Recommendations on Virgin Broadband

[Masoody]

Hi there guys, just wondering is Virgin Braodband worth getting? I live in London, West London to be more precise. In the UK. Ive heard many bad things about this company, but ive heard many good things also?

Any advice from people who have actualy had or still have it?

[bluffmaster12pm]

well no idea abt the broadband as we have only virgin mobile over here .

[Tars]

I would do alot of checking before going with Virgin, reason are they are all for the 3 strikes and i know they are trying to stop torrents but i think i read they went in to a deal with other music companies to offer a monthly subscription for music downloads in exchange from clamping down on all copyright infringements.

[Masoody]

Damn problem is mate, ive already ordered Internet Broadband you see. Some people have given me positive feed back in London here saying its really good and fast/reliable...others say its a bag of s**t. But since ive ordered it i wanted to check on other peoples opinions to see what experiences they have, thanks keep them comming guys.

P.S tarssister so basicaly if i download using rapidshare, your saying i could potentialy be caught or something with the way Virgin works? I dont use torrents i have to be honest, i only use rapidshare / katzforums :D

[Tars]

I doubt they would catch you using RS but just keep in mind they are wanting to stop file sharing and illegal downloads. They might block RS and other hosts in time but i think it's mainly torrents for now.
Virgin Media’s new anti-piracy plan that will be launched in conjunction with its new unlimited music download service in Q4 this year has been welcomed by the UK recording industry.

Offering DRM free MP3 downloads and streaming music, the music download service already has the Universal Music Group signed up and it is expected other major record lables will soon follow.

Virgin Media’s anti-piracy plan will involve a real crack down on illegal file sharers who use its broadband network. Warning letters will be sent out to persistent offenders, but if that doesn’t work, a temporary suspension will be placed upon the user. This means that they will not be able to access the Internet for a set time period.

The Virgin Media music download service will have two options for users. The first option will allow a certain number of downloads per month.

The second more expensive option will offer unlimited downloads where the user can basically download as many songs as they like for a set monthly fee. This fee hasn’t yet been announced by Virgin Media but it is thought to be the equivalent to the price of two albums.

Despite receiving support from the UK recording industry, the download service has come under criticism by Madeleine Milne, the eMusic Managing Director for Europe, who said, “If it’s truly unlimited, how will they pay the publishers? An unlimited model would be similar to the one eMusic had in 2000, which was unworkable from a revenue standpoint.”

[Masoody]

Do you use Virgin btw mate? If so could you tell me your experience of it. Thanks bro.

[Tars]

No i don't, it as it's not in my country so i'm only going on what i have read.

[NK8850]

I know a few people who use virgin broadband and it's not as good as virgin try to make it out to be. A friend of mine is supposed to be on a 30mbps connection with virgin, however when we done a speed test on his broadband, his download and upload speeds were half of mine (i'm on a 8mbps connection with o2). Both speed tests were done on exactly the same day just minutes after each other. Since then he has phoned virgin to ask them what is going on, I am not quite sure what happened after that. So before you sign up you may want to see what other people also say about it.

[Masoody]

Thank you mate, appreciate the comments. Keep em comming :D

[ninjakiller1]

Hi,Masoody (http://www.katzforums.com/member.php?u=106657)

you know I am with BT broadband I get only 6mb in my area but in this year they are going to give us 14mb in our area, I checked it and tested it and I was getting 14mb but they won't give us until October..

Listen Masoody (http://www.katzforums.com/member.php?u=106657) it doesn't what company you are with broadband, its more important which company is near you area place that gives you best speed for your broadband...


Also Masoody (http://www.katzforums.com/member.php?u=106657) as warning recommending for you, never never never get broadband with O2, they monitoring what you are downloading and they close your account and you must pay again to open your account and other matters also. I spoke to them with the phone and he did not metioned alot about their rules when he download illegal things, but I checked in their website they are going to monitor us when we download anything from any site....

