MOVING FROM SKY TO VIRGIN

[daveh75]

Maximum I could get with Sky was 4MB max. through the phone line

Now I have 50MB consistently via Virgin.and they are increasing to 100MB in our area at no extra cost.

Not sure what you're comparing.

The TiVos also come with their own dedicated 10MB broadband supply, so does not have any impact on the domestic bb into the computer.

I was comparing VM with FTTx products, though obv. Its still not available to all.

I have 80/20 FTTC and it is unlimited. I can download as much as I like in any given hour and I won't be penalised for it.

With VM I would be constantly exceeding there usage caps and envoking their traffic management, making their b/band pretty much useless to us.

 

[jacobmorrison]

There's no clear cut winner in terms of price. Compare similar packages and include the line rental from Sky and I've found the difference is maybe a pound or two either way. The free HD virgin advertise is just smoke and mirrors as the total bill almost always is the same. Virgin do throttle the service back 50% during peak times which is pretty much all afternoon and most of the evening, but if your starting point is 100mbps then you're still getting a good service. If you're outside their fibre network though the performance benefits just aren't there. As for picture/sound, I'd be very surprised if there's any quantifiable difference. I've had both over the years, neither was clearly superior, and as I'm one of those that noticed the drop in quality from the BBC HD feeds I wouldn't consider myself uncritical.

If you've had bad experiences with either company then the grass is always greener. Much of the satisfaction you have after a move can come simply from not dealing with the original company anymore.Bad experiences are always shouted about louder than good ones. I've never had a bad customer service experience with sky with UK call centres and polite staff. Sky have received many awards for customer service, and they have invested heavily in HD and PVR technology, the benefits of which are now enjoyed by everyone regardless of their service provider. Despite the Murdoch connection I don't see them as the bad guys. Any time they threaten to charge for something you feel you should get for free there's always the all-powerful customer retentions department. Threaten to move and they'll move mountains to get you to stay.

 

[grdunn123]

I've been with Sky for 10 years and came within a whisker of moving to Vm a month ago - got a call out of the blue from VM one Friday afternoon offering a 1TB Tivo Bo, Extra HD V+ Box, XL200+ TV channel package, (up to) 100MB fibreoptic BB and full phone package with free blah blah blah....at £66 for 9 month rising to £117 thereafter - bearing in mind I was currently paying Sky £90 a month for 1TB box, HD Multi room and ESPN + £40 a month for TalkTalk phone and BB - this was a good deal!.

A phone call to Sky lowered my TV package to £49 a month on 4 month retention contract + free BB (unlimited) for a year and free 6 months phone rising to £7.50 for the remainder of 12 month contract. I stuck with Sky but may move to VM in August when my retention contract comes up for renewal.

 

[ukdavej]

Yup. £7pm more on V. Better BB ofcourse but only free w/e calls. Cant see any mention of DD anywhere tho.

I think there are merits to both

I find it very very difficult to compare the two on price and the comparison I did was based on what I "thought" was correct. As I said, the main reason I am with VM is the broadband, even though it is throttled back if I exceed my limit (which isn't often). I'm also quite fortunate in the fact I live in an area where the first cable networks were installed by Nynex (remember them!). Fortunate in the fact they installed top quality gear with plenty of capacity etc so I never see any degredation in service - period.

What I would say avbout VM is their telephone package is not as good as you have to pay extra for things like caller display and 0845 numbers which is annoying but on the up side, hardware support is good and free of charge to replace broken boxes, routers etc.

However, when my kids finally fly the nest I will heave the whole lot out and most likely go to plusnet for phone and fibre and stick with Freeview as I hardlt ever watch the subscription channels these days