Virgin Broadband Reviews
About Virgin Broadband
Virgin Media was launched in 2006, and since then it has developed into one of UK’s leading internet service providers. Its greatest competitors were BT and Sky. Virgin’s best-value deals can be found in broadband with television services. However, you can also choose to get a “broadband only” package. When it comes to broadband services, Virgin puts more importance on speed. In fact, they do not even offer ADSL packages.
Virgin’s broadband package starts with M50 Fibre Broadband with an average speed of 54Mbps. Its premium package is M500 Fibre Broadband, which offers an average speed of 516Mbps. This is 70% faster compared to EE’s leading broadband package and eight times faster than Sky and BT’s broadband packages.
As what you are hoping for, all of Virgin’s broadband packages are unlimited. Or else you can easily run out of data. Another advantage is Virgin’s contract period, which is only for 12 months which is contrary to other internet service providers which offer up to 18 months of contract. If you need a flexible contract, then you can also avail their 30-day rolling contract option. However, this is more expensive since you’ll be paying £80 for the setup fee while you only have to pay £35 for the setup fee of an annual contract.
Undoubtedly, Virgin’s broadband packages are truly impressive. However, before you sign up, you must evaluate if you really require these extreme speeds. For instance, if you only want to stream 4K video from Netflix, then you will probably need about 25Mbits/sec. Even if you choose Virgin’s cheapest broadband package, it will just be too much.
The fact is, Virgin Media provides the fastest speeds when it comes to broadband in the UK. There’s no way that they can be beaten on speed. However, an excellent broadband package does not rely on speed alone. There are also other factors that you need to consider. Is Virgin broadband a good choice?
Virgin Broadband Reviews
Coverage
When it comes to speed, there’s no doubt that Virgin is capable of offering faster speeds because they have their own fibre network. Back in the early days, Virgin’s coverage is only concentrated in major cities. But now, they were able to expand their coverage up to 60% around the country, hence, anyone can now enjoy having Virgin fibre services. If you want to know if Virgin’s services is available in your area, then you can visit Virgin Media website and enter your postcode.
Performance
Generally, Virgin can provide you with a smooth and fast service. Based on Ofcom’s data gathered in November 2017, Virgin’s subscribers who avail 100Mbits/sec package were able to obtain average download speeds between 101Mbits/sec and 104Mbits/sec within the day. Even Virgin’s slowest services will give you an average download speed of 83.8Mbits/sec. This is much faster compared to the maximum speed offered by other fibre packages from other companies.
Basically, Virgin Media is all about speed. In fact, they are way ahead of their top competitors such as BT and Sky. Virgin’s top broadband package offers an amazing average speed of 362Mbps. Ofcom reveals that Virgin Media is the only company that offers the top speeds in the UK.
Other broadband packages offered by Virgin have average speeds of 108Mbps, 213Mbps and 350Mbps. These lightning speeds are perfect for busy households who like to stream several movies, do some online gaming or simply surf the internet. The best thing about Virgin Media is that you are getting the speed that you are paying for.
While Virgin’s download speeds are extremely fast, contrarily, its upload speeds are quite slower. It’s M50 broadband package has an average upload speed of just 3Mbits/sec, while the M100 broadband package has an average upload speed of 6Mbits/sec, M200 broadband package has an average upload speed of 12Mbits/sec and finally, M500 broadband customers will get an average upload speed of 35Mbits/sec. As we can see, it is only a mere fraction of what they are offering in their download speeds.
Comparing to other providers, Plusnet’s entry-level fibre package offers an average upload speed of 9.5Mbps and 19Mbps average upload speed for their top fibre package. But you have to ask yourself, do upload speeds really matter? With the most common tasks, they don’t actually matter. However, you also have to consider that sometimes it can be very annoying to wait for some time before your photos, videos, or large files will upload.