Samesies
Virgin Media Discussion Thread
- Thread starter macca40
- Start date
Soldato
I've only had experience buying broadband (no mobile or TV) from virgin, but you should be able to knock that bill down massively by phoning up.
My recent experience was something like this:
- Previously paying £27ish for 100mb broadband, goes up to £45ish as my last contract ended.
- Ring them up, go to cancellations on the phone menu, get offered a bit of a discount by the robot voice on the phone before I even get through to a person.
- Tell the person I can get a similar speed for £19 from TalkTalk (found the cheapest normal broadband provider), to make it worth staying with virgin I want the 350mb service for the new customer deal price of £32 (found on a deal website, clicked through to virgin website to sign up for it so I know it exists).
- Person puts me on hold for a bit, and offers £39.
- I refuse, say I want the new customer price.
- Person says they can offer me an additional discount for being a loyal customer, bringing price to £29.
Agreed... there needs to be more real competition for Virgin to stop their monopoly in areas where they know there is limited competition for 1gig speed. Having to go through a constant rigmarole at the end of a contract, and to find the whole experience can take longer each time and 3x as frustrating makes you take a deep sigh before you begin the process as you recall the previous encounters. The only plus is that at the end of the whole process is that a good 18 months deal has been confirmed.
I can only hope that by the end of my contract in 2023 that there's a new player in town hopefully offering symmetrically superfast speed that is future proof at a more competitive price. My current Virgin BB price for the 1gig is £33 which is good I think, but man o man, the hurdles I had to go through and the time it took, not to mention the worst customer services experience i've ever encountered.
I know companies like City Fibre and Hyperopic, generally setup their infrastructure in apartment blocks, but I can't help but think that if they also can into area where Virgin is the only dominate force when it comes to speed that surely these companies would clean up once they advertise there speed and prices in these areas. It's strange to think that those companies don't see that type of expansion in houses and not just apartments as a viable option.
Permabanned
I don't find the end of contract arguing too bad, but yeah it would be nice to have competition. I can choose either 1gig virgin or 30-40mb. 
luckily in a reasonable VM area.
luckily in a reasonable VM area.
Soldato
Yeah, at least you get 18 months inbetween having to ring them 
. Could be worse Tbf. I'm hoping I should be able to get fibre next time I renew - a fibre company put some cable up on the telegraph poles a little while ago and openreach tell me I'll be able to get FTTP in 12 months (why it will take that long I have no idea).
. Could be worse Tbf. I'm hoping I should be able to get fibre next time I renew - a fibre company put some cable up on the telegraph poles a little while ago and openreach tell me I'll be able to get FTTP in 12 months (why it will take that long I have no idea).Around here, these guys https://www.grainconnect.com/ have been diging up the roads around our end for the last month or so. New broadband company.
Virgin Media won't be the only company
Once my contracts comes to an end i will be giving these guys a try. 12 months contract, no in contract price hikes, plus same upload speed as your download speed!
Virgin Media won't be the only company
Once my contracts comes to an end i will be giving these guys a try. 12 months contract, no in contract price hikes, plus same upload speed as your download speed!
Soldato
Over the last few days I've taken the ethernet cables out of my Xbox and TV overnight. The spikes still showed. I turned the Wifi on my phone off, again overnight, spikes still showed. Last night I disabled the Ethernet port on my PC before putting it into sleep mode. Woke up this morning and spikes still showing. So the last connected device to my network is the Raspberry Pi. I unplugged the cable for that for a few hours and spikes still showing. There are no other connected devices according to my VM hub so surely it's the hub itself?
I remember
FWIW I've seen Virgin TBB graphs to that with the SuperHub, but then be completely resolved when using the SuperHub in modem mode with your own decent router. Could always spend £40ish on a router from [somewhere online] to see if it helps and if not return it within the 14 day window. Just an idea.
FWIW I've seen Virgin TBB graphs to that with the SuperHub, but then be completely resolved when using the SuperHub in modem mode with your own decent router. Could always spend £40ish on a router from [somewhere online] to see if it helps and if not return it within the 14 day window. Just an idea.
