Virgin Media - opinions & experience

[elnevio]

Some of you may know that we have recently moved back to Gloucester. Upon doing so, I transferred our existing Sky package with us to our new house. I'm not in any existing contract with them at present, but the current package comprises the Sky+ HD box with, IIRC, the family pack, which is essentially everything other than Sky Movies or Sky Sports, landline with free weekend and evening calls (not really used - except when calling a family member's landline on a weekend, perhaps, or when calling 0800 numbers), and unlimited broadband. Total monthly cost is just under £60.

My new connection speed is 1.7Mb/s, which is actually a marginal improvement over our previous address in Chesterfield, believe it or not, but it still a bit shoddy in this day and age.

I've had some marketing bumph through the door from Virgin Media (as well as witnessing copious amounts of TV advertising) and have now actually had a good look through a lot of it, and am potentially looking at the following deal for about £63 quid a month:

Virgin TiVo box;
Extra Virgin V+ HD box for another room;
Phone line with free weekend and evening calls, keeping existing number;
Up to 60Mb fibre optic broadband, unlimited;
Repairs included for the entire period I'm with Virgin;
Other bonuses - actually only £39/m for the first six months, Spotify Premium included for three months, potentially excellent deals on mobile phone tariffs once we are due for renewal with O2.

The above deal is supposedly a 'Sky Switcher' deal, where they don't charge for the 'multiroom' extra box, installation fees or HD.

Sky do offer a fibre optic broadband option, and I believe this would cost another tenner a month.

You can also pay for the Virgin phone line element (which is £14.99pm) up front for £120pa, essentially making it £10pm and thus the package to be £58pm once the initial offer period has expired.

As ever, there are many pros and cons, but the ones that matter to us are:

I currently get Sky Sports F1 HD for free, because I am a Sky HD customer. To get this with Virgin I would need to take out some kind of Sky Sports package;
We also get Sky Atlantic HD, on which there are a few shows we watch. This simply isn't available on Virgin, in either HD or SD;
Been with Sky for about eight years, and the customer service has always been excellent.

but then:

The Sky wifi router is so pants that it should be kept in the underwear department at M&S, and you strictly speaking can't use another router (there are ways and means, but there is the potential for voiding your contract with Sky in doing so). I am of the belief that the Virgin Super Hub is much much better;
Decent broadband speed! Although I imagine that Sky's offering would probably be similar;
Heavy rain not affecting the picture with Virgin! /Brolly
Extra box for free with included servicing for all the kit.

As you can probably see, the more I type, the more I lean towards Virgin kicking Sky's backside! But I would be interested to hear views from you lot, especially as regards the actual service received from Sky (more so the broadband and TV side of things, rather than the customer service, although I've heard Virgin's isn't the best!).

[Humpty's Revenge]

Some of you may know that we have recently moved back to Gloucester. Upon doing so, I transferred our existing Sky package with us to our new house. I'm not in any existing contract with them at present, but the current package comprises the Sky+ HD box with, IIRC, the family pack, which is essentially everything other than Sky Movies or Sky Sports, landline with free weekend and evening calls (not really used - except when calling a family member's landline on a weekend, perhaps, or when calling 0800 numbers), and unlimited broadband. Total monthly cost is just under £60.

My new connection speed is 1.7Mb/s, which is actually a marginal improvement over our previous address in Chesterfield, believe it or not, but it still a bit shoddy in this day and age.

I've had some marketing bumph through the door from Virgin Media (as well as witnessing copious amounts of TV advertising) and have now actually had a good look through a lot of it, and am potentially looking at the following deal for about £63 quid a month:

Virgin TiVo box;
Extra Virgin V+ HD box for another room;
Phone line with free weekend and evening calls, keeping existing number;
Up to 60Mb fibre optic broadband, unlimited;
Repairs included for the entire period I'm with Virgin;
Other bonuses - actually only £39/m for the first six months, Spotify Premium included for three months, potentially excellent deals on mobile phone tariffs once we are due for renewal with O2.

