The cost of just 17.99 per month should be the first clue to the service from Virgin Media. I had a connection with Virgin internet before the whole NTL thing happened, & the connection speed averaged 6-8mb & everything would work quickly. However since it turned to Virgin Media I am averaging about 512k - 1mb if im lucky, it fails to connect all the time, and as for online gaming its impossible because the connection keeps closing. If you ring the support staff you will get through to someone quickly, but they will have no idea what they are doing, took me a week just to get the MAC code & now am searching for an ISP that works at ADSL Speed