Virgin Fibre Optic Broadband - Is it what I want?

[admin_exported]

BACKGROUND

TV - Currently have sky hd box and sky subscription. Circa £35 a month

Phone - Rental through Primus circa £8/9 a month. Phone is never used (to make calls) as Mrs and me both have mobiles which we make all our calls on.

Broadband - 2MB via Orange. FREE with mobile phone rental (old deal which is still honoured).

A 2MB broadband connection isnt always brilliant. My Billion router is downstairs with various bits of paraphinalia plugged into it.

I have An Apple Mac upstairs, along with a Sonos box and I do suffer from periodic unable to connect to internet problems and even downstairs close to the router the speed can sometimes be frustratingly slow.

I have tried those AV home plugs but they just dont work (in my house).

I'm happy with the TV (as happy as one can be with sky) but I really have no need for a land line so I have thought about getting rid of it (saving £8 a month which I can put towards a better broadband solution). A problem there being that if I do, I lose my broadband ability alltogether!

I have always had a thought that if I upgraded my broadband I would want fibre optic and Virgin are the only one I know of that say I dont need a phone line to install it.

THE QUESTION

I would probably go for the 30MB fibre optic solution from Virgin. Any comments good or bad from any existing Virgin customers?

Will a 30MB fibre optic solution help with my computer (and other devices) upstairs which sometimes struggles with wifi connection from the current billion router downstairs?

If not (a bit of an off the wall one question here) Could I keep my existing router and plug it in to my Apple mac via RS232 upstairs and ALSO use the virgin solution downstairs? So have two home networks in effect.

Any feedback/comments welcome

 

[chebby]

Do it. You won't regret it. I switched to Virgin cable in 2007. Very happy with it ever since. It's so reliable that I can work from home with no worries.

 

[Big Chris]

The reason Virgin broadband isn't tied in with the phone is because Virgin broadband comes down the same co-ax cable as their TV service, unlike every other provider which uses Openreach's telephone cabling. Co-ax also transmites broadband better than 'copper pair' phone cabling, hence their faster speeds.

Oh yeah.... Stupid question perhaps, but do you live in a Virgin cabled location?

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the prompt response guys. Yes I live in a Vigin supplied area. No problems there.

So I am assuming the large increase in bandwidth should mean my upstairs wifi access should be a problem which will go away.

Only other consideration is......is Virgin TV a better option than Sky TV?

 

[Dan Turner]

Thanks for the prompt response guys. Yes I live in a Vigin supplied area. No problems there.

So I am assuming the large increase in bandwidth should mean my upstairs wifi access should be a problem which will go away.

Only other consideration is......is Virgin TV a better option than Sky TV?

I've just got Virgin broadband and all looks good so far. I'm stumped up for the 100mbps service, although I'm yet to put it to any real test.

Your upstairs wifi access is probably more of a range issue for your router, and not an internet connection bandwidth one. It may get better by virtue of being given a new router when you sign up with a new ISP, but not necessarily. Your best bet may be to buy a repeater (not sure if that's the right term) which you would situate mid-way between your router and the problem area, and would receive and re-broascast your wireles network, thereby extending it's range.

I've got Sky and felt no temptation to change to Virgin, but I've got friends who have Virgin TV an it looks pretty decent - far fewer HD channels, but a much better on-demand service.

 

[Andy Clough]

Only other consideration is......is Virgin TV a better option than Sky TV?

IMHO Sky still has the edge with its TV offering as it has more HD channels and the excellent Sky Atlantic. But Virgin is fast catching up (I'm a Virgin customer) and the broadband is very robust, so that's the main reason I've stuck with them. TiVo box is excellent too.

 

[Andy Madden]

I'm an existing Virgin customer and I have to say i'm extremely disappointed with what i've experienced so far. I play a lot of online games and am experiencing terrible lag, especialy in the early evening and at peak times. I used to have BT broadband which never seemed to suffer from this even though it was slightly slower. I'd probably look at BT Infinity too...