Forum Topic

Virgin Gig1 Fibre

Hi, any opinions on using this in Chiswick?Thanks

David Powers ● 2112d9 Comments

I'm sure you'll get good and bad impressions on any ISP you ask this question of, but for what it's worth.......We're with Virgin, not the specific flavour you're looking at, but one of their fibre services, and since March I've been working from home with very few outages/issues, so I'd say generally it's fast and reliable. We have multiple devices potentially streaming netflix etc with no noticable slowdown.Some people do say their hub3 isn't the best, but they may be issuing v4 to new customers. We have v3 and it seems fine.They're not the cheapest though and do seem to love a price increase, but I've found you can push back on them if you threaten to leave every once it a while.

Chris Jenkins ● 2112d

Thanks Chris, we're hoping its faster and more reliable than Plusnet.

David Powers ● 2112d

I've been with Virgin for a long time - currently I'm on the basic 100 Mbps plus anytime phone package - which is about to go up in price yet again. My observation is that as long as nothing goes wrong then generally it's hard to beat in terms of performance. On the other hand when there's a problem, you really do have a problem! Their customer service is truly dreadful, and their engineering workforce barely seem to understand which way is up.If you're opting for the Gig1 service then possibly you get access to a dedicated customer service team - for that price you certainly should...I don't have a problem with the Virgin Hub 3 router (which is in fact made by Netgear) but should you want you can put it into modem only mode and supply your own router.

Bruce Hammal ● 2112d

If you are looking to make changes to your broadband set up look at Zen - the customer service is superb and the set up is extremely easy.www.zen.co.uk.  and they have superfast

Janice White ● 2112d

Thanks all. I'll definitely look at Zen.

David Powers ● 2112d

Zen is excellent, especially their customer service, but do you really need the sort of lightning-fast speeds offered by Gig 1? Zen do have a comparable superfast broadband product, but it's only available in select areas. You will also need to consider whether you want to keep a phone line.

Bruce Hammal ● 2112d

But do you really need the sort of lightning-fast speeds offered by Gig 1?That would be my questionIts a lot of bandwidth with a price tag if your a couple who just do the general things and stream. If you have mutli people streaming,gaming,downloading,uploading in the house then its worth it.As to reliability,as mentioned,your either lucky or not.Not a recommendation but ive been with BT for 7 years,allways a constant 60-70mb down,oad and 20mb upload and never any outages whatsoever,just never goes down. But you have those who hate Virgin,Bt and others for a personal reason. Take your pick and keep your fingers crossed. You only need customer service is the service is unreliable and if it drives you mad your with the wrong isp provider.

Julian Pavey ● 2112d

If David is currently  with Plusnet, the maximum download speed potentially available is 66Mbps. Virgin's Gig 1 delivers an average of 1,100 Mbps and an upload speed of over 50 Mbps. Zen's fastest offering (where available) is similar. I suppose businesses and avid online gamers might benefit from those sort of speeds, but an ordinary household won't ever feel the need.Both Zen and Virgin have less expensive products which should be more than adequate. Also watch out for Virgin's introductory offers - the real price is a lot more once the initial peiod ends.

Bruce Hammal ● 2112d

We've been on the Virgin 300MBS product for a while and it has been solid and reliable.There isn't great customer service, but luckily we haven't really needed to use it.  Turning it off and on is enough.The hub isn't good so we've got it in modem mode linked to a WiFi mesh (Netgear Orbi) which has been great - getting full speeds in the loft.The basic answer is that you probably don't need the fastest speeds for home right now.  You'd likely benefit from the higher upload speeds more than the download if you're doing live video, sending very large files etc.However, don't let that stop you!  Once you've got it, you may find a way to use it!

Ed Saper ● 2112d