virgin media cable broadband: yes/no?

19ninety

19ninety

19ninety

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Joined
27 Jun 2007
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577
Location
England
So were finally moving house, BE say they cant offer adsl+ as over 5km from exchange =( sahme as am going to miss my 10meg connection!
How good is VMCB for gaming (ping times etc during peak times) and downloading? Is it worth giving them a go or really worth staying away from as a gamer?

If you all warn me away from virgin then I'll end up getting a lower package from BE, but feel maybe should try VMCB as the cabling is already in.

Cheers!
 
I use Virgin and love it....... the DOWNside is they have a Traffic Management System i.e they slow u down between peak hours if u download too much......... if ** just gonna game its really cool! but download huge files after 9pm
 
I've had it years and it works fine for me, I get full speeds unless I get traffic managed :)
The TM is fair and anyhow Im out most of the day at work :P
 
Im also with VM, on their 20Mbit plan and i love it. I get the speed i pay for, and dont mind the traffic management as i can download my big stuff at other times. As for ping, i get brilliant pings on decent UK servers, in tf2 and similar games is usualy get a 10-20 ping on a good server. Not that ping is everything anyway, there are just as many low ping people who suck as there are high ping people who still manage to own everyone.
 
ive more than pleased with my 20mbit cable, its very rare i dont actually get 20mbit unless im beeing traffic managed for downloading 3+ gb in there peak hours thing.

i've had very few problems in the 6 or so years ive been on cable aswell.

i phoned up retentions the otherday and got £35 knocked of what my phone/20mbit/digital tv costs each month for life aswell the other day :D

so i get 20mbit for free now really :p
 
Yep thats it for me too, its £40 to cancel BE so will be making that call today and signing up for VM cable, the missus wants Sky for tv - but thats a whole different discussion and I dont really watch any tv these days so is really her call.
Traffic shaping wont be too much of an issue really, just means leaving the pc on overnight.
Whats VM's delivery & activation time like? Lucky me has all next week off for so gaming action .... err oh and decorating the new house :D

Thanks for all your responses!
 
pfft i dont miss the sky channels you can easily download anything you want to watch from the internet anyway and not have the adverts

VM are rolling out 50mbit in september btw i was told so on the phone the overday but sounds like it wont be a free upgrade this time around.

i think the guys exact words were "were rolling out 50mbit in september so you can choose to upgrade then if you want to"
he just came out with it without me saying anything and i didnt quiz him about it because he phoned up to see how i felt about all the services i get and i just wanted to get him off the phone at the end of it all
 
The Internet is great. Always get full speed, which is great since I download a lot. However, I've never been throttled even during peak hours.

The bad is the customer service. So horrible and half of them don't know what they're talking about...
 
Shame about the HD TV content, or lack thereof, with VM. I'm continually tempted by a switch to Sky. Their broadband has always been first class for me though. Customer service is poor there's no doubt about that, good job they're not needed that often.
 
Superb here 20 meg all the time apart from the STM hours which still gives you 5 meg speeds when you use the allowance, but don't forget you can still dl in that time at slower speed and you get free all night which in theory you could hit 100gig just overnight.
 
I'd much rather have this kind of throttling than what some other ISPs do. At least we won't be charged automatically for going over cap limits. Hit the buffers a few times but there's nothing wrong with 5mbit anyway.
 
the limit per day you can actually dl is 134gb stated on this letter i have form virgin :)

10am till 3pm, is 6gb,
4pm till 9pm is 3gb

everything else is free game

gonna be a tad annoying with 4 guys doing a game design course, needing game updates etc. Hoorah!
 
Had Telewest/VM here for 7 years now and it has been superb throughout. Currently on the 20Mb service and get solid 19Mb speeds at all times.

Just be aware of the STM limits during peak hours and schedule your big downloads for overnight and you'll be fine.

the limit per day you can actually dl is 134gb stated on this letter i have form virgin
Click to expand...
Indeed. Many people rant about the limits and how "my ISP doesn't have limits", to which my usual response is that you can still download 4TB a month on VM's 20Mb service and that most other ISPs would tap you on the shoulder if you started downloading that much, regardless of what their T&Cs say :)
 
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