Virgin Media Help

TheBlueButterfly

Well-known member
Apologies I couldn't find the original thread but hopefully someone can help!

The contract has recently ended so need to make a decision quickly, but I had the Virgin multipack with the M600 broadband (which states has a an average speed of 630mb). The new contract will be £126 a month (same package), does this sound like a good deal?? Sky can offer their Sky Q / signature package for £58 but cannot offer fibre broadband in my area. Virgin can offer their M500 broadband only package at £62 p/m so works out similar when you combine the Sky/Virgin deals.

Apologies i'm not very clued up when it comes to broadband speeds etc so could do with some help!

As a side note, I work from home and the computer is in an extension at the opposite end of the house to the router, but with a couple of boosters, the broadband works fine at the minute but I'm worried it may be too slow with the M500 package?
 
I was in a similar position last week.

My 18 month £79 a month contract finished on Dec 24th (600 Mb broadband, sports, movies, multi room etc) and the new price was £147.

They sent me a letter saying they could up me to 1gb broadband and chuck in Netflix (which we already have ) for the eye wateringly expensive monthly fee of £154 a month.

I checked on the SKY website and a similar package was £95 (with slower broadband admittedly as its not fibre optic in my area but through the BT phone line)

So I rang Virgin saying that I wasnt going to pay £147 a month, and described what Sky had offered, and asked what can they do, other wise I would be left with no choice than to switch to Sky. I waited about 20 minutes before I spoke to a person, then they put me on hold for 10 minutes ( inefficiency of a clever tactical ploy I have no idea) but when they did come back, they said they could do a new 18 month contract for 1Gb broadband and everything else for £90 a month.

so that's what i did.

My experience has been that its the wifi speeds that limit activity rather than the headline broadband speed. I have my virgin hub just as a router, then have it connected into a separate Netgear wifi mesh router. Awesome wifi around the house, in the garage and at the bottom of the garden,
 
I pay £79 for 1gb broadband and full TV including movies and sports with Netflix for 18 months guaranteed no price increases for the duration of the contract, agreed in November just gone.
 
If you're in Stockton, check youfibre - can get 1gb for about £30 a month with often a few months free. Drop me a message and I can get you a few free months added on top of that

In boro I believe cityfibre are doing the networks so try them

Either way, WiFi boosters are generally crap, what they're usually doing is picking up the WiFi signal and rebroadcasting it as a separate network with the same ssid, but often unreliable and flakey

What you want for more stability is a mesh network. Youfibre give these out on their top package for free although the hardware isn't great. You can often pick them up fairly cheaply online - you essentially place the nodes around your house, depending on size and locations of rooms 2-3 usually so the trick.

Each one picks up the signal of the network and extends it, using the same network details and has the advantage that, if possible, you can plug an Ethernet cable between them to provide a backhaul, giving it full speed connection and strengthening the signal.

Devices will automatically be switched to the node with the best connection and managed by the network
 
If you're in Stockton, check youfibre - can get 1gb for about £30 a month with often a few months free. Drop me a message and I can get you a few free months added on top of that

In boro I believe cityfibre are doing the networks so try them

Either way, WiFi boosters are generally crap, what they're usually doing is picking up the WiFi signal and rebroadcasting it as a separate network with the same ssid, but often unreliable and flakey

What you want for more stability is a mesh network. Youfibre give these out on their top package for free although the hardware isn't great. You can often pick them up fairly cheaply online - you essentially place the nodes around your house, depending on size and locations of rooms 2-3 usually so the trick.

Each one picks up the signal of the network and extends it, using the same network details and has the advantage that, if possible, you can plug an Ethernet cable between them to provide a backhaul, giving it full speed connection and strengthening the
just checked my virgin account before your post it runs out in march paying £62 for 1gb. I can switch to you fibre it's in my area so I will probably do that next month and get the 1gb package it's £1 for 3 months then only £30. If I do the migration in a month I can run both services concurrently so there's no downtime with the Mrs needing a connection for WFH. I don't need the mesh boxes either as I have ubiquiti U6-LR AP and a dedicated pfsense router box. I take it the mesh boxes don't belong to you so I can't sell.
 
