Hi folks.

We've been having a bit of a think here. I've been a Demon customer since forever, but since BT have been squeezing ever more bits down our bit of wet string, the service has become ever more flakey. I don't mind a 10 meg connection, if it remains at 10 meg all the time. Demon have also admitted they seem to have a problem somewhere in their infrastructure.

So, having had cable down our street for years, the time has come to look at a more reliable alternative than something that has to come down our overhead phone cables. It's also highly likely I shall be working from home a lot more in the immediate future, so a reliable internet connection will be a must.

It seems Virgin has acquired what was originally the Telewest network that was installed, and having looked at the various broadband options on their web site, I wondered if anyone else uses them.

We'd be looking at either the 10 or 20 meg broadband plus phone. Either of those options works out cheaper than our current BT line and Demon broadband.

Is Virgin a good option? Is their technical support up to snuff? Are there any horror stories I should be aware of?

Cheers

I use them.

I have a 10Mb line.

I always seem to get a d/l speed of 1.1MB/s (i.e. almost 99% of the full speed).

They do have traffic shaping but that's for home users so I don't know how it applies for business users.

TBH I haven't had to deal with the customer services since I connected but when trying to get connected for the first time they were very helpful (once I got the right person).

Nothing but good things to say about Virgin Media, we are also on a 10Mb line and I get 1.2MB/sec downloads.

Service is excellent, and I have yet to experience any downtime.

Cheers chaps. Very encouraging.

Thanks!

20Mb VM broadband here.
Always get at least 18Mb even in busy periods

Cable is good from what I've heard. Uncle Chris is on it and he gets a consistent 1mbps download speed all the time.

However, virgin ADSL is crap. I'm on a 8mb connection and I'm lucky to get above 80kbps download. Moving to talktalk soon though I think.

On VM 10MB service here and get a constant (if the actual web site will allow it) 1.1 download. I have found they will shape your service if you go above 2gi in one night but its back to normal by the next night

+1

There has been a bit of downtime in the past, but their tech support has always been helpful. It helps if you can talk technical from the off, that gets you past the front desk. We’ve been with them since the Telewest days, and I’ve not experienced any traffic shaping issues.

This is all good news, folks.

Thanks for the input. I think it's pretty certain that I won't be with Demon Internet much longer.

Thanks!

+1 for VM, and I don't know if the offer's still on, but they were doing mobile BB for £5 a month if you were a home user - I took them up on it and have no complaints

DON'T DO IT!

NO. REALLY. DON'T!

Moving to them was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made, and I've made a few.

Really?

Brad is on an 8mb Talktalk connection just down the street from us, and he gets really high download speeds. Like, 800kbps or so on a bad day!

I'm with J_V, everyone I know who is with TalkTalk (mostly because of the price point) is having a truly awful "broadband" experience.

Like any large company, there are plenty of people out there who have had bad service from Virgin.

Every student house in the land uses Virgin cable because it's fast, reliable and cheap. I know of two who have had problems - one house who have been paying for 50mb but not getting it, and another who were charged for what was advertised as a free router when they signed up.

As far as I know, they are both sorted but they charge a premium rate for the support line. If the problem turns out to be their fault, they supposedly refund the cost.

I was with VM last year in the student house, and have them again this year. No problems at all, Heather.