Thinking of changing from Plusnet to Virgin for our broadband,we have been with Plusnet for a couple of years and they have been ok,we have had a couple of issues which have left us with no internet for a couple of days (old cabling to the house and disconnected at the cabinet) otherwise the service as been very reliable.The price has crept up over the last couple of years and we can now get roughly the same package from Virgin for a bit less,online reviews for Virgin are not very encouraging and we don’t want to change to save a few quid and end up with a worse service,anyone with Virgin? with experiences good or bad

If you are out of contract with PlusNet, give them a call. I’d be amazed if they weren’t able to offer you a better deal than the one you are currently on.

Yup, give Plusnet a call to see what they can offer you. I did this last week and without a competitor/comparison you can’t negotiate a much better deal. I told them I’d call back after I’d done some research. I found the current Vodafone offering to be very competitive so looked to see what I could get from them and then called Plusnet back detailing the current offer which they promptly matched saving £18pm.

What TBP says^. Just ask them nicely to beat the best deal you’ve seen elsewhere.

I’m with PlusNet. Unlimited bandwidth, evening and weekend calls all for £20 per month. We watch most of our TV on catch up and its never let us down.

Had the odd problem but been with them for 20+ years and they always sort things out quickly.

If you move to virgin check first with quidco for cash back offers 👍

I’d stick with Plusnet.

Virgin give awesome theoretical speeds but I’ve got the impression over the years that the actual service can be a bit pants. For example during the world cup when the BBC were running 4K/HDR mega-frame rate streams as a beta test it seemed to be a common theme that it was the Virgin customers who suffered buffering and problems even though they had the highest theoretical speed. No idea if that’s due to traffic shaping, contention or network architecture but was a red flag to me.

Virgin’s quality of service is terrible. The download speeds are regularly a fraction of the claimed speed in the evenings and weekends (our neighbours get 7-15mb on a 100mb connection). The upload speeds are also low unless you got for one of the XL packages.

We’ve tried virgin twice and both times got rid of them because they kept promising to sort out problems with “upgrades in the next 6 months” but nothing ever materialised and years later they still have the same problems in the same area.

Plusnet are good – no issues at all in the time we’ve been with them – also worth looking on topcashback to get a few extra quid back.

Interesting reading, I was with Plusnet with no issues but they put the price up at the end of my contract and told me they couldn’t match other offers I’d found, now I’m with Vodafone and get constant messages from Plusnet trying to get me back.

I don’t suspect it’s totally down to Plusnet, but our BB reliability has been rubbish this winter, not always loading web pages and regularly freezing while playing Amazon Video streams in the evening.

BB has never been great at this address over the last ~13 years, but it has definitely been more temperamental this winter.

When our 18 month deal ends in ~9 months time, I’m going to look out for 4G mobile BB deals, to by-pass this rented flat’s awful archaic phone wiring. It looks like we will get far more bandwidth than our current ~20000/5000 Mbps, better reliability and very comparable latency for the odd bit of fast paced gaming we do such as Rocket League.
For example, 3 were recently doing £20pcm sim cards with unlimited BB usage.

cancelled my virgin last week, out of contract. 2 hours on the phone (got dropped after being connected after 55 mins of hold the first try…no call back from them). Also security questions 7 times. very discouraging but the speeds were as promised and slightly more reliable than the phone-line broadband which i also had at the same house.

Whilst virgin quote high speeds, our experience between Plusnet and Virgin is that Plusnet is far more consistent and reliably near quoted line speed, and upload is much faster.

Virgin world regularly barely work at all, and I’m talking even 1/10th-1/100th of the speed of the old dial up days. Their customer service is woeful and they thought it was entirely acceptable that we should wait 4-5 months for the local cabinet to be upgraded due to ‘contention ratio issues’. Their attitude was this was entirely normal. And their response to a discount for not even achievung 1/1000th of their quoted line speed ‘no, this is within our terms’. I’ve given them a very wide berth since… This was only in the last 18 months…

I’m with Plusnet, have been for years – but you have to ask for a discount when you renew, just be cheeky. Last time I renewed I was offered broadband @ £1/month if I signed up for an 18-month contract (I pay line rental up-front and that works out at about £17/month).

I couldn’t wangle the same deal when I renewed recently, but it only went up to £2.50/month!

I’m with virgin – basic tv, phone and 350mb broadband for £39p/m. We always get 382mb and I’ve tested at all times of the day / week or weekend. No concerns so far. I’ve contacted customer service and one issue with a noisy phone line and it was been dealt with quickly.

With some scepticism and trepidation after my last BB change (Plusnet were awful and was without BB for 2 weeks) I recently used PC World’s BB change service and went from from Plusnet to Virgin and saved £20/ month. The service from PC World was great and as promised. Changeover was seemless with no problems at all.  Not noticed any difference at all in speed and reliability between provider. I used PC world as at least I could harangue someone face to face if the changeover was cocked up.

Thanks for the replies,can get £60 cash back with quidco if we decide to go with Virgin, we have had Virgin broadband in the past and had few issues with them so hopefully we wont have any problems if we go back to them

Regarding Virgin, they are literally digging up the road outside my house at the moment and installing their cables. Safe to say it does NOT look like a high tech operation!!

That’s because it’s not, it’s putting a bit of wire under the ground.

I was with Plusnet for years, wasn’t the fastest, had a fair amount of dropped internet, eventually went with Vodafone, pretty similar experience, but got a free Sonos out of it, and it was cheaper than plusnet would do for me.

Virgin getting installed in a couple of weeks, I’ll try it for a year, if they’re shit I’ll go elsewhere. Quite fancy the T6 box though.

Anyone wanna buy a humax? 🙂

Been with “Virgin” since dial up Telewest days, both in London and now in Herts. Never had a major problem with them and always overdelivered on line speed.

Safe to say it does NOT look like a high tech operation

A new-ish development near me recently had Virgin around (well some contractors working on behalf of Virgin, so I guess they should take the credit not Virgin) and couldn’t believe how neat and tidy all the holes they dug were, cleaned/tidied up every night and the infilling and finishing top tarmac are very neat. I wish the council/BT/Gas/Leccy were as good.