Virgin Media M125 Fibre Broadband

Virgin Media M125 Fibre Broadband is the provider's entry-level deal, offering speeds in excess of 100Mbps with some of the market's cheapest pricing.

M125 was boosted from M100 in late 2022, when the package received a speed upgrade of 22% from 108Mbps to 132Mbps.

Since then, Virgin Media M125 has continued as one of the most competitive broadband deals available, costing from just £25 per month.

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At a glance

Special offers

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Who is Virgin M125 fibre broadband best for?

Virgin Media's M125 fibre broadband plan is their cheapest broadband deal, and offers a great entry-level option with fast download speeds.

While the download speeds are fast in comparison to the UK's average of 69Mbps, it's best suited to smaller households and those with around just five to nine smart devices.

M125 fibre broadband is a good option for:

• Households with up to four occupants, especially where people aren't all trying to carry out different activities at the same time.
• One or two people working from home, where the average upload speed of 20Mbps should be adequate for video calling and content sharing.
• Streaming HD or Ultra HD content, the average download speeds of 132Mbps are more than enough to stream TV content in 1080p and even 4K resolution.
• Online gamers should find the M125 fibre broadband package plenty fast enough for cloud gaming systems and multiplayer online games. Those downloading large gaming files may find a faster deal is more suitable though.

While M125 broadband-only costs just £25 per month for 18 months for new customers, those who also want to bundle a home phone line will have to pay an extra £4.99 per month, plus the cost of any calls or call plans.

This means upgrading to M250 Volt fibre broadband and phone can work out better value for money, as it costs just £31.99 per month, but also includes faster M250 broadband, plus a 6GB O2 mobile SIM and a WiFi guarantee worth £8 per month.

Alternatively, if multiple occupants want to carry out bandwidth heavy activities simultaneously, like online gaming, downloading large files, video calling, or streaming in HD or UHD, they may also want to consider the upgrade to M350 Fibre Broadband, which provides nearly three times the download speed and is currently on offer for just £27.99 per month, at the time of writing.

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What does M125 Fibre Broadband offer?

Virgin Media's M125 broadband, previously known as M100, is the provider's entry-level broadband package, and it's their cheapest option.

It's available with or without a home phone line, and with the option to bundle Virgin TV, including their new Flex service.

Here is the current pricing for the three main M125 broadband packages:

As mentioned, Virgin Media M125 fibre broadband-only is the cheaper option. For those who think they'll use it, the phone plan may be better value when taken with M250 Volt broadband, which currently costs £31.99 per month, we look at this more below.

It's also worth checking other Virgin Media broadband deals, as at the time of writing, M350 broadband-only is also only £2.99 more per month than M125, but offers nearly three times the download speed, so could be worth considering.

Out of contract prices rise on M125 to £54 per month, so customers should plan to re-contract or switch away for a cheaper deal at the end of the minimum term. Annual prices also increase by Retail Price Index (RPI) + 3.9% each April.

Virgin Media send customers end of contract notifications when their minimum term is nearing expiry so it's less likely customers will forget to act, and we have information on negotiating a cheaper price here.

Virgin Media Volt

Virgin Media's entry-level Volt plan starts with M250, as it's the boosted version of M125.

Volt also includes a 6GB O2 mobile SIM, a home phone line with weekend calls, and all Volt benefits, such as the WiFi Max guarantee worth £8 per month.

Pricing for Volt M250 broadband starts at £31.99 per month, so, it may work out better value for money if customers will benefit from the O2 SIM and WiFi Max guarantee, as well as home phone line with weekend calls.

M250 Volt Fibre Broadband + Weekend chatter costs just £2 more per month than M125 Fibre Broadband + Weekend chatter, so it's worth considering for those who want a phone line.

For that extra £2 per month, customers get double the broadband speed, as well as the following Volt benefits:

• Virgin's WiFi Max guarantee, which promises minimum download speeds of 30Mbps in every room by providing up to three WiFi boosters, or a £100 bill credit, and is worth £8 per month otherwise
• 6GB data of an O2 mobile SIM plan with unlimited minutes and texts, worth £6 per month
• Plus the broadband speed boost from 132Mb to 264Mb average, worth around £3 per month without Volt

Other Volt benefits include a roaming bolt-on, and access to Priority through O2, which we cover in our full review of Volt.

Even with just these listed benefits they come to £17 per month. However, as with all upgrades, it's important a customer would otherwise be paying for at least some of these benefits separately.

Overall, for customers looking for the cheapest Virgin Media package, M125 Fibre Broadband is the right option, and those who want to consider the upgrade to the M250 Volt plan should be sure the extra features are worth the extra £6.99 more per month.

