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Virgin Media Speed Woes Lead to Customers Borrowing WiFi

Tuesday, Feb 16th, 2021 (7:09 am) - Score 59,528
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A long-running problem on Virgin Media’s broadband ISP network in Long Ditton, a residential suburb in the Borough of Elmbridge (Surrey, UK), has resulted in such slow speeds that some customers have resorted to unusual fixes, such as parking on neighbours driveways to borrow WiFi or returning to the office instead of working from home.

The situation in Long Ditton first came to our attention last October 2020 after two residents, initially only on one street, reported that they had been suffering from extremely slow broadband speeds for many weeks, which would see daytime performance drop sharply to as little as 4-30Mbps (Megabits per second) or even less. This seem to be true no matter which package the customers were taking.

At first, we thought it was just a localised capacity problem or a power issue on the line, not least since their neighbours a couple of doors down seemed to have stable speeds. However, as time went by, we started to hear from others in the wider area (mostly within the KT6 and KT7 postcodes), all suffering from either similar or significantly worse problems with performance and connection stability.

According to one local community representative, Richard Spencer, customers of Virgin Media’s service have in some cases “resorted to temporary fixes such as parking on neighbours driveways” to borrow their WiFi (with permission) or to get a better 4G (mobile data) signal. Meanwhile others have had to return to their places of work in order to get a good connection, despite Government guidance to “work from home where possible“.

Local Facebook and WhatsApp groups are similarly filled with posts telling how locals are being impacted by the problems, many of which have expressed frustration at the continuing lack of clarity and effective support from Virgin Media’s customer service team. A Twitter hash-tag setup by the community (#losingmyvirginIT) has also attracted plenty of related gripes.

Richard Spencer told ISPreview.co.uk:

“A fault on the Virgin Media network has existed since November 2020 with the speeds reduced to just a fraction of what they should be, impacting both download and upload speeds to the extent that many customers have found the service unusable during working hours.

Some customers paying for speeds of 100mbps download and 10mbps upload regularly find the service dropping out during the day, and experience upload speeds that rarely get above 0.10mbps, making Zoom meetings and online lessons impossible at times. Some residents have resorted to working from their cars parked in neighbours driveways, and some teachers impacted by the problem have had to go into their schools despite the fact that they could teach online from home if they had functioning broadband.

Many customers have been switching to alternative providers however this has created further problems as the surge in demand has exhausted all of the high speed connections from the local exchange on the Openreach network, meaning that those who have not yet switched have no alternative but to wait for Virgin to resolve their issues.

Staff at Virgin Media Customer Services originally seemed unaware of the scale of the issues, with some claiming that there were no known issues at all on the network and sending out replacement routers suggesting the faults lay with peoples equipment. More recently they have been reading from a script and advising of a resolution date, which has already been moved back on 4 occasions. This week the fix date was further delayed from 12th February to 26th February.”

As if to make matters worse, some customers have reported that it took them over 1 hour+ to get through to the ISP via their support lines (a sadly not uncommon gripe during the COVID-19 crisis), while others claim to have been told by the provider that the issue is estimated to be affecting more than “25,000” premises. However, Virgin Media denied this and suggested that it was only affecting hundreds of customers, not thousands.

Meanwhile the provider’s service status page has continued to claim that there are “no known problems” and, on the occasions that a fault is shown, then Richard claims that “messages are then sent to say it has been resolved at 6pm each day, only for it to return the following day.”

A Virgin Media Spokesperson said:

“A small number of customers in Long Ditton are experiencing intermittent issues with their broadband service which means that their speeds can be, at times, slower than normal. Work to fix the problem has taken longer than anticipated and been made more challenging by coronavirus restrictions. We are working hard to resolve the issue as soon as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

The provider has acknowledged that the local issues are indeed taking longer than they expected to resolve, although they did not elaborate on the cause of all this (network congestion is a strong candidate) or provide a firm date for when it might be resolved.

Meanwhile some locals have informed us that Virgin Media now plans to have the issues fixed today, but customers have little faith in such predictions.

UPDATE 1:57pm

One of the affected customers claims to have been told that the estimated fix date has just been pushed back, again, to 2nd March 2021.

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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Comments
94 Responses
  1. Avatar photo A_Builder says:

    I’m always slightly surprised by how poor the auto diagnostics are on the VM network.

    VM *should* know about this as soon as something goes wrong.

