Bin Virgin and go for Streaming Only?

[Norry1]

We have a pretty expensive monthly contract with Virgin for Broadband, TV (inc. sports, film etc)) and home phone.

On top of this, we subscribe to Prime, Netflix plus a few add-ons.

We both have unlimited data on our mobile phones (not with Virgin) so could use personal hotspots as our wi-fi.

I reckon we could save quite a lot of money if we binned Virgin totally, used our phones for broadband and subscribed to various streaming services - we never use the home phone so that can go totally. The only downside I see is the loss of the convenience of just scrolling through channels rather than having to continually load each service up.

Has anyone tried this and if so, what selection of streaming services do you recommend? Any other thoughts?

 

[ianrauk]

We got rid of virgin TV. Now just have broadband and phone line (which we've never used, don't even know the number).
For TV we have Freeview. I alao have Amazon Prime and my Partner has Netflix. So thats more then enough TV for us.

 

[cyberknight]

considering binning sky atm , we do have disney plus and tbh for us its worth it as mink ck 1 loves it

 

[Regular.Cyclist]

I was in a similar position a few years ago, though with Sky not Virgin, when I moved home and wanted to to ditch Sky.

I bought a new smart TV for the living room which has both a digital TV and satellite tuner built in. We use it in Freesat mode, as it gives a few more channel than Freeview, and the smart TV apps cover most of the streaming services we use. Over time we’ve added an Apple TV and a Chromecast to cover all bases.

When we first moved we used mobile broadband but found that restrictive. The main thing being lacking in Ethernet ports for those connected devices that aren’t WiFi capable.

 

[ColinJ]

We both have unlimited data on our mobile phones (not with Virgin) so could use personal hotspots as our wi-fi.

Are you sure that it genuinely is 'unlimited' for all uses? No 'fair usage' clauses hidden in the t&c? I have seen quite a few packages that say that 'unlimited' only applies to usage by the phone itself. (I don't know if/how they can tell where the data is going, but presumably they can.)

 

[Norry1]

Are you sure that it genuinely is 'unlimited' for all uses? No 'fair usage' clauses hidden in the t&c? I have seen quite a few packages that say that 'unlimited' only applies to usage by the phone itself. (I don't know if/how they can tell where the data is going, but presumably they can.)

Good point. I have a smart TV in our converted garage (which I use for Zwift as well as watching TV) and I only use my phone for that now.

There may be some restrictions but we haven't hit any yet.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

We have a pretty expensive monthly contract with Virgin for Broadband, TV (inc. sports, film etc)) and home phone.

On top of this, we subscribe to Prime, Netflix plus a few add-ons.

We both have unlimited data on our mobile phones (not with Virgin) so could use personal hotspots as our wi-fi.

I reckon we could save quite a lot of money if we binned Virgin totally, used our phones for broadband and subscribed to various streaming services - we never use the home phone so that can go totally. The only downside I see is the loss of the convenience of just scrolling through channels rather than having to continually load each service up.

Has anyone tried this and if so, what selection of streaming services do you recommend? Any other thoughts?

Only watch 'proper' TV on the various players of which 99% is iPlayer and that's dramas only - not sure why we bother; could save the licence fee.

Mainly Netflix & Prime is our main watch.

B4RN fibre to house very fast Broadband @ £33 pm.

No land-line the mobile phones auto-switch between router and 4G.

 

[ColinJ]

B4RN fibre to house very fast Broadband @ £33 pm.

No land-line the mobile phones auto-switch between router and 4G.

I'm jealous!

I spend about £23/month just for 16 Mb/s ADSL and my unused landline phone. I remember @Sea of vapours telling me about B4RN on a forum ride a few years back and being gobsmacked. I can't get any form of fibre despite being in the town centre and only about 1 km from the exchange. For some reason there is an apparently insurmountable problem in my corner of town. Streets all around have fibre but there isn't even a plan to get it to me. All Openreach can suggest is trying to get enough locals to club together and make them an offer they can't refuse...

It isn't a huge problem yet, but when I get a 4K TV it will be.

 

[rualexander]

I've been using my phone's 4g for my internet at home via hotspot for about 3 years.
It's been great up until the past seven or eight months.
Originally I was with 3 and that was good except some of the streaming services didn't seem to work properly with them, GCN being one of them.
Speed was around 20 - 45 mbps
I changed to Tesco Mobile and that worked well for about a year or so (speed around 10 -40 Mbps) but then the internet speed dropped dramatically and I now struggle to get a decent picture on GCN and get buffering and resolution drops on other services too.
Internet speed struggles to get to 2mbps now, frequently less, occasionally late at night I get a decent speed.
Tried a Vodafone PAYG sim to see if they are any better and generally they are but the speed still drops to below 2mbps at times.
I'm now considering going back to a fixed line broadband deal to get half decent speeds.

So, check the speeds you can get using a 4g SIM thoroughly before committing to getting rid of your broadband service.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I'm jealous!

I spend about £23/month just for 16 Mb/s ADSL and my unused landline phone. I remember @Sea of vapours telling me about B4RN on a forum ride a few years back and being gobsmacked. I can't get any form of fibre despite being in the town centre and only about 1 km from the exchange. For some reason there is an apparently insurmountable problem in my corner of town. Streets all around have fibre but there isn't even a plan to get it to me. All Openreach can suggest is trying to get enough locals to club together and make them an offer they can't refuse...

It isn't a huge problem yet, but when I get a 4K TV it will be.

We're in the sticks and B4RN is superb - 1 Gigabyte at the router and the service never drops out apart from the very occasional routine maintenance.

Plenty of future proofing too - fastest our phones will run at is 150Mbps and the Laptop 230Mbps.

Streaming is faultless.

 

[Julia9054]

Scrolled past the title of this thread wondering what the hell a Bin Virgin was . . .

 

[classic33]

I'm jealous!

I spend about £23/month just for 16 Mb/s ADSL and my unused landline phone. I remember @Sea of vapours telling me about B4RN on a forum ride a few years back and being gobsmacked. I can't get any form of fibre despite being in the town centre and only about 1 km from the exchange. For some reason there is an apparently insurmountable problem in my corner of town. Streets all around have fibre but there isn't even a plan to get it to me. All Openreach can suggest is trying to get enough locals to club together and make them an offer they can't refuse...

It isn't a huge problem yet, but when I get a 4K TV it will be.

Virgin never dug the pavements up near you then?

 

[ColinJ]

Virgin never dug the pavements up near you then?

I thought Virgin stopped digging years ago (when they were still, er, NTL was it?)...

A few years back engineers were tying to poke what was probably fibre ducts through the local drains. Maybe there was a blockage that stopped them getting through?

 

[classic33]

I thought Virgin stopped digging years ago (when they were still, er, NTL was it?)...

A few years back engineers were tying to poke what was probably fibre ducts through the local drains. Maybe there was a blockage that stopped them getting through?

Nah, the company doing the digging are digging up the footpaths across the region, to install full fibre.

They're also hitting, gas, water, electric and phone cables in the process.
Don't think they checked before digging.

 

[Chislenko]

Nah, the company doing the digging are digging up the footpaths across the region, to install full fibre.

They're also hitting, gas, water, electric and phone cables in the process.
Don't think they checked before digging.

Yes, they managed to go through a water pipe by us recently. The work appears in our area to be subcontracted to a company called O'Connell or something along those lines.