So many VM horror stories, do I go near them?!

I am about to move to a new property. I currently have two FTTC lines at about 47mbit each, and either load balance or bond them.

The new property has a forecast speed between 67-80mbit on FTTC, so with the same setup, I would see a speed boost.

But, I could get rid of the hassle I have now with two lines, and have Virgin Media at 200mbit.

I can get a 12 month discount through work, making this package £17.99+£17.99 line rental for 12 months.

But how can I know if I'll just have awful issues with over utilisation before I start? If the service is awful, will I be able to terminate and go back to FTTC?

Thanks in advance!

if VM still do the 30 day refund policy then its worth a punt, if its a over utilised area then cancel within the 30 days.

Personally I will only consider VM now if xDSL estimate is below 30mbit.

I have been with Cable since the 90's and have had cable broadband since it was introduced.

On the whole the service has been excellent. the last six months have been awful with a crippled connection in the evening and at weekends.

On another forum a VM Staffer has told me that VM Business sales check capacity first and will only sell what they can reasonably deliver. VM retail (Domestic) on the other hand refused to adopt this approach and reserve the right to sell any package to anyone in any area without checking if it is technically possible.


If you believe VM it will be fixed by summer in my area at least, trouble is the dates keep slipping and they refuse to be open and honest about their engineering and investment programmes.

I've just left them due to high utilisation. Granted, they let me leave the contract early and free of charge.

It depends where you live, I had 100Mbps, but on an evening it was going below 2Mbps at times. Netlfix would never go above 480p on an evening even when I was getting a download above 10Mbps on a speedtest.

most resilient would be one fttc, and virgin

Unless you know someone in the same postcode then the only way to know is to try it and if it isn't good cancel within the 30-day money back period.
It only takes one or two freeloaders in a small area to ruin VM's performance in that area and it will take them quite some time to fix it, 6-12 months going on what I've seen in their forums. However, issues are very localised.

This is what I'd do.
Go with one FTTC VDSL line and one Virgin.

If service on one is rubbish in first 30 days cancel it.
If service on both is acceptable, you've got redundancy if either Virgin or FTTC falls over.

If resilience is the issue take one of each.

If resilience isn't the issue a single FTTC line at that good sync is probably the best bet to minimise grief while keeping reasonable performance.

depends where you are; virgin's issues are very regional.

if you want static IP then VDSL is the only option. If you game online then a slower speed but lower latency from VDSL may be better.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

depends where you are; virgin's issues are very regional.

if you want static IP then VDSL is the only option. If you game online then a slower speed but lower latency from VDSL may be better.

Virgin Media Business will provide static IP on their business cable products.

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

I am about to move to a new property. I currently have two FTTC lines at about 47mbit each, and either load balance or bond them.

The new property has a forecast speed between 67-80mbit on FTTC, so with the same setup, I would see a speed boost.

But, I could get rid of the hassle I have now with two lines, and have Virgin Media at 200mbit.

I can get a 12 month discount through work, making this package £17.99+£17.99 line rental for 12 months.

But how can I know if I'll just have awful issues with over utilisation before I start? If the service is awful, will I be able to terminate and go back to FTTC?

Thanks in advance!

I would go with the FTTC - it may be slower (the headline speed of VM is a joke, as come evening my line runs around 3 Mbps and cannot stream on what is supposed to be Vivid 200!), however in my past experience before I moved to a new home I never had any of the issues I'm having with VM. I would sell my soul to have FTTC. The moment my cab gets done, VM can do one!

I always thought that was much more expensive? Static IP is useful for home users, not only businesses. (and many businesses don't need it).

Can you find someone living near your new property who has Virgin Broadband, and ask them what their speeds are like?

I have "70 Mbps" download speed, and it runs at 73.4 Mbps, all day, every day.

FTTC is far better reliable than hammer cable of horror!

In reply to a post by hedgie:

On another forum a VM Staffer has told me that VM Business sales check capacity first and will only sell what they can reasonably deliver. VM retail (Domestic) on the other hand refused to adopt this approach and reserve the right to sell any package to anyone in any area without checking if it is technically possible.

That due to Virgin business connections having a SLA meaning they're obliged to provide a certain level of service... domestic users however don't have that hence the cheaper price

I would say if your service with 2 lines is fine now then carry on with those... you'll get better upload speed from just one FTTC line that with a 200Meg connecting from VM... also more stability to connection and lot lesser a chance of congestion related issues,

However as pointed out you could take Virgin for a test drive and any issues (that exist now) should appear immediately, I tried out Virgin for 28 day test after years of congestion issues previous to see if anything had improved... it had but then moved home where Virgin not available...

I'm also assuming that if you place your move home with your FTTC lines that you should have the time to get Virgin in and tested before they are completed and if Virgin suits then cancel the FTTC lines.... you could also drop a FTTC line and have Virgin with a backup VDSL service if things go to pot...

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

In reply to a post by hedgie:

On another forum a VM Staffer has told me that VM Business sales check capacity first and will only sell what they can reasonably deliver. VM retail (Domestic) on the other hand refused to adopt this approach and reserve the right to sell any package to anyone in any area without checking if it is technically possible.