    Tracking down this sort of thing on a properly set up FTTP network should be trivial and it should be auto-flagged. No reason why it shouldn’t be on a cable network either.

    I am guessing the reason that VM don’t want the robustness data is that then it would be discoverable (by OFCOM and courts) And an extension of the old automakers excuse, “we don’t have the warranty date, it belongs to the warranty companies, therefore we cannot tell you how unreliable our vehicles are…..” of course that was blown into the long grass by the EU saying all cars must be designed to reliably do 120,000km and manufacturers MUSt keep component failure data.

    Solution is that OFCOM forces all ISP’s and CP’s to keep robustness data. Things will soon improve. This is going to become a bigger issues as a large % are fobbed off with a VM Gig connection while FTTP catches up.

    The old management consulting dictum “if you measure it it gets better” applies here.

    But hey, VM would loose their dreadful reputation for customer service and fixing faults?

    1. Avatar photo I hate virgin media says:

      they’re called virgin media for a reason

    2. Avatar photo Jonathan says:

      I like the adage if you are not measuring it you cannot manage it.

    3. Avatar photo Andrew Jenkinson says:

      EVERY time VM run a check on my equipment “it is taking a little longer than usual”. VM have a very strange idea what “usual” means!

    4. Avatar photo Oluyinka Oyeniji says:

      I have never ever in my entire over four decades of existence witness customer service as horrendous as the one offered by Virgin. They have successfully broken all known humanity and legal consumer service regulation. I live in Leicester and this same scenario is what we experience. Exact scenario. Can never get through to customer service and you are sent a bill in the mail. This does not even happen in third world countries.

    5. Avatar photo Fiona Patterson says:

      Well at 2:26am I’m having to switch to 4g yet again!!…and at various times throughout daytime for any use my new Android phone a simple Google search says I’m offline!!!!(PAYG 2gb of data per month) so can’t rely on that to watch or listen to videos, streaming services be done in a matter of hours HENCE why I pay for Broadband!! I’m up trying to use when there is less traffic, just had new cables and router replaced and service to my phone is patchy at Best!! South West of Scotland, TV on demand and Catch up patchy dodgy and this been going on for years, so Covid may play a part but honestly, they are beyond the pale, it’s a race to the bottom from every aspect of Virgin Media!!beginning to end their service is beyond abysmal!!Can oy post this through network data!!

    6. Avatar photo illiad says:

      Branson sold VM to liberty global in 2013 🙁
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Media#Recent_years
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Global
      that explains a lot..

      Back then, they could not even find where the cable went in to our offices! (tower block in richmond) even though the next door company had VM working…

  2. Avatar photo André says:

    Aaaaah, COVID
    The universal excuse for poor service. It’s the gift that keeps on giving…

    1. Avatar photo Peter says:

      I agree, getting fed up the excuse now. If a company can sell you something they can pay someone for support!

    2. Avatar photo Adie says:

      It’s not just that area…I’ve had exactly the same issues for months.
      No help at all
      Cancelled contract now,
      Being bombarded with calls now with offers.
      Shame they didn’t bother when I was having shit service.
      Oh the old chestnut reduced service owing to Covid, apparently not on sales just faults and problems

    3. Avatar photo Nighthawk2821 says:

      I guarantee its a over utilisation issue for where you live, i had a similar issue in Liverpool a about 5 years back, they kept putting the fix date back, mainly because my local council wouldn’t give them the permit to put better cables in, that could handle all the customers on it.

      Make shure you get a service refund on your bill, for every day its not working.

      They have an obligation to be doing this with Ofcom

      After all they are putting everyones bill up by £3.50 every month. If you can leave for another isp, now’s the time to do it
      .

  3. Avatar photo JitteryPinger says:

    We have the same issue in Pineham a new build area in Northampton. Since a reseg the internet has been unusable. Still not fixed , dates moved along constantly. Has been like it for 14months now. Virgin do not care.

    1. Avatar photo RR says:

      Pineham has Cityfibre now, its already live as far as I can tell, change to them, 940Mpbs up and down all day and night.

    2. Avatar photo André says:

      Vote with your feet. It’s the only thing that works especially if, as RR says, you have a decent alternative.

    3. Avatar photo JitteryPinger says:

      City fibre is at the entrance of the estate yes but they cannot progress the build in as the roads are not adopted. So stuck with Virgin for now until this changes.