Please check Masoody (http://www.katzforums.com/member.php?u=106657) next time when you order a broadband, check their policy and terms and conditions and rules..

I think Virgin broadband they won't care about what you download, they are similar to BT broadband....

Yes virgin is very good company and they have a nice speed broadband, but what you do is check your area speed test

I checked my speed in virgin site even I don't have broadband with them, it says this:

You're not currently in a fibre optic cable area but Virgin National broadband still gives you fast broadband up to 16Mb down your phone line

so what you will expect different because area has different speed!

[Swad]

I recently just got the whole thing from virgin since my girlfriend work's in virgin media. I have V+ boxe's in all rooms in the house, the phone line, & 20mb broadband all for a cheap ass price. The broadband is alot better than what i'm used too. Speed is kool, but of course, it can slow down with the runnin' of ur computer, just depend's how much junk you have on the comp. I download from RS ALL the time, nothin' has happened in the few months i've had it, so should be safe that way. Otherwise enjoy :)

[Masoody]

ninjakiller1 (http://www.katzforums.com/member.php?u=146600) - Thank you very very much for your input mate, i will definetly do that. Thanks once again mate

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Swad (http://www.katzforums.com/member.php?u=201595) - Thank you bro, appreciate it mate.

[Cerealfreak]

I know a few people who use virgin broadband and it's not as good as virgin try to make it out to be. A friend of mine is supposed to be on a 30mbps connection with virgin, however when we done a speed test on his broadband, his download and upload speeds were half of mine (i'm on a 8mbps connection with o2). Both speed tests were done on exactly the same day just minutes after each other. Since then he has phoned virgin to ask them what is going on, I am not quite sure what happened after that. So before you sign up you may want to see what other people also say about it.


VM don't offer a 30mb connection?? They offer 10mb 20mb and 50mb!! As a VM user for about 10 years (previously Telewest I can honestly say they are OK, they were better when they were Telewest but are still better than most providers. I generally get consistent speeds on my 20mb plan (remember peeps this is megabytes not megabits) so it's pretty good.

Overall I'm happy with them, plus if you get annoyed phone up kick off every couple of months and they knock money off your bill, even more if they admiit something is wrong, (recently my modem needed replacing took 'em four days andthey credited me £10)

Yes they do plan on clamping down on illegal fileshares ie p2p and torrents are already throttled and ys they do have an STM policy in place but they are OK in that respect no worse than any other provider IMO.

[Masoody]

So basicaly mate, just a question what kind of download speeds are you getting with your rapidshare account, or maybe on games...say i dont know your ping on Call of duty 4 or something since every PC guy has that game lol. Im just wondering like are you downloading at like 2MB/s and getting sick pings like 20 ping? Just curious, but i appreciate your input bro, i appreciates everyone input at this moment.

[Cerealfreak]

To be honest I don't game at all, amybe on my 360 but offline I don't really do online gaming. As far as d/l speeds go I get 2.1 - 2.2 MB/s which is the maximum on a 20Mb/s line. Which is pretty slick fast, when I check my ping speeds I tend to get around 30-35 ms, again pretty damn good. The only time you should experience any problems is if they have oversubscribed the UBR, But this is happening lesss as they have rolled out 50Mb and moved most of the customers over to DOCSIS 3.0 which has reduced virtually all the problems they had with oversubscription. You may find you find have slower speeds if you exceed the traffic management policy as shown here

http://www.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management.php

But I never find this a problem tbh. They are still showing 2Mb for the medum package all existing medium package custoemrs are being migrated to 10Mb and the 2Mb is being kept for a very small and problematic customer base.

Compared to my friends on ADSL2 (supposedly 24Mb) they can't compete with my 20Mb connection at all.

[Masoody]

Thank you for your feed back mate, i truly appreciate it. This is why i use Katzforums, because no one here is a dickhead :) Just nice people that help others out.

[Cerealfreak]

So far, apart from one disagreement, I have found this place to be good, it helps when all the members are out for the same purpose which is to help each other :) Good luck mate