NOW Broadband vs Virgin Media broadband

NOW Broadband and Virgin Media both offer entry-level broadband from around £23 a month, with full fibre options and WiFi guarantee add-ons available on both.

Virgin Media's own network reaches speeds of up to 2Gb, while NOW Broadband tops out at 300Mb on the Openreach full fibre network.

For most households the decision comes down to whether faster speeds or a lower monthly bill matters more.

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Quick verdict

Virgin Media wins this comparison on almost every measure - faster speeds, better router hardware as standard, and TV bundles that add real value from just £5 a month extra.

NOW Broadband's strength is its simplicity and entry-level price. It's one of the cheapest ways onto full fibre, and the Sky backing means decent equipment and strong customer service. But customers who want TV or faster speeds are better served elsewhere.

Decision: for households who want the lowest possible monthly bill and nothing more, NOW Broadband delivers. For everyone else, Virgin Media offers more speed, more flexibility, and better value as needs grow.

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At a glance: NOW Broadband vs Virgin Media

Top picks: NOW and Virgin Media broadband deals

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Price

Winner: Virgin Media offers faster speeds at every comparable price point, making it better value for money despite the slightly higher entry-level price.

NOW Broadband's entry-level Full Fibre 75 starts from £23 a month, while Virgin Media's M125 comes in at £23.99 but delivers 132Mb - nearly double the speed.

The gap widens further up the range. NOW's Full Fibre 100 costs £25 a month against Virgin Media's M250 at £25.99, but VM's package delivers 264Mb compared to NOW's 100Mb.

At the top of NOW's range, the Full Fibre 300 costs £30 a month - more than Virgin Media's M350 at £28.99, which offers 362Mb; and for £27.99, VM's M500 goes faster still at 516Mb.

NOW Broadband packages include a home phone line as standard, with pay-as-you-go calls included and anytime calls available as an add-on for £18 a month. Virgin Media's entry-level broadband deals don't include a phone line, but customers who take a bundle can add anytime calls for £8 a month.

Virgin Media also supplies a Hub 5 (WiFi 6) as standard to all customers - something NOW charges an extra £6 a month for via the WiFi Max add-on. That's worth factoring into any like-for-like price comparison.

Both providers raise prices annually. Virgin Media increases bills by £4 a month from April 2027, while NOW Broadband's contracts state only that prices may rise - though in both 2024 and 2025, NOW increased prices by £3 a month, in July each year.

For households interested in TV, Virgin Media's Flex add-on makes bundling affordable, while NOW customers pay standard Sky TV pricing with no bundle discount. We look at this in more detail in the TV section below.

Virgin Media wins on value: it delivers more speed at every comparable price point, includes a WiFi 6 router as standard, and its entry-level price is only marginally higher than NOW's.

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Broadband packages

Winner: Virgin Media has a much wider selection of broadband packages and bundle options than NOW Broadband.

NOW Broadband is owned by Sky and operates as Sky's budget brand, which shapes what's on offer. There are five plans in total: one part-fibre Superfast option at 67Mb, and four full fibre plans at 75Mb, 100Mb, and 300Mb. Every plan includes a home phone line with PAYG calls, the Sky Broadband Hub router, Sky Broadband Shield parental controls, and access to the MySky app.

Virgin Media takes a different approach, offering six speed tiers from 132Mb up to 2Gb, with TV and mobile bundles available on top. Broadband-only deals don't include a phone line, and the package range is designed to scale - from budget entry-level to multi-gigabit.

The key differences between the two at a glance:

• NOW tops out at 300Mb; Virgin Media goes up to 2Gb
• NOW includes a phone line on every plan; Virgin Media broadband-only deals don't
• NOW's WiFi Max upgrade costs £6 a month; VM's costs £8 a month, but is free with Gig1, Gig2, and Volt bundles
• Virgin Media bundles with TV and O2 mobile via Volt; NOW customers pay standard Sky TV pricing with no bundle discount
• Both use Plume WiFi pods for their WiFi guarantees

The table below puts NOW's full range alongside the closest Virgin Media equivalents, showing where the two overlap on price and where they diverge on speed:

At similar price points, Virgin Media consistently delivers more speed than NOW - and unlike NOW, customers can also bolt on TV or combine with O2 mobile through a Volt bundle, which unlocks free WiFi Max, a speed boost to the next tier, and double data on all O2 plans in the household. NOW customers can add Sky TV during sign-up, but at standard pricing with no bundle discount.

For households that need speeds beyond 300Mb, NOW Broadband has nothing to offer at that tier. Virgin Media's ultrafast and gigabit plans fill that gap:

Virgin Media's gigabit range runs from 516Mb up to 2Gb, with the Gig2 plan currently available in select areas only. For customers who want faster speeds but prefer to stay within the Sky ecosystem, Sky's own broadband packages go beyond NOW's 300Mb ceiling.

Read more about Virgin Media broadband and NOW Broadband in our full reviews.

