Anyone with experience of Virgin Media?

[Cricketbat70]

Hi all

Just wondering if anyone has experience of Virgin Media? The reason I ask is, yesterday a couple of engineers from Wingnut Utilities (Preston based) installed a virgin media street cabinet right outside my gable end wall, I panicked when Rach rang me at work and told me because the gable end needs repointing, the cabinet is about 5" from the wall so should be able to repoint behind it.
I've been with Talk Talk forever, by default initially as I was with Tiscali in the days of dial up internet and they were bought by Talk Talk. I only left Talk Talk for 18months when Fibre to the cabinet first came to our little town, I went with BT, big mistake, I went straight back to Talk Talk when the 18 month contract with BT was up. Had 4 years fibre to the cabinet with Talk Talk, during COVID open reach engineers laid the infrastructure for fibre to the property.

I've now reached the end of my first 2 year, full fibre to the property, contract with Talk Talk and wondering whether to switch to Virgin or just start another contract with Talk Talk.
I know Talk Talk get a lot of bad press but I've never had any issues with them.

Incidentally it amazes me how big Virgin have got from the humble days of the record label. My bank is now Virgin Money, as they bought out the bank (Clydesdale) that owned the bank I've been with since my school days, Yorkshire Bank.

Thanks in advance for any experience with Virgin Media

 

[DCarmi]

Virgin Media is nothing to do with Branson's group. They just licenced the name when NTL and Telewest merged. It's parent company in now Liberty Media (who also own Formula 1). They are now merged with O2, so they are also a first line mobile company.

I've been with them for years and in terms of service is has been largely OK. Their customer support is variable but there again Talk Talk aren't renowned in this area. I've not particularly had a problem with them. You'lI probably find you are talking to "Kevin" in a foreign country and sometimes they can be difficult to understand, other times it is fine.

I find their speeds decent and reliable. Service interruptions do happen but not so frequently that I get overly annoyed. Given that there are 4 of us who work mostly from home, we'd spot a regular problem in this area.

Recommendation depends on what alternatives there are in your area, so research on your part would be wise. Personally I would not switch to Talk Talk, if that is any answer to your question.

You will find people who loathe the company but that is not my experience and I've been with them since they were Telewest.

 

[Cricketbat70]

Virgin Media is nothing to do with Branson's group. They just licenced the name when NTL and Telewest merged. It's parent company in now Liberty Media (who also own Formula 1). They are now merged with O2, so they are also a first line mobile company.

I've been with them for years and in terms of service is has been largely OK. Their customer support is variable but there again Talk Talk aren't renowned in this area. I've not particularly had a problem with them. You'lI probably find you are talking to "Kevin" in a foreign country and sometimes they can be difficult to understand, other times it is fine.

I find their speeds decent and reliable. Service interruptions do happen but not so frequently that I get overly annoyed. Given that there are 4 of us who work mostly from home, we'd spot a regular problem in this area.

Recommendation depends on what alternatives there are in your area, so research on your part would be wise. Personally I would not switch to Talk Talk, if that is any answer to your question.

You will find people who loathe the company but that is not my experience and I've been with them since they were Telewest.

Ah right I didn't know that. Makes sense NTL etc. I know people loathe Talk Talk and they get a lot of bad press but I've been with them forever, never had a problem. Like Virgin when ringing them I speak to Kevin in Mumbai 😂.
When I switched to Full Fibre to the property a couple of years ago, for nearly I year I didn't pay anything, Talk Talk credited my account with £300 for disruption of service that wasn't even their fault. Just as the open reach street cabinets had been upgraded to full fibre a drunk driver in a Mercedes AMG doing 70mph in a 30 zone hit the two cabinets wiped them out and sent them about 20 yards up the pavement, they would have gone even further if they hadn't hit a wall. The car ended up on its roof in the middle of the road.
There was a tremendous flash as the cabinets were wiped out. The new cabinets arrived within a couple of days and we were without internet for about two weeks while they were wired up. So 2 weeks without internet and credited £300.
That's why I wanted other people's experience with Virgin, help to me decide whether to switch or stay.

 

[abacus]

You can get perfect service from companies that have very poor support ratings, as sometimes it just comes down to the luck of the draw.
Have a look at comparison sites to see what the overall support of the various companies out there are.
NOTE: A high rating does not mean you will get a faultless service, but it is less likely that you will get a bad service.
As I said above, it's basically the luck of the draw.
I have been with Plusnet for years (No others have offered me the deals that Plusnet have) and am now on full fibre, any problems I have had (Which have been few and far between) have always been fixed efficiently, with the support staff all from the UK.
I have 2 friends who have (Had) Virgin and one of them swears by them, whereas the other had nothing but trouble, so went elsewhere.

Bill

 

[Cricketbat70]

You can get perfect service from companies that have very poor support ratings, as sometimes it just comes down to the luck of the draw.
Have a look at comparison sites to see what the overall support of the various companies out there are.
NOTE: A high rating does not mean you will get a faultless service, but it is less likely that you will get a bad service.
As I said above, it's basically the luck of the draw.
I have been with Plusnet for years (No others have offered me the deals that Plusnet have) and am now on full fibre, any problems I have had (Which have been few and far between) have always been fixed efficiently, with the support staff all from the UK.
I have 2 friends who have (Had) Virgin and one of them swears by them, whereas the other had nothing but trouble, so went elsewhere.

