Sky Broadband vs Virgin Media Broadband

Virgin Media's gigabit broadband plan has average download speeds of 1.13Gbps, compared to just 900Mb on Sky's fastest plan.

Sky arguably offer better customer service, with lower complaints records, but Virgin Media often offer better value for money with cheaper priced plans.

Overall, both providers have equally strong selling points, with each also offering discounts for bundling their TV services.

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At a glance

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Price

Winner: Virgin Media offer cheaper broadband than Sky, starting at just £25 per month, with other speed tiers undercutting Sky as well.

Sky's cheapest broadband plan, Superfast or Full Fibre 75 (depending on location), costs just £26 per month for new customers on a 24-month minimum term. While Virgin Media's cheapest deal, M125 broadband, costs just £25 per month for 18 months.

Virgin Media's cheapest broadband plan is nearly twice as fast as Sky's, yet, Sky do include a home phone line as standard, whereas Virgin Media customers would have to pay more for this.

Sky is a little cheaper than Virgin Media on faster plans however. Sky Full Fibre 500, which offers average download speeds of 500Mbps, is currently £1.99 cheaper per month than Virgin Media's equivalent M500 plan.

Yet, Virgin Media Gig1 is currently cheaper than Sky Gigafast however, coming in £1.01 per month cheaper at just £40.99 per month for the first 18 months, although as with the packages above, this doesn't include a home phone line like Sky does.

Overall, while both offer similar pricing, prices and bundle options like home phone and TV vary between providers, so customers should always compare deals by postcode area.

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Broadband packages

Winner: Sky and Virgin Media offer a similar range of broadband packages, but Sky include a home phone line as standard.

Both Sky and Virgin Media offer customers the choice of superfast, ultrafast, and gigabit broadband packages.

The entry-level plans offer superfast speeds, however, Virgin Media's cheapest deal offers twice the download speed of Sky for a cheaper monthly price:

Sky includes a home phone line in their broadband packages as standard, and all full fibre customers get the new WiFi 6 enabled Sky Max Hub included too. Customers can choose to add WiFi boosters for just £3 per month more.

Virgin Media customers have to pay more than these prices listed if they also want a home phone line, and while they can also add WiFi boosters, this add-on costs £8 per month compared to £3 with Sky (unless Virgin customers take a Volt deal).

Read more in our full reviews of Sky broadband and Virgin Media broadband.

Ultrafast broadband

Virgin Media offer an M250, M350, and M500 broadband plan, while Sky customers can choose ultrafast speeds of 500Mb.

Here are the provider's 500Mbps packages side-by-side:

Sky Full Fibre 500 Broadband is currently cheaper than Virgin Media's broadband-only M500 plan.

To take Virgin Media M500 with a phone line, the price increases to £43.99 per month with Volt and free calls to UK landlines at the weekend.

Gigabit broadband

Virgin Media have the edge on speed with their Gig1 deal achieving 1.13Gbps on average for at least 50% of customers during the peak hours of 8pm to 10pm. In comparison, Sky's Gigafast plan only achieves 900Mbps on average at peak times.

Virgin Media Gig1 Broadband is also currently cheaper than Sky Gigafast Broadband by £1.01 per month, and includes WiFi boosters and Virgin's best router for free.

In terms of availability, Sky full fibre broadband uses the Openreach FTTP network, which has so far passed over 15 million homes. Yet, Virgin Media's network passes 16 million homes, so actually has wider availability for ultrafast and gigabit speeds.

Overall, Virgin Media is the cheapest option for gigabit broadband, it's also more widely available and is faster on average than Sky.

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Broadband speed

Winner: Virgin Media offer a faster average download speed than Sky Gigafast, and their gigabit plan also boasts wider availability.

Virgin Media and Sky broadband are delivered over different networks, which means there is more variation in the speed of their service compared to resellers of the same network.

Virgin Media offer a fibre network with coaxial cable connections to homes in areas not yet upgraded to full fibre. Sky on the other hand offer a mix of fibre to the cabinet and fibre to the home depending upon location.

There are some speed differences between Sky and Virgin Media, with Virgin Media offering the fastest average download speeds, while Sky offer faster average upload speeds on certain plans.

Here's how their headline download speeds compare side-by-side:

Broadband providers can only advertise speeds at least 50% of their customers receive during the peak hours of 8pm to 10pm in the evening. So, advertised broadband speeds are now a lot more reliable than they used to be.

While package prices vary, we can see from the table above that Virgin Media offer faster download speeds on average in comparison to Sky broadband.

Upload speeds

Virgin Media boosted the upload speed on their M500 and Gig1 plans in May 2023, and also increased speeds on their entry-level deal from 10Mb to 20Mb in October 2022.

