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I don't think that's entirely fair. I've been a happy Virgin Media customer for well over a decade. I've never had a serious outage and get 350mb internet (whic

I don't think that's entirely fair. I've been a happy Virgin Media customer for well over a decade. I've never had a serious outage and get 350mb internet (which I actually get), a decent selection of TV channels and use of a landline for £50/month. They're subject to the same bullshit as other ISPs, but you can mostly opt-out.

hughrr 5y ago
Virgin are the worst provider there is. Literally I’m typing this now because two of the people I’m on a zoom call with bailed because their virgin connection crapped out.
- jonatron 5y ago
  The guy I was on a call with just had to switch to tethering, he's on Virgin.
- minimaul 5y ago
  The only ISPs we’ve had persistent VPN problems with for Work from Home for my work have been Virgin and TalkTalk, and TalkTalk was solved with a newer router. VM don’t even admit it’s their issue.
  - ks6g10 5y ago
    Let the people with virgin use a custom dns, like cloudflare or google, have solved many issues I had whilst under virgin.
- DrBazza 5y ago
  Anecdatum: on virgin and it’s been rock solid for the last 2 years. Must be a location thing.
  - petepete 5y ago
    Same for me but for a decade. Only ever had one outage that lasted more than a couple of hours. No complaints.
- martinald 5y ago
  The problem with Virgin is it is very hit and miss depending on area. Some areas are great, but others are overutilised and hit serious congestion at 'peak' times (which is really all day now with everyone WFH). They are upgrading the network though, but it always seems like a bit of a cat and mouse game. Openreach based FTTC/FTTP doesn't suffer this problem as FTTC is point to point with no cotention, and FTTP technically could but with GPON you're sharing the bandwidth with maybe 32 other people, not hundreds/thousands in your area, so it's far less likely to get hit.
  - hughrr 5y ago
    Virgin also depends on if anyone has used the local cabinet as a urinal.
- ks6g10 5y ago
  It might be their crappy DNS virgin is running. Had a big issue pulling big repos with git (TLS error) before I switched my DNS. Same with accessing certain websites when I had my vpn on. Ever since I got my eeros so I can set the dns network wide(virgin does not allow custom dns), no problems.
- gambiting 5y ago
  I'd literally rather chop my own hand off than be with Virgin again. Countless problems, takes over an hour to speak to someone who has absolutely no clue, takes weeks for an engineer to come out, the speeds are never what they are promised.....hated every second with them. Regular provider can't give me the same speeds, sure, but at least their customer service is competent. And when my entire estate had an outage earlier this week I got a mobile router delivered the next day free of charge.
daveoc64 5y ago
I agree. Have been a cable customer (originally branded as United Artists, then Telewest, now Virgin Media) since the mid-1990s. Had cable broadband since 2001 (then branded as Blueyonder). Been through a lot of speed increases over the years: 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 150, 200, 350, 500, 1000 megabits. Probably had three faults in that time period that needed a call out to fix. Unless you can get FTTP, no other ISP can compete with them on speed.
- maxehmookau 5y ago
  I think a lot of the negative comments here are because Virgin offer non-cable connections for places that don't offer it via OpenReach. (Or they did, I don't know if they still do?) So there's a lot of their customers that are on typically shitty copper connections in a lot of places. I'm in the same boat as you. NTL, Telewest and Virgin Media. I've never had any serious issues of any kind that weren't of my own making!

hughrr 5y ago

Virgin are the worst provider there is. Literally I’m typing this now because two of the people I’m on a zoom call with bailed because their virgin connection crapped out.

jonatron 5y ago
The guy I was on a call with just had to switch to tethering, he's on Virgin.
minimaul 5y ago
The only ISPs we’ve had persistent VPN problems with for Work from Home for my work have been Virgin and TalkTalk, and TalkTalk was solved with a newer router. VM don’t even admit it’s their issue.
- ks6g10 5y ago
  Let the people with virgin use a custom dns, like cloudflare or google, have solved many issues I had whilst under virgin.
DrBazza 5y ago
Anecdatum: on virgin and it’s been rock solid for the last 2 years. Must be a location thing.
- petepete 5y ago
  Same for me but for a decade. Only ever had one outage that lasted more than a couple of hours. No complaints.
martinald 5y ago
The problem with Virgin is it is very hit and miss depending on area. Some areas are great, but others are overutilised and hit serious congestion at 'peak' times (which is really all day now with everyone WFH). They are upgrading the network though, but it always seems like a bit of a cat and mouse game. Openreach based FTTC/FTTP doesn't suffer this problem as FTTC is point to point with no cotention, and FTTP technically could but with GPON you're sharing the bandwidth with maybe 32 other people, not hundreds/thousands in your area, so it's far less likely to get hit.
- hughrr 5y ago
  Virgin also depends on if anyone has used the local cabinet as a urinal.
ks6g10 5y ago
It might be their crappy DNS virgin is running. Had a big issue pulling big repos with git (TLS error) before I switched my DNS. Same with accessing certain websites when I had my vpn on. Ever since I got my eeros so I can set the dns network wide(virgin does not allow custom dns), no problems.
gambiting 5y ago
I'd literally rather chop my own hand off than be with Virgin again. Countless problems, takes over an hour to speak to someone who has absolutely no clue, takes weeks for an engineer to come out, the speeds are never what they are promised.....hated every second with them. Regular provider can't give me the same speeds, sure, but at least their customer service is competent. And when my entire estate had an outage earlier this week I got a mobile router delivered the next day free of charge.

daveoc64 5y ago

I agree. Have been a cable customer (originally branded as United Artists, then Telewest, now Virgin Media) since the mid-1990s. Had cable broadband since 2001 (then branded as Blueyonder). Been through a lot of speed increases over the years: 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 150, 200, 350, 500, 1000 megabits. Probably had three faults in that time period that needed a call out to fix. Unless you can get FTTP, no other ISP can compete with them on speed.

maxehmookau 5y ago
I think a lot of the negative comments here are because Virgin offer non-cable connections for places that don't offer it via OpenReach. (Or they did, I don't know if they still do?) So there's a lot of their customers that are on typically shitty copper connections in a lot of places. I'm in the same boat as you. NTL, Telewest and Virgin Media. I've never had any serious issues of any kind that weren't of my own making!