Virgin Media TV

[AMEXY]

I am looking for some advice, we are due to move house shortly and the new property already has virgin media installed. We have never been able to get Virgin TV & broadband before so never investigated it. Virgin seem to have a lot of negative broadband reviews, trust pilot rates them 1 star. We currently pay for Netflix, Britbox and NowTV but contemplating just using Virgin. We don't need any sports channels, but do need the broadband to be reliable as we are both currently working from home. The current owners say it's been ok, which makes me think it will be fine. We use zen at the moment and never had a single problem, but there would be a delay in getting this installed at the new property. Is Virgin Media worth the money?

I work from home a lot - even before this pandemic, and ours is reliable. I can't say it never has any problems, but, every time they put the price up, I look around / do comparisons, and
a) our broadband is 100 (are they mgb?? - whatever they measure it in) but most others I can access are 1/2 that or less
b) friends I ask all moan about their providers - I've not found one where anyone say it never* drops out
c) their engineers are excellent and free if you need any repairs / upgrades

against that,
a) I get really annoyed at the lack of any decent price bundles for customers who are loyal - lots of offers for new customers, but our price just keeps on going up
b) the call centres are dire, and now, are closed from 8pm - so if there is an issue with your TV when you sit down in the evenings, there is nowhere to report to

I agree with the pp.

I feel like virgin are the best of a bad bunch. We recently moved and it's taken them over 2 months to install our broadband and it had nothing to do with Covid delays - just their engineers turning up and literally doing nothing.

We actually ended up getting sky broadband paid for by my husband's employer with a fraction of the virgin speed to allow him to work from home.

I wouldn't opt in to their tv service though - we had a good few years ago and it wasn't great. We felt like we missed out on quite a lot compared to sky.

Thanks, very insightful. It's starting to sound like the reviews are correct. I accept that no company is perfect and the pure nature of broadband has the potential of being unstable. But it's how they deal with a fault that concerns me. This is where most people are moaning, I suspect the broadband speed would be fast. Interesting to hear you don't think the TV service is worth it. The option we were looking at has 222 channels most of which I have not heard of and a lot of free view ones. But don't really want to have to pay for this then top up with Netflix and Britbox. It would be convenient and quicker to take over the existing virgin line but not worth it if there service is substandard. Will revisit our options again...

I have been with Virgin for some years and the main reason I stay is the fast, 200 Mbps, broadband.
You would expect cable to be faster because they are dedicated lines, whereas if you have, say BT, you are sharing with all the other customers on the Openreach network, Bt,Sky, Talk Talk etc.
I have generally been very happy but you do need to commit for 18 months to get the best deals and re negotiate when your deal comes to an end.
As a new customer you should be able to get a good deal.
The reason you expect cable to be a little dearer is because you do not own the equipment, but all maintenance is included.
Oh, and you don't need an aerial or a dish!