Virgin can be OK in some areas, but it's on the whole, considerably poor. They have far too large a customer base which their infrastucture cannot support. Expect poor pings and downstream speeds at peak times.
Considerably poor?
I'd agree to be honest...I don't really know why I'm still with them.
C:\Users\Robert>ping -n 20
www.bbc.co.uk
Pinging
www.bbc.co.uk [212.58.253.71] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=246
Reply from 212.58.253.71: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=246
Ping statistics for 212.58.253.71:
Packets: Sent = 20, Received = 20, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 18ms, Maximum = 39ms, Average = 22ms
C:\Users\Robert>
I've never had a problem with download speeds or pings with Virgin. I'm on 20MB with traffic shaping between 4pm-12am, but they cut you down to 5-6MB (after downloading 3GB) which is still quite fast and doesn't bother me in the slightest.
It's now:
4:00pm - 9:00pm
If you exceed 3gb download/1200mb upload you'll be limited for 5 hours.
This table was contructed by Annie Brion from the BY newsgroups - so as you can see, even if you hit the limits...you can still download a LOT of stuff.