FTTP VS VIRGIN MEDIA

mr griffin · 31 Jan 2022 at 21:19

Hi all,

My contract is just coming up for renewal for Virgin, currently getting 650meg down and 40 meg up. Don't get me wrong the broadband is pretty good, but we have had City Fibre install FTTP here now 900meg.

Now I saw this a while ago on YouTube, so guy on City Fibre using Vodaphone as the provider was getting 900 meg down and upload service, however I've put my details into a few of the ISP that provide it and it offers me the 900meg down but only 100 - 120meg upload speeds??? what happened to the 900 meg both ways?
Is it worth changing to one of these FTTP providers of just squeeze Virgin to give me their 1gb service?

Also while I'm here is FTTP superior for lower latency in gaming than Virgin media?

chroniclard · 31 Jan 2022 at 21:24

Yes its better/lower latency, usually. I would rather have 900 FTTP than 1gig Virgin(I have 1g Virgin)

Journey · 31 Jan 2022 at 21:25

I chose Three 5G over Virgin... if you can get FTTP take it.

MrRockliffe · 31 Jan 2022 at 21:41

Would the above comments be true if using part of Virgin’s FTTP infrastructure?

I know some of their newer builds are pretty much entirely FTTP.

Caged · 31 Jan 2022 at 22:50

They still use DOCSIS, and a fair chunk of the problems that people have with VM are the garbage Hubs they use.

If I had to choose between Virgin FTTP and FTTC then I’d pick VM, but if Openreach or Cityfibre FTTP were an option I’d have that instead.

mr griffin · 31 Jan 2022 at 23:09

I'm just a bit miffed that the 900meg upload has dissappeared from these Fttp deals.

What does Fttp do any better that I will notice?
If it definitely gives better latency in games that would be a strong factor for changing over. What ISP would you recommend using on it for best gaming latency?

The virgin here is coaxial coming onto the house not fibre.

faceman123 · 1 Feb 2022 at 03:03

Virgin is trash

chroniclard · 1 Feb 2022 at 06:10

faceman123 said:
Virgin is trash

No.

ChrisD. · 1 Feb 2022 at 07:40

FTTP every time.

Journey · 1 Feb 2022 at 07:41

chroniclard said:
No.

The company is, some of the services are OK.

chroniclard · 1 Feb 2022 at 07:56

Journey said:
The company is, some of the services are OK.

On the whole, after being with them almost 20 years(though it was NTL in the early days), I have had a positive experience but at times they are frustrating/poor I guess.

Other than a bit of latency the internet is great.

Journey · 1 Feb 2022 at 08:04

chroniclard said:
On the whole, after being with them almost 20 years(though it was NTL in the early days), I have had a positive experience but at times they are frustrating/poor I guess.

Other than a bit of latency the internet is great.

I had Telewest Blueyonder when first launched 512k/128k, and it used to be totally amazing, but then when you only had ISDN or Dialup to compare it to then everything was great. On the whole as the company got bigger/merged, changed hands and started offering more services it got worse and worse, until it has become a painful experience to deal with them on any level at all.

Sometimes if you have no choice then I'd say go with their broadband, but I am also one to speak with my wallet and I won't reward pee poor service or attitude, hence the 5G over Virgin, it was much more hassle to setup initially and I had to actually learn some new 'stuff' but my money isn't going to Virgin and I ended up with a better/more reliable service in the end.

They keep pestering me to come back as a valued customer, but if they valued me so much they wouldn't lie to you and offer new customers better deals.

ChrisD. · 1 Feb 2022 at 08:28

By the way, a friend of mine is in a City Fibre area and the Zen checker only showed 100 Mbps upload. He spoke to them and placed an order and they said it would be the full 900. I imagine some of the ISPs systems haven't updated properly to distinguish the difference between Openreach FTTP and fibre with an alt net.

FWIW, VM customer service is particularly atrocious. There's pretty much daily complaints in the VM thread on here and various online sources of reviews have them as extremely poor. I know when I was with them their CS and even their sales guys are full of lies.

Turn · 1 Feb 2022 at 08:43

Vodafone's FTTP every single day of the week, I'd suggest waiting for a deal as they come around a lot if there isn't one running already.
I'm paying £31/mo (940/940) with no increases for CPI.

And yes you tend to get much better latency with Vodafone's FTTP.

mr griffin · 1 Feb 2022 at 10:11

ChrisD. said:
By the way, a friend of mine is in a City Fibre area and the Zen checker only showed 100 Mbps upload. He spoke to them and placed an order and they said it would be the full 900. I imagine some of the ISPs systems haven't updated properly to distinguish the difference between Openreach FTTP and fibre with an alt net.

FWIW, VM customer service is particularly atrocious. There's pretty much daily complaints in the VM thread on here and various online sources of reviews have them as extremely poor. I know when I was with them their CS and even their sales guys are full of lies.

Use to have zen as my ISP back in the old day of 7meg adsl, then moved to an area that had 50meg virgin so was a no brainer

mr griffin · 1 Feb 2022 at 10:12

0007 said:
Vodafone's FTTP every single day of the week, I'd suggest waiting for a deal as they come around a lot if there isn't one running already.
I'm paying £31/mo (940/940) with no increases for CPI.

And yes you tend to get much better latency with Vodafone's FTTP.

Wow that looks awesome. I would jump on it at that price for that service. Maybe I need to talk to them and see what they can offer me on the city fibre network

Turn · 2 Feb 2022 at 02:33

mr griffin said:
Maybe I need to talk to them and see what they can offer me on the city fibre network

I think you kinda have to just wait, use HUKD or similar so you know when there's a deal.
Or you could just manually check using the Vodafone site every week or so, they'll eventually be some sort of promo running, their prices change very often.

Turn · 3 Feb 2022 at 12:54

mr griffin said:
Wow that looks awesome. I would jump on it at that price for that service. Maybe I need to talk to them and see what they can offer me on the city fibre network

There's an offer running at the moment, looks like it'll be running for awhile, hopefully this helps @mr griffin

R3X · 3 Feb 2022 at 13:11

Journey said:
I had Telewest Blueyonder when first launched 512k/128k, and it used to be totally amazing, but then when you only had ISDN or Dialup to compare it to then everything was great. On the whole as the company got bigger/merged, changed hands and started offering more services it got worse and worse, until it has become a painful experience to deal with them on any level at all.

Sometimes if you have no choice then I'd say go with their broadband, but I am also one to speak with my wallet and I won't reward pee poor service or attitude, hence the 5G over Virgin, it was much more hassle to setup initially and I had to actually learn some new 'stuff' but my money isn't going to Virgin and I ended up with a better/more reliable service in the end.

They keep pestering me to come back as a valued customer, but if they valued me so much they wouldn't lie to you and offer new customers better deals.

Was with them when they were called videotron

feels like 100 years ago, same terrible CS as the first day but there services are decent imo.

R3X · 3 Feb 2022 at 13:14

I have fftp but when I mentioned this to VM they put me through to retentions or spoke to them trying to get a better deal to stop me from going but I was only interested to find out my billing cost if I removed bb from my bill which caused them to goto panic stations already.

If I did ditch VM bb from my bill it would have cost too much to go the fftp route so took the £20 discounted off my monthly bill.

Planning on doing the same after year and half!