SKY vs Virgin Media

SmokingSpud

Hi,
we are thinking of moving into a flatshare and the landlord has advised that he is switching from Virgin Media to Sky, as he thinks the internet there is faster than virgin's fibre optic one. He also advised that if we move in we can always keep the Virgin connection and he will have a separate Sky connection in his part of the house? How can you have two companies providing internet to one home? Is that possible? Can one room have access to Sky's services and then another room have access to Virgin Media?
Does anybody have experience with the fibre optic broadband. Is it very slow for you or are there disadvantages?

Thanks so much for your help.

PaulK_3

If this is VM via cable you can have that and Sky as Sky ADSL runs down a standard copper telephone line. VM is fast but traffic shaped and sometimes not that reliable, ADSL is line condition/ distance from exchange etc dependant.
We moved from VM to Sky 1 year ago, have had no issue with it at all in that time, we get 16Mb for £10 per month and have yet to have to call Sky for anything other than an initial setup issue that was resolved quickly.
For you to know what ADSL you can get you would have to know the telephone number on the line and the post code, once you know those details you can put them into something like this:
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adslchecker.php

dylanuk

Hi,

There's an interesting article here "Sky Vs. Virgin Media" - it's a bit old now, but might be helpful if you're struggling to decide: http://www.chooseisp.co.uk/broadband-guide/articles/sky-vs-virgin-media.html

savings_guru

I've found VM quite reliable, I think its due to having its own cable which is seperate from BT's line. I would stick with them, but they are now charging me £17.99 after 12 months, when I first signed up I was paying £9.99 a month.

Sky is £17 a month and you get free tv channels and broadband that is limited to 2GB download per month (not sure if this is enough?).

So don't know what to do? :mad:

BexTech

As mentioned above.

If you are in a cabled area, then Virgin Media cable broadband comes down the TV co-ax and not down the BT phone line.

You can therefore have both ADSL over a BT line and cable broadband over the cable TV line - you don't need a phone line or TV with cable for broadband - though having phone makes the broadband cheaper.

If you can have cable broadband, then that is the service to go for, more reliable and faster than ADSL and you don't have to worry about distance from the exchange which with ADSL means you could end up with just 3 or 4 Mbit when on a 8Mbit service, with VM cable if on 10Mbit you get 10Mbit (unless local utilization issues waiting to be fixed).

helwarren

Think have looked into this too much and have have confused myself into being unable to make a decision!
Currently have BT option 1, fairly light user but most calls are daytime/mobile - sky+ tv 2 mix package £18ish -tiscali unlimited but low speed £14.99.

Not sure wether better to get whole lot under virgin and get more channels and faster bb for the same sort of total we pay the other 3 (£75 installation cost puts me off but with 2 months credit on the bill that would be offset) - or stay with sky and take their mid broadband and sky talk (to avoid set up fee and increase in charges) but stay with BT line rental. Have just signed up for 18185 too which I believe I could still use if went down the sky route?
Think whats putting me off virgin is do I need more channels and heard their call costs are more expensive -any advice would be gratefully received.

Also if I were to go to virgin do they contact bt and tiscali or would I need to cancel them?

geoffW

Why not get sky broadband base? It's free and I've found it OK for video and more reliable than Sky Max.

saintlyboy

Assuming you are getting free BT Option 1 with your line rental (you should be!) you are currently paying about £44 per month.

If I were you I would simply get the whole lot with Sky and here's why:

- Landline from Sky is just £10
- You already have Sky+ and 2 entertainment mixes
- If you stay with Sky you escape the hassle of getting a Virgin engineer round drilling holes in your wall and keep your BT line (physical line I mean).
- I would suggest you try Sky Mid (8Mbps, £5) and Sky Anytime calls (£5) because then you should get good speed plus any calls you make in the day will be free (not mobiles).

So you would be paying £10 line rental + £10 broadband and full talk package + £18 current TV mix = £38, leaving you an extra £6 to play with to get more TV channels.

If you go down this route, I'd suggest taking SKy broadband with Talk as well (as I have described) because from March 2009 people who only take broadband will pay an extra £5/month.

Sky might try and charge you something for setting up the broadband so my advice would be to phone up pretending to cancel the TV subscription (if you are out of contract) and they will try and offer you some good deals to stay - then get in to the conversation about broadband etc this way.

Good luck!!

helwarren

:money: :money: Thanks. Had decided to go the sky route but online quoted £75 to upgrade. Tried to ring them yesterday to go through to cancel but got cut off twice so not a good start! Will try again and if can get them to make a decent offer then will go for it -although it said online max speed we can get is 2mbps so virgin starting to look better in that respect.

helwarren

Well got through to a lovely lady and when I explained was reluctantly cancelling as happy with tv just wanting to change my broadband supplier and was put off by their activation charge she agreed to give me mid broadband (with sky talk) with no activation fee. Very happy as didn't really want the hassle of getting virgin installed.

Sam7

I am looking to combine my TV,Broadband and Telephone in the new year.

I am currently on:
Sky tv
Bt Broadband (very happy, just slower than it could be)
Talk Talk Phone

I want to move all together to save money and to upgrade my Tv package and Broadband speed.

The Top 'Sky' package and the Top 'Virgin broadband' package are my two choices.
Price wise - there is little to choose between them.
Internet speed - Virgin much Quicker.
Tv package - Have Sky now and worried about any future tiffs between the two that would endanger a full sky package on Virgin.

Simply put - which is the more reliable and better value of the two in your opinions ?

Any thoughts would be apprieciated.

Thanks.