I hate, loathe and despise Virgin/NTL with a passion. At the start of the year, my 'net connection started dropping packets, and it's as good as impossible to get in touch with Virgin without being on hold on the phone for many, many hours. Eventually, in March, I cancelled my account with them - or tried to, anyway, because they kept sending me bills and, a couple of weeks ago, a debt reclaimers letter.

I've switched to ADSL with Plusnet since. Which is not only reliably faster, they also have a web ticketing system, where you can not only open tickets but also see their responses, and contact them. For that alone I would recommend them to anyone.
(Yes, I can get a slight referral fee if people take up this offer /and/ bother to quote my username, but even without that I'd recommend them. They're not perfect, but they're much better than any other ISP've ever had the misfortune of having to deal with.)

Could you email me your username/recommendation instructions - I've just spent 5 minutes reviewing their service and think we could save money by switching.

http://www.plus.net/referrals/offer.shtml?WT.svl=homw_ref25_ban doesn't give any specific instructions, except that you should enter "furrfu" in the right field as per this screenshot: http://www.plus.net/images/referrals/promo/signup_referral.jpg