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M125 Fibre Broadband and TV

Virgin Media M125 Fibre Broadband is available bundled with Virgin's new Flex TV service, as well as in one of their pre-made TV 360 bundles.

Virgin Flex TV is basically a smart TV box exclusively available for Virgin Media broadband customers. It has a £10 activation fee, and costs an extra £5 per month on a rolling 30-day term.

Flex comes with over 150 TV channels, including Freeview, and customers can add additional subscriptions to premium content such as Sky Sports and Sky Cinema, also on rolling monthly terms.

Overall, Flex TV is the perfect way to access premium TV content as and when you want, without committing to a long-term contract.

As with broadband bundles, M125 Fibre Broadband + Flex is the cheapest plan Virgin Media offers with these services.

M125 broadband is also included in the Bigger Bundle + Movies and the Biggest bundle, while the cheaper Bigger Bundle comes with M350 broadband instead:

The Bigger Bundle is the cheapest Virgin TV 360 plan, yet, it comes with over 190 TV channels, including content from Sky Entertainment and the Discovery suite.

Virgin's Bigger Bundle + Movies plan also includes Sky Cinema in HD, while the Biggest bundle comes with Sky Cinema, Sky Sports and Netflix as well.

Read more in our guide to Virgin Media TV packages.

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Is Virgin M125 cheaper than other providers?

Virgin Media M125 Fibre Broadband is one of the cheapest broadband plans in the UK for the download speed it offers.

While there are cheaper deals overall, in comparison to packages offering equivalent download speeds, M125 from Virgin is usually the cheapest option.

Virgin Media M125 Fibre Broadband is one of the cheapest 100Mb+ packages available, and beats budget providers Vodafone, Plusnet and TalkTalk for equivalent speeds.

Vodafone Full Fibre 150 is more expensive than M125 at £26 per month, but they do also offer a slower Full Fibre 2 plan, which offers average download speeds of 73Mbps for £24 per month. Vodafone's plans also come with a WiFi 6 enabled router as standard.

Other packages are also more expensive, including Sky's Full Fibre 150 broadband and BT's Full Fibre 100 plan currently costing £27 and £33.99 per month respectively.

Overall, M125 fibre broadband from Virgin Media is very competitively priced, and hard to beat if you're living in a Virgin Media enabled area. Right now, it also comes with free setup worth £35 for those who sign up via Choose, which offers an extra saving too.

Price savvy customers should also check other Virgin Media broadband deals, as right now, M350 Fibre Broadband is only £2.99 more expensive than M125 but offers nearly three times the download speed.

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Is M125 Virgin's best broadband package?

As an entry-level deal, customers might wonder whether it's worth upgrading for a faster speed than Virgin's M125 offers.

However, because it's only just been boosted by 22% faster from the M100 fibre broadband package, which offered 108Mbps average download speeds at peak times, it now offers better value for money with 132Mbps speeds.

This speed boost was applied to both existing and new customers for no additional cost, so the package itself is already offering more value for money than it did as Virgin M100.

However, the next package up from M125 is M250, and this now offers twice the download speed, with average speeds at peak times of 264Mbps.

M250 also has faster upload speeds than M125, at an average of 25Mbps at peak times, compared to the average upload speed of 20Mbps for the M125 plan.

The upgrade to Virgin Media's M250 Fibre broadband plan is currently just £3.99 more per month than Virgin's M125 broadband and phone deal, while out of contract prices rise by £6.

At the time of writing, M350 Fibre Broadband is even better value, priced at just £2.99 more per month than M125, making upgrading to a faster speed an even more attractive option.

Overall, Virgin Media's M125 broadband deal should be adequate for most households, with Virgin saying the package supports 5 to 9 devices. Yet, households where multiple people want to get online at the same time without affecting each other, might want to consider the faster packages, especially when they're on special offer.

We've more on which Virgin Media broadband plan to choose in our full review.

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How fast is Virgin M125 broadband?

Virgin Media's M125 broadband plan was boosted from M100 by 24Mbps on average at the start of November 2022.

Previously, M100 offer average download speeds of 108Mbps at peak times, and 10Mbps upload speeds. It was boosted to 132Mbps average download speeds at peak times, and 20Mbps upload speeds.

Both new and existing customers benefited from this speed boost, which was applied at no extra cost. Overall, it's made Virgin's M125 package even better value as an entry-level deal.

These average speeds are what at least 50% of Virgin's customers experience during the busiest times of 8pm to 10pm at night.

We know then, that at least half of the customers on M125 broadband will receive on average the above speeds at peak times.

In addition, independent research carried out by Ofcom into real-world speeds, published in September 2023, experienced by broadband customers looked at Virgin Media's M125 plan

Ofcom found that, both at peak times and over a 24-hour period, the customers they tested received speeds in excess of those listed by Virgin Media as their average download speeds.