    4. Avatar photo RR says:

      Well apologies, I thought Pineham was long since finished, I was going by maps on other broadband website, also postcodes for Canal Way, Towpath Avenue are showing as available on Vodafone (ISP on Cityfibre in Northampton). You are on about Pineham Lock, south of Hunsbury Meadows off Banbury Lane?

    5. Avatar photo JitteryPinger says:

      No need to apologize RR. Pineham Village off upton valley way east.
      https://goo.gl/maps/jyYTZxAftEk9WG6k7

    6. Avatar photo RR says:

      Oh right, yes I know it, know someone who lives over there. Crikey thats years away from being finished and adopted. I wonder if Openreach will FTTP over there as Northampton is a fibre first town and they all over Hunsbury moving west at the moment, whats your BT exchange, we were also FTTP’d last year as well as Cityfibre. Nothing but ADSL for 8 years then two FTTP providers inside 6 months.

    7. Avatar photo JitteryPinger says:

      We are fed off of Duston i believe.

    8. Avatar photo JP says:

      WTH you using my handle for.

  4. Avatar photo Jamie Simms says:

    It’s just as bad in parts of Birstall in Leicestershire speeds are nearly at at a standstill all day now with the home working and home schooling.

    My parents are on the 350Mbps package which is the fastest VM will allow in this area but most times speeds are around 70-80Mbps they have had a number of engineers out but all say same thing the network is over capacity.

    A lot of this is due to Openreach not keeping their network up to standard with no FTTC available and no plans for FTTP so even more people who were on the forced ADSL service have had to move to VM just to be able to work from home

    1. Avatar photo David Ford says:

      Open reach have nothing to do with the Virgin Media network. Completely separate.

    2. Avatar photo Marek says:

      If they would have 80 mbs that’s plenty for remote work. Maybe there is issue with wifi.

    3. Avatar photo Jay D says:

      I think the point being made here by Jamie Simms is that customers are being forced to choose VM as a provider because Openreach can only supply ADSL in the area (no FTTC/FTTP) and so the choice is VM or unusably slow broadband

  5. Avatar photo Nick says:

    Has anyone been experiencing similar issues in the Teddington area? We have struggled for a year now to get consistent internet access. At times it works ok (40mbps) but regularly it drops <1 though. No zoom meeting is unaffected and often remoting in to my work machine in unbearable.
    Hate to jump on the bandwagon but virgin are useless. I called the other day and the customer services rep left me on hold indefinitely because she obviously didn't know how to deal with my complaint.

    1. Avatar photo Shaun says:

      Yep. Also in Teddington. Network congestion. Been like it for the past year. Very slow latency and packet loss at peak times 8am to 10pm! Only acceptable performance if you’re a night-owl. VM have shown no interest on multiple occasions. Set yourself up a “broadband quality monitor” on thinkbroadband.com to see how congested VM’s network really is.

  6. Avatar photo Jim says:

    Were up the road in Surbiton – We had problems since installation about a year ago.
    The equipment freezes (hub3 and tivo boxes), and needs rebooting a couple of times a day. After 3 engineer visits – 4 new hub3’s – we have been advised of an ongoing area fault with no fix time. The only solution Virgin is advocating is an upgrade to the faster system using the HUB4 – for which we have we will have to pay for and sign up for another year !

    + theres a constant need to tell us that due to Covid they cant offer the “same service” – yet they still charge for the “same service” !

    1. Avatar photo Rachel Garrett says:

      Just do what we did. Log into you virgin Hub 3 and change it to modem mode and then install your own better router to this for the wifi (we use the google mesh system) . No new contract with Virgin needed but you do have to fork out for your own router. We no longer have to reboot multiple times a day.
      Service from Virgin is still shocking (we are in the area talked about in the article) but what does come in is at least working over sound hardware.

  7. Avatar photo Mark. says:

    I live in telford Shropshire vm 350meg been dropping out to 0.5 to 10mb for over a month vm sending me new hub3 not going to hold my breath hub3 are usless

  8. Avatar photo susan black says:

    This was going on last October in my part of London. I relied on broken promises for weeks. Then had the stress of changing providers over the Christmas period. Virgin throughout were difficult to communicate with and uncaring. In particular, I never got emails confirming my request to cancel the whole package. It was only partly cancelled. I had to make further ( also unconfirmed) requests to get the whole miserable thing out of my house. Never again Virgin anything.

