Virgin Media Discussion Thread

[Kelt]

Already checked best they do is 70mb , I checked other post codes near by and higher speeds available

Checked my area on openreach site

Build planned between
now and Dec-2026

The wait continues

False dawn, had the price increase letter today from Virgin, went to check the Vodafone site again, and the high speed options aren't showing anymore, highest speed available is only 200Mbps.

Went on livechat with them, and apparently, it was an error before (for weeks), that's only just been picked up.

Back to square one, zero high speed alternative to Virgin, in the so called "Second City" of Birmingham.

What a joke, second city my backside.

 

[ChrisD.]

Interesting, I've now got the option of fttp but prices are not as good as city fibre although better than vm, I've still got 5mths to go mind.

Unfortunately Openreach are quite expensive due to having a decent monopoly, however still better deals than standalone deals with VM, and a much better network.

 

[Bassmansam]

I don't know whats happening lately. I'm in a 2 bed flat and my virgin modem/router has been fine up until the last couple of months. My phone/mac/work laptop randomly drop out at times which is annoying.

I'm thinking to spend around £50-60 on a better router. Any recommendations please?

 

[ChrisD.]

I don't know whats happening lately. I'm in a 2 bed flat and my virgin modem/router has been fine up until the last couple of months. My phone/mac/work laptop randomly drop out at times which is annoying.

I'm thinking to spend around £50-60 on a better router. Any recommendations please?

Why not try and isolate the problem for free before spending money on something which might not cure the issue!? I'd say it's almost certainly going to be due to overlapping channels if you are in a flat. Scan what's around and try and pick one that doesn't overlap ones with high signal strength. Or run a cable for a few quid!

 

[Capitano]

been a customer for almost 2 decades, and paying £62 a month for Gig1. Its so expensive but there's not too much choice in our area as other customers offer slower speed for only a little bit less.

Really hoping some company like hyperoptic or another gigabit speed line company comes along and makes prices competitive again, cause this is a joke atm

 

[Bassmansam]

Why not try and isolate the problem for free before spending money on something which might not cure the issue!? I'd say it's almost certainly going to be due to overlapping channels if you are in a flat. Scan what's around and try and pick one that doesn't overlap ones with high signal strength. Or run a cable for a few quid!

How does one scan?

 

[Scope]

How does one scan?

On Android I use "Wifi Analyzer", its quite good.

 

[Mitzy]

been a customer for almost 2 decades, and paying £62 a month for Gig1. Its so expensive but there's not too much choice in our area as other customers offer slower speed for only a little bit less.

Really hoping some company like hyperoptic or another gigabit speed line company comes along and makes prices competitive again, cause this is a joke atm

It’s true the do offer the fastest download at the moment, I think it’s 1.15Gbit, but the router only has standard Ethernet and you ain’t pushing that speed wireless. You are locked into using their modem/router as the only option is to bridge their modem if you want.

Honestly look into FTTP, I’d be surprised if you can’t get it to your home. The biggest benefit for me is the upload speed trashes anything VM is prepared or able to offer and you can use your own hardware, your not locked to the junk most ISP try and dish out.

 

[ChrisD.]

It’s true the do offer the fastest download at the moment, I think it’s 1.15Gbit, but the router only has standard Ethernet and you ain’t pushing that speed wireless. You are locked into using their modem/router as the only option is to bridge their modem if you want.

Honestly look into FTTP, I’d be surprised if you can’t get it to your home. The biggest benefit for me is the upload speed trashes anything VM is prepared or able to offer and you can use your own hardware, your not locked to the junk most ISP try and dish out.

With FTTP you have to use the supplied ONT, much in the same way as Virgin Media and using their hub in Modem mode.

The idea behind > 1Gbps WAN connectivity is not so a single device can benefit from it, it's so multiple devices can benefit from higher throughput. That said, their Hub 5 does have a 2.5 Gbps LAN port which you can connect to a single device for > 1 Gbps, or into your own router which has a 2.5Gbps port or higher.

 

[jonnymc4]

Wahoo, just had an email through from BT saying FTTP is now available at my property, and Netomnia (Youfibre) coming soon this year too. Going to get FTTP set up before the end of my VM contract in July. Fingers crossed for a few deals between now and then.

 

[Capitano]

It’s true the do offer the fastest download at the moment, I think it’s 1.15Gbit, but the router only has standard Ethernet and you ain’t pushing that speed wireless. You are locked into using their modem/router as the only option is to bridge their modem if you want.

Honestly look into FTTP, I’d be surprised if you can’t get it to your home. The biggest benefit for me is the upload speed trashes anything VM is prepared or able to offer and you can use your own hardware, your not locked to the junk most ISP try and dish out.

Good point about it being 1.15 - meaningless as all my connection are just gigabit ports so the max I get is about 980 or so.

Ive just had a look on and my address is viable. Up to 1gig down and 220mb upload, will investigate this further and see what sort of deals and offers we get offered! Just hoping its a reliable service, as expensive as VM are I have almost never had internet issues at my household

 

[jonnymc4]

Good point about it being 1.15 - meaningless as all my connection are just gigabit ports so the max I get is about 980 or so.

