5punk

Does anyone know much about comparative benefits/costs for virgin media and sky?

currently we have a virgin cable phone line which i think its £11 a month
virgin broadband 2mb uncapped for £18 a mnoth
sky+ tv package which i htink is £41 a month

i was wondering if we would get better service and price by swapping the phone and broadband over to sky too

the trouble is it's difficult to work out from lloking at both comanies sites which would be cheaper

Switching the phone to a BT line isn't too big a problem i don't think. and i already have a wired and wireless ADSL router/modem which i was using in my uni digs

Can anyone offer any advice on this topic?

This would be pretty handy for me too, given that I'll be moving out soon. So far, my experience of Virgin On Demand telly has really impressed, it's more fitting for my lifestyle too. But Sky+ has its advantages. More info please folks, including costs etc.

i think virgin's broadband is better than sky's, but i think that only matters if you are a heavy user.
Dont virgin do a 3 for £30? wouldnt that be better value? Except you wouldnt get sky one anymore

Virgin (well, at least telewest did) upgrades your service without jacking up the prices every so often, I started on 256k and now I'm on 4mb

it would seem from what i worked out, and from talking to the woman at sky, that we would be able to get 16mb broadbeans for £10 a month, which is quite good compared to virgins 2mb for £18

i think we would rather keep the sky tv as my dad likes the movie and sports channels andthe sky+ box is handy. Also from my experience with the nl/virgin tv box it is very slow at loading and often has no programme information, which is something i've never experienced using a sky box

i tthink its really only the consistency of the connection that i'm worried about really, the woman on the phone says we should be able to get the maximum speed in our area

this is basically seeming like more and more of a sensible idea all the time, however i'm sure it will come back to bite me in the ass. could really do with finding someone on sky broadbeens in my area

as far as the on demand tv goes i don't think i'm that bothered. my parents can sky+ anything they want to watch but will miss because of being out or because they want something else at the same time on a different channel, and i'm from the internet so i can pretty much just download or stream anything i miss

Well, if you're keeping sky tv, might as well enquire as to prices ontop of your current deal. You'll probably get a nice hefty discount as you're already using one of their systems.


As for Virgin/Ntl....I started on 600k @ £25pm, now on 4 or 6 meg for £25pm but I have no choice as BT will drop me to 512k due to my distance from the exchange and their borg like resistance to putting a new booster box in.

Connection is alright and stable, and not capped at all (well, I've had no complaints for dling <10 gig per month). Although as far as I can tell, it's not 100/50 like Down/Up is on ADSL, it's more like 100/15 so I've got quite a poor upload.

On a purely customer services note, Sky suck massive donkey balls.

When I first got Sky I booked a day off work so the engineer could and attach a dish. cupcake never turned up despite me phoning every hour and being told he was "on his way". Had to book another day off for the installation. He turned up for that one and was a right surly, unhelpful twat.

Several months later, boom, lightning strike. My house got hit and most of my electrics were screwed, including Sky. Phone up to get someone out to repair it, but they can't do weekends as they're booked up until July '07 (this was around about October/November last year. Fine, I book another day off work so they can come and fix it.

Now, what do you reckon the odds were of them not turning up again? Pretty bloody good odds apparently. Another holiday off work wasted, another day sat round phoning the bastards. The worst thing is, their phone line isn't free - every time I phoned up to ask when he was going to arrive I got charged. Wankers.

So, kicked off with them and amazingly they had someone out that weekend to fix it. They fiddled about with my box (oo-er) and said it was fixed. It was only about an hour after I left that I realised this wasn't the case. I could get all of the channels except for the movies and sports (i.e. the ones I'd paid extra for). This is where I started to get immensely pissed of with Sky's so called customer service. Whenever I phoned them it took about 15 minutes to get through to the right department, another 20 mins on hold (all the while being bombarded with automated messages asking me if I wanted to upgrade my Sky package), another half hour of options, holding and irritating messages before finally being cut off because "we're too busy, try back later". All the while I was being charged. Cunts.