The above deal is supposedly a 'Sky Switcher' deal, where they don't charge for the 'multiroom' extra box, installation fees or HD.

Sky do offer a fibre optic broadband option, and I believe this would cost another tenner a month.

You can also pay for the Virgin phone line element (which is £14.99pm) up front for £120pa, essentially making it £10pm and thus the package to be £58pm once the initial offer period has expired.

As ever, there are many pros and cons, but the ones that matter to us are:

I currently get Sky Sports F1 HD for free, because I am a Sky HD customer. To get this with Virgin I would need to take out some kind of Sky Sports package;
We also get Sky Atlantic HD, on which there are a few shows we watch. This simply isn't available on Virgin, in either HD or SD;
Been with Sky for about eight years, and the customer service has always been excellent.

but then:

The Sky wifi router is so pants that it should be kept in the underwear department at M&S, and you strictly speaking can't use another router (there are ways and means, but there is the potential for voiding your contract with Sky in doing so). I am of the belief that the Virgin Super Hub is much much better;
Decent broadband speed! Although I imagine that Sky's offering would probably be similar;
Heavy rain not affecting the picture with Virgin! /Brolly
Extra box for free with included servicing for all the kit.

As you can probably see, the more I type, the more I lean towards Virgin kicking Sky's backside! But I would be interested to hear views from you lot, especially as regards the actual service received from Sky (more so the broadband and TV side of things, rather than the customer service, although I've heard Virgin's isn't the best!).


Virgin..........just one word dude


CRAP, CRAP & FECKIN CRAP

[elnevio]

Very concise. :D

Which bits? The broadband? The TV? The customer service?

And when from? As I've heard bad things from a few years ago, but it looks like a lot may have changed?

[Humpty's Revenge]

Very concise. :D

Which bits? The broadband? The TV? The customer service?

And when from? As I've heard bad things from a few years ago, but it looks like a lot may have changed?

Granted it was a few years ago & there broadband was fine at first then they cap your mbs once you have been with them a year or two then say it's down to you or the phone line

Customer service was just full of crap, couldn't help, wouldn't help !!

But that was a few years ago & have heard they are not much better now

[Scanny]

their engineers arent up to much. i couldnt get my laptop hardwired in my bedroom and they blamed my laptop. when i got the new package with super hub etc i got a new cable. laptop worked fine on that and still does. checking a cable is the very first thing any communications engineer should check as im sure Rikki will confirm

tivo is excellant and really easy to use. i think you can record 3 channels at once and watch a 4th channel and they will keep recording an entire series with an extra few minutes before and after to allow for slight differences in times. skipping adverts is a bit easier as you have a 30 second skip as well as the normal fast forward functions. the extra box in the bedroom is good too although it wont be a tivo box and you cant watch recorded programmes from the other box. you can watch films/programmes etc that you have bought though

the broadband is good although it can go down from time to time but that is usually an entire area rather than individual house. they are quick to fix it though and are happy to inform you when you check up on progress

i dont watch sports so i cant comment on that but i am pretty happy with virgin

[Wobble]

put it this way , we fitted a in depth sky install (the sort that sky cant do ) to a executive for virgin last week , says it all really

[Spirit]

Sorry Nev, but you have simply opened a can of worms regarding which is best and ultimately both companies have their pros and cons.

I for one would never return to Sky TV. Was with them for over 10 years and got sick of the crap picture when it rains, and even worse customer service !

Have been with VM for some 6 years now (currently pay £107pcm for my custom package) and am perfectly happy with them. In the 6+ years we have probably had 4 occassions when we have lost part of the service for a few hours. If you look on the VM forums you will see many complaints but I doubt it's any less than Sky.