Ive just had a look on and my address is viable. Up to 1gig down and 220mb upload, will investigate this further and see what sort of deals and offers we get offered! Just hoping its a reliable service, as expensive as VM are I have almost never had internet issues at my household

Working from home over the last few years (even pre-covid), I've noticed a lot more frequent down times during the day on VM. I'm hoping FFTP is a little more reliable and I'm looking forward to moving once my contract is up. My area was previously quite heavily congested until they did some work a year ago in Oldham, I think(?). Latency improved quite noticeably, especially online gaming, but still not as good as FTTP.

 

[ChrisD.]

Good point about it being 1.15 - meaningless as all my connection are just gigabit ports so the max I get is about 980 or so.

You're missing the point, you can have two clients simultaneously downloading and the total throughput will be over 1 Gbps, assuming you're wired into a Hub 5 or you have a 2.5 Gbps switch. But it's dependant on your uses.

 

[sandys]

It’s true the do offer the fastest download at the moment, I think it’s 1.15Gbit, but the router only has standard Ethernet and you ain’t pushing that speed wireless. You are locked into using their modem/router as the only option is to bridge their modem if you want.

FYI, Virgins HUB5 router does push that speed wirelessly with no problem, it can do about 1.4 in my testing.

And yes as mentioned there is a 2.5Gb port so no problem wired either.

 

[Capitano]

You're missing the point, you can have two clients simultaneously downloading and the total throughput will be over 1 Gbps, assuming you're wired into a Hub 5 or you have a 2.5 Gbps switch. But it's dependant on your uses.

I get that, but most things used in my household are wireless and my PC only takes a gigabit port and the switch I use is also a gigabit switch.

Though I do think that the latest VM hub finally has a 2.5gb port on it (im on an older hub that doesnt have that) but my actual LAN devices are still only running gigabit ports, so for me the difference between 1.15 and 980 is going to be barely noticeable

 

[Nemiyen]

I took the easy way out to be honest! On hold to Virgin for about 35 mins and the automated system was offering a £3.50 per month discount. Waited and I've now got a £5.60 discount and the increase is only going to be £1.40. Everything is going up so I don't think that's too bad compred to the £7 increase some suckers will pay by not ringing them.

My contract still expires in November this year and I can jump ship to Vodafone FTTP or stick with VM. I'm not fussed about the mega upload or download as 125mb is good enough for me.

Edit: Plus I tried timing my end date to be around black Friday / cyber Monday so hopefully there're some sweet offers around then!

 

[CF93]

@ CF93

If you get Vodaphone please report on how it goes I've been looking at it myself but from what I've read on the Vodaphone community it's just as bad as VM.

Today had multiple confirmations from both Voda and CF that everything is ready to go.

New router arrived yesterday, set it all up, configured so all the devices on my lan should just swap over nicely (the only reason I don't have the VM hub in modem mode is cause my own TPLink router seems to not allow talking to devices on the lan with IPs outside of the DHCP range, but if I run DHCP from the VM hub it all works fine. so I use
the VM hub for DHCP and run wifi and wifi off the TPLink, as it has a much better wifi signal.)
On the plus side, can change DNS servers which the Virgin hub doesn't allow - I'm running AdGuardHome as an add-on in Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi, will finally be able to get the whole lan using that, with Google's DNS as backup, instead of just my phone going (only done my phone cause I'm lazy and can't be bothered to manually config every device to a static IP with manually set DNS, now I won't have to!)

My Dad's switchover went live today, he seems happy enough so far, but it has only been a couple of hours lol.

 

[Macdonsk]

So i'm trying to cancel my Virgin Media services as i have had an alternative fibre provider installed.

It's taken over 45 minutes to actually get a response on chat and another 30 minutes offering me bundles.

I've already told them i have had another provider installed. Once they realized i'm going to really leave and this is not some negotiation to get a better deal they have blanked me and will not reply in chat with a disconnection date.

So i have no idea if they will actually action my cancellation request.

I refuse to wait hours on the phone so i'm going to have to send a signed for letter to the address they have given on their website cancellations.

What an utterly unprofessional way to act. I might have considered going back to them when my contract is over but screw that with the way they have acted.

UPDATE: After 2 hours they have finally processed my cancellation request and 1 hour of that was where they did not reply to me. I have saved a copy of the chat as i am sure that this will not be then end of it.

 

[Duke]

I would have just phoned as I get through to them fairly quickly that way, although I phone during a weekday not the weekend, so expect both text and phones will be busier those days.

 

[Psiko]

The way this should work is the job fails, gets picked up by JMT on the day, they speak to the tech who tells them no Tee, they either pass it directly to construction who likely come out and look at it, mark it up, depending on what’s required and who owns the property/land they need to cross wayleave may be required or works permits requested if it requires it.

Realistically VM canned most of the people who used to do that some years ago and moved to contractors (often the same staff via a 3rd party). The CEO route is probably your best option at this stage as while the CEO complaints team are clueless about how things work, they tend to go to CSM level staff and then be passed to someone who is competent to resolve.

Many thanks to you and the other poster who responded. I had no idea how convoluted this would be. I’ve done a bunch of searching on the VM official forums and looks like this is indeed a very common issue. My CEO email has been ignored. I also hadn’t realised that I might be eligible for compensation at £5.25 per day until it’s installed. That’s almost £800 already! Fortunately I still have internet from Sky so will keep waiting…