Virgin Media is a virtual network that piggybacks on T-Mobile and a relative newcomer to the market, which meant Thinkbroadband.com didn’t have enough speed tests to provide a statistically significant nationwide median speed.
Not surprisingly the results of our own speed tests showed Virgin achieved comparable speeds to T-Mobile, although it recorded the single fastest speed of any provider here – a maximum download rate of 3.7Mbits/sec. The average speed in our tests was 2.1Mbits/sec, although that was only in central London, and can’t be compared to the nationwide scores quoted for other networks.
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- The mobile broadband con intro
- Why you won’t get the speeds you pay for
- How to get the best deals
- How to pick a modem
- Five ways to boost your speeds
Reviews
Virgin compresses images by default and its software provides no means of switching this off. A Virgin spokesman told us the network imposes compression “to minimise the data traffic across the network to offer a better/quicker service” and “to ensure that customers stay within the set data limits”, but we’d prefer it if Virgin treated its customers like adults and gave them the choice. (Read our blog post at to find out how to switch off compression.)
Virgin has contract options starting from £10 per month for 1GB of data, although those who get other services from Virgin (TV or broadband) qualify for an extra 20% discount.
Overall score: 3/6
Maximum speed recorded: 3.7Mbits/sec
Median speed: N/A
Modem tested: One Touch X200S
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