Thousands of Virgin Media customers will be upgraded to next-generation customer care as part of a phased roll-out from the fibre broadband provider.
The supercharged service will see Virgin Media O2 monitor customers' internet connection every hour of every day to detect early warning signs of trouble — like drops in internet speed or connection errors. Fixes will be quietly rolled out overnight to minimise disruption and keep people connected, the British company says.
Dubbed Smart Service, the upgrade will initially be trailed by 300,000 Virgin Media O2 customers. There's no way to volunteer for the proactive new scheme — instead, Virgin Media will randomly select customers from across its network. The broadband supplier told GB News that it will prioritise those who have experienced severe issues with their broadband performance in recent months.
If you're selected to be enrolled in Smart Service, you will be notified by Virgin Media. The phased roll-out follows a series of small-scale trials of the new technology. Provided everything goes well, the preventative system should be available to all customers at an unspecified date "in the future".
Virgin Media Hub 5 is one of the Wi-Fi routers that will be proactively monitored using the next-generation Smart Service system, which the Internet Service Provider (ISP) says will improve connections for all customers
VIRGIN MEDIA PRESS OFFICEAccording to Virgin Media, Smart Service is designed to improve customers' experience during bandwidth-intensive tasks — like streaming video, making video calls, or playing online games — by ensuring a more reliable connection throughout the home. Virgin Media O2 says it will be able to do this by monitoring the connection at all times to gather an overall picture of the health of customers' broadband.
Virgin Media believes Smart Support will improve over time and could be used to diagnose more issues with Wi-Fi and broadband throughout your home in the coming months. It says the service should be able to offer guidance to tackle any Wi-Fi blackspots in your home.
The broadband supplier already offers a Wi-Fi guarantee to customers, which promises a minimum download speed of 30Mbps in every room. If the company fails to meet that target, you will get £100 in bill credit.
Most issues detected by Smart Service should be patched remotely by Virgin Media O2. This will take place overnight to prevent too much disruption.
However, suppose something has gone awry that needs a more hands-on approach to fix. In that case, Virgin Media will send personalised advice on how to resolve any issues with the Wi-Fi router.
All of this means you're less likely to need to call an engineer, schedule an appointment, and wait-in all day to fix any issues with your broadband connection, Virgin Media O2 says. At least, that's the theory.
The company is relying on Cisco ThousandEyes, formerly known as SamKnows, to help monitor the network and customers' Wi-Fi hub. According to Cisco, "ThousandEyes provides proactive visibility into the delivery of any web application across any network, so you can detect issues proactively and troubleshoot quickly to deliver the stellar digital experiences your customers expect."
Smart Support is available from today. Virgin Media O2 has the second largest broadband network in the UK, with 16.2 million premises connected to its fibre internet, which offers download speeds of 1Gbps. Of those, one million are now able to access maximum download speeds of 2Gbps — that's 28.9x faster than the average home broadband speed in the UK.
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Speaking about the new trial, Director of Connectivity at Virgin Media O2, Gareth Lister told GB News: "Virgin Media has long been recognised for ultrafast speeds, but we also know that reliability is equally important which is why we’re rolling out a new, innovative smart support service that will proactively act as a helping hand to fix network niggles and optimise the performance of our connectivity – often with customers not needing to do a thing. Smart support will evolve over time, reducing hassle for our customers and further improving connectivity for those that need it to offer a best-in-class service for all.”
