Virgin Media - Any Good?

[gninnam]

Have Sky+, BT line and a separate Internet Provider.

Virgin have put the fibre to the outside of my property and the current offer seems good.
250+ channels, Phone line (well not really as over the fibre) and 200Mb Internet for £57 first year and £89 for the rest which is a reasonable saving on my current costs.

Does anyone use Virgin for any or all of the above and if so regret doing so or is everyone happy?

Cheers

[brian2957]

I've been using Virginmedia for years and find it excellent . Plenty of choice on the TV front and the picture is excellent . The internet is 2nd to none . I only have 50MB , as the advisor told me that's all I need , and it's very fast indeed . Maybe around 2 dropouts a year for essential maintenance but that's about it . We all use mobile phones now so I cancelled my phone subscription as I found that very expensive , although we can take incoming calls but now pay for outgoing calls . Never had a thought about leaving them although I occasionally threaten to leave when I want a better deal .
Oh..forgot to say that all repairs , including replacement of faulty equipment , is repaired or replaced free of charge .

Hope this helps

[Tim]

Approaching 2 years with Virgin now and regularly achieve in excess of 150Mbps, never had a problem yet apart from the crap Yodel delivery of the router.

However, I only have broadband with them, I don't have a land-line or a TV so can't comment on their other services, but their fibre broadband has been solid, fast and reliable.

[mikmas]

Been with Virgin for years - since before they rebranded from NTL in fact.
Landline+broadband+TV hover around £70 p.m. (we never use the landphone)

Service is generally solid but when it does go it can take a day or two for them to come and sort out the street cabinet.
Be aware that their service can vary depending where you are - my daughter lives in York and her Virgin service is a bit crap and the last outage took over 3 days to get sorted. We were face timing this evening and her connection failed (again)
Check out what local opinion is if you can just to be sure.

[gninnam]

Thanks everyone for your feedback.
I agree about asking around my area - I know my friends daughter went with them and it took a month to get the broadband to work but once done they have had no issues.

[Marco]

Hi Andy,

Have Sky+, BT line and a separate Internet Provider.

Virgin have put the fibre to the outside of my property and the current offer seems good.
250+ channels, Phone line (well not really as over the fibre) and 200Mb Internet for £57 first year and £89 for the rest which is a reasonable saving on my current costs.

Does anyone use Virgin for any or all of the above and if so regret doing so or is everyone happy?

We went for something similar when Virgin 'came calling', as it were, to our area. We moved from a full Sky Q package, with phone line/Internet and movies and sports package, to the full VIP Bundle with Virgin, including VIVID 350 Optical Fibre to the property Internet, and saved nearly £100 a month.

We had a few teething problems getting it all set up in the first place, but the service we're enjoying now in all areas is faultless. The only thing that holds Virgin back is their *truly appalling* customer service department, based in India. If you have to contact them, nothing ever gets done, as they don't have a clue!

Fortunately, the sales rep who called to sign us up left his card, and told us to call him instead if we needed any assistance and he'd attend to it for us, which is what we do now, and there have been no problems. All in all, though I'd definitely them

Marco.

[Pete The Cat]

Have Sky+, BT line and a separate Internet Provider.

Virgin have put the fibre to the outside of my property and the current offer seems good.
250+ channels, Phone line (well not really as over the fibre) and 200Mb Internet for £57 first year and £89 for the rest which is a reasonable saving on my current costs.

Does anyone use Virgin for any or all of the above and if so regret doing so or is everyone happy?

Cheers

You might find that if you presented the scenario to Sky they'd match Virgin's price. We held a three way shoot-out with Sky, BT and EE recently and got new customer rates for the bundle. With a lot of these things if you have a bit of time to spare (queuing to get through to talk to the right person is the main challenge) and haggle you get the best rate. The economics rely on the inertia of the majority.

Regulators of various sectors are currently wrestling with whether that's simply how man has traded since the year dot or it must be changed to protect the vulnerable.

Pete

[Marco]

You might find that if you presented the scenario to Sky they'd match Virgin's price.

I can confirm that's the case, as they did that with me when I phoned them to cancel and move to Virgin, but what they can't do is match the Internet speed Virgin offer, and direct to the property too, in my case. That was the deal breaker for me with Sky, and mainly why I wanted to switch to Virgin in the first place.

Therefore it just depends what's more important to you, Sky matching Virgin's price, but having a slower broadband, or getting the fastest Internet speed and the same price with Virgin

Marco.

[gninnam]

For me its Internet Speed and getting BT sport (for the bike racing). For the wife its the TV programmes so she would rather stick with Sky!
For both its value for money.

We have already fallen out with the Virgin Rep

I visited the Virgin site least week to check it out then on Thursday at lunch the Virgin rep turned up - my wife had nipped home for lunch so was in a hurry when he arrived, saying that i had expressed interest in moving to Virgin - my wife assumed he meant I had contacted them which she knew I hadn't so they had a bit of a ding-dong.

He came round later on that evening so I came out all guns blazing and had a bit of an argument on the pavement !!

In the end I asked him to leave his card and when we had all calmed down I would contact him - he did mention that we could use him as go-between for anything instead of using the call centres so seems like a good solution.

[Macca]

I've been on Virgin for TV since 1996 (when it was Nynex. Then it became Cable & Wireless, then NTL) and for broadband since 2004. The service is good, the TV interface is superior to the Sky equivalent and I've found the Indian call centre to be of an acceptable standard on the rare occasions I've had to use it. And they always get an engineer out within a couple of days if needed. I do still miss the monthly TV guide they used to send out but I think that stopped in about 1999.