyers offering their fibre optic "up to" 24 Mb.

1. With fibre optic surely there should't be any "up to" should there?

2. I have ADSL with some 20 M of extension wire to modem. 2 computers using Ethernet
and 1 laptop w/wireless. Would a similar set up be provided? The thought of the modem sitting on top of the set top box is not appealing.

3. With BT telephone I am using a 1815 number for my overseas calls. Does Virgin operate or allow a similar?

1. The end connection is 10/20/50Mb, but the "up to" part relates to the throughput, not the connection rate.

2. The modem is seperate from the STB. I know that some places did get a combined unit but that's the exception to the rule. You would need to either opt for the VM supplied router and use that, or get yourself a wireless cable router.

Wallbox -> splitter - 1-> STB
2-> modem -> router -> 2 pcs via ethernet cables and 1 via wireless

3. Not 100% sure, but I would have thought so.

Thanks very much for prompt reply.

I wouldnt recommend them. I moved to cable after being on ADSL for about 4 years. The limitations of ADSL are clear its the speed. Where I was living I would get a connection speed of around 5mb which is small compared to the 20 - 50mb of Virgin.

However....

That is the only limitation of ADSL, if you get a good provider who has good support you will be set to use your connection whenever you like for however long you like with no traffic shaping or any other policy being applied.

Over to Virgin Cable....

Nice fast connection.....well no .... There is a nice fast connection there but essentially you will never get that speed unless your incredibly lucky. And then we come to the wonderful ever increasing policies that virgin keep adding to their connections. It started out with their evening policy which said that if you downloaded more that around 300mb in between the hours of 4 and 12 in the evening they would clamp a restriction on your connection which would drop it down to a 1mb connection...... So if you have multiple people in the house using the connection (for example your kids) and you trip this speed restriction your screwed. More than one person using that connection brings it to its knees.

But thats not all folks because they have now started a new policy which does the same thing but does it at the weekend but from something like 11 in the morning to 6 at night. So again the same principle applies more than one person in the house or the fact that you are not at work at the weekend and would actually like to use the connection means that, you guessed it you are back to a 1 - 2 mb connection for the rest of the day.

Frankly I am seriously missing ADSL at the moment as 5mb was fast enough for me and I am not exactly a heavy user but want to use the connection when I want to. ADSL never slowed down for me in the evenings , never gave me poor pings , and I could download when and how much I liked.

Take my advice and steer clear. Perhaps try some of the LLU services and see how you get on with them.

Edited by dan221081 (Mon 04-May-09 09:58:42)

Thank you very much for the eye-opener. The grass is not greener!
I shall probably stay with ADSL24. Their support over the last two years has been very good. Unfortunately they are been let down by Entanet.

Judging by some of your recent posts then it isn't worth the hassle. Poor speed, dodgy wirless boxes. Then there is the dreaded STM. I know there is no such thing on the 50Mb offering and you previously managed to download off peak but as a previous poster said "Use the internet when I want to use it".

I'm just about to give 30 days notice on my VM 2Mb product. Will then save £4.50/month or £15 after the yealy discount is up.
Absolutely no complaints about O2 standard. Fairly constant 5.8 down and 1.1 up unlimited, no throttling and all for £10/month. Inclusive of 300 texts.

You pays your money and you takes your choice!

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Judging by some of your recent posts then it isn't worth the hassle.

And you can go on 1 persons account of things?

I've been more than happy with the offereing from VM, much better than anything ADSL can provide in this area, and only minute slow downs.... 10% loss of throughput is about the worst I've ever had and that's not common for me.

It's better to get an opinion of the people in your immediate area - I have a lot of co-workers on VM, and some on 50Mb and they all swear by it (not at it!) but the next area from us maybe pants.

I maybe one person but read around and you will find a large portion of comments made recently since the continued expansion of throttling and you will find that anyone that uses the connection a reasonable amount will be now be complaining.

I used to use ADSL24 and they were very good. The support was great (even though like you say they are dependent on other people to actually resolve issues) When I moved out from my parents place I recommended they stay with them and they have and their connection remain rock solid now for about 2 years. Highly recommend those guys. Virgin on the other hand are so far the other way its quite scarey.

In reply to a post by dan221081:

I maybe one person but read around and you will find a large portion of comments made recently since the continued expansion of throttling and you will find that anyone that uses the connection a reasonable amount will be now be complaining.

I download between 150-250GB per month and I've exceeded the STM limits twice in the last six months, both times because I was too impatient to wait a few hours.
Although the throttling is an inconvenience, it's no real problem to schedule downloads to less busy times of the day.

Why bother with the phone from Virgin? It's not cheaper than BT, and has the disadvantage of not allowing third-party services for cheaper phone calls. I'd personally get a TV and Internet deal (although I wouldn't rate the basic TV service either, Freeview already has too much on for me to watch or even record and the money could go towards a PVR box instead). Why bother with 20Mb or 50Mb? That's just playing into VM's hands. I can't manage to max-out my 10Mb connection (when it's even working at full speed or working at all), so what use is a traffic-managed 20Mb one? 50Mb is too costly for something that cannot be properly used (I beg to be corrected).

what do you mean when you say this ?

and has the disadvantage of not allowing third-party services for cheaper phone calls.

I get my calls to France etc from another service without any problems - just the hassle of having to input another code - but that's worth it

The service is reliable I will concede that, it rarely fails. Dont expect what is sold to you though. They dont have the capability to provide what they claim to, not for me anyway. Would I recommend, Mmmmmmm kind of No.

IN case anyone was reading - my service provider buys phone network time in bulk off BT, so gets a cheaper price (passed on to us) than the significant 50% more it charges for use with other phone providers (mobile to an 0208 access number or non-BT landline).
That's why. All there to be checked in the providers' tariff pages. I imagine mine's not alone.