After several failed attempts to get hold of anyone in customer services (honestly, I made £15 pounds worth of calls and never got through to an actual person) I decided to change tact. Instead of phoning the helpline, I rang through to the "upgrade your account" line. Bingo! Straight through to an actual person, poised and ready to take more money off me. After a few terse words they put me through to someone and...well, it still wasn't sorted after that. Rather than bore you with the details though just re-read the bit about trying to phone customer services several times, because that's basically what happened.

When it was finally fixed after over a month, I wrote a snotty email complaint to them. I pointed out that I'd been without Sky for over a month, I'd wasted days off work waiting for engineers that don't turn up, and I'd spent £15 on phone calls to their "customer service" line and never got through to anyone. They offered my a £20 discount off my next bill.

In conclusion: I hate Sky. I loathe them and want to kill them in a horrible manner (when I say "them" I'm picturing Sky as a single grotesque entity - with flailing tentacles and dripping ichor). Worst bit is that I have to stick with them as I can't get cable here. Fuckers.

Despite Roman's rant, Sky are better value if you've got their telly package already. £5/month for telephone (unlimited landline calls), and £10/month for 8mb broadband (However, this is if you're in one of their areas, and you've got to remember the £11/month BT fee despite it being Sky's ADSL connection).

Also, they include a free wireless router (I think it has 4 wired ports too).

Of course, adding all this in you'd probably be tied in to a 12-18 month contract, but this seems to be the case without about any deal at the moment.

One possible reason to hold off, is if you're a SERIOUS internet user, where Virgin are apparently thinking about 20megabit broadband in places.

roman's post does worry me slightly, though i'm sure there are probably plenty of people with an almost identical complaint agaisnt ntl/virgin, and likewise plenty who have had no problems with either, i would guess it's pretty much pot luck.

It does look very much like sky is the best value by far seeing as we already have their tv. 16mb for £10 a month i was quoted and also was told that our area SHOULD be able to upport maximum speed.

As regards to a 20mb service from virgin, whilst this seems appealing i think 16 is quite enough for me, i do like to aquire tv and movies but i think 16mb connection will be quite adequate for that, and also given that they are currently charging us £18 a month for 2mb i dread to think what a 20mb conenction would cost

overall i am leaning towards sky, but as i say, roman's post does bother me somewhat

Remember, if it's sky, it's probably ADSL (or ADSL2/2+)

So unless you're currently getting 8mbit out of standard ADSL, you're *very* unlikely to see 16mbit. only then of course, if your exchange is unbundled etc.

Remember, all these connections are advertised as "up to" unlike virgin, which (providing you're in a cabled area) should give you advertised speed.

Graph below lets you work out what speed you're probably likely to get. maybe.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitteny_berk/562145347/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1204/562 ... 378d_o.jpg" width="985" height="866" alt="adsl_att_vs_speed_chart"></a>

I think I can help, as only last week I swapped over from Virgin Media BB & Phone to Sky.

After speaking to several people at Virgin Media, they just couldn't match the cost of me switching over to Sky for everything, so I am now saving myself over £20 a month.

I have had no hassles whatsoever with BT reconnecting my line, and switching over my old Virgin Media phone number.

It takes 15 days for BT to switch their phone line over to Sky, so be prepared to go without BB for a fortnight.

The only hassle I have had in the whole process, is Virgin Media being wankers and stating that I need to give 30 days notice of leaving the broadband service, and that I need to pay up to that notice, and then promptly disconnecting the Internet the day after the phone call

I have kept my Sky+ box which costs me £15 a month (basic package of 2 "mixes" and the Sky+ Subscription is now completely free, as I used to pay an extra tenner a month for it)
Now I have Sky Talk which is free evening and weekend calls, and is completely free.
I've also gone for the 16MB Broadband for £10 a month, which comes with a Wireless Netgear Modem, and because I went for the £10 option there is no hardware cost, or no instalation fee.