I swapped from Virgin to Sky in November, mainly cost reasons. I was worried about the broadband speed and Virgin told me my Amazon Sticks, Alexa etc wouldn't work. My wifi is now much better across the whole house despite broadband speed being much lower.
 
I have a Sky package, but my broadband is provided by Virgin. I only have 50gb for £38/mth, but no contract, this is so that when another provider supplies my street I can immediately migrate to them. Looking at you, Youfibre.

The best part is, I received an email from Virgin last month suggesting that I contact them about entering into a contract. Same speed 50gb but for £44/mth. Bless them.
 
Easiest way to deal with Virgin is the online chat. They use the same slow response/make 'em wait nonsense but if you are online you can just do other stuff while you wait. I was on something like £90 pcm for the BT Sport plus loads of useless stuff and 200Mb BB and they offered me an upgraded BB, revised telly box and same channels for £54pcm for 18 months, took about an hour as I recall. Much better than talking to them and getting wound up.
 
I'm not a great fan on hanging on the phone. It only ever winds me up.
Chat is OK because I can deal with it in the background whilst working.

The best strategy I have found though (last 3 renewals with Sky) is to actually cancel and place an order with another supplier. That really seems to trigger them. It takes about a week or so, but then they send me an email with their best deal. Normally save around 35% on their retention offer.

Just make sure that you cancel the other order within 2 weeks. Best entertainment is during week 2 of the game when they start competing with each other.
 
just checked my virgin account before your post it runs out in march paying £62 for 1gb. I can switch to you fibre it's in my area so I will probably do that next month and get the 1gb package it's £1 for 3 months then only £30. If I do the migration in a month I can run both services concurrently so there's no downtime with the Mrs needing a connection for WFH. I don't need the mesh boxes either as I have ubiquiti U6-LR AP and a dedicated pfsense router box. I take it the mesh boxes don't belong to you so I can't sell.
I can refer you if you like, you get at least 1 month free but believe an offer on atm for 2 months free on top of any free /discounted months they're doing now.

Yes the mesh router and nodes belong to youfibre and you don't get any discount for not taking them, so you basically have to just chuck them in the loft if using your own gear, unless you can get them to agree with you just not taking one.

Having 1gb upload is immense, you don't use it anywhere near as much as download but when you do use it it's great to have. I regularly do large uploads to backup servers and they're practically instant. Plus no issues with headroom if using things like 24/7 cloud security cameras which can use 5-10mb each

There is no mess with the install other than the hole in wall for modem- no need to dig garden up etc like virgin initial install, they're using the same pipes as BT so will pull the cable to the house from wherever that enters from the street.

Our street didn't even have virgin until about 5 months ago, so we were paying £25 a month for 67mb down and 15mb up which was vile.
 
I can refer you if you like, you get at least 1 month free but believe an offer on atm for 2 months free on top of any free /discounted months they're doing now.

Yes the mesh router and nodes belong to youfibre and you don't get any discount for not taking them, so you basically have to just chuck them in the loft if using your own gear, unless you can get them to agree with you just not taking one.

Having 1gb upload is immense, you don't use it anywhere near as much as download but when you do use it it's great to have. I regularly do large uploads to backup servers and they're practically instant. Plus no issues with headroom if using things like 24/7 cloud security cameras which can use 5-10mb each

There is no mess with the install other than the hole in wall for modem- no need to dig garden up etc like virgin initial install, they're using the same pipes as BT so will pull the cable to the house from wherever that enters from the street.

Our street didn't even have virgin until about 5 months ago, so we were paying £25 a month for 67mb down and 15mb up which was vile.
.
Did they connect to the existing BT duct outside your house. We have one near the front door which links to BT sockets inside the living room but they are on the wrong side of the room for my networking equipment I would much prefer they drilled a hole and put the external box at the side of the house near my virgin connection point.
I will pm you about the referral before I order
 
.
Did they connect to the existing BT duct outside your house. We have one near the front door which links to BT sockets inside the living room but they are on the wrong side of the room for my networking equipment I would much prefer they drilled a hole and put the external box at the side of the house near my virgin connection point.
I will pm you about the referral before I order
They pull the cable up at that point as there are underground ducts from the bt points in the street to there hence no dig. If there is a different point you want them to enter the house itself in they will do that for you. But would mean an external am cable running allying the outside of your house. They did this for my mate who had a preferred place rather than where the old BT point was.
 