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Broadband speed

Winner: Virgin Media offers significantly faster broadband than NOW, with speeds up to 2Gb compared to NOW's 300Mb ceiling.

NOW Broadband's range runs from 67Mb on its part-fibre Superfast plan up to 300Mb on Full Fibre 300, all delivered over the Openreach network. Virgin Media manages its own cable and full fibre infrastructure, with six speed tiers from 132Mb up to 2Gb - though upload speeds lag significantly behind downloads on its standard network. For most households, NOW's 300Mb ceiling is more than enough - but anyone who streams in 4K across multiple devices, games online, or works from home with large file transfers will feel the difference.

Here are the average speeds across NOW Broadband's range:

And Virgin Media's:

The download gap is stark at every level. Virgin Media's cheapest M125 plan delivers 132Mb - nearly double NOW's entry-level Full Fibre 75 - and by the time you reach Gig1, you're downloading at 1130Mb, nearly four times faster than anything NOW offers. Upload speeds are where Virgin Media's standard network shows its limits though: Gig1 downloads at 1130Mb but uploads at just 52Mb, while NOW's Full Fibre 300 manages 40Mb up at a fraction of the download speed. For households that video call, upload to the cloud, or work from home regularly, that asymmetry matters.

Customers on Virgin Media's upgraded full fibre and Nexfibre network - covering around 37% of its 18.8 million premises - can pay £6 a month to add symmetrical speeds, matching uploads to downloads. It's a meaningful upgrade for the right household, but it's worth checking eligibility before signing up.

Minimum broadband speeds

As well as advertised averages, it's worth looking at the minimum speed guarantees each provider offers. If speeds drop below the guaranteed minimum and the provider can't fix the issue within 30 days, customers can exit their contract early without penalty.

We tested one location covered by both Openreach full fibre and Virgin Media's network, and recorded the following minimum speed guarantees:

Full fibre connections tend to be more consistent than part-fibre or coaxial cable, because the fibre optic cable runs all the way into the home rather than switching to copper or coax for the final stretch. That shows in the numbers: NOW's Full Fibre 100 guarantees a floor of 90Mb, and Full Fibre 300 promises at least 200Mb. Virgin Media's guarantees sit at roughly half the advertised average - Gig1 guarantees 565Mb despite advertising 1130Mb - though in practice most customers will receive speeds at or above the average.

Both NOW and Virgin Media meet Ofcom's voluntary code on broadband speeds, which means customers have a clear route to exit if performance falls short. NOW Broadband's packages cover the needs of most households, but for customers who want some of the UK's fastest broadband, Virgin Media's gigabit and multi-gigabit options are in a different league.

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Router

Winner: Virgin Media supplies a WiFi 6 router as standard to all customers; NOW Broadband's equivalent requires a £6 a month add-on.

All Virgin Media customers now receive the Hub 5 as standard, following a rollout that began in October 2025. Customers on full fibre via Nexfibre get the Hub 5x, which is identical in spec but adds a 10Gb Ethernet port to handle the higher speeds. Both are WiFi 6 devices with WPA3 security - a meaningful step up from the older Hub 3 and Hub 4 they replace.

NOW Broadband customers receive the Sky Broadband Hub as standard - a dual-band WiFi 5 router with eight internal antennae and four 1Gb Ethernet ports. It's a capable device for everyday use, but WiFi 5 is an older standard that handles congestion and multiple simultaneous connections less efficiently than WiFi 6. Customers who want the upgrade can add WiFi Max for £6 a month, which includes the Sky Max Hub - a WiFi 6 router - plus up to three Plume pods for whole-home coverage.

Here are the standard routers from both providers side-by-side:

Both providers also support Plume WiFi pods for mesh coverage. Virgin Media's WiFi Max add-on costs £8 a month, but comes free with Gig1, Gig2, and Volt bundles. NOW's equivalent costs £6 a month and includes the router upgrade to the Sky Max Hub as well as the pods.

These are the specs of the Sky Max Hub and Hub 5/5x for customers who want the full WiFi 6 setup:

The Sky Max Hub and Hub 5 are closely matched on paper, but Virgin Media's inclusion of a 2.5Gb Ethernet port on the Hub 5 - and 10Gb on the Hub 5x - gives it an edge for wired connections at higher speeds. More importantly, VM now supplies this hardware to every customer without an additional monthly charge, while NOW customers pay £6 a month on top for the same WiFi standard.

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TV

Winner: Virgin Media offers better value for TV alongside broadband, with integrated bundles starting from just £5 a month extra - and NOW Broadband customers are better off going direct with Sky for TV discounts.

NOW Broadband customers can add Sky TV during sign-up, but at standard pricing with no bundle discount. That makes NOW a poor choice for anyone who wants broadband and TV together - customers who want Sky TV are better off taking Sky's own broadband, where exclusive bundle pricing brings Sky Full Fibre 150 and 300 down to £17-£20 a month for the broadband element.