These recent changes have made Virgin Media faster for uploads, as well as downloads, than Sky broadband, on all but their mid-tier M500 plan where Sky is still slightly faster.

Most broadband customers won't notice upload speeds too much as the majority of Internet activities involve receiving data, rather than sending it. However, upload speeds can play a part for people who work from home on shared projects, people uploading a lot of large files like videos and photos to the cloud, and high definition video calling.

Here are the upload speeds of the provider's main packages:

As you can see, Virgin Media offer faster upload speeds on average than Sky for their gigabit broadband plan, but Sky has faster upload speeds on average on other plans.

For customers living in Virgin Media full fibre enabled areas, those connected by Nexfibre, they also now have the option to upgrade to symmetrical speeds with the upload speed boost add-on, which costs £6 per month.

Customers in these areas can also opt for their latest Gig2 package as well, which offers average download speeds of 2000Mbps, with optional symmetrical upload speeds. Availability is much more limited however, with only around 1 million premises passed so far.

Overall, Virgin Media is the fastest broadband provider for both download and upload speeds when compared to Sky broadband.

Satisfaction with speed of service

In our independent survey of broadband customers, we found greater satisfaction with speed amongst Virgin Media customers, compared to Sky broadband customers.

63% of Virgin Media customers rated them 4 or above (out of 5) for satisfaction with the speed of their service. In comparison, only 49% of Sky customers rated them 4 or above for speed.

One point worth noting here is that our survey covered all customers including Sky broadband customers on slower copper or part-fibre deals. So, it's likely more Virgin Media customers were on faster packages to begin with, than Sky broadband customers.

For extra clarity, we can also look at another independent survey on customer satisfaction, this time carried out by Ofcom, and published in May 2023.

Ofcom also found more Virgin Media broadband customers were satisfied with the speed of their service than Sky, with 82% of Virgin Media customers satisfied, compared to 80% of Sky customers.

However, more of Sky broadband's customers were satisfied with their service overall, beating Virgin Media by 1%.

Both Sky and Virgin Media's customer satisfaction levels were higher or in line with the industry average on both metrics.

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Router

Winner: Sky offer all full fibre broadband customers their new WiFi 6 router, while this is only available on Virgin Media's fastest Gig1 and Gig2 plans.

All Sky full fibre broadband customers are now provided with the Sky Max Hub when they sign up. However, other customers and those with existing deals can also upgrade the router by taking the WiFi Max add-on.

The Sky Max Hub supports the latest WiFi 6 (802.11ax) protocol as well as offering updated security with support for WPA3 encryption. It's ideal for Sky customers who also take Sky Stream or Sky Glass as these devices also support WiFi 6.

It has 8 internal antennae, which provide good wireless signal and four 1Gb Ethernet LAN ports for wired connections. However, it also supports mesh and works seamlessly with the WiFi Max add-on, which provides additional Plume WiFi Pods to boost signal around a home.

Virgin Media customers will be provided with one of Virgin's branded WiFi Hubs, although this could be the Hub 3, Hub 4, Hub 5 or 5x, depending on the package a customer chooses.

Most Virgin customers will get the Hub 3 or Hub 4, those opting for Virgin Media's fastest Gig1 plan will be sent the latest Hub 5, and those in full fibre areas will get the Hub 5x.

The Hub 5 and 5x also support the latest WiFi 6 protocol, and have an additional Ethernet LAN port which supports up to 2.5Gbps, so customers can benefit from download speeds over 1Gbps through wired connections.

The Virgin Media Hub 5 was released in 2021, compared to 2023 for Sky's Max Hub, so it misses out on the latest security advancement to WPA3.

Here are the specifications of each provider's latest routers side-by-side:

The Virgin Media Hub 3 and Hub 4 have similar specifications to the Sky Broadband Hub, so most customers will receive similar devices to those on Sky part fibre plans.

However, the benefit to Sky broadband is the ability for all customers to upgrade their router if they wish, which Virgin Media customers can only do by taking a faster broadband plan.

Both Sky and Virgin Media support intelligent mesh, and now use the same Plume WiFi Pods in their whole home WiFi guarantees, which we look at below.

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WiFi guarantee

Winner: Virgin Media promise minimum speeds over wireless of 30Mbps on all packages, while Sky only promise 25Mbps on their faster full fibre plans.

Virgin Media's WiFi Max service offers customers a faster minimum download speed guarantee than Sky's WiFi Max.

Virgin Media customers are promised speeds over wireless of at least 30Mbps in every room, while Sky promise speeds of 25Mbps in every room for full fibre customers with download speeds of 150Mbps or more, or 10Mbps in every room for those on part fibre or slower full fibre connections.