    1. Avatar photo Fiona Patterson says:

      I already complained about Virgin Media TV, Broadband and Phone, no actual phone though now, but I was offered a mobile deal a few years ago, they sent phone out and I sent it back following day, well took me months to stop them charging me, they took 1st payment a day after phone arrived!!That’s not even standard practice, had to jump through several hoops to prove I’d sent it back even though tracking code was given for return and charged me twice after!!I cancelled DD and think eventually got refund, but spent more in calls sorting it out!!

  9. Avatar photo SymetricalAccess says:

    Welcome to Virgin Media.

  10. Avatar photo Christine Jackson says:

    Thanks for highlighting this – I am one of the impacted customers, and frustration levels are high!

  11. Avatar photo Daisy says:

    Im in Hayes Middx and we have had similar issues. My daughter ended up back at the office because of speed issues. She is now back to working from home and having speed issues and drops in signals. Customer services is exremely difficult to get through. We will be joining another provider

  12. Avatar photo Lee says:

    I was the one who was told it was affecting 25k households. The advisor read from a script that said this. She said the first time they were aware was 19th November – she gave me a fix date of 26th Feb. The fact that Vorgin now deny it is affecting 25k customers is disgusting.

    I’m going too see if I can get a recording of the call.

  13. Avatar photo Andy says:

    I live in Thames Ditton (KT7) & as of 13:00 today the situation has not changed & is still not working correctly.
    VM told me would be the fault/s would be fixed by midday today.
    I didn’t hold out much hope to be honest, so fed up with VM’s broken promises & constant date changing of the fix date.
    We can’t even move companies because the exchange is full, so I’m stuck with VM until they fix the fault…..if they ever will.

  14. Avatar photo Peter Dochtrey says:

    I pay for 200 Meg and I get 45

  15. Avatar photo Haresh Anand says:

    This same issue has been affecting me from Jan2021 in Hounslow. No proper response and has made the internet completely unusable but virgin media fails to accept there is a issue and keeps saying it’s intermittent .

  16. Avatar photo Paychedoc says:

    Same story in Birmingham
    I pay for 200 MBPS and yet the day time speeds when both me and my partner have to work fron home rarely goes above 10-20 MBPS with times when it’s 0.5 MBPS!! (Yes 0.5 MBPS).

    Our hub has been changed twice and we have had three engineer visits so far. And yet there is no resolution and the service status page always says “no issues in your area” when all the residents with VM on the estate are having the same issue.

    It’s just appalling but as the roads are unadopted there is no other alternative for FTTP.

  17. Avatar photo Dan says:

    I’m in North London and last year I suffered chronic slow upload for about 6weeks. Virgin eventually said it was a vault at the exchange and blamed BT. Downloaded wasn’t effected so I don’t think that many people noticed… At the time I was occasionally working from home and regularly send and recieve large files. In the end I had to go to a Co-working space as it was so slow it would take hours to send a 10mb file.

    Last week I noticed it was painfully slow again, and even though almost 2 hours with virgin tech help they insisted there wasn’t an issue. I requested a cancellation, where they admitted there was a fault and upgraded my line for free to hopefully solve the problem… I should be getting 35mbs upload during the day it’s 2-5 but full speed in the evening. They still deny there is an issue.

    If there was anyone else I would have left them already, sadly there are no other isps offering the same data speeds

  18. Avatar photo Robin Freeland says:

    Yes I have the same problems as all of you,100 meg supposed service but drops to 4 or5 quite often,every Sunday night the service drops out totally for about 3hours.our security cameras and the whole system then does not function and we loose all recordings, I have written to Virgin,but get the same reply we are looking into your complaint, three letters each taking a month to get a reply to each, so over 3 months complaining but no help at all,last letter said, as your complaint is over 28 days old we will contact you soon, you now have the right to complain to the ombudsman, but for the effort swapping my emails to a new address and the added stress I would have left long ago.let us all complain to the media en block make this as public as we can.

  19. Avatar photo Lorraine says:

    I get told to reboot..reboot oh an they send boosts.. yet ive used 80% of my data in a 2 days and not left house..

    1. Avatar photo T Dyer says:

      I live in East London and I reported a significant drop in performance to Virgin in Oct-20. I also lost the ability to access virgin tv go on my desktop PCs around the same time. In Dec-20,out of frustration I upgraded my speed from 200mb to 350mb, only to see now improvement in the service. I feel that Virgin simply don’t care about any of these issues which remain unresolved. They are probably seeing a rise in revenue as customers upgrade to try and resolve the problem themselves. This problem should be escalated beyond the ombudsman as I cannot see any activity on their side to address this. You don’t have to search very far to notice how widespread this problem is. Covid cannot be a good enough reason.
      Very disgruntled VM customer.