Virgin Media takes a different approach, with TV available as an integrated add-on from just £5 a month via Flex - a flexible TV service with no setup fee that gives access to streaming apps and catch-up through a Virgin Media box. For customers who want a fuller channel lineup, Virgin Media's Mega TV bundles add live TV, on-demand, and a growing range of premium content.

Virgin Media's TV proposition has strengthened recently. Sky Atlantic joined the platform in April 2026, and Virgin Media boxes now support HBO Max - giving customers access to a broad range of premium drama and film content without needing a separate subscription or device.

Here are some of the most popular Virgin Media TV and broadband bundles:

These bundles include a home phone line with free weekend calls to UK landlines, and can be combined with a Volt bundle for additional O2 mobile benefits. As the table shows, adding TV to a Virgin Media broadband deal costs relatively little - often just a few pounds more than the broadband-only price.

In terms of content, Sky TV edges Virgin Media on depth and exclusives - but Virgin Media broadband customers can also take Sky TV as an add-on if they want it, so NOW Broadband isn't offering anything exclusive. And for customers who want Sky TV at the best price, going direct with Sky broadband rather than NOW is the smarter move.

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Customer service

Winner: NOW customers are served by Sky, which has one of the best complaints records in the market - Virgin Media's has improved significantly but still runs higher.

Since the 'powered by Sky' rebrand in July 2024, all NOW customers are handled directly by Sky's customer service teams. NOW no longer appears separately in Ofcom's complaints data - its broadband base has fallen below the reporting threshold.

Sky's complaints record is consistently among the lowest of any major broadband provider. In Q3 2025, Sky recorded 6 complaints per 100,000 customers, against an industry average of 8. Virgin Media's story is more complicated - complaints peaked at 32 per 100,000 in Q3 2023, more than double the industry average, following an Ofcom investigation into complaints handling and contract cancellations. Since then, the provider has introduced targeted changes including a specialist UK-based support team for complex cases, expanded training, and AI-assisted tools aimed at improving resolution times.

By Q3 2025, Virgin Media's complaints had fallen to 7 per 100,000 - below the industry average for the first time since 2019. That improvement is real and sustained, but the annual figures still carry the weight of the earlier peak. Virgin Media still uses a mix of UK and overseas support, while Sky operates dedicated UK and Ireland-based call centres. Virgin Media have used overseas call centres for some time, and have never had fully UK-based call centres, though its newer UK-based team now handles more complex cases.

Before the rebrand, NOW's own record was also poor - it became the most complained-about provider in Q1 2024, a position it held into Q2 2024. NOW's complaints had started rising around mid-2023, when it recorded 18 complaints per 100,000 against an industry average of 15. New customers are insulated from that history now, but it's worth knowing it exists.

Ofcom's 2025 Comparing Customer Service report, reflecting 2024 data, gives a broader picture beyond quarterly complaint volumes:

The satisfaction scores are close across most measures, but the complaints gap is significant. Sky's 2024 figure of 21 per 100,000 is less than a third of Virgin Media's 56 - a figure still heavily influenced by the 2023 peak. Sky also leads on complaints handling satisfaction and resolves more issues on first contact. Virgin Media answers calls in 2 minutes 17 seconds on average, against Sky's 46 seconds - a meaningful difference if you need to get through quickly.

On day-to-day satisfaction the two providers are broadly comparable, but on the metric that matters most when things go wrong, Sky has the stronger record by a clear margin.

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Verdict: NOW Broadband or Virgin Media broadband?

Overall winner: Virgin Media offers faster speeds, better value at comparable price points, and far more flexibility for bundling - NOW Broadband is best suited to customers who want a simple, low-cost entry-level deal.

Virgin Media is the stronger all-round option for most households. It delivers more speed for the money at every price point, includes a WiFi 6 router as standard, and offers genuinely competitive TV and mobile bundles that NOW simply can't match. Customers who want Sky TV at the best price are also better served going direct with Sky broadband, where exclusive bundle pricing brings costs down significantly compared to taking Sky TV alongside a NOW package.

NOW Broadband still has a place - it's one of the cheapest ways onto full fibre, and the 'powered by Sky' rebrand means customers now benefit from Sky's equipment, support teams, and services like Sky Broadband Shield and the MySky app. But for anyone who wants more than basic broadband, the value case quickly points elsewhere.

Choose NOW Broadband if:

• You want the lowest possible entry-level monthly price
• You only need speeds up to 300Mb
• You want a phone line included as standard
• You prefer a simple, no-frills broadband deal with no bundle commitment

Choose Virgin Media if:

• You want faster speeds - from 132Mb up to 2Gb
• You want a WiFi 6 router included without paying extra
• You're interested in bundling TV, and want flexible options from £5 a month
• You're an O2 customer and want to unlock Volt benefits including free WiFi Max and double data
• You want gigabit broadband with the option to add symmetrical upload speeds

For more detailed comparisons, see our guides to Virgin Media vs Sky and NOW Broadband vs Sky.