Virgin Media - Optic Cable - 20MB - Any Good?

After having cable NTL/VM for 5 years i could never go to ADSL... im on 20mb and i always get 20mb... ive had about 1day of no connection in the 5 years ive been with them and that was when the local NTL exchange box was vandalised, they came and repaired it and all has been well again.

My only real annoyance with them came at the introduction of the traffic management, which basically meant that i queued up any big downloads and set them going overnight.. no real harm in that. I always see 2.25mb/s download speeds for decent sources, so im happy... Just wish they would roll-out the 50mb package to more people so I can have a play with that.
 
I love my VM, in the last 4 years i've had a total of about 5 problems, and altogether a total of about 18 hours downtime, the rest of the time its up and running properly and getting AT LEAST 75% of my rated speed (20Mb), most of the time 95%+. I wouldnt even consider going with anyone else for the moment.
 
CDj-Rossi said:
Bro gets 22-23mb from his Be connection all the time. its been flawless.
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Would just like to point out that its very rare for anyone to see that kind of speed on ADSL :)

BUT if you do live very close to an exchange and/or have underground/modernish telephone lines then you more likely too.
 
In Reading here, We will share (I imagine) the winnersh exchange and service is 20mb perfect here for me and some friends (although I've now downgraded to 4mb)
 
my 20meg virgin connection in Newcastle is spot on. Although it seems to slow around 7pm at nights and sometimes at weekends, but regularly maxes out at 18meg when downloading from newsgroups.
 
Our 20mb cable is pretty much spot on 99% of the time, however some areas/people do have serious problems with it and they aren't helped by the VM support which suffers from the outsourced call centre syndrome (often answered by people who barely speak english, have no knowledge of the product they are supporting other than the scripts on their computers and rushing to complete the call in a set time, regardless of it gets sorted or not).

I've had on average about 1 day of down time a year for the past 6 years, most of that being due to things outside the control of VM (or NTL as it was) such as flooding/powercuts.

If I'd been asked of my opinion of cable internet 7 years ago I wouldn't have been quite so happy (the first year or so was plagued by problems caused by a slightly messed up install, and a modem that developed a fault - but at the time was the only BB we could get).
 
I had horrendous issues with Virgin Media, the UBR was fubar and massively oversubscribed due to the massive student population in South Manchester. But it depends in your area.
 
VaderDSL said:
I had horrendous issues with Virgin Media, the UBR was fubar and massively oversubscribed due to the massive student population in South Manchester. But it depends in your area.
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I recently upgraded to 20mb from 4mb and saw a massive decrease in speed as about 90 % of the people on my ubr had a similar thought as me following a price cut. If you ever have problems with Virgin customer services dial 150 from your VM phone select option 4 then option 2 confirm the message it gives you with option1 and you will then be in the cue for the customer retention team. These are the elite customer service employees of VM and they have authority to do much much more than your average call centre button pusher. As i am getting about a 2meg service at the minute i am getting free broadband until the UBR is upgraded on the 19th of march. These people will also put you through to the expensive broadband technical helpline free of charge too.

I now only speak to that department and they can sort out billing change of service upgrades etc everything all with one simple phone call.
 
Caged said:
It's not 20MB all the time, and the support leaves a lot to be desired.

And it's not fibre to the house, it's fibre to the cabinet and then copper to your house. I've no idea how VM are getting away with their current ad campaign.
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The ASA judgement took VMs "explanation" that it was fibre to the cabinet and then alloy, not copper to the house which is enough to claim it's fibre :confused::rolleyes:
 
allllec said:
In Reading here, We will share (I imagine) the winnersh exchange and service is 20mb perfect here for me and some friends (although I've now downgraded to 4mb)
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Yeah I'm on the Winnersh UBR and it's great - 2400KB/sec pretty much all the time unless I hit the limits between 4pm and 9pm of course.
 
I'm on Cable in Swindon. I had an ADSL connection, but was stuck on 512kbps as I was too far from the exchange.

They are meant to be upgrading the BT exchange in the near future. I would need to pay a reconnection fee, monthly BT rental and ISP fees. It's not worth trading yet.

I've had about 1 problem of downtime in the year of ownership. I've even confidently given up my BT line and use VOIP for my main telephone via SipGate, saving more money each month.

I currently pay £18 per month having paid £10 a month for the first 12 months. I know for 2 extra pounds I could get Cable Digital TV as well, but I don't want the hassle of a phone line also installed.

Everything I have currently works. I don't want to mess with the formula.

VirginMedia Cable gets my vote.
 
allllec said:
3gb is for 20mb users.

For most places it will soon only be the top 3% of users (to each exchange i imagine) who will be throttled.
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:( seems like a bit of a slap in the face tbh


I can get Cable round where I live and I can also get 24mb ADSL from BE.

Cable isnt particularly cheap unless you really want TV and phone lumped in with it in which case its pretty good. BE is only £22 a month + the BT line rental and theres no throttling at all :\

You could say Im lucky living close enough to the exchange to get decent speeds but when I was looking for a new flat, I made sure it was near the exchange ;)
 
Another happy 20mb cable customer here. Been with them for years and years, and have been completely happy. Throttling aside, I get the full 20mb about 95% of the time (I download from Giganews at 2.33mb/sec), occasionally at peak time it'll drop to about 1.5mb/sec.
 
A[L]C;11113806 said:
If the checker says "It looks like your home is in our analogue area".... can I get 20mb broadband?
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Does it say you can still get their cable services including broadband? Otherwise it will be their ADSL which is ****.
 
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