  20. Avatar photo Sam says:

    South East London, I’ve experienced really slow speeds and constant drops in service for weeks.

  21. Avatar photo Shhaba says:

    I have had problems with virgin media for years.. I pay just over £100 a month I have the oomph deal in 3 rooms in the house and suppose to have the fastest speed vm offer but since the upgrade about a 18months ago I have never experienced the speed they said I would get it’s about half of what they said it would be and thats on a good day. My main problem is in 1 of the rooms o cannot get wifi connection so I cannot get on demand TV or mobilephone connection so they have sent me the hub3 which I feel is worse than b4 iv been sent a booster but still no difference with or without the booster. Now they r offering a new booster for free only for customers on the oomph package but have not got any in stock so I’m on a waiting list apparently they will contact me when they get them.i do get a discount because of all the problems iv been having but still £104 a month is alot of money for a service that’s often got issues it would have been £140 without the discount which is just simply taking the mic. Also getting through to vm is so so stressful having to wait for so long and then to get fobbed off feels too much to have to go through every so often its starting to make me feel depressed and vm r not willing to reduce my bill for the speeds I never get but said I would. I’m stuck with vm as all my household equipment wifi TV mobile phones r all with vm and to end the contract will cause issues having to change over etc etc. They should have a governing body that looks at all the issues vm have and automatically discount all vm customers for werever they do not keep there promises with there customers

    1. Avatar photo André says:

      Sounds like you just have to quit their services, no matter how much hard work it’ll be.
      Otherwise there is no point in complaining. Companies want your money and won’t listen until you take it from them.

    2. Avatar photo Chris says:

      Just take the time to move off.

      I have vm 200mbs and pay £27 per month. I also have sky q, 2 x sky q minis and all channels and pay £65 for that. We have 2x three contracts at £10 per month for 12gb per sim and go binge. So £112 in total for all channels, fast internet (when it works) and mobile phones with enough data to cope with a few days of Virgin outage.

    3. Avatar photo Winston Smith says:

      A powerline network adapter should fix the TV problem.

    4. Avatar photo Tony morris says:

      Powerline adaptors are the best solution for your room that cannot get a signal.

  22. Avatar photo MilesT says:

    Significant problems in Hampstead/South Hamstead/Primrose Hill too. Lots of noice on “Nextdoor”, even made the local papers

    https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/hampstead-residents-virgin-media-internet-connection-7313244

  23. Avatar photo Derek says:

    Paying for 200 Mbps but at best 70 download falling to 20/30 on many occasions. Upload consistently 21. Ryton, Tyne and wear.

  24. Avatar photo Chris Johnson says:

    I live near croydon and we have awful speeds – started phoning before xmas and have had various dates for when it will be fixed latest being 19th February. From some of the posts looks like they are now pushing into March. They are also holding off giving a refund until it’s fixed. Worrying that there is no spare capacity even if you decide to switch providers

  25. Avatar photo Smithy says:

    We’re all being told the same story, if you complain 21vdays later you get a resolution say customer educated it your equipment, I go down to 30mbs download and 2 to 2 mbs upload every day and when you try to call to raise an issue expect ti o wait an hour and then get cut off, it is happening in many other areas including parts of leicestershire

  26. Avatar photo steve says:

    For two days now in SO53 postcode been suffering very slow speed (<4Mbs)and complete drop outs of internet connectivity from Virgin.

  27. Avatar photo Stuart Hall says:

    I got charged £180 for 2 new routers, has the 1st one was old and the 2nd one was faulty, I was not even aware of the charges until I called in, and still would not waiver the charges,

    1. Avatar photo Ryan says:

      Seem a bit suspicious, VM doesn’t change for new router if it develops a fault they just replace it.

      All supplied equipment remains virgin property it’s provide to you as part of your service and repair or replacement to it is free of charge.

      I’ve had router replacement before zero fee.

  28. Avatar photo Mit Shah says:

    It’s the same situation in Sutton. I can’t get more than 10mbps in day time on a 100mbps line and the response from Virgin customer relations team, our engineer will come and look when their own tech team told me, we can’t solve this. Can’t get out as in contract. Absolutely rubbish service.

