Virgin Mobile Home Internet reviews and experiences

21Brimley wrote: ↑ ....... and Fido is Rogers.

Well...yes and no
Same corporate family but that doesn't mean the servicethey provide is the same.

The other point is that Fido uses cable internet which by its very nature is subject to congestion. So before COVID, people often noticed a slow down in the late afternoon and evening when people came home from work and started to use their cable internet at home and also their cable TV services since everyone in a certain area were connected to the same pipe.
Bell casn't offer cable internet, they don't have the cable infrastructure- they offer DSL over the telephone copper pair that is limited in speed depending on the distance to the CO (switching office) or remote node or they offer fiber if they installed the fiber infrastructure in your area. Fiber can deliver a much higher bandwidth than cable so for congestion to happen you need a lot more users at the same time and fiber can be configured to avoid that.
In your case the fiber connection terminates in your building, thus FTT"N", then the final connection is via the telephone pair.
Each telephone pair only services one apartment, so you are not sharing that part of the connection with anyone and because the distance from the fiber node to your apartment is short, you can get pretty good speeds - and most important -the speeds will be consistent.

Sorry, I'm writing a lot more than planned.
Just in general, a VPN connection usually slows speed down a bit but it should still be fully adequate.
You can check that by running a speed test with and without VPN - I usually use Ookla for my speed test

This is what I'm getting right now with Ookla.
Paying for 100/10 FTTH service

krs wrote: ↑ This is what I'm getting right now with Ookla.
Paying for 100/10 FTTH service

Since you have FTTH, I thought the up and down speed would be in sync.

Does your fibre connection also use an optical cable to connect to your modem?

I see threads about using a fibre media converter to use a regular router.

audit13 wrote: ↑ Since you have FTTH, I thought the up and down speed would be in sync.

Depends on the service that is offered.
With fiber the service provider can tweak it any way they want.
With Bell I took their 100/50 service which isn't even available anymore. If you look at the Bell offering now, only their 150 and 500 Mbps service is symmetrical.
They don't even offer 100 Mbps down anymore
For Virgin on the other hand 100/10 is the fastest they offer even though the fiber pipe to my house is the same.
Obviously each company offers services geared towards what they think is their customer base and Bell doesn't want Virgin to compete with them.
For the amount of uploads I do, I find 10 Mbps totally adequate, but if you need faster uploadspeeds then you areforced to go with Bell for more $$$

At one point I thought of getting the max. Bell service with almost 1 Gbps upload and run my own server that way - but Bell specifically forbids doing that.
Not worth the hassle anyway since I can get my websites hosted for less than $100.- per year.

Does your fibre connection also use an optical cable to connect to your modem?

The fiber cable comes through the wall in the basement and terminates on the inside wall.
Then there is a short fiber cable between that termination and the modem/router provided by Virgin.
I use WiFi throughout, so that is all there is for me.
Some people use their own router, I'm happy with the Virgin (and previous Bell) set up.
I have up to 5 people using the net, mostly with MacBooks that are constantly moved around, also outside to the back yard, so WiFi is the way for me to go.

I see threads about using a fibre media converter to use a regular router.

Not sure what you mean by fiber media converter.
One can configure the fiber modem/router provided by Virgin or Bell to use only the modem part and connect your own router via Ethernet.

krs wrote: ↑ Not sure what you mean by fiber media converter.
One can configure the fiber modem/router provided by Virgin or Bell to use only the modem part and connect your own router via Ethernet.

Some people don't want to use the modem/router provided with their fibre service. The media converter takes the fibre connection and converts it to Gigabit ethernet that connects to the WAN port on a router.

Here's a converter from TP-link: https://www.amazon.ca/TP-Link-MC220L-Co ... B003CFATL0

I see.
I have no idea if that would work or how to set that up.
A few years back, people had some problems with the HH3000 that Bell provides - don't know if these are fixed now.
I personally would not use a different unit than that provided by Bell or Virgin, whoever is the service provider.
If there is a problem and Bell/Virgin checks the modem and sees it's not theirs, they will immediately blame the issue on that piece of equipment.
If there is a problem when using alternate equipment, one would have to first disconnect that, connect the equipment Bell/Virgin provided, the test again to see if the issue is still there.

Once Bell/Virgin started running FTTH, the HH3000 has a SFP slot for the fibre connection, it was much easier to use your own router.

Bell customers with 1.5 GB service needed to bypass the HH3000 because the HH3000 only has gigabit ports: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31118 ... meHub-3000

I only have FTTH 50 and was looking to use my own router based on the poor reviews of the HH3000. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I can cover my entire house with the HH3000.

Yes, I have a two story house and the HH3000 WiFi covers all that and the backyard with no problem.
HH3000 is located in the basement laundry room high up near the ceiling.

Hope Bell comes up with a deal by December, I now have a deal with Virgin at $35.- plus tax, but that is only good for a year.

krs wrote: ↑ Yes, I have a two story house and the HH3000 WiFi covers all that and the backyard with no problem.
HH3000 is located in the basement laundry room high up near the ceiling.

Hope Bell comes up with a deal by December, I now have a deal with Virgin at $35.- plus tax, but that is only good for a year.

Wow, that's a great deal. I'm paying $79.95/month. There don't seem to be many deals from any providers.

The deal at the time was 50% off their normal rate (which was $70.- and still is today) plus a $100.- Visa Gift card.
I doubt I will see any deal like that again any time soon.
The best Bell would do at the time was around $90.- for a renewal.

