Virgin Contract Ending?

[saltyseadog]

How soon before my contract ends can I renegotiate it or even sign up with another provider?

[newapollo · Accepted solution]

Hi @saltyseadog 

If wanting to switch to another provider you need to give 30 days notice.

You can re-negotiate at any time, although if you re-negotiate within the last 30 days of your minimum term then you have more chance of receiving a higher discount.

Have you checked to see if any offers are available in https://www.virginmedia.com/my-virgin-media ?

You should speak to retentions (thinking of leaving) and see what price you can negotiate. They are generally based in the UK, and have a greater degree of knowledge and flexibility, along with a larger range of discounts than the front line agents.

Hopefully you can then negotiate a deal with them that's suitable to your pocket and needs in exchange for a new contract. Or failing that you can place your cancellation with that team.

The quickest contact method is by calling either 150 from a VM landline or mobile, or 0345 454 1111 from any other phone, call around 8am if possible when lines first open and are least busy.

You can also text VM on 0753 305 1809 or speak to the team on WhatsApp on 0730 532 7112 but phone calls take priority and these methods can take 4 to 6 hours. 

[saltyseadog]

I followed the advice you gave last Friday yesterday and I re-signed up with VM for the 1Gigabit broadband and landline and finally got rid of the tv option. The chap arranged for a new hub to be delivered later in June as the superhub 3.0 is not able to manage 1G. At present I have the superhub 3.0 running in modem mode through a linksys router. Do you have any advice on the new hub being sent. I shall probably run it in router mode as unsure whether the Linksys EA7500 is capable of 1G. Any advice greatly appreciated.

[newapollo]

Hi again @saltyseadog 

I would run the hub5 in router mode to begin with and see what the connection and speeds are like.

This will be useful if the connection isn't as good as expected as VM are unable to perform tests in modem mode. If not happy with the results then you can then switch to modem mode to see if they improve.

Use https://samknows.com/realspeed/  to test the speed ro your hub and to your device. It may take a couple of days before your new profile to be picked up before this will work.

If you have a device such as a computer/laptop that is WiFi6 enabled with a network card above Gig1 then plug it into port 4 (the bottom one with 2.5Gps marked in pink next to it) as this will allow that device to obtain the highest speed of around 1140Mbps.

Even though I initially stayed on the M600 speed as part of my Ultimate Oomph package I found that my speeds increased when switching from the hub3 to the hub5, and the wireless range was also better. This does tend to vary for different users as some have found that their wireless range wasn't as good.

I am now on Gig1 and speeds to my PC average between 850 and 920 using the samknows realspeed test - my PC is WiFi 6 however the network card is only Gig1 so that's the best I will receive. The "speeds" seem to vary quite a lot, especially when using different browsers. 

Using the ookla speed test app (which isn't slowed down by the browser) I am averaging 945.50 - screenshot below.

ookla speed test app

[saltyseadog]

Thanks again for the advice. I installed a separate network adapter card from the motherboard one a few years back. The one I installed is the Intel(R) Gigabit CT Desktop Adapter which has a speed of 1.0Gbps. Will this card be good enough or should I think about upgrading?.

[Cardiffman282]

Just to say that the Linksys can cope fine with your speed upgrade (up to 1.3 Gig on WiFi). 

[saltyseadog]

Well the 1Gig hub 5 arrived last Friday the 30th June and installation went well. From the new hub I am running 2 Windows 10 PC's and a smart 4K Tv all connected via Ethernet cat6A cables.  Other than our mobile phones we don't really have any wifi devices.

Started running the hub 5 on router mode but was not fussed with the Samknows real speed test which was always giving 1145Gbps at the router but only 90 - 100 Gbps on both upload and download so I went back to using Ookla Speedtest which was showing I was receiving a regular download speed of around 540Gbps on my computer and 565Gbps on the wife's PC with upload speeds of around 100 Gbps and the tv is working very well without the tivo box or the tv package. I ran it on router mode for a couple of days and these ratings were pretty regular.

I then decided to put the hub 5 into modem mode and reconnect my Linksys EA7500 router to see what effect that would have and found that I was now getting a regular download speed of 560Gbps on my PC and 625Gbps on the wife's while the upload speed is holding at 104Gbps. In trying to figure out why there is a difference in the download speeds it seems to boil down to the network cards in each PC. The one in my wife's PC a 10yrs old originally Win7 and upgraded to Win10 is an Intel 1120 GbE family controller with a driver from 2015 while mine at 6yrs old has a Gigabit CT desktop adapter with a driver from 2018. We don't have any Wifi 6 capable stuff.

From what I have read on the forums here and on google I think perhaps the fact that the cable coming from the street to the house is around 10yrs old has a lot to do with why we aren't receiving a better download speed although to be honest the present speeds are more than adequate for our needs so until Virgin upgrades the street cable to fibre or whatever I am quite happy with the new service.

While researching replacement network cards I found this one here on Ebay. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256050774444  I know many will say stay away from cheap Chinese knockoffs but apparently it is capable of 2.5Gbps and I did wonder if such a card connected to the 2.5Gbps port on the router would possibly boost the speed?. Your views greatly appreciated.

[Gareth_L]

Hello saltyseadog.

Thanks for your question regarding download speeds.

I did run a quick check on the signal strength coming into your hub on both up and download speeds and it is looking as good as it can be from here.

Regarding replacing the external cable, This is generally only done when their is fault.

It might be worthwhile upgrading the Network card to see if that improves the speeds on your equipment.

Also do you have any virus software running that might slow your equipment down?

Maybe stop it running and try another speed test?

Gareth_L