  29. Avatar photo Jh says:

    Why do you all not contact Watchdog I’m sure you will all have it sorted on no time

  30. Avatar photo MuggedOffByVirginMedia says:

    All getting royally done over paying stupidly costly monthly cost and getting poor service. Why don’t you all vote with your feet and leave for alternative supplier, only then will VM take notice when subscribers reduce!

  31. Avatar photo Duncan Edwards says:

    Same as all the above issues in salibury. They are a water if money. Thinking of moving to bt very soon.

    1. Avatar photo Ben says:

      Openreach FTTP in most of Salisbury now. I definitely would leave VM if I were you.

  32. Avatar photo James mcgirr says:

    It’s not just down south here in johnstone Scotland mine is terrible. I pay for the 350 mbps and do a test each day on an app recommend by virgin. I am between 20 and 200 mbps if I’m lucky but still pay nearly £60 a month. They get my bills wrong a lot as well. I’ve had bills range from £13.08 to £300. After this contract runs out they will be to

  33. Avatar photo Mark Griffin says:

    Its country wide not a localised issue, problem is everyone is working on getting thd gigabit roll out going, this is where Virgin Media have messed up, my downloads have been 20-25mbps download 17mbps upload lately, but after 11pm it bottoms out completely, thats Yorkshire

    1. Avatar photo Pete says:

      Throw away generalisation.
      I’m in Leeds, and comfortably see 800Mb+ the majority of day and night.
      Worst I’ve recorded is 250-300, which while considerably below the supposed gig, is far from unacceptable for a contended residential service costing a few tenners a month.

  34. Avatar photo bhavesh solanki says:

    I dont like varjinmidiya b coz 3 month good speed and thane poor canection and i call vajin midia so give astra mony and take speed i dont like vajin midia

  35. Avatar photo Dave Collier says:

    I used to have VM – reliable for many years. Then a year or so ago it started getting very unreliable so switched to PlusNet (BT-based service) fast broadband. Saved myself heaps of money and got a much more stable service. I am still waiting for a refund from VM nearly a year later so it will be off to the small claims court soon.

  36. Avatar photo Chris says:

    Over the last 6 months I needed to boot my modem mode superhub 2 several times a week to get speeds back up from ~the 200mbs I pay for.

    After a recent bout of snow and cold speeds plummeted to 17 down 20up so I went checking the outside cable and saw it was frayed.

    I phoned vm and told them the outside cable was damaged, they had me out the modem back to router mode so they can test, I highlighted to them I was only getting 2 locked down channels which the support guy stated was normal. He then asked to boot the modem several times then remove the cable from the modem and reinsert after which I got no bandwidth at all.

    The support guy hen insisted I had not inserted the cable properly and sent an a replacement superhub 3 and an engineer to connect it despite me explaining over and over again that the outside cable was damaged.

    Replacement modem arrived a few days later followed by the engineer, I showed him the frayed cable which he repaired and service still didn’t return, he subsequently found other frays in the cable I didn’t see so replaced the lot.

    I’ve seen issues like this in the past when every time it rained my service plummeted, 15 engineer visits later and it was a filter on the outside of the house getting wet that was killing the service.

    I suspect the issues in dItton and others is damaged cables getting wet and service degrading.

    Is the service better once it’s been dry a few days?

    Despite I only getting 2 locked down channels vm’s auto tool was stating nothing wrong with the service or equipment, comparing the Docsis channel details with historic norms should have been the most obvious way to spot a line issue.

  37. Avatar photo Alan Pickersgill says:

    I am with BT fibre to cabinet. I get 70mbps and 18mbps upload. There are six of us in the house (two gamers on line, two that are on Zoom all day and a child on Microsoft Teams for school). Never any speed issues and costs £39.99 a month. Got rid of Virgin 15 years ago with terrible customer services.

    1. Avatar photo Dinka says:

      We should all get away from virgin media.they offer you the worst customer service ever and vm are not to be trusted.

    2. Avatar photo Spurple says:

      I would, if I could get better than 36mbps from BT.

  38. Avatar photo Julie Ponting says:

    Virgin are awful.. we pay 100 a month and hardly get to watch films as the buffer time is unreal

  39. Avatar photo Howard Turner says:

    Issue appears to be intermittent and widespread i am getting the exact same issues reported above in Rochdale Greater Manchester. Appeared to start as they rolled out the gigabit service in some cities. Suggest their central load balancing servers are having issues.

