BT vs Virgin Media broadband: which is best?

BT vs Virgin Media broadband at a glance

BT vs Virgin Media: cost

Two of the biggest broadband names on the market, prices for Virgin Media and BT broadband are broadly similar. They're not the cheapest deals to be had, but they both regularly run time-limited promotions and deals for new customers to take advantage of.

That said, Virgin Media generally offers faster speeds for your monthly outlay. By way of example, at the time of writing, BT Fibre Essential with average speeds of 36Mbps is about the same price as Virgin Media’s M125 with average speeds of 132Mbps.

Both Virgin Media and BT regularly offer very welcome free gifts, such as gift cards and vouchers for high-street stores, as an incentive to sign up. So it’s well worth keeping an eye out for them.

BT vs Virgin Media broadband: average speeds

Virgin Media is the UK’s fastest widely available network. And it’s fair to say speeds on its most popular packages trump BT by some distance.

For instance, BT’s most popular Fibre Essentials, Fibre 1 and Fibre 2 provide average speeds of 36Mbps, 50Mbps and 67Mbps respectively.

BT also offers a full fibre service with speeds that go up to a lightning fast 910Mbps. But the catch is that its ultrafast packages are only available in a small number of locations.

On the other hand, Virgin Media’s standard packages get you speeds of 132Mbps, 264Mbps, 362Mbps and 516Mbps, and they’re all pretty widely available.

And its top-of-the-range service trumps that of BT's, with average speeds of over 1Gbps (a whopping 1,130Mbps, to be precise).

Of course, for most people in most households, BT’s fibre speeds will be more than enough. But if you’re likely to be downloading a lot of content or want the very best online gaming experience, Virgin Media could be a better bet.

BT vs Virgin: fibre broadband packages review

BT and Virgin Media both offer a really wide range of packages to choose from.

But as outlined above, Virgin Media is generally better value for money and gets you a faster service.

Virgin Media also edges out BT when it comes to contract length. While Virgin Media’s minimum commitment is 18 months, BT insists you sign up for at least 24 months.

What’s more, if you really need a short-term broadband solution Virgin Media even does broadband on a one-month, rolling-contract basis.

Both providers now offer broadband with no landline rental. So if you really don’t want or a need a landline, you can save a bit of cash by doing without one.

All packages from Virgin Media and BT are truly unlimited. That means you can use the internet as much as you like without incurring extra charges.

Just as importantly, it means that neither provider will deliberately slow down your service at peak times either.

You can see for yourself what BT packages have to offer in the table below: 

And you can get a sense of what's on offer with Virgin Media's packages in this table: 

BT vs Virgin Media: phone

You don’t have to take a home phone with BT or Virgin Media, if you prefer not to have one or feel like you won’t make much use of it.

If you do opt to take a landline from BT, you’ll get pay-as-you-go calls as standard. So you only pay for the calls you make. If you make regular calls on your landline, though, you may want to pay extra for a more comprehensive add-on.

BT offers a selection that includes anytime calls to UK landlines and mobiles, as well as cheap international calls to select locations and extra add-ons like Caller Display and voicemail.

When signing up to a Virgin Media landline, you’ll get its Weekend chatter package as standard, which gets you unlimited weekend calls to UK landlines. All Virgin Media landline tariffs also come with extra features for free, including voicemail and Last Calling Number.

If you wish to upgrade your call plan, Virgin Media offers call add-ons, too: for example, a nice range of international call options, as well as premium call add-ons.

BT vs Virgin Media: TV

With plenty of premium content to choose from and flexible add-ons, both Virgin Media and BT’s TV services are an excellent shout.

Both offer pre-selected TV packages that get you entertainment, films and sports from all the big content providers meaning you'll have all the best live and on-demand entertainment at your fingertips.

As well as free-to-air channels, both let you add TNT Sports (formerly BT Sport) and NOW TV Memberships (which get you access to Sky channels). And you can also sign up to your favourite streaming services, such as Netflix.

Although both TV plans last as long as their respective broadband contracts (so, 24 months with BT, and 18 months with Virgin Media), you can add and subtract channels and streaming subscriptions whenever you please. For example, BT lets you switch between its five flexible TV packages every 30 days.

Virgin Media definitely wins out when it comes to set top boxes, however.

BT’s YouView-based TV Box is good. Depending on the box you have, you can record between 300-600 hours of content; record, pause and rewind live TV for up to two hours; and record remotely via the BT TV app.

Virgin Media’s TV 360 box, however, is more advanced. For starters, it has room for 500 hours of content and lets you record six channels at once.

Unlike BT’s YouView, it also offers seamless multi-screen viewing. So, you can start watching a show in one room, then transfer to another screen and pick up exactly where you left off.

Not to mention, the TV 360 box finds room for advanced voice search and is 4K-ready, too.

BT vs Virgin Media: fibre broadband availability

With the exception of its Full Fibre packages, BT fibre is generally more widely available than Virgin Media.

That’s because it’s delivered to your address via the nationwide Openreach network that covers 32 million UK homes.

Unlike most other providers, Virgin Media doesn’t use Openreach and owns and operates its own cable broadband network.

And while it’s not as wide-ranging as Openreach, it uses newer technology to deliver faster speeds to Virgin Media customers.

At the time of writing, Virgin Media broadband (including its fastest Gig1 package) is on offer to over 16.3 million homes.

To find out which BT and Virgin Media packages are on offer where you live, just pop your postcode in our availability checker below.

BT vs Virgin Media: download limits

All Virgin Media and BT packages have unlimited downloads, freeing you to use the internet as much as you like without worrying about a monthly usage limit.

Their packages are also ‘truly unlimited’. That means your provider won’t deliberately slow down your service at times of peak demand.

BT vs Virgin Media: extras

Both providers offer additional services that help boost your broadband and keep your home connection secure.

For example, you can add BT Complete Wi-Fi to your plan. This extends your signal so you can get a strong and reliable connection in every room – and if you don't, you get a £100 money-back guarantee.

What's more, BT throws in a few broadband extras for free. All plans come with BT Virus Protect security software with McAfee (which safeguards up to 15 of your devices), BT Parental Controls, and up to 1000GB of storage via BT Cloud.

Plus, BT customers can enjoy access to five million public Wi-Fi hotspots.

Virgin Media offers parental controls too, as well as three months' free award-winning security software in the form of F-Secure.

Thanks to a partnership between Virgin Media and O2, Virgin Media customers can also enjoy O2 Priority: a brilliant rewards scheme that gets your daily treats, exclusive offers and first dibs on gig tickets.

Customers get access to Virgin Media Wi-Fi hotspots – just download the Virgin Media Connect app

BT vs Virgin Media customer service

When it comes to customer service and satisfaction, BT and Virgin Media score fairly similar – though it seems both have slipped slightly in recent years.

In Ofcom's 2023 report about broadband customer satisfaction, BT and Virgin Media scored 83% and 81% respectively when it came to satisfaction with their services overall – that's in line with the average of 82%.

However, Virgin Media customers were less likely than average to be satisfied with the reliability of their service; as a result, customers were more likely than average to have had a reason to complain.

And BT customers were less likely than average to recommend their provider to a friend. Still, they were more likely than average to have a complaint resolved on first contact.