Re: Same here, maybe cancelling
NNTP? Really? Buy yourself a Usenet service, relying on an ISP to run one in the modern era is like asking if they have a gopher service or whether you can dial-up. That's really not a negative point against VM at all, I'm surprised any modern ISP even runs those kinds of services any more.
IPv6... yes, that's annoying. I grant you that one. But there's no change there, almost no ISP in the UK offers it, A&A are the only ones I know and they cost a fortune more than VM. Despite the fact that it's a requirement of EuroDOCSIS, 4G standards, and all sorts nowadays.
You're going to get carrier-grade NAT long before you ever see proper IPv6, just accept it (and blame those idiots who equated IPv6 with "you must not ever, ever, ever use NAT" thus making IPv4->6 transition that much more complicated when it could have just been "slap an IPv6 address on the gateway device").
I can't fault their speeds, though. Maybe I was lucky for the 4 years I had them. The bigger problem - they just don't service most people, and most that they do service are literally via BT which is the same show as ever. I have two VM leased lines at work, about 500m apart. One is Virgin-pure, no other company involved. The other is a BT-resold line managed by Virgin. Guess which one drops the VPN all the time and is generally much poorer despite the customer being the same site? But even for a leased line they couldn't be bothered to actually cable it direct and just resold the local BT connection despite a 3-month install delay because BT didn't have any capacity.
In my new home, Virgin isn't possible. You can't compete if you're not there. The only thing they offer is reselling me a BT line that I would have to activate and pay BT for, and then pay Virgin their part on top. It would be hundreds to start, 2-year-contracts and then lots-a-month and all kinds of junk I don't want. I could literally go with ANYONE else and get better prices and service.
So I bought myself a 4G Wifi router and stuck two fingers up to them all. When my mobile provider screws me over, I'll just change the SIM to someone else. To be honest, it's already cheaper, faster and more reliable than even my last Virgin connection. And I am on a month-to-month contract, so I can just up and go any time.
Sorry, ISPs, but you're not competing at all. Not even trying. Mainly because BT is the ISP for 90% of people, the others are only in very select areas and unwilling to invest to stray out of them. I get why: it's incredibly expensive and NTL went bankrupt trying to do just that (which is the only reason Virgin Media even exists, they snapped up a lot of already-installed stuff for next-to-nothing). But in terms of competition, there is none at the moment.
Roll on 5G. I'd really much rather give my money to a company with some investment, infrastructure, future plans and constantly evolving technology than an incumbent ex-government telephony monopoly. I get 30Mbps down, 10Mbps up. More than good enough, and actually twice what even BT say they can provide. I can carry my Internet in my pocket. I can connect all my devices, play all my games, Cast and stream all my movies. Hell, my Internet is even battery-backed (pocket-4G-wifi thing) and for sure people would moan more if the 4G tower went down than if the local broadband did. But then I just change the SIM card and off I go again on the next tower along.
Gimme 5G and potentially Gbps (yeah, right, but to be honest anything is welcome) and I'll happily pay those kinds of prices direct to the cell provider. But I refuse to pay BT anything if I can help it, and won't pay Virgin through the nose for a basic service.
Literally, I forget that my connection is not hard-wired sometimes.