  40. Avatar photo Mike Hughes says:

    I am the same I live in Runcorn in Cheshire and I have been paying £43.50 a month for a service that never changes whatever you have? I’ve had the 200mbs package the 100mbs package and still on get an average speed of upto 30mbs they blame it on conditions, WiFi doesn’t work properly if the walls are thick something is blocking the router I don’t have anything blocking the router my walls are plasterboard the excuses are endless I miss admit oh also it could be the time of day your are using it!

  41. Avatar photo Fari says:

    I was with sky 23mbp it was fine.and theni want to swap with virgin media for my kids using zoom and some works i thought it will be good i have 100 mbp but.for the first month and then it becomes too slow less speed then sky.and too many problems. When they want to fix that problem it takes one day.im from southeast foresthill.

  42. Avatar photo Willy Wonka says:

    haha backup internet connections are mandatory when you have Virgin Media lol

  43. Avatar photo Alex Higgins says:

    It’s happening in KT10 as well. Been rubbish for months and no one in VM customer service seems to know what is going on – some don’t acknowledge the issue, others give a date to fix which simply extends each week.

  44. Avatar photo Karen Palmer says:

    Same problem in London E4, and am aware that several people in the area are experiencing the same. Has become worse over the last couple of months, complete loss of service nearly every other day. Fobbed off with excuses from VM

  45. Avatar photo Ashley scott says:

    I had a similar problem with virgin about 2yrs ago. Slow speeds most of the time (dial up speeds) so slow they couldn’t not register that my hub was switched. They did a temp backend fix which worked for until following morning.
    Then after numerous calls I found out they were oversubscribed in the area. But for some reason I was the only one getting hit by slow speeds or that had actually noticed and reported it. They did a fix for it which actually worked then 2 months later did it again. Got credited for all this but it was never filxed so left. They tried to entice to stay by offering faster broadband which I highlighted was impossible as they cannot even keep my connection above a quarter of what its supposed to be for more than an hour.

  46. Avatar photo Michael Nichols says:

    Virgin media WiFi, have not had a proper connection for 10 days now, they told me it was an area problem, I am W13, here we go again, modem resetting itself, not that it means it will work though

    1. Avatar photo argonaut56d says:

      Same as me? My WiFi used to be great (regularly get 300+) until about 2-3 weeks ago? Now lucky to get 50? (Tested on iPhone XS Max & brand new iPad Air and sons gaming PC via Ethernet). Then do a test by Ethernet and get 300?!? Other times that’s down to 40?

      I would bin them off by have very little alternative in my area. Live in a small hamlet outside London called Watford! Before Virgin had BT and was fine for over a year, 54, then one day it just halved? Couldn’t get it higher than 26? BT claimed I had changed something on my network. So I left and went to Virgin. If I get a speed estimate off of BT now, yup, 27!

      I wait impatiently for someone to install FTTP and will jump ship as soon as I can. Also may try it in modem mode again with my other router, a Linksys AC1900

  47. Avatar photo Allan Hough says:

    I am not getting the speeds and i am unable to get good or no signals up stairs which i was told i would.
    Everything keeps loosing

  48. Avatar photo Thomas says:

    I did indeed have enough of this crap for a year, until I realised 200mbs means sweet FA when you can’t even get 1\10th of and and you paying full price for the honour. Switched to bt

  49. Avatar photo Simon Kale says:

    It’s also happening in leeds. I’ve been reporting it since end of October 2020. I’ve had an apology and an education given email. I’ve had too engineer appointments book but nothings on there system. I’m at the moment trying to home school 6 children who can not get into most of there lessons on line due to connect errors. At this very moment I’m on the phone again will they go through there pre installed check list.

    1. Avatar photo Mr simon r kale says:

      New update I’m getting another router for free so that’s the the third one now. Very soon I’ll be able to set up my own virgin media company

  50. Avatar photo Jonathan thomas says:

    Been trying to sort it out since 2019 in Swansea still not working properly
    Tried boosters with no effect.virgin just trying to palm you off all the time

  51. Avatar photo Aled says:

    Virgin’s headline speeds are great if/when they work. But frankly they are erratic and variable at best.

    I’ve been with BT for 6 years now and always seem to get a minimum of 40meg.

