Virgin TV Broadband and Phone

star1_2

I've been with VM for 10+ years .... a few observations .... (good and bad) , in addition to what others have said.

- IMHO, when they were Telewest CS was far better, it's still better than BT/SKY, but has clearly gone down-hill since the merger a couple of years ago with NTL. My job involves dealing with all the major comms providers so have a fair experience good/bad of all the carriers.

- Speed and reliability with VM it's far superior to that provided by the BT/Copper based carriers, also the kit (STB's and Modems) these belong to VM, so if they fail - VM will replace them for free (Sky won't do that).

- Due to the design of the respective network(s) and how cable works as opposed to ADSL services - The speed for BB quoted by VM, will pretty much be what you get (dependant upon occasional peak usage), ADSL is all distance and contention ratio related .... only if you live close to a BT exchange will you get maximum speeds quoted. (eg. in my road VM 50mb, ADSL 3.5MB)

- VM faults/standard support if free from a VM phone (150).

- I've constantly "beaten" them down on price and pay £30 per month for 10MB BB, XL-TV and M-Phone. If you want to "threaten the sky option" you must do your homework and find a comparable package/cost and justify to them the figure you expect to pay .... But the effort will be worth it - in the savings you make ....

- VM, TV channel choice is less than Sky, but you do get "catch up TV" (even on the basic package), Premium SKY TV packages will cost more overall if you add them on VM, although you can add them for a month and then drop them, which I understand you can't do on Sky in your first 12 months.

- VM phone does not allow "breakout" to cheeper call providers, ie. ADSA phone, etc .... BT does....

Hope that helps.

mohammedmj

The thing with VM phone is it charges you for using override such as 18185. BT does not charge for 18185 overide.

With regards to Broadband I am currently paying £16 a month for VM phone + 2MB broadband. I also have a BT line and tried O2 Broadband for £7.30 (since I have also O2 mobile and therefore get a discount). O2 Broadband is amazingly fast even on weekends I tried speed test and got 5 to 6mbs. O2 Broadband is ADLS 2+ and I am pretty happy with it and when my VM contract finishes next month I am definitely not renewing it!

pepperoni_2

Just opened a mail from Virgin...prices are going up £1.25 for paper bills now

dc

mohammedmj wrote: »

The thing with VM phone is it charges you for using override such as 18185. BT does not charge for 18185 overide.

With regards to Broadband I am currently paying £16 a month for VM phone + 2MB broadband. I also have a BT line and tried O2 Broadband for £7.30 (since I have also O2 mobile and therefore get a discount). O2 Broadband is amazingly fast even on weekends I tried speed test and got 5 to 6mbs. O2 Broadband is ADLS 2+ and I am pretty happy with it and when my VM contract finishes next month I am definitely not renewing it!

Accept what you are saying about the phone, but wrt BB the VM 2 meg service is in process of going to 10 megs and the 10 to 20, and these are real speeds, not like the claimed BT copper phone line bb speeds.

machofairy

dc wrote: »

Accept what you are saying about the phone, but wrt BB the VM 2 meg service is in process of going to 10 megs and the 10 to 20, and these are real speeds, not like the claimed BT copper phone line bb speeds.

If you actually NEED 10mb, then you definitely need to AVOID VM, who will throttle your speed severely. Light users will notice little difference with the increase.

bling123

ok, ive just got off the phone from them

only new customers get the £25 offer and i wasnt able to talk on behalf of the existing customer as he wasnt with me

he also has a mobile phone contract with them which is expired too (12 months up) 300 min 300 texts, which i can now get for £12 a month and is 300 mins and 500 texts.

tonight i will get my flatmate to ring and threaten to leave if they dont honour the above deal, fingers crossed... i really need broadband (flatmate doesnt) and my flatmate is definately not leaving virgin

johnk

mohammedmj wrote: »

The thing with VM phone is it charges you for using override such as 18185. BT does not charge for 18185 overide.

Does it? When did that start to happen?

I used to use their 0800 access but haven't for a while since Pap through voipstunt. But the access is still in my phone's memory. Perhaps I should have it removed.

dcclanuk

bling123 wrote: »

ok, ive just got off the phone from them

only new customers get the £25 offer and i wasnt able to talk on behalf of the existing customer as he wasnt with me

Whoever you were speaking to, tell them to go their company's OWN website:

http://www.virginmedia.com/wehearyou/

It clearly states that all new customer offers are available to existing customers as long as you are upgrading one service [or something along those lines]

robo999

with the virgin £25 pound offer is there any point in haggling on the instaltion charge , for the record i used to be with sky till last dec and can easiliy re open my a/c with them ,just been offered by them


12mthns freeline rental ( does this replace the bt line rental or is the bt line + rental a nessasary thing)
usual free off peak calls
free broadband on base tarrif
plus the tv @ £16.50 which i presume is the variety pack

plus the BT line rental @11.00 which would be gone if i had 12mthns freeline rental
just weaighing up the two offers

whats ur thoughts guys ?