Virgin Media again.

Just been told that our bill is going up £15 a month from May 1st 2023! We have the right to cancel. However, on the back of the letter things get worse. From April 2024 all bills will be going up 3.9% plus the Retail Price Index (RPI) announced in February. This is every year. If the RPI is 0% or less then it will still go up 3.9%. As this will be part of your new terms there will be no right to cancel mid contract! When is a contract not a contract? :mad:
To be fair to virgin, almost every phone and broadband company has had this clause in their terms for years, virgin has still put prices up in the past but people have had the ability to cancel, so they're taking that away after this increase.

Most years it's been a small increase as 5% or so of a £50 contract is only £2.50, it's just exasperated by the high inflation at the moment
 
So there are two types of internet for the most part - fttp and fttc. Fttc means fibre to the cabinet and means its fibre optic to your local cabinet and then copper wire to the house

These are generally provided in the openreach network - generally tops out about 76mb or so. Will be offered by BT, sky, plus net, Vodafone etc

Then there is fttp which is fibre to the property

This can be in the openreach network if they've upgraded, or or could be virgin or it could be altnets like youfibre or cityfibre

If you go here : https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/broadband-map#6/51.414/-0.641/and click the button on the map that says fttp isps and then select all and zoom in on your street you should see what's around. It might be cityfibre or some other altnet is building nearby

I used this to track youfibre coming into our area (Ingleby)

It might be that for true high speed virgin is currently your only option. We moved here in 2018 and from then til may last year 76mb openreach was our only option. Virgin installed to our street in May but by then I knew youfibre were coming

Your other options are 5g dongles, but rely on signal.

Or final option is to look at Musk's star link, but it has high set up costs.
Thanks for this reply, it is really helpful. (y)
 
A lot of you are pinning yourselves down to a smaller number of providers and shafting yourselves.

There are new providers that produce fast broadband as described above though most people don't need the speed they think they do

We had two people working from home daily on teams calls and kids streaming on our old 86mb Vodafone deal. We've since moved up to the 200mb deal because there was an offer that made it cheaper.

I can understand this by the way, because if your with Virgin and you have their awful router then you'll be struggling with regular disconnections and drop offs and you'll think that is the speed you need, it's actually just a good router or mesh system.

It's not as scary as you might think to move providers and if its no good then you can switch again.
I have the same problem (in York). Virgin Wifi and connection drops off intermittently.
So if I bought a better router and replaced the Virgin one that might make things better?
 
We used to pay £25 a month for 76mb openreach via bt and that was with cashback, Vodafone was a a similar price. Youfibre is £30 a month for 1gb up 1gb down, for me the benefit is in increased upstream as well as headroom for downloads; if you have a couple of cloud cctv cameras that quickly eats into 15-20mb upload capacity and even virgin 1gb I think maxes out at 50. Working from home uses very little data but if you start doing things like streaming in multiple TVs, home automation, downloading games / movies / tv shows etc and if you have More people in the house then each time it makes more & more sense

Youfibre does do cheaper packages but for the price difference you might as well have the 1gb up/down - the difference between 120mb and 1gb is £8, but you get 3 months free with 1gb so that's equivalent of 3.74 so it's real terms very little difference for 6.5x the speed.


Being able to download a 80gb movie in minutes is class

I agree with you but some folk don't have those options yet mate. People assume there's only Virgin or sky and yet you can get 200mb offers from other providers for reasonable costs that would easily be enough for those guys talking above as you can see from their description.

A 1gb up and down is wasted. No problem if its only a few quid extra of course but people are paying silly money to Virgin
 
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EmersonBrazilianDong - I love being on the internet but haven't got a clue how this thing works. Any chance you can explain to me how I would go about getting Vodafone installed (equipment wise).
TFG has explained it better than I could pal.

I'm just making the point that people are likely closing up other options to them.

You just go on a broadband checker amd see what options are available to you. Vodafone just send you a new router and an engineer might visit if needed. But it's a piece of **** really.

If you have the option for a fast provider at reasonable cost then great but from what you are describing as your requirements then you can easily achieve it with other providers.