Sky also include added extras such as daily line checks, free off-peak engineer visits, and 2GB of free mobile data for a Sky Mobile plan if their fixed-line broadband goes down.

Here's how each WiFi guarantee looks side-by-side:

Both Sky and Virgin Media provide customers with up to three WiFi Pod boosters to try and achieve those minimum speeds around their home. For customers who don't get those minimum speeds in every room, Virgin Media promise to give customers a £100 bill credit and the option to cancel the WiFi Max add-on.

Sky customers will get one month's broadband and WiFi Max subscription refunded, but the 24-month WiFi Max add-on can't be cancelled early.

Virgin Media customers who take a Volt, Gig1 or Gig2 broadband plan will get the WiFi Max add-on bundled for free, while other customers pay £8 per month. In contrast, all Sky customers will have to pay monthly fees from just £3 per month.

Sky also offer all customers a 'Wall to Wall WiFi Guarantee' at no extra cost if they don't subscribe to WiFi Max, however. But this only offers a minimum 3Mbps wireless speed in all rooms or one month's broadband subscription refunded, so it won't actually help to improve wireless signal or speeds with additional devices.

Overall, Virgin Media offer a better WiFi guarantee than Sky does, promising faster minimum speeds of 30Mbps, a decent refund amount if they don't achieve this, as well as the ability to cancel with just one month's notice.

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Call plans

Winner: Sky include a home phone line as standard in all broadband packages, making it easier for customers to continue using a landline.

All Sky broadband customers will receive a digital home phone line as standard within their monthly price, and this will allow calls on a pay as you go basis.

Virgin Media customers can choose between a broadband-only plan, or pay more for a broadband and phone deal, however prices can rise so customers will want to make sure they'll use the phone line.

For those who take a Virgin Media broadband and phone deal, they'll get free calls to UK landlines included at the weekend, and the option to upgrade to more inclusive calls.

Here's how call plans for Sky and Virgin Media look side-by-side:

Virgin Media's inclusive weekend call plan only covers calls to UK landlines, while the two upgraded options also cover calls to UK mobiles. Sky also include both UK landlines and UK mobiles in their call plans.

Overall, it's close between Sky and Virgin Media, but it's likely Sky will work out cheaper as they don't have to pay more for the broadband deal to include a home phone line.

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Customer Service

Winner: Sky have much fewer complaints for broadband than Virgin Media, as well as higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Sky is a leading broadband provider for customer service, with consistently low levels of complaints and high levels of customer satisfaction.

The last four quarterly complaint reports from Ofcom, up to Q1 2024, have seen Sky with the least number of complaints for broadband out of all major providers. Virgin Media's broadband complaints have been higher however, usually sitting just above average.

Virgin Media had a complaints spike in Q3 2023, which remained high into the next quarter and was said to be due to Ofcom's investigation into their complaints handling.

At the time Virgin Media said they were "committed to providing an excellent service to our customers, and while overall these complaints represent a very small proportion of our customer base, we acknowledge there is a need for improvement, which is underway, and we're focused on getting this right."

It's reassuring that complaints for Virgin Media have now begun to come back down, with just 18 complaints per 100,000 customers in the latest Q1 2024 report.

Virgin Media, along with Sky, performed well for customer satisfaction in Ofcom's latest Comparing Service Quality report, with 81% of customers satisfied with their service.

Overall, Sky are consistently one of the best broadband providers for customer service, and won our industry award in this category in 2023.

For people looking for the highest customer service levels, Sky wins over Virgin Media in this regard.

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Verdict: Sky or Virgin Media broadband?

Overall winner: It's close, but ultimately Sky broadband offer better customer service, include a home phone line as standard, and now include a WiFi 6 router on all full fibre plans.

Sky broadband and Virgin Media broadband are both good options with fast speeds available from both providers, as well as a range of similar extras, such as whole home WiFi guarantee, WiFi 6 router, and pay TV plans.

Virgin Media's gigabit-capable broadband currently has wider availability than Sky broadband, with over 16 million premises passed, compared to 15 million with Sky on the Openreach FTTP network.

However, where customers have the choice of both providers, Virgin Media are offering cheaper prices except on their ultrafast 500Mb plan, where Sky's Full Fibre 500 package is cheaper.

Add-ons and service extras are fairly comparable between the providers, with both using Plume WiFi Pods to boost coverage, and both recently launching streaming TV services too.

Overall, for broadband, Sky just beat Virgin Media with their competitive pricing for new customers and better customer service record. However, for those who can get it, Virgin Media can be cheaper for the initial term, and their fast broadband is hard to beat.

Read more on Sky vs Virgin Media for TV.