Digital TV Cost Cutting Article - Discuss What You've Been Offered

madpom

Here's a pretty little graph that will give you an idea of what line speed you will get based on your attenuation. The Yellow lines/dots are for ADSL, and Black is ADSL2+ (Used by Be, Bulldog and $ky on the "unlimited" package. Remember these are just a guide - all depends on the amount of noise on the line!

There are several tricks for reducing attenuation/noise such as removing the ring wire on phone extensions, using a good quality microfilter and having the router connected to the master socket.

Hope this helps...

FannyHill

Many thanks.

clairefun

I phoned Virgin Media yesterday - I'm moving on Friday, so I've had to wait till we got an actual moving date which thanks to a very recent exchange, we're only just certain on (grrr). Said I wanted to cancel & go to Freeview & Orange broadband as we could no longer afford it - and, after a little bit of haggling, he cut our £53.00 p/m bill to £35 p/ m - thats' for BB:L , TV: L and Phone: L. He tried to get me to change to a smaller package, I tried to get him upgrade the internet, but we settled on the same deal with nearly £20 off. As we're moving, we've been tied in to a new 12 month contract, but I expected that, I can still ring to see about 'rearranging' the costs in six months time or something.
I'm pleased!

jupops73

I currently am a customer of VM and have been NTL customer for many years.

I currently have:-

2mb - £17.99
Line rental £11.00
EVEN & Weekend - £2.00
TV XL - £20.50
Sports 1 2 3 - £16.50
lifetime discount -£8.50
Monthly total £59.49

Pretty wazzed off with VM at the moment a few calls needed to customer service - not v helpful, the whole sky escapade etc. etc.

I am considering moving to SKY but don't really want to pay the installation charge or for SKY+ box (which I do quite fancy!!!)

Any ideas as to how I can get much better deal from VM including perhaps their V+ or what I can get from SKY?

Thanks

johnedwards3005

A quick phone call to Virgin Media (much quicker that previosly suffered with ntl) has resulted in my £47.50 newly integrated bill (for TV L, Broadband L and basic phone) being permanently reduced to £37 (by taking the telephone 'talk weekends' option)!

While speaking, I also suggested that they might be able to compensate me for the missing Sky basic channels by improving my TV package - and (after a few seconds of reference to instructions) they agreed - 6 months free upgrade to XL (but not sports or movies!!!).

Thanks Martin - good advice.:beer:

Costa_2

I checked my Virgin Media bill this month on the same day I received a flyer from them re their 4 for £40 offer. I was paying £49 for size M Phone & TV and size L Broadband. One phone call later I had reduced this to £37 (their 3 for £30 plus the difference in price for broadband.) When asked I was told that this offer was open to everyone but would not be applied automatically to existing accounts. The message is clear .... ring or loose out.

As an aside, when I told my brother he realised he was paying £111 for everything (movies, sports, XL Broadband), after cancelliing certain things he now pays £42! So the question is "Do you really want all that other stuff?"

I have also taken up their offer of a Virgin Mobile pay as you go phone, their 300 minutes + 300 texts for £10. This is roughly what I pay topping up my current phone which at present works out at less than 60 minutes. I'm now considering cancelling my landline and using just my mobile.

Sue1973

jupops73 wrote:

I currently am a customer of VM and have been NTL customer for many years.

I currently have:-

2mb - £17.99
Line rental £11.00
EVEN & Weekend - £2.00
TV XL - £20.50
Sports 1 2 3 - £16.50
lifetime discount -£8.50
Monthly total £59.49

Pretty wazzed off with VM at the moment a few calls needed to customer service - not v helpful, the whole sky escapade etc. etc.

I am considering moving to SKY but don't really want to pay the installation charge or for SKY+ box (which I do quite fancy!!!)

Any ideas as to how I can get much better deal from VM including perhaps their V+ or what I can get from SKY?

Thanks

Hi - I was on a similar package on NTL which was costing us approx £75 a month. I costed it out on the Sky website and found I could get the same for £53 inc Sky+ (after £99 installation)

I rang Virgin last night and basically told them the Sky quote but said I didnt really want to go through the hassle of moving so what could they do for me.

In total we have now got 2MB broadband, free calls all the time, sky sports, sky movies and the V+ box all for £48 per month - going up to £58 after 6 months but the guy said to ring back then and see what they could offer.

Basically, he saw it as a challenge to beat the sky quote and I was just really polite and chatty, didnt threaten to leave or even mention the loss of sky channels. At first he was going to charge me £10 per month for the V+ box so I said I would think about that and ring him back - almost immediately he found an offer where we could get it for 6 months at £3.75 with free installation. Good luck!!

FannyHill

It's a bit like car insurance or car breakdown services.If you pay automatically year after year they charge the top rate.If you say you are not renewing they always seem to find a new deal for you that's cheaper.

So you are actually penalised for loyalty. Weird. :eek:

kwizzy

I need cable because of the lousy aerial reception, so combining it with my little used phone and the convenience of broadband makes sense.
Having been on the (guaranteed) NTL 3 for £30 tariff for some time, I had to complain when they tried to increase the charge and was told I would have to move to the basic TV package (which I thought I was on anyway!) and they agreed to refund the overcharge. I now have a monthly rebate which brings the cost down to £16.50 - can anyone beat that? Since I don't know if this is a mistake and do not want to bring Virgin's attention to it, I dare not now contact them about the loss of SkyOne! [I am a Stargate SG1/Atlantis addict, who will just have to wait until it comes to Channel 4/5 and forego the repeats.]
I am actually more upset about the Virgin CatchUp TV OnDemand facility, which is totally useless. You never know what programmes are going to be avilable on it (it varies from week to week), so you can't afford to miss them live anyway ... AND they are only available for 6 days ... AND the guide takes ages to load AND you have to listen to their promotion while you are waiting rather then the channel you were watching AND it is often not even available!!! It was ok when it was NTL.
Gripe, gripe, gripe. Phew - got that off my chest.

fender62

i cancelled my sky yesterday, after having almost a year at £7 a month basic package, i had to phone as it was coming to the end of my discount.
i kept cancelling and they let me have the discount three times,
but when i phoned yesterday i was not put through to the department
where they try and offer you anotehr deal, i did ask
i was told they do not give discounts over the phone anymore
and that it would be turned off in 30 days. it was a good run while it lasted
i dont know if they will send me a letter with a discount offer though.
has this happened to anyone else.