Streetlife

Hey, if Virgin doesn't work out - I work for Sky and have a half price family & friends offer for 12 months. You're welcome to it. Includes broadband and phone.

I have heard both glowing and condemning reports ... a relative has Virgin and says it is the best ISP ever .. lady living locally has had no end of problems.

ISP we are with a dire - in my opinion.  Was waiting for Infinity in this area - now we still don't have it but they are rolling out Infinity 2 ... not too sure who to go with now.  Sky fibre optic is being investigated.

We've been on Virgin TV and phone for years.  The connection is now very reliable, and the customer interface works as well as any large scale provider (which is to say frustrating if you have a complicated problem).  If you do experience a problem specific to your connection or home setup, then I have found the Virgin engineers to be pretty poor, and often take more than one visit to sort things out.  BT do seem to be better on that score.

I am wondering whether to change my broadband either to Virgin or Infinity 2 (arrival said to be imminent) to get a fast connection at lower cost.  I'm hesitating to go with Virgin, given their very mixed reputation for service, but may well take the plunge to get a good package deal.

We have virgin broadband and telephone, it's a see saw since it goes well and then suddenly the connection is very slow. I'm musing over going all the way to Sky since we have the TV connection. How is Sky for broadband?  

I have been on Virgin for years, TV, Cable and phone it works very well, internet is very fast and stable, the techies are very good if there is a problem, when we had engineers coming in, they were excellent.

This summer the internet speed will be twice as before, at no extra charge

My daughter is tech - our TalkTalk router is the most basic there is after the tin can and string version.  It drops out at least three times a day .. yesterday with no recovery.  First line support recommended hard reboot but couldn't see why it reverted to factory settings once this had happened.  Second line support sent a text to ask if the problem had been fixed - it is an intermittant problem and at the time of the text .. no it wasn't fixed.  They immediately bumped it to third line support with a turn around time of 48 hours.  The next will be to offer an engineer at £99 +VAT.

If you vary from their 'script' none of them are much cop - but in the absence of Infinity in the area, let alone the '2' version .. and the coming of Sky fibre optic ... we are stuck.  I wish you luck in your endeavours and would love to hear the result!

I have also BT telephone and broadband at the clinic for business; the internet often slows down a lot, switching on and off the modem often works; their techies are good and helpful, on the customer service, payment etc they are an absolute nightmare, a bunch of idiots!

On balance, i think Virgin is better on all counts

As far as Talk Talk is concerned, I have never heard a positive comment about them

A further thought is that some of the providers, especially BT, are offering wifi access out and about.  On my iphone I have often noticed how widespread BT wifi networks are - but I have access to very few of them.  It may just tip the balance towards BT, unless Infinity gets delayed.

But I read in the paper the Tube wifi is going to be run by Virgin - and access will be open only to customers after the Olympics...

I am quite happy with Virgin but find them expensive compared to some friends experiences.  Keep trying to vary my needs but really don't want the hassle of changing service providers as Virgin is cable and I find it pretty stable.

I'm told Tivo is great by a happy user!

We are SW15. I'm talking on,y broadband now: Our Virgun broadband drops off all the time it's really annoying. We were with sky before we moved but for some reason they screwed up the move so we had to change. Actually fault was probably BT. I will change back to sky as soon as I have time to deal with it. Think we pay just under £17+ PCM now for broadband only.
Our sky tv is no problem although installation was hell as our roof too high - we had to get independent fitter and reclaim costs which was a real pain. If u have any inclination towards BT I suggest you start with a bottle of Valium and a long life.

I find Virgin very good although having been with them for ages you dont get the

cheapest deals which attract new customers.  A definite plus is if you have a

problem you get free technical assistance if your telephone is with Virgin which

is a good saving.

Kevin...overall very happy with Virgin Media. Internet speed in SW18 is aprox 20 meg which is good...and I find it very stable. (Good upload as well)

TV service is good...go for the hardware which records live TV. Very few technical issues, but when there has been, a simple call and a UK technical support person sorts it out. If your box is faulty, they came and swoop it for a new one very quickly and unlike Sky (i think) there is no charge for the new box.

