Moved from Virgin Media to BT Full Fibre -- My Experience

Hi there folks.

Just posting my "non-expert" experience of a move from Virgin Media, to BT Full Fibre 500.

I have made this move very recently (Jul 2025), and have been very impressed.

For context, I was with Virgin Media for a long time. (I originally contracted with NTL back in the 1990s I believe. NTL was later subsumed into Virgin Media.)

However, recently, in 2025, and after many years of solid provision, my Virgin Media broadband connection became very unreliable, and subject to too many outages for me to comfortably remain with them.

So, overall, I didn't move on the basis of price -- I moved on the basis of reliability. A short perusal of Virgin Media's profiles on TrustPilot, Reddit, plus some broadband forums, plus their own community forums, appears to indicate that I was not alone in that regard.

Looking ahead, I have been very impressed with the new BT solution.

In particular, all of the following were very good:

(1) The initial verbal contracting, by telephone. At time of writing, BT has wholly UK based call-centre colleagues, who appear to adhere to rules and broad ethical standards. This has been a big upgrade on my "out-sourced" Virgin Media experience.

(2) The OpenReach installation, performed by sub-contractor Circet. 3 engineers/technicians attended my property. 1 managed and planned, and implemented the external (outside of house) work. 1 took instruction, and implemented the internal (inside of house) work. 1 stayed for a short moment, seemingly to supervise, then went to another job. The process was efficient, and they did the job right, first time.

(3) The OpenReach installers being straightforward and plain-speaking in their advice on the best and most practicable position for the following:

(a) the OpenReach ONT (Optical Network Terminator) (i.e., the "little white wall-based connection unit"), and
(b) the BT Smart Hub 2, and
(c) the optional (and additional) EE Hybrid Connect unit (essentially, a 4G SIM-based “mobile signal” redundancy unit), which I decided to add to my solution.

As to the actual broadband connection quality itself, it has been rock-solid. Web usage has been pleasingly quick and snappy since the day of installation. In particular, the speed and responsiveness over my in-house wi-fi setup has been impressive. I also ran a huge (at least, by my standards) online backup (upload) of my files (with a respected online backup provider), and the upload speed and stability of the multi-hour upload was impressive.

So, overall, my experience has been very good, and (so far) I would have no qualms in recommending BT as an OpenReach provider.

One final aside:

I have had to adapt to two things with my BT Full Fibre service, which overall, I was initially a little disappointed about, but have come around to accepting or perhaps "working around":

(1) ThinkBroadband's BQM ("Broadband Quality Monitor") service is not supported, as standard, by the BT Smart Hub 2. As a long-term Virgin Media user, I had got used to running a BQM, as my Virgin Media connection was often unreliable, and I needed a visual representation as to what was going on with it. It has been a big change for me not to regularly check a BQM. On this topic, I am currently looking into a potential workaround to allow me to use a BQM with my BT Smart Hub 2, as discussed here.

(2) The SamKnows "Real Speed" test, also, is not supported by the BT Smart Hub 2. Instead, I have relied on more rudimentary speed testing pages, such as the "classic" SpeedTest.net, and also Fast.com.

Thanks for reading my post folks, and I hope it was helpful/useful to anyone considering making a similar "VM to BT" type move.

Edited by unicorn555 (Sun 06-Jul-25 20:52:31)

Quick update:

I forgot to add one other thing that went well.

I was also transitioned from my copper-based BT land line home-phone to BT's so-called "Digital Voice" (AKA: an "internet phone", or "Voice Over IP" [VOIP]) home phone solution, which is dependent on the Smart Hub 2 to work.

The Circet engineer/technician who was working internally (in the house) set up (and tested) a single digital voice phone adjacent to the BT Smart Hub 2. I retained my original landline number with no problems. (This was already promised, prior to proceeding on the day of installation.)

On the day of installation, interestingly, both my copper-based landline and the new "Digital Voice" solution were working, concurrently. Then, circa 48 hours later, the copper-based landline was disabled. This, to me, seemed like a sensible approach, as if the "Digital Voice" solution encountered problems, I would still have been able to make a land-line call about it (at least, for 48 hours).

All things considered, I hope my two posts give a useful insight into what a VM to BT switch may entail, and what to expect if all goes to plan.