Minimum guaranteed speed

For even further reassurance on what broadband speed we can expect to receive, Virgin Media list both an expected speed range and a minimum guaranteed speed, alongside their average download speeds that at least half their customers receive.

Virgin say the expected speed range for M125 broadband is:

• 133 - 136Mbps downloads at peak times (8pm to 10pm, Mon to Sun)
• 21 - 21Mbps uploads at peak times

The minimum guaranteed download speed for M125 broadband is:

• 66Mb per second

Virgin Media are signed up to a Code of Practice established by Ofcom that means if a customer's broadband speed falls below the guaranteed minimum speed given at the point of sign up for three or more days, and Virgin can't fix the problem within 30 days, the customer will be able to leave their contract penalty free.

Upload speeds

Virgin's recent speed boost from M100 to M125 saw upload speeds increasing too. In fact, they doubled from 10Mb at peak times, to 20Mb.

Independent research carried out by Ofcom was conducted after the speed boost, so we can see customers are now getting the new advertised upload speed of 20Mb.

For an entry-level package like M125 it's very unlikely customers will notice upload speeds, as the majority of online activities involve downloading data from the Internet.

Even where activities are uploading data, such as video calling in high definition, or online gaming, manufacturers state minimum upload speeds of 4Mbps for 1080p HD video calls, and 5Mbps for the PlayStation 5. So, M125's new 20Mbps upload speeds are more than adequate for even these heavy bandwidth activities.

Reliability

Ofcom's independent speed research looks at a number of different metrics as well as actual download and upload speeds.

However, as we can see from the table below, Virgin Media's network doesn't perform as well as Openreach's fibre to the premises network on a number of reliability metrics.

Virgin Media's network, like the old copper phone line network, isn't new, and so much of the cabling uses older technologies like coaxial cable to connect a customer's home.

While Virgin Media are in the process of upgrading their entire network to full fibre, at the moment Openreach have the edge on reliability as they're building their full fibre network more from scratch. However, that also means faster speeds with Virgin Media are currently much more widely available across the UK.

Read more about broadband reliability or our guide to the UK broadband networks.

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Virgin M125 broadband router

Virgin Media M125 Fibre Broadband customers are likely to receive Virgin's Hub 3 router. It's the slowest of the three Hubs currently in circulation, but it's still a dual-band router that supports 802.11ac, or WiFi protocol 5.

While WiFi 5 is no longer the latest protocol, for WiFi 6 to work it also needs to be connecting to a device with WiFi 6, and the majority of devices purchased in the last few years will be limited to WiFi 5 anyway.

Its possible customers may be given the Hub 4, or they may be able to request an upgrade if they struggle with wireless connectivity throughout their home, as the Hub 4 as slightly more powerful antennas than the Hub 3.

WiFi Max guarantee

Both the Hub 3 and the Hub 4 support Intelligent WiFi, otherwise known as mesh. This means it's now easier to connect WiFi boosters or extenders and seamlessly extend a wireless network around a home.

Virgin Media offer a WiFi Max guarantee, which provides up to three WiFi Pods (or boosters) that simply plug into an electrical socket. If after installing three boosters a customer still can't achieve at least 30Mbps download speeds in every room in their home, Virgin Media will give them a £100 bill credit, and the WiFi Max service can be cancelled with just 30 days' notice.

It's easily the best WiFi guarantee available in the market, and it's also free for Volt customers, so M250 Volt Fibre Broadband and Phone is worth considering if you have a larger home, or dead spots already, such as in a converted loft room.

Connect app

Virgin Media's Connect app is free for all Virgin Media customers and helps manage wireless signal around a home.

It's also a vital testing tool for the WiFi Max guarantee covered above to check if a customer has the WiFi Pods set up correctly.

The Connect app also has handy extra features like being able to turn off the internet in certain areas of a home, like a child's bedroom, for example.

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Verdict: Is Virgin M125 broadband any good?

Certainly, since it's speed boost, but even before that, Virgin M125 (or M100), offers a great entry-level package at very competitive prices.

The M125 Fibre Broadband option remains the cheapest way to get Virgin Media broadband, especially for customers who no longer need or want a home phone line.

For Volt, customers should look at the Virgin M250 Volt Fibre Broadband plan, and unless budget is the absolute priority, upgrading to Volt is seriously worth considering, especially for those who want a phone line, use O2 as a mobile provider, or who would want the WiFi Max add-on.

It's also worth keeping an eye on current deals, as at the time of writing, M350 Fibre Broadband is only £2.99 more per month than M125, making it a worthwhile upgrade.

Still undecided? Read more about Sky and Virgin, where Virgin beats Sky on price, or BT or Virgin Media for the ultimate guide to the major networks.