Bill

That's why I'm torn between switching and staying. I've never had a problem with Talk Talk even though they have really poor reviews.
When full fibre came to my town I did enquire with plus net and their response to me was we don't do full fibre. Yet just a few months into my full fibre contract with Talk Talk I got a flyer from PlusNet advertising full fibre. Now you would have thought when I emailed Plusnet someone would have known just a few months down the line it was coming. Their response wasn't that they didn't do full fibre in my area, the way it was worded was they didn't do it at all 🤷

 

[Corpus_Chain]

I've read a lot of mixed reviews, but my experience has been largely good. The best thing is that you usually get through to a human on the phone pretty quickly and the call quality is very clear and they are often based in the UK or Ireland so you can actually have a proper conversation with them, and feel truly understood. The phone-based technical help is similarly good.
However, I did have a problem where I asked for some copies of past bills to be sent to my house and they charged me £2 per bill, without telling me this. When they didn't arrive, I asked for some more copies and they charged me again for them without telling me. I ended up paying about £40 for a bunch of duplicate documents. Their phone waiting time is also getting longer, so it's getting harder to speak to someone.

Their pricing is quite high, and they do absolutely no favours to existing customers. I haven't had any kind of discount or concession since my very first contract, and I have been a customer since 2010!

The cable broadband service is very reliable and reasonably fast. There are faster services available from Virgin, but I have never needed them.

 

[Gray]

No experience of Virgin Media.

Talk Talk sent me a letter in June with a big headline stating that 'We're doubling your broadband speed free of charge'
...then subsequently e-mailed to say they were not, telling me to ignore the letter and any engineer appointment they may have booked 🤔.

I've just come to the end of that home phone and broadband contract with them - and told them I was leaving (and I'd fully intended to -as I've been experimenting with some hotspot tethering with cheap SIMs).

So desperate were they to keep me, that (eventually) they came up with a to-good-to-refuse deal for a 12 month contract - which I didn't refuse.
I was happy, they were happy....but as I left it till the last day - too late - they cut me off last night about 10pm 😆
I'm currently without home phone and broadband (just as well I'd proved that tethering works OK).

I've dealt with plenty of providers and it's never a good experience, although I fully admit that I'm not really in their top million chart of ideal customers.

 

[DCarmi]

I was happy, they were happy....but as I left it till the last day - too late - they cut me off last night about 10pm

Oops! If I did that, I'd probably be left dangling by my feet from the tree in the garden! The stress that builds when we get a network downtime for more than a few minutes! 🤬

Me, I'd just stick on a CD and have a coffee.

 

[Cricketbat70]

Oops! If I did that, I'd probably be left dangling by my feet from the tree in the garden! The stress that builds when we get a network downtime for more than a few minutes! 🤬

Me, I'd just stick on a CD and have a coffee.

Apart from watching catch up TV, Rachel wouldn't care if the internet went down. It's my 3 grown up kids that still live at home, all with gaming PC's that use it the most. Whenever contracts are up for renewal and I ask for Rachel's input she just says, that's your baby nowt do with me go with who you want as long as it's a good price.

 

[DCarmi]

It's my 3 grown up kids that still live at home, all with gaming PC's that use it the most.

Similar here. We try to get rid of them but they keep coming back! I've pointed out that if the hang around much longer, they'll become my defacto carers! 😉

 

[Gray]

Oops! If I did that, I'd probably be left dangling by my feet from the tree in the garden! The stress that builds when we get a network downtime for more than a few minutes! 🤬

Me, I'd just stick on a CD and have a coffee.

No question that internet access is as close to an essential requirement as you can get.

I really wish it wasn't the case.
(And I appreciate the irony as I type this 🤨)

 

[Gray]

.....then today we see the worldwide effects of our over-reliance on IT 😜

(If you're reading this in the future, check today's news.....though, no doubt, worse is to come).

 

[Jasonovich]

Hi all

Just wondering if anyone has experience of Virgin Media? The reason I ask is, yesterday a couple of engineers from Wingnut Utilities (Preston based) installed a virgin media street cabinet right outside my gable end wall, I panicked when Rach rang me at work and told me because the gable end needs repointing, the cabinet is about 5" from the wall so should be able to repoint behind it.
I've been with Talk Talk forever, by default initially as I was with Tiscali in the days of dial up internet and they were bought by Talk Talk. I only left Talk Talk for 18months when Fibre to the cabinet first came to our little town, I went with BT, big mistake, I went straight back to Talk Talk when the 18 month contract with BT was up. Had 4 years fibre to the cabinet with Talk Talk, during COVID open reach engineers laid the infrastructure for fibre to the property.

I've now reached the end of my first 2 year, full fibre to the property, contract with Talk Talk and wondering whether to switch to Virgin or just start another contract with Talk Talk.
I know Talk Talk get a lot of bad press but I've never had any issues with them.

