Yes i know, ridiculous isn't it. With all the shit happening in the world my main problem this morning (other than taxing the SuperDuke) is deciding what to do with my Tv & Broadband for 2017 Luckily (depending how you see it) all my Tv & broadband contracts have been kept at 12 month terms and tend to end between mid December and mid January, it gives me the option of moving on As luck would have it i received a cracking offer from Virgin this week in the post, obviously ignoring them since they cabled my street 3 months ago must have worked Nutshell: I currently have Sky TV (no sports etc) and BT Broadband (circa 22mb is the best we get) Other than monthly costs of Sky i have no issue at all with the way it works or the software. Its quick and intuitive. BT hasn't been all bad, but admittedly when they cock up they do it in a big way and it takes forever to get things sorted (overseas call centres don't help) The BT offer was Landline (£18.99) + £10 per month 'part fibre' which included my BT sports for Motogp, so overall pretty good. (Part fibre means its still a phone line to the house hence the speed drop) Virgin however have just come in heavy weight and not messed about. They've offered me 100mb unlimited proper fibre from the new box right outside my house, plus phone line, plus their mid tier TV package (Full House) with two 500gb Tivo boxes (multiroom) for £30/month on a 12 month contract...... Oh, and the TV package includes BT sports channels in HD (MotoGP sorted then) So thats a no brainer, why pay BT nearly £30 for 22mb 'part fibre' when i can pay Virgin for the real thing and gain the TV whilst I'm at it. However, I'm under no illusion that Virgin TV and its clunky software /would drive me up the wall if thats all i was left with (years of sky usage) So I'm thinking about downgrading our sky package to the lowest level and keep that in place 'just in case' Its all doable and cheaper than what I'm paying now so figured why not BUT, will that work ok? Does Sky work from a Virgin fibre line? What about having two different TV feeds? I cant see why none of this wouldn't work, but whenever i have these brainwaves they tend to bugger up somehow Basically Mrs Damo leaves this all to me, I just have to make sure its not more expensive and it works......... its a rocky road getting this all right.......one wrong move and WHAMMM.....she strikes
Virgin is pretty shit in my area. They keep having to throttle it back at peak times and have major contention issues. People in my town leaving in droves. Opening Net Flicks takes forever. I just switched from virgin to BT.
I used to have Sky from a BT line for a number of years and that was fine. I then went all Sky after BT kept raising their prices and giving poor service. Apart from a month where my broadband kept dropping out recently I have not had any other problems. I now use 2 media servers and download all my TV, and as I have a Smart TV and also several Roku boxes for each TV that I have I can watch pretty much anything I want at anytime. I see no reason why Sky would not work from a Virgin line at all. The only problem you may face is if you want to make alterations to your Broadband router\hub. I had to do this to make my media servers accessible from outside my home so that I can download a film\Tv series etc. to anywhere that I am staying that has a broadband connection. I have read that Virgin hubs are pretty poor and possibly worse than Sky, but Virgin has never appealed to me anyway and the Tivo box is pretty old technology now.
all should work independently, as they come in via their own cable/fibre/satellite. obviously, the standing charges are a bit of a waste, e.g. having sky multi-room "just in case" would be a waste of money, imho. if the virgin install is new, then it may be in better shape than what Creamy & I have to put up with (my virgin "100MB" tends to be around 75MB at best, and 6MB at worst - it has serious bandwidth issues at peak times, and just switches off at random times which is very annoying if I am working form home on the odd occasion and it fails in the middle of a conference call or similar). if you know any nearby locals, e.g. 1/2 a mile or so away, who have had Virgin for a few years as they will know what the more general infrastructure issues are outside your immediate locality and may cause bandwidth issues for you, too. Pete
I have sky tv and have just changed to virgin for broadband and phone. No brainier given best we get is 2meg and combined cost with 50mb fibre is £2 more pm
Get virgin fibre broadband. Forget about tv. Get Netflix and Amazon prime. No tv licence required. Take that money and buy booze.
Cut the cord & remove phone line. Go mobile broadband though this does limit your ability to download stuff to 15/20gb per month (3G shop).
#2 son has Virgin TV and broadband. It's shit. And he's tied into a two year contract. And all for saving about a £10 a month.
I had Virgin TV and broadband for 4 years up until 2 years ago. When it worked it was ok, and the channels included in the basic package were pretty good. However, it would totally drop out about once every 2 months (that we knew of), and would always happen on a Friday/Saturday night, and it would completely freeze the box from even starting up (so you might at least be able to watch recorded things). They could take days to fix it, without updating you, and were a nightmare to deal with. I swore never to go near them again. I have had Sky Broadband and TV for the past 2 years and I have not had a single fault with it. When I move next month I will be sticking with sky.
I have to agree with the above, when I had serious problems with my broadband they spent a lot of time trying to fix it. Whilst their customer service is far from perfect at times they did make strenuous efforts to sort out my problems. It did rage on for a while and then all of a sudden things were fully sorted and I have not had a problem since, in fact it's the only problem I have seriously had in all my many years with Sky. I am not particularly pro Sky but so far compared to BT and Virgin they do score quite well in my book.
I'd actually be looking at keeping sky as the main TV in the house It's just that for the 100mb fibre offer from Virgin they also give me two tivo boxes as well. So my planned setup would be : TV Front room = Sky hd + box & Virgin tivo Bedroom = Sky hd+ box (cancel multiroom subscription) and Virgin Tivo Broadband 100mb Virgin fibre I'd still have sky in the front room and have access to everything I have currently bar box sets and a few channels in HD However I'd also have Virgin Tivo in the front room with other channels in HD and of course BT sports Then in the bedroom it just seems stupid to pay £12/month for the sky multiroom subscription as I'll have a Virgin Tivo box in there for free. I'm sure it'll be good enough for bedtime viewing won't it?
Yeah put me down for that, gives me time to limber up Whether it makes a difference to the firing squad or not, but I've just checked with virgin media's website and would you believe it costs either £32/month just for the broadband Or £30/month for the same broadband and two tivo boxes..... Shall I invite them over for a shooting as well?
