Virgin Media/NTL is garbage, but it's far and away less garbage than most other ISPs.
The issue is that they own & control all the system up to the wire that comes out of the modem. Thus there is less shifting of blame.
Also their cable modem technology is inherently more reliable, and usually faster than ADSL, which is a flaky bodge.
It's much faster, and reliably so. For a few whole days I had it running 8 megabits per second non stop. Not a glitch.
The X mb per second given by nearly all other ISPs is basically a lie. It's like a train operator who says "we have 100mph trains", when they spend most of their time at signals or stuck behind other trains. Neither ISPs not train operators see that in any way their fault. Indeed they have much the same mindset, since they take the money upfront and have no real service obligations.
Virgin aren't good people, indeed you have to assume that anything with Branson in it is a over-hyped rip off, but they inherited good technology. As long as the bearded one doesn't meddle should remain far better.