In reply to a post by AMJF1972:

But do all broadband providers charge for installation? Plusnet Fibre did (£50) when I started to sign up with them when USwitch said it was free on their site!

I upgraded to FTTP last week. Zero installation cost and £29.99 a month for 24 months. I think it's essential to ring and speak to a CS agent and do a bit of haggling. 99% of the time you'll find the folk at PlusNet very helpful, friendly and what is by far the most important for me is I can understand what is being said. I've experienced the other 1% once in the last 20 odd years and I just rang back the next day .

In reply to a post by longedge:

£29.99 a month for 24 months.

May be you should have used the word 'initially' before above as it will go up in March but still a good price for a 300/50 service.

In reply to a post by AMJF1972:

When I type in my postcode and house number into that OpenReach website, I get options, like:

Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband - Not yet available
Gfast Fibre Broadband - Available now
Superfast Fibre Broadband - Available now
Standard Broadband - Available now

There is more technical info, including what speeds you're likely to get, at https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/

If you share a screenshot of this, with your address blanked out, we can advise what sort of service you're likely to get.

You've said G.fast is available; this suggests that you're close to the cabinet, in which case a standard FTTC service is likely to run at the maximum possible 80M down/20M up, or you could buy a marginally cheaper 40M/10M service. Either way will match or beat your current Virgin service.

In reply to a post by AMJF1972:

Do all broadband providers charge for installation?

No. Most of them are free or a nominal charge like £10 "P&P" for the router. But of course, you're often bound into a typical 18-24 month contract, which is how they recoup the setup costs they have.

Some of them give cashback, either in the form of a prepaid Mastercard, or if you signup via a cashback site like Topcashback or Quidco.

In reply to a post by AMJF1972:

I was further scared off by threats of charges of £65+ if I wasn't in the house when the engineer turned up.

It's standard. Normally an engineer visit isn't required for activating a service, but in your case with the line having been unused for "decades", you should definitely go with it. They may put a new master socket and/or faceplate on.

You should get an AM/PM appointment slot, and Openreach are fairly good at keeping to them. I'd take AM if possible, as it's less likely the engineer will have been delayed at another job.

In reply to a post by AMJF1972:

So as of now, I don't know what to do, as I don't think I could even afford the switch and any extra charges that might entail.

I don't understand what you're saying. You could find your monthly charge goes down from £46.50 to around £25, which over 2 years would save you over £500 - so it's more a question of how you can afford *not* to do this.

Also this is a benchmark. Get an online quote from a low-end ISP like Vodafone, go back to Virgin and say "I'm going to Vodafone at £x per month unless you drastically reduce your pricing, at least match what you're offering new customers". The chances are that they'll do so, especially if it means they're getting you to sign a contract with Virgin. But if they don't, it's really not a big deal to switch to an Openreach-based service, and could save you huge money.

You could mitigate that £46 a month by moving your mobile contract to O2. With both O2 and VirginMedia contracts you get "Volt Benefits". VM move you up to the next speed package and O2 double your data allowance. My O2 contract halved the cost of my mobile and increased my VM speed from 125 Mbps to 250Mbps. This will keep me happy until BRSK completes fibering up my local area.

As others have said it looks like you can order broadband from any ISP who uses Openreach, there is one subject not mentioned, and judging by your responses needs to be addressed, if you use virgin email you will need to change that.

One other thing to consider. If you phone up VM retentions and can't do a deal and leave, you will be a new customer after 3 months. Or, if you have a partner at the same address, you can leave and get your partner to sign up as a new customer. Of course, the price will still increase every March(?) + CPI.
You could also try for SOGEA as you have indicated you can get FTTC if you don't need a phone.

Also burble's point about the email is very valid, and if you are using VM's email, I would suggest moving asap. There is something afoot at VM around emails at the moment, e.g. all accounts now have to have a 3rd party email address, e.g. Gmail etc. Suspicions are that VM could soon be dropping email services or moving it to a 3rd party.?

Edited by Adduxi (Fri 01-Dec-23 14:23:13)

In reply to a post by Kr1s69:

That looks good.

So whilst you can’t get FTTP (fibre to the premises) you can get fibre to the cabinet or gfast which is faster and relatively rare.

I would suggest checking how much someone like Now TV would cost for install as they’re only about £23 per month.

All of this is really about knowing what your options are so you can be in a better position to renegotiate with VM. Whether you’ll actually leave VM is up to you but I would suggest knowing the options if you are unhappy with what they suggest.

I've got Now Broadband's Super Fibre package ready to select when I talk to Virgin Media, but it doesn't say if it has FTTC or GFast at all, or not that I could see.

In reply to a post by AMJF1972:

I've got Now Broadband's Super Fibre package ready to select when I talk to Virgin Media, but it doesn't say if it has FTTC or GFast at all, or not that I could see.

Do Now Broadband even offer G.fast or FTTP when technically available to the property? I thought they only offered ADSL and FTTC products.

I don't think Now Broadband offer G.fast. You can see a list of packages here. https://www.thinkbroadband.com/packages/gfast-broadband Usually Superfast is referred to FTTC and Ultrafast is for G.fast and FTTP.

The cheapest G.fast package is £28 for 150Mbps with free setup from TalkTalk. G.fast is faster than FTTC so you are amongst the 5.7% of the country who have G.fast available! You can get between 150-300Mbps using G.fast while with FTTC max is 80/20Mbps.

You can switch to any of these providers or try to haggle with VM. There's a possibility that then VM will try to give you a cheaper offer since they won't want to lose you as customer. But even if they still refuse to give you an offer. You can still switch to G.fast or FTTC for the time being and once your contract is over then you can switch back to VM 12/18/24 months later depending on your contract.

There is also Cerberus https://www.cerberusnetworks.co.uk/connectivity-broa...
Their service is not G.fast but rather SOGFAST for £42 it is actually expensive but you'll get 150Mbps download and 30Mbps upload and is still 3 times faster than your current package with VM while being £4 cheaper a month.

SOGFAST is basically the same thing as G.fast but without analogue phone service. Just as SOGEA is FTTC without phone service.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by AMJF1972:

I've got Now Broadband's Super Fibre package ready to select when I talk to Virgin Media, but it doesn't say if it has FTTC or GFast at all, or not that I could see.

Do Now Broadband even offer G.fast or FTTP when technically available to the property? I thought they only offered ADSL and FTTC products.

Correct. but its a 12 month contract which is good.. Downer is that the service can go blip for a few seconds around midnight!