I pay 25 quid per month for 200mb. I don't have Virgin or other superfast providers near me
 
I have the same problem (in York). Virgin Wifi and connection drops off intermittently.
So if I bought a better router and replaced the Virgin one that might make things better?
Essentially yes

Turn your router into modern mode and attach a new mesh system or router and you'll lose those issues almost immediately. Go on YouTube and search how to put Virgin into modern mode.

I appreciate this stuff and language sounds unapproachable, but honestly it's simple 👍🏻
 
Essentially yes

Turn your router into modern mode and attach a new mesh system or router and you'll lose those issues almost immediately. Go on YouTube and search how to put Virgin into modern mode.

I appreciate this stuff and language sounds unapproachable, but honestly it's simple 👍🏻
Thanks. I'll definitely try this. It's that or I'll get rid of Virgin before the 17th April cool off (you'd have thought they could have told me this, after three separate calls and literally fk all help). 'Try a hard reboot' FFS. Or pay £8 quid a month for a 'booster'!
If I had a decent other choice I'd be gone. So I will try this thanks, then just get rid if it doesn't hep, and get a couple of 5G unlimited phone contracts
 
Essentially yes

Turn your router into modern mode and attach a new mesh system or router and you'll lose those issues almost immediately. Go on YouTube and search how to put Virgin into modern mode.

I appreciate this stuff and language sounds unapproachable, but honestly it's simple 👍🏻
It's MODEM mode not MODERN mode.
 
Ok daft question. I’be probably stuck with virgin for way too long as years ago i set up a ntlworld.com email that’s still my primary email which then over time became virgin of course . It’s got probably close to 20 years of stuff filed away . If I cancel virgin will I lose that email address and all the history?
 
Ok daft question. I’be probably stuck with virgin for way too long as years ago i set up a ntlworld.com email that’s still my primary email which then over time became virgin of course . It’s got probably close to 20 years of stuff filed away . If I cancel virgin will I lose that email address and all the history?
Not immediately. The ISP has to leave you with the email address for at least six months after you quit. After that they might let you keep the email address etc for a fee.
 
I rang them today, with the aim of keeping my bill the same as it currently is and said I won't pay anymore than I currently am.

1st person offered me a £3 increase on my current bill for 6 months then it would be £8 more for the rest of my contract. no thanks! so transferred to retention team and they reduce my current bill by £5 and increased my broadband speed. Result.
 
Ok daft question. I’be probably stuck with virgin for way too long as years ago i set up a ntlworld.com email that’s still my primary email which then over time became virgin of course . It’s got probably close to 20 years of stuff filed away . If I cancel virgin will I lose that email address and all the history?
You need to make a start moving away from isp based email address. Go through your email each day and anything you get to it, change it to a gmail or whatever

Like said above you keep access for 6 months officially but I still have my ntlworld email which I cancelled my account for in 2014 but I dont think I can send outgoing mail with it just receive it

Don't think I can log in for web access either

But daft to be tied to an isp email if you can help not doing so

Set it up to forward all email to the new address you setup and change as ouch as you can and it will be easier to manage
 
I was paying £92 a month, they were putting it up another £12. Rang them planning to go to Broadband only and managed to get 150MB broadband / TV (basic package) and telephone for £45 a month. Firestick pending.
 
It happens with all these 'products'. You agree a new contract but the small print says it will go up during the 2 year period. Hardly worth the 'paper' it's wrote on.

You'd think a 1-2 year deal would be locked at the price you take it out on.

I binned sky in Feb after 17 years. I've not missed it one bit. I have more than enough content with Freesat / YouTube and amazon.

I did keep the sky broadband and phone. Yet stayed out of contract so I can switch provider whenever I want with a months notice. It's costing me £5 more a month than committing to a new 18 month deal.

I would say its saved me a £100 a month. Yet my mortgage has gone up that and some. It's cr@p being an adult 😂
 
Well finally rang them today. I heard from “Martin’s Money” that they seem to have more deals at the end of a month. Talked to a Geordie lad who confirmed that I was on an offer on my current contract from last August. It was 18 months at £64 (rather than £87) for TV, phone and M125 broadband. From January 2024 it then goes up to the £87. He then said he could reduce the £15 a month increase from this May to £2 a month so I would be paying £66 a month. I agreed to this. He then said that I should give them a ring the first week in December to negotiate a new contract so that we wouldn’t have to pay the £87 from January! Looks like if you just accept the increase they charge you. If you ring them they dont.
 
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