The VM super hub does not have a great reputation......BUT the good thing is that you can use it in modem only mode and connect your own router to it (which I do) with no issues. I am currently on a 30mb connection (due to go to 60mb in a couple months free of charge) and would say 80% of the time achieve speeds of 20mb+.

Overall Nev, I would say you roll the dice and hope for the best with both companies, but my money is staying with VM. Don't forget they were recently sold to an American firm so it will be interesting to see if anything improves from a CS perspective in time.

[Nick Mann]

I have been with VM for 17 months. No significant complaints so far. They are much the same as Sky, but the tivo box is in a different league to the sky plus box. The broadband is un-fecking-believable. We paid for 30Mb and every time I tested it is came out as 29.9!! We have recently been upgraded (for free) to 60Mb, I have literally just done a check and got a 19ms ping, 56.51Mbps download, 2.92Mbps upload.

The F1 package would be a deal changer for me, IF sky did decent broadband here and could give me a box as good as the tivo.

[Atik]

Been with both Sky and VM over the yars and to be honest, never had any issues with either.

I am currently with VM for broadband and telephone. I have a hybrid pay as you go contract tv thing so no need for Sky or VM for that, but I refuse to go for any ADSL broadband which is what Sky do. I have VM broadband at 60mb and regularly test at 50mb+ speeds so I am happy.

Like Pete says, its a whole can of worms as everyone has different experiences. At the end of the day what service do you want?

PS your broadband speed is about the same I get on my phone! /lol

[Davezj]

I have been with cable and wireless, then nynex, then ntl, then virgin media for about 16years.

Service has been great, and Internet connection speed has always been what we pay for 0.5mb, 1.0mb, 10mb, 20mb, 30mb.

However we would like to watch a few of the shows on sky Atlantic which is just not possible with VM and the F1 channel would be nice to have, but i believe the only ways of getting it on VM if you get sky sports package which expensive way of doing it, on just the F1 channel for £10 ish a month (but you can get it half price or six months) well you only need the channel for 6-9 months while the races are on, I don't know how long you have take the f1 channel contract out for, but would be surprised if was any less then 18 Months.

I have never had sky in my home but I have watched a sky tv feed at a friends house and couldn't work out why the picture quality was so bad, and my friend told me oh it does that when it rains, which I thought was completely unacceptable, as it rains for approximately 9 months of the year here in Manchester.

As said above you pay for money you take your chance. You can always switch back if you don't like our choice.

[giblet]

I have had Virgin broadband for a while now, the speeds are always spot on but the signal from the superhub is tripe to say the least. Decided to stick with Sky for the telly though.

[SGHOM]

I live at 92.... cable ends at 88 :(

[giblet]

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2629318560.png

That is on the 50mb package, which was doubled for me recently. A tad pricey at £39.25 a month but I am used to the speeds now so can't see myself changing/downgrading.

[The Vee]

Been on Sky for years - always been spot on UNTIL we upgraded. Took out their HD+ multiroom and internet (supposedly high speed). The whole thing is now just cr@p. Picture freezes when you watch in thst just behind mode so you have to turn it off and back on so you miss however long you were behind, internet although promised high speed and asked for, is just basic, even though we have fibre optic available. They now say they want £50 connection fee and an extra £10 a month to have it. And the last straw...................Emails. I'm not very savvy with this stuff, but they used to use Gmail and I was so pleased when I managed to get all my email accounts on one page and my mobile to actually send and receive. Now they have gone to Yahoo! mail and it just awful. No emails in any account - mobile won't work it is a disgrace. And, ads being forced upon you even if you try to opt out. Not keen on Virgin but thinking of switching just to say FU Sky!

[elnevio]

Some useful feedback there.

I wonder if I could get VM to throw in SS F1 for me? /Hmmm

With having the kids around, we do get the Sky+ recording clashes a bit too frequently. The TiVo box would help with being able to record an extra program at the same time, as well as having an extra V+ box too.

We did used to have Telewest cable when we were last in Gloucester, and I never had any problems, but I never used it for internet at the time.

