Virgin Media Broadband review: Fast and reliable, but support’s still a shambles

Virgin Media is unique among the eight broadband providers on test here in that it owns its own fibre network – it’s not relying on a third party to provide the connections. That should put Virgin Media in a position of strength, but as we’ll see, it fails to fully press home the advantage.

The good news is that 70% of Virgin Media customers are happy with the reliability of their service, which is more than any other broadband provider, earning the company our Reliability award.

Virgin’s always been renowned for its speed too, but with full-fibre networks now widely available, that once huge speed advantage has been eroded. Not only do rivals now offer faster headline connection speeds than Virgin, but they’re more highly rated for speed in our survey too. Still, 79% customer satisfaction with speed is still decent.

It’s the old complaints about Virgin that continue to drag it down, though. Customer service has a dismal 40% satisfaction score. Only TalkTalk does worse in this regard. And though Virgin appears to have slashed prices for new customers, as we’ll explore below, too many existing customers still feel they’re getting poor value for money, with Virgin finishing bottom of the pile in that regard.

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Virgin Media Broadband review: M125, M250, M500 and Gig1

Note: Prices were correct at the time of writing but are liable to change.

Since our last review, Virgin Media has made its broadband tariffs significantly cheaper for new customers.

The slightly confusing M350 package remains, but it now costs £36/mth, rather than £38 – making it inexplicably more expensive than the M500 package at the time of writing. Virgin Media’s tariff selection page states that the M500 tariff is “great for super-connected homes with 6-8 people and 10+ devices”, which makes you wonder how big a house you’d need to justify doubling that speed for the gigabit package? By that logic, you should be living in a commune.

When we last reviewed Virgin, the Gig1 package cost £44/mth, this year that’s down to £38, while the M500 package has tumbled from £45 to £33. Those are huge price cuts, perhaps reflective of strong competition from the full-fibre providers. That said, Vodafone’s 910Mbits/sec deal – the closest equivalent to Virgin’s Gig1 – is still a couple of quid cheaper per month.

It’s worth noting that Virgin’s Media default contract length is 18 months, not the usual two years. There is an annual price increase baked into those tariffs, but at least it means you can haggle with the Virgin retention team on a new deal six months earlier than you would be able to do with many of its rivals.

Virgin Media doesn’t precisely stipulate what router you’ll get with each tariff, but judging by the pictures alone it looks like you’ll get the ageing Hub 3 on the lower speed tariffs, and the Wi-Fi 6-enabled Hub 5 on the faster speeds. If you’re negotiating a deal with Virgin, it might be worth seeing if you can get the more advanced router, even if you’re not on the fastest lines.

It’s also worth noting that Virgin’s upload speeds are generally pretty weak compared to some fibre providers. You’ll get about 10% of the download speed on the uplink. Virgin states the upload speed you’re expected to receive at the point of sign-up.

Like Sky, Virgin also offers a selection of TV bundles and deals with its O2 mobile arm (the company is now known as Virgin Media O2), so check those out before committing to a tariff.

Virgin Media Broadband review: Coverage

Virgin Media’s network isn’t available everywhere in the UK, unlike Openreach. Around 55% of UK homes are within Virgin’s footprint and you can use the postcode checker on its website to find out if you’re covered.

Virgin Media Broadband review: Performance and customer satisfaction

Despite winning this year’s reliability award, Virgin Media ends up a lowly sixth in our overall table of the eight providers on test.

Seven out of ten Virgin Media customers said they were happy with the reliability of the network, better than any of the other rivals who rely on third-party network providers for their connection.

Speed is not the Virgin trump card it once was now that the full-fibre networks have caught up, but it’s still a strength. A healthy 79% of customers were satisfied with their speeds, placing fourth overall, although some way behind category winner Zen Internet, which had a staggering 95% satisfaction score.

Virgin has repeatedly suffered in our surveys for poor customer service and there’s little sign of improvement this year. Only 40% of customers are satisfied in their dealings with the company, which drags the company right down our table.

And though the recent price cuts might help swing the needle here, Virgin Media is currently rated the worst of all eight providers for value for money. Only two thirds of customers are satisfied.

If you are one of those unhappy existing customers, it might well be worth a conversation with Virgin’s retention team when your current deal comes to an end. If they’re offering cheaper deals to new customers, they might be persuaded to cut your bill to prevent you from walking away. Not least because its previous biggest selling point – the raw speed of its connections – has largely vanished.

A whopping 45% of Virgin Media customers have been with the company for more than five years, according to our survey, more than any other provider. The company won’t want to burn through those loyal customers.

Virgin Media broadband review: Verdict

Virgin’s award-winning reliability and (now) keenly priced tariffs are attractions. But the company’s repeated failure to address long-running customer service gripes leave it languishing down the table of our recommended providers.

Methodology

Unless otherwise stated, all figures are drawn from a comprehensive survey conducted by Expert Reviews in December 2024, targeting a representative sample of 2,162 UK residents aged 18 and over. This sample size allows for statistically significant analysis across eight internet service providers, ensuring confidence in the results.

The figures are derived from responses to six survey questions targeting value for money, speed, customer service and reliability. We then take an average of these scores to produce an overall satisfaction metric, which we use to name our winner and runner-up.