Switching from Sky to Virgin

[Hugo15]

Anyone switched from Sky to Virgin recently? How smoothly did it go?

 

[gavintc]

Moved house and switched so it does not really answer your question. For me, it me
made sense. My only constructive comment is to make sure that you give the appropriate notice to Sky - I think it is a month or you will pay for cancellation charges. Virgin were efficient and turned up on the time stated.

 

[cheadle hulme]

Same here, moved house. I prefer Sky as I like the foreign channels you can get, but Virgin was far better value with 20meg broadband.

Virgin guy (who was about 15 stone) crawled into the subfloor to route the cable to the back of the house and into the study as I wanted it hard wired rather than wifi.

You don't have to put up with that depressing music on the programme guide either. Virgin keeps the telly on in little box whilst you decide what to watch.

 

[marinyork]

Keep a beady eye on both sets of "engineeers". You triple play or fewer?

 

[Hugo15]

We have been with Sky for years, but want to get Sky+. There seems to be a real lack of deals for existing customers. I have had a look at the Virgin packages but they seem more expensive when I add in Sky Sports to the deal, but with the benefit of faster broadband.

Decisions, Decisions............................

 

[marinyork]

VIP
XL+
Triple XL

On a modified XL+ £66 you can get
XL telephone
L broadband 10Mbs. You're only likely to better this on Be or if you live freakishly close to the exchange. 20Mbs is over rated, until they move it onto DOCSIS 3.
XL tv (including Sh*tanta for free), v+ box. Movies. Sports.
Modify by adding/taking off broadband, sports, whatever.

If you get Sky Sports you have a lot more to haggle with VM about as hardly any VM tv subscribers take the premium channels.

 

[Hugo15]

The virgin package works out at about £10 per month more than I currently pay for Sky TV/Broadband and phone.

 

[marinyork]

Which package? Virgin works out quite a bit with more barebones stuff as the lower phone packages are a royal rip off.

Anyway if you want sky+, just get another LNB if you need it, get a cheap sky+ box, plug it in and ring 'em up.

 

[cheadle hulme]

VIP

L broadband 10Mbs. You're only likely to better this on Be or if you live freakishly close to the exchange. 20Mbs is over rated, until they move it onto DOCSIS 3.

Mine is a bit slow tonight.....

http://www.cyclechat.co.uk/forums/[...peedtest.net/result/381489243.png[/IMG][/URL]

 

[marinyork]

I am well aware that many people on decent UBRs get the full 20Mbs. I live on a chronically overloaded one. This is why you get some people like yourself saying things like "I get the full 20Mbs and always have" and have other people with wildly fluctuating speeds. What I've said is true though, when stuff goes onto DOCSIS 3 there should be a large improvement. Interestingly enough VM have changed their plans and allegedly 10Mbs is going DOCSIS 3 too and the 2Mbs customers will get upgraded to some unspecified speed in 2009 to "compete" with ADSL.

I still believe 20Mbs is fairly pointless though with STM. This is why so many people are greedily eying up 50Mbs and hoping zealots like Alex Brown don't get let loose on spoiling it. If one wants to be nice about virgin just say something like it is the best for browsing speeds, that's a pretty big deal .

 

[Bokonon]

A few months ago I had the Virgin broadband account in my rented accommodation transferred from the previous occupant to me. Virgin could not have screwed the process up any more completely. They are the most useless company I have ever had the misfortune to do business with.

 

[ianrauk]

yet on the other side of the coin, when I swapped from Sky to Virgin, they couldn't have done a better job. (moved house and didn't want a dish on the side of my house)

And because I can work from home a lot, the free local & national phone calls 24/7 works out brilliantly.. (it also means that 'er indoors can speak to mummy for hours on bleedin' end)

 

[MacB]

Was originally with NTL for everything, had a stint with BT for phone and Sky+ for tv but always kept NTL/Virgin for broadband. Only went to Sky due to NTL issues when switched from analog to digital box. Gave up on Sky as too many outages and went with the Virgin VIP pack(issues all ironed out on V+ box) which works out cheaper if you take the 2 phone contracts at £10 per month each as well. As my wife and I are low mobile users this covers all of our needs.

Have never had a problem with Virgin(NTL) broadband and been with them for 8 years. Don't bother re connection speeds as always seemed good enough to me and I work from home a lot. Sky were especially annoying to get rid of and some crowd attached to them pursued me for an insurance premium for the Sky+ box. Claimed I owed them money and had signed up for cover, said I'd pay when they showed me the contract. They never produced one but did keep ringing and it got quite heated. Never seemed to quite understand that they were trying to charge me for a coverage period that commenced 3 months after I'd gotten rid of Sky+.

Whether you go Sky or Virgin don't expect great after care service, it used to take an age to get through to them on the phone(unless it's a new customer). Thankfully haven't had to ring them for a while.

 

[marinyork]

Whether you go Sky or Virgin don't expect great after care service, it used to take an age to get through to them on the phone(unless it's a new customer). Thankfully haven't had to ring them for a while.

Depends what you mean there and is a very strange thing indeed to write after you've just written about sky insurance. You rent the cable modem and STBs off virgin media. Yes, it sucks as you can't upgrade the box but if it breaks down you get sent a new one. This used to be the case with sky but the last few years they've been promoting policies to cover the basic STBs that are practically worthless. From a business point of view it's absolutely outragious charging people good money to cover legacy boxes that should have been replaced years ago.

 

[MacB]

Depends what you mean there and is a very strange thing indeed to write after you've just written about sky insurance. You rent the cable modem and STBs off virgin media. Yes, it sucks as you can't upgrade the box but if it breaks down you get sent a new one. This used to be the case with sky but the last few years they've been promoting policies to cover the basic STBs that are practically worthless. From a business point of view it's absolutely outragious charging people good money to cover legacy boxes that should have been replaced years ago.

Maybe didn't come across right, when I say aftercare I mean if you're ringing them for help and how long it takes to get a human being on the phone. Re insurance that was just a racket, never requested, never signed for and wouldn't have wanted. Seemed it was based around the idea that you rented on a type of 'hire purchase' so once the box was yours this automated insurance kicked in. They tried to argue that I needed to actively opt out, not opt in, for this and, as I hadn't, then I owed them. I think Watchdog have covered this, and similar issues, in the past.