[Davezj]

When you go with VM you do not use your existing phone line at all. The phone come in with the tv and broadband in the little brown box that they fit to the front of ou house. so you do not have to pay for the bt line at all. You still have pay a line rental charge the VM but that is there line from there box. They will have to install a wire across the front of you house from the brown box to where you want it to come into you house.
Here is a senario for you,
You go with VM for everything, you stop paying bt for the landline, what happens when you want to go back to sky in the future, they use the bt landline, you have to reconnect you bt landline, is there a big fee for that you need to check this out.
My friend went with VM and stopped paying for the bt line. Bt changed the wooden telegraph pole for a nice shiny new metal one outside his house and because he no longer used his bt land line they removed the wire going to his house. If he wants to go back to sky and use a bt landline he has to pay hundreds of pounds to bt to get them to put his physical wire buck in to his house.

[Mark 4]

I had sky for a few years before we moved last year, pretty good reception in the area so not too much drop out.

Moved along the coast and as we did not have a BT line installed I simply decided to go with VM as the easy option.

Big mistake. They know that they have you by the short and curlies as Dave says above. Also totally agree with the big man in post 2. Customer service is absolutely shocking. My internet is incredibly fast most of the time but then I get a few days when it is very poor every so often.

[elnevio]

I'm just wondering if I can ring Sky up and tell them that I'm off unless they can get close to matching VM's deal. That way I keep the F1... /rally

[Wobble]

I'm just wondering if I can ring Sky up and tell them that I'm off unless they can get close to matching VM's deal. That way I keep the F1... /rally

they rarely bite to that one now ,

the sky hd receivers have a realistic shelf life of 2 years , the tivo receivers are very slow in comparison to sky ones , you can record 2 on sky at once but can watch a recording or on demand at same time. tivo boxies record 3 channels at once .

one thing to bear in bind is that the new tivo boxies do not have an rf modulator meaning you cant view a analouge signal (rf ) in other rooms as a secondary point . sky boxies does have this so sky can be viewed if set up correctly on as many tvs in the house as you have but the same channel needs viewing (this is where dvb comes in handy) so if you have a return rf system in place and dont want to pay extra for viewing in other rooms then sky is the only option , other wise you will have to have multiple receivers which cost £££.

i dont deal with virgin at all due to them not having a modulator anymore ,

also i have had a debt collection agency hounding me for non payment of virgin bill on a property in birmingham , 2 problems with that are i have never been to birmingham ,lived there , no anyone there , and have never used virgin for any services. how they think its me i will never know , but they have and will fail on getting there money . oh and i cant phne them as im not a customer unless i phone there premium rate phone number. i simple letter seems to have done the trick asking them to prove the debt .

[Confused]

I can't say much about the Virgin/Sky TV/phone packages, as I don't use them (although I've got them here!).

As for the internet connection with Virgin...

I have the 60mb package. During the day, say 9am to 5pm, it is blisteringly fast. After 6pm, it slows right down. YouTube especially becomes unusable. Pretty much bang on 6pm, I can no longer even transfer from YouTube quickly enough to watch a 360p stream. Before 6pm, the progress bar on a 1080p video shoots across the screen. Other things don't slow down quite as much.

I watch a lot on YouTube (more so than any "traditional" TV channel) - and it's a pain to watch anything in the evenings. So much so now, that I use Firefox plugins to download direct from YouTube during the day, and then just play them back in the evenings!

This is because 1) they're oversubscribed, and 2) they implement throttling.


That said though - during the day, and from ~1am onwards, it's super quick, and so I tend to schedule downloads during this time, and it's nice to have the speed there when you want it.


However - if a BT-based fibre optic provider was supplying connections around here, I'd probably change over to that - similar download speeds, higher upload speeds, and it won't be as subscribed - and BT invest more into their core backbones than Virgin do.

[dave-at-home]

Virgin all the way for me.