That due to Virgin business connections having a SLA meaning they're obliged to provide a certain level of service... domestic users however don't have that hence the cheaper price

The SLA is on fix time, not performance.

As others have posted, take one of each.

If you need a static IP I wouldn't even consider Virgin Media. I've got a range of customers on the 50mbit "Business" service in diverse areas with static IP's and every single connection has constant issues. The thinkbroadband graph's I've collected make for interesting viewing.

They supply a modified "Superhub" with a business firmware on to support the L2TP tunnel on which the Business platform and static IP is provided. Due to this you have no choice but to use that rather than replace it with something fit for purpose. It just can't handle what it's doing and needs rebooting 2-3 times a day. Their support is utter [censored], if it's the business hub issue they just don't care. I'm on the "Beta" trial for a new firmware but it's took them literally 2 years to figure this out which just simply isn't good enough.

My advice is if you're getting quotes of 70Mbit+ on FTTC go down that route and be glad in the fact you'll have a better solution over all (not just raw throughput) than anything Virgin can offer.

was mulling over the possibility of virign, but there are a few people in my area who download constantly and have had a few dcma notices, but think they are masking their ip

so whilst I might save some money, I might have slow internet

Money back guarantee: The 14-day money back guarantee is available for new cable customers and existing cable customers taking a new service. Call us within 14 days of service activation to cancel and we'll refund the first month's charge and any installation charge. You will only be charged for transactions (calls, texts, purchases, service upgrades) occurring after activation. Statutory rights not affected.

Make sure you cancel in less by day 10 or before if using this get out clause. Record every step you take from then on to make sure they cancel accurately.

Just to add some balance, as most people seem to be knocking VM and saying how bad it is...

I've been on cable for a l-o-n-g time, from when it first came to my area. There are occasional issues which get resolved, eventually, but in the main I've had a constant good service. Speeds have been what they say, for the last year 100Mbps down and 6Mbps up has remained pretty stable. Upload speed has always been an issue, it's a lot less ratio wise than with FTTC or other services.

But, this is just in my area. I accept that several areas have issues with high utilisation and speeds are well below what they should be. I read about them on here all the time The best advice is to find other Virgin customers in your area and ask them what speeds they get, are there any issues ?

Been with VM for just under a month and I get consistent 100MB speeds (not seen anything dip) and the service has been rock solid.

So all in all I'm impressed.

I must be in a good under utilised area.

Obviously over utilisation will depend on where you are. I'm in the SE of UK (not London). Currently I have two sons on line gaming and my other half on Skype. I don't appear to have any issues with the Vivid 200 service.

Here's a Ookla test.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/5102909968.png

And TBB

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Thanks for all the responses people, I did read them all

Regarding upload - currently I have ~6mbit per line due to aluminium, and don't bond the upstream so only get the full ~12mbit or so when uploading multiple threads. 200mbit from Virgin should therefore be faster in that direction.

I think I will try to go for 1 of each service, the annoying issue is that I'm still in contract on both services here, so will either have to move them both (therefore re-contracting them both) or pay one off. If I pay one off to get VM, then cancel VM, then resubscribe to the 2nd FTTC, I'm going to be annoyed! If I keep both, then VM is fine in my area, well, let's just say I don't think the Mrs will be best pleased.

I'm going to at least try VM though, 200mbit is too enticing not to try.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

In reply to a post by hedgie:

On another forum a VM Staffer has told me that VM Business sales check capacity first and will only sell what they can reasonably deliver. VM retail (Domestic) on the other hand refused to adopt this approach and reserve the right to sell any package to anyone in any area without checking if it is technically possible.

That due to Virgin business connections having a SLA meaning they're obliged to provide a certain level of service... domestic users however don't have that hence the cheaper price

The SLA is on fix time, not performance.

Indeed, and if you read the small print, you'll find that if your business operates outside traditional business hours, you'll get traffic shaped. Which is a nice little catch.

In reply to a post by therioman:

Indeed, and if you read the small print, you'll find that if your business operates outside traditional business hours, you'll get traffic shaped. Which is a nice little catch.

Not enforced on the 100/200/300 packages but they certainly can if they so wish.

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

Regarding upload - currently I have ~6mbit per line due to aluminium, and don't bond the upstream so only get the full ~12mbit or so when uploading multiple threads. 200mbit from Virgin should therefore be faster in that direction.

Erm, maybe not...

On 200Mbps download (VIVID200) you will only get a max of 12Mbps upload - that's the package I'm now on.
see: http://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic...

In reply to a post by adslmax:

FTTC is far better reliable than hammer cable of horror!

I don't know about that... cable IMO is far more reliable than DSL when you consider many issues outside our control such as REIN and distance and also many issues that seem to have started popping up as VDSL has got more popular is congestion on ISP's networks...

However both technolgies have their pro's and con's,

Cable 'can be' fast (handles higher frequencies)
VDSL is more stable (less jitter)
Cable isn't affected much by environmental factors (interferance, crosstalk...)

sure theres more that could be listed for both...