I have been with them for four years now.

Good luck.

Hi all,

I am only recently changed to Sky after working for them for 2 years and I'm happy with the service. But I was a Virgin customer for a few years beforehand and I was very happy with them! But- if anyone does want the 1/2 price offer, just let me know!

Jonathan P - I'm not sure what the deal is with new boxes I'm afraid!

Last year I received quick technical support from Virgin Media who replaced the box free of charge. The engineer was supportive and informative.

I changed from talk talk to virgin in September and am not impressed with the service. Broadband is good when it works but for some reason it drops off quite often during the night and they take ages to answer the phone at 4p a minute. I have had to phone them over 20 times and it's wearing a bit thin.... will investigate sky when contract is up as I am still with talk talk for phone as they are cheapest.

It took over a month for Virgin Media to respond to my very simple request - then only to tell me I already had what I was asking for. They were useless in my opinion and they had no idea what they were doing. Negative yes, justified comment, yes.

I have to give a thumbs up for the faultless service i have had over the years

Virgin has its ups and downs but I have reliable information that the hub that currently supplies tooting is in the process of being updated which is why the service is up and down, once the upgrade work is complete which will be September time any issues will be resolved, all in all its a good service now we had a couple of rough months but that seems to have worked itself out now.

As for customer service people knock it but they are pretty similar to other suppliers people are to quick to complain now days, the call centre has been outsourced but many people are unaware you can ask to be put through to and English call centre and they have to transfer you, once you are through to the UK normally Liverpool you get very little issues, also if you are not getting anywhere you can email the CEO office and they are very quick to deal with a solve complaints.

Virgin = very fast broadband + inconsistent reliability. If broadband isn't 99.99% reliable it isn't worth having for business. Nobody employs a typist who's only 99.9% reliable. Virgin is an excellent back-up for BT though as unlike all the rest they have their own physical system.

Best - Ian

Thanks to everyone for their comments concerning VIRGIN 

Yes Vivian, I am with Talk-Talk and I have the same problems. Sometimes they drive me crazy keeping me on the phone asking to do the same things, trying to help. Sometimes more than an hour they are waisting my time. But if the problem doesn't occur they are fine. I stay with them because of the price, I pay £28 for broadband, unlimited downloads, free calls 02, 0845 and unlimited international calls any time. 

I have been with Virgin, they are the best for me but yes, as someone mention above it happen the connection drops and usually at the most important for you time :) They increase the price twice during my contract. Otherwise the speed is fantastic

Something else I don't like is /but I think they all tend to do/ they always find reason to increase the price: better speed, VAT........

I think when your contract has not finished they should not do it.....

Kameliya - our speed drops regularly every evening with TalkTalk - the drop out rate is up to (and usually is) three a day.  The downloads are not unlimited, they capped someone we know who downloaded a video game - paid for mind you, not pirated.  He had a no download limit contract, but there is a fair usage policy and it is they who decide the fair usage.    To telephone them is 10p per miinute even when on their phone package.  At least for  us it is - free geographical and international calls only.

We started off with Homechoice - fantastic little company, brilliant set up.  They were then taken over by Tiscal who were fair to middling on their service ... except the call centre was in Scotland and the accent of some of the staff needed interpretors.  They were taken over by TalkTalk who have punished us ever since.  We cannot talk with a Talktalk call centre person, we have to be transferred to a Tiscali/Talktalk call centre person.  We were on a separate server until migration and that remains a nightmare. 

Tin cans with string would be a similar set up to the one we have now at times.

Hm! I did not know they charge to call them! They said you can call us free any time you need help, it is included in you package......

The only BB I would now consider is Zen. Really good service people which counts for a lot.

I spent a while looking for ISP's when i moved back to the UK. My main issue with most is that a lot of them do what is called traffic shaping or throttling. This means that at peak periods they will lower your download speeds to help keep the network constant. Not good if you use streaming services.

My best recommendation is BE. These people are the folks behind O2's service however they remain independant since the purchase. No traffic shaping, no limits and flawless customer service for about £15 a month. Message me if you want and I have link for a discount on first months service