Moved from Sky last year due to crap service (initial installation was a 4 week saga involving conflicting installation teams), mediocre hardware and variable picture quality.
I had VM (TV, phone, broadband) on a 6 month half price deal and have not looked back. In my opinion, sky+ is positivley "clunky" compared to TiVo - TiVo having far more features. It may be a touch slower (not really a problem) but that is offset by its extra bells n' whistles. Installation was a dream - the mistake most people make is letting the installers just get on with it and grizzle later. Just tell them exactly what you want where (inc cable runs) and they are OK. If they refuse to do the job just tell them to be on their way!
At the end of the day you pays your money and takes your chance, but I would never touch Sky again.

[elnevio]

Interesting feedback Dave, thanks for the input!

[Davezj]

Also I have noticed recently on a lot a few sky installation that they have used white cable on the outside of a brick house. It stands out like a sore thumb, and they have routed it straight down the wall and into the house, without putting the drip loop on the cable before enters the brick work, that will definitely lead to dampnes in the house later.
The cable come into the house and is terminated in a wall socket, or it should be, so there is no excuse for use a bad colour choice of cable on the outside of the house. You can also have any colour of cable on the inside as well so it blend in to the decor. Say brown cable out side and white on the inside.

The same can be said for VM when the route the phone line, many years ago when cable and wireless installed our phone line the whent straight up the wall above above the front window acros the font of he house round he corner back down the wall and into the house under the windo sill of the IDE window. Which has always looked bad in a black cable. They could have run it just above ground level in the same direction and the come up the wall and under the window sill.
It is all down to the installer and how firm you are with them telling them what you want. A said above it is you house and you are employing them to do a job, make sure you are happy with the outcome before they leave.

[ANTHONY]

I work for BT and when i instal a new line i always think how i would want it done on my own house

[Wobble]

I work for BT and when i instal a new line i always think how i would want it done on my own house

thats how i always think aswell . hence why we now have a good name around the county for installation work .

we speak and get recommended by most of the sky guys around here , they are governed by lots of h & s and they are not given the time to take that an install should take .

white cable on a brick house there is no excuse for , the same as having cable thrown across the roof which is a big no aswell.

[Davezj]

i wish all installers were like you two, take pride in you work.
and as a plus point get lots of good works refurals in the process.

[Wobble]

difference is a sky or virgin installer gets payed more to forfill there quoter for the day and a basic wage so more work completed more money they make ,

where i own my own business and need recommendations and. if a job take 4 times longer and looks and works great then i will hopefully get more work out of it in the end ,

plus cr@p sky installers gives me more work in the long run .:happy:

[Granitecity]

We are with Virgin since we moved to Scunny. Paying for 100mb and full tv package and two Tivos. Supossed to be getting 120mb, but as folk already mentioned speeds vary according to time of day etc. We have never been close to 120mb , fastest I have got on speedtest.net was 98mb in early hours. We have five kids and they all stream You Tube , Iplayer etc etc and we never have problems with latency. We lost the wireless output the other day and my missus phoned Virgin, got a really nice lassie, who went through diagnostics with her and sorted the problem with the super hub. We only had 5.5mb in our last house, so well pleased with the speeds we are now. Nothing else in this region comes close to the speeds of Virgin, so its the only option for us really. Some areas have a lot more choice.

Fell out with Sky years ago, as they were charging us over £100 a month( was origionally 49.99 ) for multiroom, because they said we did not keep the boxes connected to the phone line. Cancelled and they kept taking money for over 6 months, impossible to talk to them on phone most of the time too.

[elnevio]

More interesting feedback and tips, thanks. :)

Still weighing it up. The biggest stumbling block for me is the Sky Sports F1 HD channel, as it turns out! To get it on VM, I'd have to take out the Sky Sports package.

Having said that, the VM price including SS is almost the same as Sky if I add the fibreoptic cable through them without having multiroom or SS!