Should I be worried about Virgin Media's negative feedback?

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I have been seduced by everything Virgin Media can offer me (high speed broadband, digital TV, home phone) and even more so by the price, but then I spent some time looking at online reviews of Virgin Media and my jaw hit the floor. Site after site, page after page of extremely negative comments. Is Virgin Media really so bad?
Alex Gale, Merseyside

Reading online reviews of Virgin Media is a bit like running the gauntlet in Gladiators! Everywhere you turn you're smacked in the face with negative comments. How can any broadband provider be that bad?

The truth is, Virgin Media are not really that bad. There is no doubt they have had an extremely rocky first year, but all indications are that they are ironing out the creases quite nicely now. We were pleased to see the Guardian re-iterating that sentiment last week.

So why all the horrendous reviews? Well, this is unfortunately the nature of broadband review and comment sites. The simple fact of the matter is that ALL broadband providers (bar a few expensive ones such as Eclipse or Zen) receive a fistful of fury from angry users on the web. This is because when things go wrong with broadband, they can be difficult to diagnose, let alone fix (especially where the problem is hardware related) and if the customer support guy on the other end of the line is less than helpful, you can imagine the fireworks that erupt.

Broadband review sites are very often ranting posts. You have to keep in mind that when broadband works, people don't take time out of their day to let the world know. Even when customers are insanely happy with their provider, only a dedicated few will air their views about it in a public forum.

So you have to remember to take all negative comments about any broadband provider with a large dose of context. And the bigger the broadband provider (ie. the more customers they have), the higher the density of negative comments will be.

That is not to say you should ignore negative comments. They are, after all an indication of what could happen to you, and if the density of the comments outweighs what you would consider reasonable for a broadband provider of its size, stature and price marks, then it may be worth looking elsewhere.

In the case of Virgin Media, it is best to ignore any comments older than one month. They are rapidly improving, so only the latest comments should be considered worthwhile reading.

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