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SOLVED! virgin contract expiring / looking for better options

pier_views

Casual Member
hey everyone

my first post here and i'm just looking for some general advice!

i took out a contract 30th december 2022 with virgin media for and have been paying £26 a month for their entry M125 level for 18 months, which is going to go up to £44 a month from 30th june 2024

since then, i had a read up on alt net providers which to me seems like an absolute no brainer however having checked the think broadband map checker tool, there are none in my area yet :(

i wonder if there is anything i'm able to do in the circumstances to get a better deal - virgin has been generally reliable, but i'd like something faster (i'm a fairly heavy user) and feel that £44 a month will be poor value and i'd like to improve upon it - just worried that what i have is probably all i can have and i'll have no choice but to stick with virgin at this higher price.

any help is appreciated!

thanks

132.5 mbps download
20.9 mbps upload

ps apologies if this has been posted in the incorrect forum; i realise the predicament itself is not specific to virgin but it made the most sense at the time
 
Nothing on openreach?

 
hiya, thanks for your reply

i didn't really know what openreach is. i thought the options were either a) fiber optic from virgin, b) adsl from bt or another provider using those adsl lines or c) the new alt-net providers. so openreach is also fiber? but something else? i don't know, it's confusing. i did get the following results though:

Screenshot 2024-05-05 at 16.13.32.webp


the superfast fibre broadband in the middle looks about half the speed of the virgin broadband i'm currently on, however. so not sure about this option, unless pricing is very good. i'll have to look into it.
 
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hiya, thanks for your reply

i didn't really know what openreach is. i thought the options were either a) fiber optic from virgin, b) adsl from bt or another provider using those adsl lines or c) the new alt-net providers. so openreach is also fiber? but something else? i don't know, it's confusing. i did get the following results though:

View attachment 13896

the superfast fibre broadband in the middle looks about half the speed of the virgin broadband i'm currently on, however. so not sure about this option, unless pricing is very good. i'll have to look into it.
you do not have full fibre via openreach, openreach is the builder then you can pick ISPs you want to order from this list

 
thanks for the explanation. times have changed a bit since i last looked into it. i thought the only fiber optic infrastructure came from virgin media!

given the speeds shown above, i guess there is not really much that can be offered at my location from an open reach provider, and i'm probably better sticking with virgin?
 
if virgin is giving you a good price to stay yea, if not then you can try to find a cheaper ISP that uses openreach
 
okay, thanks. well they want £44 a month from 30th june 2024 and i feel like this is probably not very good value. i wonder if virgin will negotiate prices or reduce if i tell them i'm considering leaving?

on checking, zen can offer the following, which is about half the download speed i'm getting, for £36 a month.

Screenshot 2024-05-05 at 16.35.45.webp


shame there are no full fibre options here. i'm jealous of that 900mbps connection.
 
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normally if you act like your leaving they give better deals
 
on checking, zen can offer the following, which is about half the download speed i'm getting, for £36 a month.
Zen are one of the more expensive ISPs on Openreach. You can get the same speed packages for around £20 a month with Onestream for example. Or with more well known brands then Plusnet owned by BT will do it for just £5 more.

If looking for the best price, Zen definitely isn't the right company to be searching with.

photo_2024-05-05_16-58-47.webp
 
that's good information, thanks. i'm not necessarily looking for the cheapest provider, there's a couple of other things i prioritise in terms of the way a business conducts itself generally, however this will enable me to have a chat with virgin and say, this is what i can get elsewhere, so what might you do about it..
 
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Isn't the £44 just the out of contract price, can't you just sign a new contract? On their site M125 is £28, M350 is £30. You just need to do a new contract to get these prices instead of letting yourself go out of contract and defaulting to the out of contract price.
 
Isn't the £44 just the out of contract price, can't you just sign a new contract? On their site M125 is £28, M350 is £30. You just need to do a new contract to get these prices instead of letting yourself go out of contract and defaulting to the out of contract price.
New customer prices.

The OP won't be a new customer unless they aren't with VM for at least 90 days.
 
New customer prices.

The OP won't be a new customer unless they aren't with VM for at least 90 days.
indeed, i'm not eligible for the new customer prices

i'll give them a call next week and speak to their retention dept, that'll be a blast!
 
Sadly Virgin Media will walk all over you if you are polite. £44 by todays standards is very high for M125. Depending on how risk averse you are, I would ring up to cancel, if you lucky they will give you something decent there and then on the call (it does happen for some), if not proceed with the cancellation, and hopefully before the termination date, they will either phone you with a good price or send a SMS inviting you to ring them.

If you are very unlucky and they dont prod you before termination, you have a couple of options, one is to concede and revert the cancellation as if nothing happened, or you can let it terminate and sign up again as a new customer in someone else's name on a new customer deal.

The termination date will probably be at least 30 days in the future, so dont worry on that. Hold your nerve until the last 1-2 days and dont ring them, its a poker stare off.

Also make sure you have marketing turned on, on your account.

--

I will explain what happened to me so you got an idea of what 'might' happen. I cancelled my gig1 connection early April after they refused to give me a good deal. I then heard nothing from them at all for most of the termination period, then late last week I got a SMS saying they were trying to contact me, and to ring them to avoid cancellation and activate a £19 a month broadband offer. They folded about 5 days before the termination date,
 
hey all

just had a chat with virgin retention / cancellations

spoke to a pleasant scottish lady. told her i wanted to cancel due to cost and said i was moving over to onestream for £20 a month and she offered to see if there was anything she could do, asking if i was happy with the speed and if i had ever considered an upgrade. i mentioned that i would be interested in a faster package but that it depended on what price she could offer

she offered me the M250 for £28 a month, i asked how much to stay on the M125 and the best she could do was £31. she was likely just playing with the rates a bit there as retain and upsell is probably a double whammy for her

i also complained about a couple of dropouts i'd had in the last month (which i had previously suspected was my mac mini m2 but maybe not!) and she was able to see the dropouts and is sending me a virgin hub 5.0 tomorrow

all in all, fairly happy with the outcome and will be fine for the next few years or until the roll out of a decent alt net provider in my area!

the speed upgrade has already kicked in and now getting

212.0 mbps download
25.8 mbps upload

thanks all for your help!
 
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nice, goodjob mate :)
 
Check bidb.uk in the next year or two, you may be surprised

I was unhappy with the upload speed on Virgin HFC
 
Does https://bidb.uk show any other fibre available? Cancel Virgin now, put in your notice ( 30 days is just minimum, you can give up to 60 Days )adn see what offers they give you,

Are you able to sign up as a new user? is there anyone else in the property?
 
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