Incidentally it amazes me how big Virgin have got from the humble days of the record label. My bank is now Virgin Money, as they bought out the bank (Clydesdale) that owned the bank I've been with since my school days, Yorkshire Bank.

Thanks in advance for any experience with Virgin Media

Like all providers, they have their usual ups and downs in terms of reliability of the signal. Virgin is better than most and very quick to resolve the problem when there is a power outage.

I'm with Virgin Media, I'm getting their 1.3 GB broadband and as I no longer have terrestrial services, I see no point in BBC licence, and my viewing is 4K when it's available, it's more than adequate.

You don't have to have the fastest, 500MB is more then adequate and will save you money. Virgin Media always have a better deal for new customers, existing customers seem to subsidise them, that's my only criticism. I am thinking of moving to EE who are offering full fibre 1.6GB and less than the price of Virgin. Reminds me my contract expires this month!

 

[Jasonovich]

.....then today we see the worldwide effects of our over-reliance on IT 😜

(If you're reading this in the future, check today's news.....though, no doubt, worse is to come).

Not sure this was related to the IT global phenomena? Yesterday my Thameslink commute service was derailed (excuse the pun) due to signalling failure, I was stranded for 5 hours. Left office 4ish, eventually got home 9ish, absolute nightmare.

 

[Cricketbat70]

.....then today we see the worldwide effects of our over-reliance on IT 😜

(If you're reading this in the future, check today's news.....though, no doubt, worse is to come).

The company I work for hasn't been affected but we use Arrow Logistics to deliver some of our goods and their systems are down. We have had one customer cancel her 65” TV because she demanded delivery tomorrow and because Arrow won't be coming in today she won't get it until this global outage is sorted.
According the the website my son looked at it's not a simple fix of just sending out another update.

 

[DCarmi]

From what I hear, they have to boot into safe mode to remove the offending bad patch then reboot to get the new patch.

 

[Cricketbat70]

From what I hear, they have to boot into safe mode to remove the offending bad patch then reboot to get the new patch.

Yeah that's what my son said. That includes in companies with big servers. They have to be booted in safe mode and the corrupted file manually removed then a fresh update.

 

[jjbomber]

According the the website my son looked at it's not a simple fix of just sending out another update.

Nah, Microsoft just need to unplug it at the mains, wait 10 seconds and then plug it back it.

 

[Gray]

Not sure this was related to the IT global phenomena? Yesterday my Thameslink commute service was derailed (excuse the pun) due to signalling failure, I was stranded for 5 hours. Left office 4ish, eventually got home 9ish, absolute nightmare.

☹️
If you were back in work today, it was hardly worth you coming home yesterday.

 

[Jasonovich]

☹️
If you were back in work today, it was hardly worth you coming home yesterday.

I'm thankfully working at home today.
Honestly much more productive than being in the office. I have the wife, the cats and copious supply of tea and caramel wafers 🙂

 

[Cricketbat70]

Nah, Microsoft just need to unplug it at the mains, wait 10 seconds and then plug it back it.

If it worked for NASA back in the day.😊

 

[Dave_]

It's as pointless asking for advice on VM02 as it is mobile networks!

As VM currently uses 3 different network topologies depending on area.

They use DOCSIS/HFC in original areas.

In infill areas done under project Lightning they used RFoG, which uses the old DOCSIS/HFC network, but they actually run fibre into the house rather than coax via use of media converters, but was/is a temporary bodge in my view as it offers no advantage over coax other than maki g future upgrades to full fibre easier and cheaper.

Then there's the XGS-PON (full fibre) upgrade being done under project Mustang in existing DOCSIS areas and by nexfibre in completely new areas.

VM02s notoriously poor CS aside, I wouldn't consider leaving a FTTP network for anything but the later.

If you're unhappy with TalkTalk then switch to one of the plethora of other providers that use openreach FTTP

 

[Cricketbat70]

It's as pointless asking for advice on VM02 as it is mobile networks!

As VM currently uses 3 different network topologies depending on area.

They use DOCSIS/HFC in original areas.

In infill areas done under project Lightning they used RFoG, which uses the old DOCSIS/HFC network, but they actually run fibre into the house rather than coax via use of media converters, but was/is a temporary bodge in my view as it offers no advantage over coax other than maki g future upgrades to full fibre easier and cheaper.

Then there's the XGS-PON (full fibre) upgrade being done under project Mustang in existing DOCSIS areas and by nexfibre in completely new areas.

VM02s notoriously poor CS aside, I wouldn't consider leaving a FTTP network for anything but the later.

If you're unhappy with TalkTalk then switch to one of the plethora of other providers that use openreach FTTP

That's the thing I'm not unhappy with TalkTalk, although they get a lot of bad press I've never had a problem with them.
I left Talk Talk for 18months when Fibre to the cabinet arrived and went with BT, regretted it almost immediately. Switched back to TalkTalk and had two years of fibre to the cabinet with them and then 2 years ago FTTP arrived.