Virgin Broadband - how much???

skattykatty

Trying to sort out my parents' phone and broadband stuff. They're with Virgin, paying an astronomical amount of cash and wanted to run this by others out there: £20 - £21.50 per month for broadband??? Is that right?

Online they're offering new customers £5 per month up to £13.50 per month after 3 months, so surely it shouldn't be more than £13.50??

ilikewatch

Do your parents have a Virgin landline? - the £13.50 p/m broadband price is only for customers who also take their landline from Virgin, the cost for standalone 10Mb broadband is £21 p/m after the initial trial period as detailed in the small print on the website.

skattykatty

yep...phone is with virgin too...that's another story...it's £12.99 for the line and £8 for unlimited, but somehow they end up paying over £40 per month.

they must have been with virgin for over two years now

kwikbreaks

Check the bill carefully as VM bills are a can of worms - they charge a high actual service price and then give a discount.

If the end results out to more than the current new customer prices (post the introductory offers) which I think are...

Line £12.99
Anytime calls £8 (I thought it had gone up to £9 though)
L 10Mbps BB £13.50

Then it's time to dial 150 and take the "I'm thinking of leaving" option to complain and hopefully get a better price.

Incidentally VM telephony is expensive. It is cheaper to take Vonage UK package at £5.99 and cancel the line and calls package. The BB will go up but it will still work out cheaper. Best to get that sorted out first if you are thinking of doing it and then call retentions for a BB only price. You can port the VM number to Vonage.

ilikewatch

In that case I imagine that the prices they're paying are the ones that they signed up to when they took out the contract, and that they haven't contacted Virgin to renegotiate since?

skattykatty

I imagine so. Kwikbreaks - thanks, sounds like a really comprehensive response to my question.

What I'm concerned about is changing from Virgin to any other provider will mean further connection costs (thinking of phone here)...

They haven't renegotiated as they don't really understand it all.It's all online and they don't use internet and my sibling who was at home moved out for a year! All a little confused. I imagine they must be well out of the initial contract. Though they used to be with Telewest - is that something to do with Virgin~???

ilikewatch

skattykatty wrote: »

I imagine so. Kwikbreaks - thanks, sounds like a really comprehensive response to my question.

What I'm concerned about is changing from Virgin to any other provider will mean further connection costs (thinking of phone here)...

They haven't renegotiated as they don't really understand it all.It's all online and they don't use internet and my sibling who was at home moved out for a year! All a little confused. I imagine they must be well out of the initial contract. Though they used to be with Telewest - is that something to do with Virgin~???

There probably will be connection costs if a BT line is required and there hasn't been one in use since the days of Telewest (who merged with NTL prior to rebranding themselves as Virgin Media in 2007). The only way to find out is to decide exactly what services your parents require, then get do some research and decide if the connection costs are worth the potential monthly savings.
What services do your parents currently get from Virgin, and which do they now require (Landline/Broadband/Mobile?/TV?)

skattykatty

Thanks for clarifying Telewest angle. Means they must have been with them for years!

They only use phone and broadband (which only sibling uses as parents haven't got a clue!) They have freeview but no TV services with Virgin.

That's what I worry about is the connection charge if they go elsewhere. Lots of food for thought. Doesn't help that I don't actually understand the whole cable thing!

kwikbreaks

There is no need for a BT line which would cost money. Vonage is VOIP - you connect an adaptor to the VM router and your phones to the adaptor.
There is an upfront cost of ~ £35 but you can recover just about all of that by ordering it via TopCashBack. Only disadvantage is that if the BB goes down so does the phone but we have mobiles anyway.

I went through this exact process recently. Called retentions got price for BB only, ordered Vonage through TopCashBack, once Vonage was working requested the number port which cancelled the VM phone. All painless apart from VM screwing up my discount so I had to call back again to get that sorted out.

If that is too much hassle to save ~ £5 a month or so then just call to get the discount sorted out.

victor2

I wouild have backed the "threaten to leave" approach, but when I tried it recently by saying "I'll have to go elsewhere to get a better deal?", the agent just responded "Yes."

About 2 years ago, the same approach got me the following:
Line Rental £12.99
Talk International £1.75
Talk Mobile £1.75
Talk Unlimited £8.00
Loyalty Pack: B B / Phone -£19.46
Calldispl £2.05
Broadband Size: M £21.50

Total monthly charge is £28.58 (after their latest increases).
Talk International and Talk Mobile, I don't need as they are still expensive but it was part of the deal.
The Talk Unlimited is nice, as you can call any number starting 01, 02 or 03 at any time for nothing for calls up to an hour.
The only thing that bugs me is the rate Virgin charge for calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers, 11p connection plus 10p/min for both. I always try to find an alternate landline number instead of calling such numbers, and usually am successful, thanks in no small part to saynoto0870!

kwikbreaks

You need to look at Vonage too. VM telephony isn't competitive.