    Do Virgin still throttle you if you use p2p\torrents? Last time I used Virgin, they seemed to automatically and seriously derate your download speed when connecting to suspicious levels of peers. Try switching off any p2p for a couple of days.

  52. Avatar photo Anil Patel says:

    Same problem in the West Mids, paying for 600mb, getting anything between 0 and 450, constant dropouts in the day on weekdays for the last month. Already moved the fix date a few times.
    Saw the complaints on Watchdog on The One Show today.
    Shame on you VM. Still theyll offer a £2 discount on renewal after 6 hours on the phone to CS.

  53. Avatar photo CRAP SH2 says:

    Also what a pile of crap the super hub 2 is, after trawling forums showing tons of others with weak Wi-fi signal, had to shell out on TP-Link mesh system. Now the SH2 is in modem mode, paying £££ per month for a shoddy service. Think it’s time to vote with my feet and get on the Openreach FTTP.

  54. Avatar photo Robin Freeland says:

    Well true to their word they said they would get back to me and I had an email message to say my WiFi has now been upgraded at no extra cost to me, well its better than it has been for about 6 months, but has taken little over 3 months of writing to V.M. to get this far, the frustration is unbelievable, they do not care one bit. Do I think that it will last, no I am expecting it to revert back to sweet f.a. some time soon, I live on the South Coast near Portsmouth, things went wrong 4 years ago when I moved here from a distance of 1/4 mile away entire package supposed to move with me, but ended up with no phone line as cabinet capacity was nil,at my old home I was told the service was fiber, and this new one also fiber, but I confronted the engineers working on the cabinet and they laughed and said ther is no fiber cables here only copper nearest fiber is some 15 miles away, V.M. said I was the only and next on the list for a phone line, so I asked the engineers and they showed me a list for the road and that said 5 others were waiting for lines like me, and I was number 5 on the list, I was asked not to disclose this info. As it would be embarrassing for the company, they seem to make up lies as they go along, I did confront V.m. about this and they offered a discount as the phone line was not possible. I also said that on my bill it stated FIBER but the next bill had this deleted. I asked my neighbour if as the list I was shown he was waiting for a land line his reply was I am No. 1 on the list for one and no one else is waiting, I politely informed him no you are No.4 on the list. And the bad news is it will be according to the engineers at least another3 maybe years before any planned expansion to the area system takes place. Lies lies and more lies.I refuse to phone CS as I have been shouted at, put on hold for no reason, and told that I do not understand my system, why do we put up with this chap, mainly because we are tied into contracts, the industry needs a reform, no contracts just a get out of jail free when it all goes wrong, must go now as I am loosing the will to live.

  55. Avatar photo Ian Pickersgill says:

    I pay for 104 meg and had a good speed until Covid got under way. Then my speed went all over the place. I eventually got in contact with a virgin engineer at home who supposedly reset my router. Then my two laptops no longer connected or my Echo and Alexa boxes. Needless to say my speed didn’t improve. Luckily it seems they have corrected the speed problem today (Sunday 28th Fen). Although I have no idea how long for. The annoying thing is Virgin will never admit they have a problem.

    1. Avatar photo illiad says:

      you will find that covid affects everything… all networks are under strain due to 4 or 5 times as many people using it ALL day, usually heavily…
      and the NEXT big thing, is apple have updated their security protocol, confusing many routers!!

      https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-hub-3-ios-14-weak-security

  56. Avatar photo KK says:

    Virgin pushed WiFi update to the hub a month or so ago, since then WiFi connection became a nightmare, constant stuttering on all devices, slow speeds, IP call disconnects. I gave up calling support, they are clueless. Time to leave.

  57. Avatar photo Chris C says:

    Its clear ofcom’s speed estimate regulation is inadequate for VM, they can use national averages to hide problems with capacity in specific areas when ordering.

    I expect if they were forced to give an estimate based up on the cabinet you connected to and as such affect marketing, these problems would suddenly get more priority and fixed.

  58. Avatar photo sean Jarman says:

    `I have been having intermittend issued with my virgin 500 service for a couple of weeks – they told me earlier that the issue is probably due to me connecting to thwe hub with a cat5 cable, when they recommend only cat6.

    I became quite rude to the script reader at that point.

    The issue is odd though, as I get solid 450mbit down, and sometines 37 up, but it randomly drops to 0.05 down 0- dialup speeds!

    I’ll be calling them again in the morning.

Comments are closed

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