They pull the cable up at that point as there are underground ducts from the bt points in the street to there hence no dig. If there is a different point you want them to enter the house itself in they will do that for you. But would mean an external am cable running allying the outside of your house. They did this for my mate who had a preferred place rather than where the old BT point was.
Thats good to know thanks
 
I was in a similar position last week.

My 18 month £79 a month contract finished on Dec 24th (600 Mb broadband, sports, movies, multi room etc) and the new price was £147.

They sent me a letter saying they could up me to 1gb broadband and chuck in Netflix (which we already have ) for the eye wateringly expensive monthly fee of £154 a month.

I checked on the SKY website and a similar package was £95 (with slower broadband admittedly as its not fibre optic in my area but through the BT phone line)

So I rang Virgin saying that I wasnt going to pay £147 a month, and described what Sky had offered, and asked what can they do, other wise I would be left with no choice than to switch to Sky. I waited about 20 minutes before I spoke to a person, then they put me on hold for 10 minutes ( inefficiency of a clever tactical ploy I have no idea) but when they did come back, they said they could do a new 18 month contract for 1Gb broadband and everything else for £90 a month.

so that's what i did.

My experience has been that its the wifi speeds that limit activity rather than the headline broadband speed. I have my virgin hub just as a router, then have it connected into a separate Netgear wifi mesh router. Awesome wifi around the house, in the garage and at the bottom of the garden,
Billy,would you send me details on the Netgear wifi mesh as that is exactly what I need ,I'm getting a engineer to come on Tuesday so I will suggest this to him
 
Mesh wifi is the way to go, I installed it about a year ago. I use deco and it cost me about 100 for 3 satelites, no router I used my existing one. It is great in our house which is over 3 floors.

The speed of your broadband isn't really important. We have about 30 Mb as it's as quick as we can get where we live and we run Netflix, Amazon prime video and music over multiple devices simultaneously and never have a problem.

If you aint downloading ultra hd movies you dont need a gig broadband.

I work from home have 2 laptops connected to 2 different client networks and I manage fine with my paltry speeds. When I say fine, I mean I don't even notice.

 
Thanks for the suggestions on this and a little update. I was walking through town and noticed a Virgin Media stand. Spoke to a lad and told him I had been quoted £126 a month and what is the lowest I should be paying as a retention customer. He said don't pay more than around £89, to ring Virgin and cancel and he guaranteed that they would call me back within 2 days and offer a deal of around £89 p/m. Did this last night and the girl on the phone got it down to £101 but I declined so she cancelled. Wasn't even 12 hours later they rang me this morning and offered me their full Ultimate Volt pack (Gig1 Fibre Broadband) for £79 p/m over 18 months! Not only that, but this included a free Netflix basic subscription (£6.99 p/m) for the full 18 months. I am currently using the Netflix £10.99 p/m subscription so will cancel that and upgrade Virgins netflix offer so overall I will be paying £72 a month. Can't really argue with that considering ive been paying £147 p/m out of contract (long story!).

Hope this can help others.

(P.S. - I tried youfibre etc but they don't service my area as yet).
 
I have a Sky package, but my broadband is provided by Virgin. I only have 50gb for £38/mth, but no contract, this is so that when another provider supplies my street I can immediately migrate to them. Looking at you, Youfibre.

The best part is, I received an email from Virgin last month suggesting that I contact them about entering into a contract. Same speed 50gb but for £44/mth. Bless them.
I’m currently paying £64 a month for 500 mbs plus landline , recently installed deco mesh , very simple , took me 10 minutes and getting 350 mbs in my Garden, no more black spots . Unfortunately still paying £40 for Sky as wife won’t budge to Virgin
 
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