Have your say & ask the experts

I downloaded a  292MB peice of emulation software (for work) last night and it was pretty swift. I did not time it but it was only a few minutes. Other big downloads (SP3 for Win XP upgrades and Photoshop software recently - 500MB+) were also insanely faster than I ever experienced before cable.

BBC iPlayer can safely be watched in HQ without glitching whereas friends (on BT) find the experience frustrating or even impossible at times.

As with anything, you are never going to hear from the vast majority of people who are happy with a service (ok apart from me maybe). I just think it is fair (and gives a little balance in the midst of a Virgin Media 'diss-fest') if I speak up for the good service I get.

I have VM for tv/phone/bb.  I was on their 2mb service, which suited my needs.  Now it has been upped to 10mb with no download limits.

Fair enough things slo down a bit at peak usage, but its still fast enough to watch BBCi player no probs.  Motorways and roads slow down at rush hour in much the same way, I dont think you can blame VM for slowdown at peak times.

Only problem I had recently was when I got my V+ box and a seperate modem installed.  They set up a new bill for my modem but did not bother to tell me about it. Only found out when i got disconnected as I was still paying for BB on the old bill.  A quick FREE phone call to disconnections (UK based), and all sorted within five minutes,plus half price BB for 12 months.

It always seems stable and available which is what I want from my connection, and they suceed. Same can be said for the Phone.

Dont start me on the bl**dy HD content tho grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 

Been with NTL then Virgin for over 5 years now. NTL were not good but recent experiences with Virgin customer care were excellent. They even sent me a snail mail afterwards to check that I had been happy with the outcome.

Very good speed on 10Mb connection, but then I guess that will vary with area and demand

Been with Telewest (now Virgin of course) since the cable was laid in the road. Went with them in the first place because of problems with BT charging me for phone calls I had never made (calls made when no one was at home).

Never had a problem with Telewest or Virgin. As Chebby says if you get a rare outage just phone 151 and they will tell you when it will be sorted. Speeds have gone up to 10mbps and thats fast enough for what I want. Whenever I have phoned up with an account query it always seems to be sorted PDQ.

So for what its worth they get my vote.

I think anyone that games online, through either their 360, PS3 or PC will be the ones that consistently see how bad Virgin broadband is.  I think if all you use your broadband is for browsing the net, streaming videos and maybe downloading songs here and there you wont notice how bad itis, but if you use applications that are sensitive to download and upload speeds and ping then you instantly see how inconsistent Virgin is.

Outages may not be frequent but the way the speeds drop even when its not peak hours makes Virgin really awful.  They were at one point really good, but ever since they introduced 50mbps my 10mbps has suffered a knock back, where speeds dip as low as 1mbps and the ping shoots up sky high.

I already think its awful how countries like Korea have average speeds of 70-100mbps whereas our average is 2-3mbps and on top of it our woeful speeds cost more than their 100mbps speeds.  Quite shameful in my opinion.

Ginder:

I already think its awful how countries like Korea have average speeds of 70-100mbps whereas our average is 2-3mbps and on top of it our woeful speeds cost more than their 100mbps speeds.  Quite shameful in my opinion.

South Korea of course  In North Korea you would be shot for being able to access the internet at all.

The reason South Korea (and many other countries) have cheap, fast, and reliable broadband is because their governments think it is important to their economy and put real money behind major infrastructure investment.

 Our Government have only just discovered 'Digital' as a buzzword.  Attitudes of successive governments in Britain towards computers in this country were born in 1945 when they ordered the complete destruction of 'Colossus' (the code breaking computer conceived of by Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers & developed by the Post Office research unit at Bletchley park) and all the plans and drawings for it destroyed too. Everyone involved were sworn to secrecy (or worse) and that was the government solution to the problem of the technology possibly getting into the hands of the Russians!

The Govt. have always been somewhat embarassed by computers because they don't understand them and because everyone else in industry runs them more competently than government departments can. I don't think they like the idea of the public having better access to - and understanding of - this technology than they have. The only reason the UK is not living in some '1984' totalitarian state by now is because the Government are really bad at executing integrated computing solutions (police database fiascos, health service records fiascos, information security fiascos etc.)

A government that cannot get it's own systems to work without decades of unecessary effort and £billions of budget overrun and is dominated by MPs and Lords who still think 'digital' is a novelty, is hardly going to see the importance of putting £billions into vital fibre-optic infrastructure. It may reduce the amount of money available for moat cleaning! 

I've been with Telewest/Virgin for about 15 years now, and have found the customer service mixed.

On the whole, though, the actual products they provide, I've been impressed with.

I've been on the 20meg bb connection for about a year now. For the first six months or so, I was getting around 10meg, which isn't great for a 20meg service, but was a whole lot better than the 4meg I had before.

They did some work though recently, in preparation for the 50meg service, and since then I've had a fantastic connection - never less that 18meg and normally up at 19. Even at peak times.

And I've had only a couple of reboots required in a three month period.

On the whole, I'd say they were worth sticking with - once you're sorted, which sounds frustrating admittedly, I'm not sure you'll find a better connection.

good luck with it.

J