Virgin Broadband Review: Are Virgin a Good Choice of Broadband Provider?

Virgin Media are one of the biggest providers of home entertainment services in the UK, providing not just broadband services but also a home phone rental service and the UKs only cable television service. This makes them an attractive option, especially for those looking to save money in the long term by buying all three home services from the company, saving on their monthly bills by taking up a bundle package from the provider.

In recent a recent Virgin broadband reviews, speed, quality and speed of activation were highlighted as some of the major plus points of using Virgin Media and that's not surprising considering that Virgin offer some of the fastest broadband available in the UK. In fact, in selected areas Virgin can offer speeds of up to 50 Mbps, around ten times faster than the UK national average.

It can offer these speeds because it uses fibre optic cables rather than the traditional copper phone line services used by ADSL providers. Fibre optic lines are faster and more reliable than copper cable, and most importantly they can offer speeds much closer to those advertised on the actual website, which makes it easier for you to decide what speed you want and actually receive it.

There's always a catch though, and with Virgin the catch is simply that you might not be able to receive the service at all. Unlike copper phone technology that's either installed or able to be installed in 98% of UK homes, only about 50% of the UK population will have access to Virgin's cable service, and the vast majority of those will be people living in towns and cities rather than rural locations, where developing a fibre network is simply too expensive.

Those who do find themselves outside the correct area to receive Virgin's cable services need not right them off as a provider entirely though, as they do also offer DSL broadband like all of the other big providers. Of course, as both the Virgin Media TV service and the phone line service from the company need cable to function, you'll miss out on any bundle deal by just using the DSL technology over the cable.

If you do have a cable in your area, you have a wide range of choices when it comes to how you want to use Virgin Media's services. All of the three services available come in a range of sizes and you can choose which ones are more important for you. For example, you get the cheapest phone line package while getting a medium sized TV package and the large broadband package, which is great for people that want all three services but want to emphasis one over the other.

Overall, Virgin offer one of the best bundle deals available in the country, and while their TV offerings can't quite compete with Sky in terms of pure quantity of content or HD channels, Virgin still offer a solid TV service combined with a very fast and capable broadband experience, especially designed for people who demand the fastest speeds available.