Virgin Media Community

[JennyCide]

Trying to give virgin some money and failing completely.

My work have said that they 'may' give me some extra money to upgrade my broadband since I'm having to work from home.

I'm in Leeds and Gig1 has just gone live.  If I use the postcode checker it says that I can get Gig1 at my address however the call centre people I've spoken to don't yet seem to have any information and can only try to upsell me to Ultimate Oomph bundle which, according to the details I can find is only a 500Mbps speed (with future upgrade to 650Mbps) but no mention of Gig1.

I seem to be able to do a self service upgrade via https://www.virginmedia.com/shop but it's unclear what options I have - I think maybe that I can pay £62 (or something like that) but there was no indication how that affected the bundle I am already on - is that an extra payment on top of my bundle or the cost of the broadband part of the bundle.

Basically - how on earth do I give virginmedia money to upgrade and how can I find out what it costs?  Spent an hour and a half on the phone with them today and still none the wiser and the website is a kafka-esque nightmare of circular and broken links.

Anyone know if Gig1 is actually part of any bundles?

[Andruser]

As far as I know the highest standalone speed for non-TV packages is 500 Mbps.  Higher speeds need "fully monty" packages, and the £62 figure is the "introductory discount" - when that price expires, (18 months?) it'll probably double, as it does with other VM intro offers.

Obviously if you're a home working video editor, or software developer you might have the need or desire for 1 Gbps.  But for most people it has no benefit because other than when doing a speed test, they never, ever saturate even a 100 Mbps connection.  And you'd be voluntarily exposing yourself to the Hub 4, which is experiencing a range of teething problems that I certainly wouldn't be queuing up for.  You'd also find that even the most premium of wireless devices only reaches about 600 Mbps, and if connected over EDIT: wireless ethernet you'll be limited to the 960 Mbps speed of a "gigabit" etherent port, less the TCP overheads, so you're not really going to get a useful gigabit connection AT A DEVICE LEVEL.  The Hub 4 (when it works) will get a gigabit connection with the VM CMTS, but that's not what you'll see.

If you really need it, you'll have to take the full package that VM wish to sell you, just be careful in terms of expectations.

[BenMcr]

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@Andruser wrote:

As far as I know the highest standalone speed for non-TV packages is 500 Mbps.  Higher speeds need "fully monty" packages, and the £62 figure is the "introductory discount" - when that price expires, (18 months?) it'll probably double, as it does with other VM intro offers.

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Gig1 should be available on all options at an eligible address - from by itself through to with TV and Phone.

[Andruser]

@BenMcr  Gig1 should be available on all options at an eligible address - from by itself through to with TV and Phone.

Possibly that's true, but it doesn't appear to be what VM are telling the press. nor what JennyCide is finding, nor indeed the options I see when checking either My Virgin Media or the VM public website.  Which all compounds the original comment from JennyCide: "Basically - how on earth do I give virginmedia money to upgrade and how can I find out what it costs?  Spent an hour and a half on the phone with them today and still none the wiser and the website is a kafka-esque nightmare of circular and broken links."

VM's "digital estate" is so extensively broken and dysfunctional, that like all similarly broken web sites (Homebase, B&Q, for example) the only solution will be to start building a completely new web presence that uses NONE of the code of the existing mess, so that customers can easily find all options clearly explained and priced, and then upgrade, downgrade, leave or otherwise manage their account online.  At the moment it's just a fragmented mess that generates phone calls that the company still can't handle competently.  Even most energy suppliers manage digital sales and relationship management better than VM, now there's a (deserved) insult if ever there were one.

[BenMcr]

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@Andruser wrote:

@BenMcr  Gig1 should be available on all options at an eligible address - from by itself through to with TV and Phone.

Possibly that's true, but it doesn't appear to be what VM are telling the press.

https://www.virginmedia.com/corporate/media-centre/press-releases/virgin-media-becomes-the-uks-large...

Gig1 broadband is available to new and existing customers and can be packaged with or without telephone, TV and mobile services. Prices start from just £62 per month on an 18 month contract with a guaranteed price freeze for at least 24 months. 

[spgray]

strangely enough when i look at what's available at my address.

200 and 500 are available but 350 isn't.
is 350 no longer available as an option?

[JennyCide]

Thanks for the replies so far - they kind of back up my issue - the press/publicity doesn't match the information on the website and neither match what customer services have been told leaving me with money I can't give away (not a problem I usually have!).  It shoudn't be so hard to work out what services I would get for what cost

[BenMcr]

So what happens if you go here

https://www.virginmedia.com/shop/broadband/gig1-gigabit-broadband

[JennyCide]

Looks like the site is updating today - 

is what I saw before but now this has been added (wasn't there an hour or so ago)

To get there I have to select a bundle , add it to the basket and then go to 'Change Order' - any other thing I try just asks me to log in and once logged in it won't show me any broadband higher than 350Mbps.  I'm not aware of this being a new customer only offer but it's very confusing.trying to find to how to upgrade just my broadband.

[Roger_Gooner]

VM's website can be bad when it comes to upgrading, so call VM.

As for Gig1: only go for it if you need 50Mbps upload speed as it would be otherwise be a waste of money.