So all in all my TV, Phone, BB costs me the following :

TV (Sky+ with 2 mixes) = £15
Phone = FREE
BB (16MB no download limits) = £10
BT Line Rental = £12

TOTAL : $37

The important thing to remember here is that you will take on the additional cost of having a BT Line, but to eb honest, without one you will miss out on any future offers from other ISP's.
Like I said earlier, Virgin Media just cannot offer anything near that money for the same or relative service, and they eventually gave up, and said they couldn't match what I wanted.

Now I just have one bill, with one company, and Sky are now looking at taking on the BT Line Rental direct debit, which means it will move over onto Sky's bill if you wanted them to do so.

We still have the free cable box in our bedroom, but I have to be honest, after using Sky+, the Cable box just seems slow, unresponsive, and prone to failure through overheating or not being used for long periods of time. The interface is horrible (if somewhat improved by Virgin Media since Telewest) and I think the picture quality isn't as good IMO, as I once hooked it up to the big Plasma screen to see what it looked like.

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:[snip]
It takes 15 days for BT to switch their phone line over to Sky, so be prepared to go without BB for a fortnight.
[snippity snip snip]

/me changes his phone line in an attempt to be without BB

Thank fuck people don't give a shit about it any more so it is no longer invading my senses 24hrs a day

Also someone I went to school is good friends with crystal or shantal or whatever her name is (the posh spice lookalike)

fabyak wrote:/me changes his phone line in an attempt to be without BB

I rather like having broadband internet, personally.

*ignores the joke.
*despises Big Brother, and is pleased it hasn't made it to these shores.

i don't quite understand the graph.

at the moment on virgin cable i'm ggetting about 1900kbps out of a 2mb connection, upload is attrociasly (SP?) low

sky told me that my area should be able to support the maximum speed of 16mb but even if it doesn't its still gonna be better value.

even if it's only half that, 8mb for £10 a month would still beat 2mb for £18 a month (and yes sky is ADSL) i was on f2s ADSL at uni and that was upto 8mb i think and usually got about 5 or 6 which i thought was ok, that was £23.99 a month which between 3 of us i thought was fairly reasonable, plus they have short contract (minimum 3 months then its monthly) and they didn't have any restrictions on ports and never had any complaints about fair usage, despite reasonably heavy downloading at times.

there's also the fact that i shelled out £70 for a new ADSL router about 2 weeks ago cos teh one we had in our uni house went tits up and i'd like to be able to use the new one here, also cos it has wireless so i can use the wii with it

Something else to add in to all this, reading the Business&Media section of the sunday papers, revealed that Virgin Media have recently increased the price of their helpline so that they're now premium rate numbers, which makes them extra bastards in my opinion.

and haven't Sky recently chopped a load of channels from Virgin (i.e. Sky1 etc) due to a big girly fight between Ricky B and Rupert?

fabyak wrote:and haven't Sky recently chopped a load of channels from Virgin (i.e. Sky1 etc) due to a big girly fight between Ricky B and Rupert?

My understanding of it (Which I'm reasonably sure I heard from Bobbins, so if he corrects me, that's why) was that Virgin refused to pay the ubsurd costs assotiated with that one channel, so cut it from their services. Can't say I'm complaining, as nightly simpsons every day for 10 years got really realy old

fabyak wrote:Ricky B and Rupert?

Hehulk wrote:
My understanding of it (Which I'm reasonably sure I heard from Bobbins, so if he corrects me, that's why) was that Virgin refused to pay the ubsurd costs assotiated with that one channel, so cut it from their services. Can't say I'm complaining, as nightly simpsons every day for 10 years got really realy old

from what i heard:

sky channels on virgin DECREASED in popularity, but sky asked for MORE money for them whilst at the same time, the channels that sky buy/rent/whatever from virgin INCREASED in popularity but sky wanted to pay LESS for them, obviously sky don't understand how supply and demand work, alternatively they are a bunch of cupcake horses who basically want something for nothing whilst simultaneously having AND eating cake, while more cake magically appears around them