Trouble is - now that I'm used to pay in the $35 to $40 range for "quality" internet, I'm not really willing to pay much more.

krs wrote: ↑ Well...yes and no
Same corporate family but that doesn't mean the servicethey provide is the same.

The other point is that Fido uses cable internet which by its very nature is subject to congestion. So before COVID, people often noticed a slow down in the late afternoon and evening when people came home from work and started to use their cable internet at home and also their cable TV services since everyone in a certain area were connected to the same pipe.
Bell casn't offer cable internet, they don't have the cable infrastructure- they offer DSL over the telephone copper pair that is limited in speed depending on the distance to the CO (switching office) or remote node or they offer fiber if they installed the fiber infrastructure in your area. Fiber can deliver a much higher bandwidth than cable so for congestion to happen you need a lot more users at the same time and fiber can be configured to avoid that.
In your case the fiber connection terminates in your building, thus FTT"N", then the final connection is via the telephone pair.
Each telephone pair only services one apartment, so you are not sharing that part of the connection with anyone and because the distance from the fiber node to your apartment is short, you can get pretty good speeds - and most important -the speeds will be consistent.

Sorry, I'm writing a lot more than planned.
Just in general, a VPN connection usually slows speed down a bit but it should still be fully adequate.
You can check that by running a speed test with and without VPN - I usually use Ookla for my speed test

Thank you for the explanation,

One technical support agent I spoke to earlier did say my modem may be defective, and asked me to change it at the store, however during covid times, all the stores are out of stock of them and if they ship a modem to me, I would have to wait a week.

My Fido connection however improved in the last few days, disconnects where not as frequent, but I had still had issues streaming Netflix and Disney Plus.

Looks like if all goes well for a week with Virgin I will be calling Fido to cancel their service, which I have a feeling will be a headache given my past experiences with them.

21Brimley wrote: ↑ One technical support agent I spoke to earlier did say my modem may be defective, and asked me to change it at the store....

I went through the same thing with Teksavvy when I was on cable internet.
Changed modems twice, then after some research I found that many of the cable modems used a chip set that reset occasionally and thus interrupted the signal from the net.
Not an issue with websites and emails but anything that needed a response in real time, like interactive games on line, became a problem.
I eventually found a different make of modem with a chip set that didn't have this issue but by that time I was so fed up with cable internet that I took advantage of a Bell fiber promo.
With the Bell promo, fiber internet was still about $20 more than cable but I decided it was worth it and thus far I have not regretted switching.

krs wrote: ↑
I eventually found a different make of modem with a chip set that didn't have this issue but by that time I was so fed up with cable internet that I took advantage of a Bell fiber promo.
With the Bell promo, fiber internet was still about $20 more than cable but I decided it was worth it and thus far I have not regretted switching.

I wish I had the promotion you had, instead of sticking with Fido and putting myself through this mess.

I am happy to report that there has been no issues so far with my work VPN, was able to work without any dropped connection, 1st time in a month! This leads me to believe either my cable wiring in my apartment is bad or I got a defective modem. Will try this for a week to see what happens.

Here is an update for everyone,

So I noticed my IOS devices seem to loose connection for a bit, and I will have to turn off my wifi on my phone and it will work again. My other devices do not have this problem though.

I called them on Wednesday, they did some troubleshooting and determined I got defective unit. I got the replacement unit the next day, and so far that problem has disappeared. I will report back in a week.

Not clear to me which unit was defective that you had replaced....

The Bell modem or the iOS device?

krs wrote: ↑ Not clear to me which unit was defective that you had replaced....

The Bell modem or the iOS device?

I think it was the modem, because I hooked the old one back up as a test and sure enough the same thing happened where my IOS device would show full wifi signal, but it will not load pages or refresh, I toggle off the wifi on my ios device and it works again.

The new modem I received does not seem to have this problem, maybe its the modem firmware.

krs wrote: ↑The deal at the time was 50% off their normal rate (which was $70.- and still is today) plus a $100.- Visa Gift card.
I doubt I will see any deal like that again any time soon.
The best Bell would do at the time was around $90.- for a renewal.

Trouble is - now that I'm used to pay in the $35 to $40 range for "quality" internet, I'm not really willing to pay much more.

damn how'd you swing this deal !?

vivid wrote: ↑ damn how'd you swing this deal !?

RFD
virgin-mobile-50-off-home-internet-plan ... y-2333789/

I moved to a new apartment in Toronto recently, and looking for internet.

Seems like Virgin Internet to be the best bet based on this thread, currently there are the two people in the apartment, we both work at home, we have a amazon fire stick for streaming, 3 mobile phones, 2 tablets and 2 laptops.

We do not do much, other then browse the web, stream Netflix, I am thinking of going to the 25mpbs plan for $50, would this be good enough for us or should I do the 50mpbs plan?

Yk0910 wrote: ↑ I moved to a new apartment in Toronto recently, and looking for internet.

Seems like Virgin Internet to be the best bet based on this thread, currently there are the two people in the apartment, we both work at home, we have a amazon fire stick for streaming, 3 mobile phones, 2 tablets and 2 laptops.

We do not do much, other then browse the web, stream Netflix, I am thinking of going to the 25mpbs plan for $50, would this be good enough for us or should I do the 50mpbs plan?

Personally I would pay the extra for the 50mbps plan to make sure you've got enough speed when usage is high but you may be able to get away with 25.