So I've started doing a ThinkBroadband test on my VM hub and I've noticed something strange. Every hour or so the maximum latency appears to jump to almost 160ms. The minimum latency appears stable at around 10ms but the spikes seem a bit odd to me. Is there anything I can do at my end to sort this out?
I've got exactly the same pattern.. It was fine until I upgraded from 500 to 1gig (SH3 to SH4) about a month ago.
Soldato
Think I'm stuck on my 350 meg deal until December this year. Might move to Fibre as BT have upgraded my local exchange to get 900Mb on either BT, Sky or EE.
Must be!Well, I guess its not them then
Do it, FTTP is much better than VM.
Soldato
Pretty much made my mind up to switch. I'm with EE for my mobile so should get £5 off the monthly fee. Even if I don't go for the full 900Mb package the prices still look very good to me. £44.50 for 500Mb and I'm paying £32 for my VM 350 and that includes a discount I got from this thread. 900Mb is £49 for EE mobile customers so for roughly a 50% price increase my broadband speeds would go up by 260%. And that's before you get to the benefits of FTTP in terms of upload speeds, stability etc. Currently getting 36Mb uploads. Would be 110Mb with FTTP 900Mb.
evening all, bit miffed with with virgin media now (and royal mail lol)
Have the 50mb deal for £25.00 pm but 1 thing with virgin been so happy with the speeds and such so have never needed to leave
So got the virgin price increse letter a few weeks ago (even though it is dated jan 22)
Everytime i tried to call was on hold for 10 mins plus and just couldnt stay on hold, finally today managed to get hold of someone after 21 mins of waiting and all i got was you have missed the cut off date (21st feb) to do anything
Now i have to stay with them till August (original 18 month cut off date)
Hopefully if i can ever log in to the account i can try and send them an email to complain somewhat
Have the 50mb deal for £25.00 pm but 1 thing with virgin been so happy with the speeds and such so have never needed to leave
So got the virgin price increse letter a few weeks ago (even though it is dated jan 22)
Everytime i tried to call was on hold for 10 mins plus and just couldnt stay on hold, finally today managed to get hold of someone after 21 mins of waiting and all i got was you have missed the cut off date (21st feb) to do anything
Now i have to stay with them till August (original 18 month cut off date)
Hopefully if i can ever log in to the account i can try and send them an email to complain somewhat
Playing devil's advocate, I'd imagine you woudl have gotten an email too and had a text?
Def no text and for some reason I dont have any emails from v media need to set up my accout again as have never really used it
Soldato
Hey folks, I’m trying to get a better deal from Virgin. They offered 1gig for £58 or M350 for £38, ideally I’d like 1gig for closer to £40. Is that feasible? I’ve put in for cancellation which is due mid March. I’m now just hoping they call back with a decent offer 
Hey folks, I’m trying to get a better deal from Virgin. They offered 1gig for £58 or M350 for £38, ideally I’d like 1gig for closer to £40. Is that feasible? I’ve put in for cancellation which is due mid March. I’m now just hoping they call back with a decent offer
I'd be surprised if you get Gig1 for under £50 - fingers crossed for you though
Soldato
I think what they offer must depend a little bit on location and your history with them. Definitely seen lower (and am paying less for 350 than that myself after a recent renewal), so should be doable to get a bit lower.Hey folks, I’m trying to get a better deal from Virgin. They offered 1gig for £58 or M350 for £38, ideally I’d like 1gig for closer to £40. Is that feasible? I’ve put in for cancellation which is due mid March. I’m now just hoping they call back with a decent offer
I'd use the new customer deals as a bit of a guide (might be able to get a bit less than that depending on what their systems say too) - £36/month for 500mb/s came up as a new customer deal, so I'd expect them to at least offer you that (and if they don't you could sign up to it after your cancellation goes through if you don't mind tethering to your phone or something in the meantime).
Not sure about the 1gb/s service though, under £50 might be a push... Guess you just have to sit tight and see if they ring you back!