Sky/Virgin help needed!

Darkangel

I have been with Virgin Media for nearly 5 years now on their phone and broadband package that started off at £20 a month. Over the years it has steadily risen to about £27 a month so am thinking of switching.

I have been quoted a great deal from Sky (I hope it's a good deal!). Sky+HD box with variety pack, phone line and unlimited broadband for £28 per month. It's free installation and I just need to pay £10 to reactivate my old BT line.

My worry is (after phoning Virgin to tell them I wanted to leave) they told me that after the 12 months is up, Sky take no responsibility of broken boxes, whereas Virgin will fix/replace them. I know this is true but are Sky boxes prone to break down after 12 months?

Virgin also offered me a deal to stay with them; V+HD box with the M+channel package, phone and internet for £28. Or if i went for the L TV package it would cost me £31.99 with evening and weekend calls free.

I liked the appeal of Sky's non-subscription channels too (I'm guessing they're freesat channels?) which I wouldn't get if I were to stay with Virgin.

The Sky deal sounds good but I'm also concerned about internet speed. I've checked on the Sam Knows website and it says my exchange currently serves:

20,535 residential premises
1,969 non-residential premises.

Is that good or bad?!

Sorry to go on but I don't know what to do! Should I stick with Virgin because of a more stable internet speed and not have the TV I want, switch everything over to Sky and hope the whole of my area doesn't decide to log on to the internet at the same time or just take out Sky TV on its own?

I thought about just getting freesat on it's own but then I would miss out on the channels in Sky's various packages.

Any advice would be great! I've already had Love Digital phone me twice today to make me take the Sky deal

penrhyn

£28/ month from Sky gets you the Variety Pack £18, HD pack £10, and free broadband up to 20Mb, with a 2Gb cap.
Sky unlimited broadband is £7.50/month isf you take Sky Talk, other wise £12.50.
I know 'cos thats the package I have.
I suggest you double check your offer.
On top of this you will have to pay line rental either to BT or Sky at around £11/ month.
Does your check on Samknows list Sky /Easynet as LLU operators?
If not you wont get free or unlimited broadband, but Sky Connect at £17/month (which by all accounts is awful).
The Sky HD box and router are yours, after 12 months a replacement router would cost you £28.
An engineer visit to fix anything on your satellite system is around £65.



Current Offers here:-
http://www.sky.com/shop/bundles-offers/high-definition/

jb66

you will probably go over the 2GB limit on the Broadband so you'll have to add the £7.50 in.

Darkangel

penrhyn wrote: »

£28/ month from Sky gets you the Variety Pack £18, HD pack £10, and free broadband up to 20Mb, with a 2Gb cap.
Sky unlimited broadband is £7.50/month isf you take Sky Talk, other wise £12.50.
I know 'cos thats the package I have.
I suggest you double check your offer.
On top of this you will have to pay line rental either to BT or Sky at around £11/ month.
Does your check on Samknows list Sky /Easynet as LLU operators?
If not you wont get free or unlimited broadband, but Sky Connect at £17/month (which by all accounts is awful).
The Sky HD box and router are yours, after 12 months a replacement router would cost you £28.
An engineer visit to fix anything on your satellite system is around £65.



Current Offers here:-
http://www.sky.com/shop/bundles-offers/high-definition/

Hi Penrhyn,

it is definitely £28 all in. I made the sales person on the phone itemise everything the £28 paid for and it is definitely unlimited broadband (I made him check, twice!). The only extra is the £10 to reactivate my old BT line but have free installation on everything else. I've blagged a special deal because I have a friend of a friend that works for Sky.

He said I could get absolutely every single TV package with phone and internet for £36.50 per month.

and Samknows does list Sky / Easynet with LLC operator presence

Darkangel

jb66 wrote: »

you will probably go over the 2GB limit on the Broadband so you'll have to add the £7.50 in.

Hi jb66,

According to Virgin, I use 79GB per month! :eek: (but in my defence, I live in a shared flat and we all use the internet daily)

penrhyn

So how long does this deal last?. Are you subscribing to the HD service? Sky only supply the HD box now whether you have HD or not.

Darkangel

penrhyn wrote: »

So how long does this deal last?. Are you subscribing to the HD service? Sky only supply the HD box now whether you have HD or not.

I'm getting a Sky+ HD ready box but I think it's not activated to watch HD channels (I told them I don't have a HD TV and wasn't bothered by it). I want the ability to record programmes so this seems like my only option, which is fine if I do decide to upgrade my TV at some point.

The deal lasts 12 months but I cannot change my package otherwise I will get charged full whack i.e. If I decide to add another package a couple of months down the line I'll lose all discounts and have to pay full price on everything.

I'll have to check if the box will be HD activated but for less than £30 a month I think it's ok.

Any thoughts on what I should do? The sales person on the phone said he could guarantee me 10 meg broadband, which I think is a lie!

penrhyn

OK, £28/month is about right for One entertainment pack and unlimited broadband. Line rental is extra.
The agent cannot guarantee you a specific internet speed.
You could ask a neighbour who is on ADSL what they get, or use the mapping feature on Samknows to estimate your own speed.

Darkangel

It's definitley £28 including line rental. I'm getting the TV packages for half price because of the friends and family discount which is essentially this https://www.theskyteam.co.uk/OFFERFROMSKY/register.aspx

It works out as £28 if I just take the variety pack:
£11 for line rental
£7.50 for unlimited broadband (was £12.50 but £5 discount for taking with phone line)
£9.50 for variety pack (half price, was £19)

I've done the mapping on samknows and it comes up with the following
[URL="javascript:toggle_display('adsl_ext_1')"]ADSL available at ~5.5Mbps[/URL]
BT Total broadband
TalkTalk LLU (8M is free)
Sky LLU (2M is free, 8M is £5pm)
AOL LLU (£10pm discount)
Pipex broadband
Plusnet broadband
Tiscali broadband
Tiscali TV
And many more...

[URL="javascript:toggle_display('adsl2p_ext_1')"]ADSL2+ available at ~7Mbps[/URL]
Be Unlimited
O2 broadband
UK Online (incl 20M packages)
Sky Max (LLU) (16M for £10pcm)

[URL="javascript:toggle_display('cable_ext_1')"]Cable services available[/URL]
Virgin Media broadband (20M)
Virgin Media digital TV
Virgin Media phone

penrhyn

OK, just me being cynical I guess!

Looks like you may be OK for 7Mbps, in my experience the estimating tools are fairly pessimistic.

For example, mapping my location Samknows predicts ~4Mbps on both ADSL and ADSL2+, whereas I actually get a sync speed of around 8.5Mbps.
I did a bit of work to sort out my extension wiring to achieve this.

https://www.skyuser.co.uk is a good resource for all things Sky.