Yeah Virgin have good lines all across the city. I pay for, and get, 30 meg from them. My bro gets 110! Never had issues from them here. Although, I will say having 30 meg and their super hub thing can cause wireless issues, so the only wireless devices on mine now are phones.

I've had 10mb for years now and don't see any need for anything faster really.

Bit pricey though.

If you can get cable, then get cable.

VM for Bristol. Not because they're good, but because their rivals aren't.

Am moving in the near future, hit of a pain as Virgin are finally available I'm my area, but not the areas I an going too.
So, I've upgraded my BT broadband from 5MBs to an estimated 67mbs. BT are available I'm my new area, and I don't really want to go with Sky if I can avoid it.
Shame Bt's TV service is shit.
I now have to weather BT for another 18 months and hope Virgin appear in that time.

I've just signed up for Bt Infinity and getting 40 mb ( hopefully ) for £18 which isn't too bad but the robbing bastards then charge you line rental ( surely it should be in the whole package ). I've decided to  pay up front for it and get it for £10.50 instead of £15 a month

Fingers crossed it will only take a couple of weeks , and after reading confirmation the email they've said that there will be minimal break in my broadband

WorKid wrote:

GurtTractor wrote:

Don't think there is a thread for this so here we go. I'm starting college at Bristol in September and I've just moved into a shared house. No one else has moved in yet and I need some recommendations for a good ISP. Apparently most people tend to go for Virgin Media here. Many thanks for any suggestions.

PS where are you going to live? (Understand if you don't want to say). VM is great if lots of people are sharing the connection in a house.

The house is in the Southville area, quite close to the river. It's in quite a nice position really, not too far from either the college or city centre.

There's going to be three other people, so I imagine at least 30GB would be a good idea, and 60GB would be very nice. I don't know what kind of internet users they are yet (I would class myself as HEAVY), and I don't know whether we'll be wanting a phone-line as well.

Contract length might be an issue as well, virgin do student broadband which is a 9 month contract, but is a bit more expensive. The normal 60GB package is apparently half price for 6 months with a phone-line, but is for 18 months. Me and the two other others who have put a deposit down are starting 2/3 year courses so I would be surprised if none of us also stayed here next year.

Has anybody had problems with any kind of fair usage policy with virgin? And how is their customer service? And any other providers to check out apart from Virgin and BT?

That's absolutely the experience I've had so far with ISP customer service. TalkTalk were really fucking bad, they outright lied to me many many times about their FUP (they said there was none), but when I finally got through to a UK technician all became clear (mostly).

I've found Virgin OK the couple of times I've had to phone them, you do hear some horror stories though. As far as I understand things, their big advantage was fibre - if you can get that in your area from BT, it becomes a decision based on price.

I'm hopefully moving soon, so I'll be keeping tabs on this thread. 

I'm currently with Sky, getting their free 10mb which ends up being 3/4mb. I've had Virgin fibre optic in the past and would happily use them again, but it's a cost thing. I'm currently paying £85 or so on Sky tv, so I don't want to be forking out for my broadband too.

It varies by region. Virgin are running pretty decent cable out here, and their packages beat rival offerings if you want TV included.

@webbins give them a call. Am sure they'll do you a deal. I got 100mb upgrade and Sky HD channel upgrade for current price.

MattyJ wrote:

or UK (Newcastle I think).

Indeed. I have a friend who works there. He says it's shit (the product, not the job, but I suspect that is as well).

Not the speed so much, but the restrictions on usage, price, uptimes, support when (not if) it goes wrong etc.

The only people I see with a good word to say about BT Broadband are those on the Infinity fibre optic, and only then it seems because of the speed. I wouldn't touch them for ADSL with a bargepole.